Local Elections | Thu 7 May 26

philfodenswristsock said:
Both. I suspect that is a tide that now can not be stemmed. The working classes have been failed and as a result the punishment will be a ripping apart of the union. Another catastrophic failure of "sensible centrist politics"
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I do wonder if enough of the Welsh public understand what the devolved powers are. Also if there would be little impact voting the same at a General election.
Having said that if Welsh and Scottish do vote the same at a GE then I would get concerned about the future of the UK.
I am not a nationalist, I support a strong UK.
 
oldius said:
I have read this morning that two Reform candidates who were actually voted for had died a year ago and another was an AI creation. That's just hard to believe but then I read another who wants to fill pot holes with melted members of the Nigerian community and nothing will surprise me.
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And apparently another one who is annoyed as they thought they were actually going to be an MP and going to Westminster. Not sure how true any of those stories are but the AI one especially seems very odd when you look at it. Nobody knows who they are, they were never seen out campaigning, they've absolutely no social media presence, didn't turn up for the count and has his full address listed as just 'South Norfolk' on all the literature and declarations.
 
Bluemoon dan said:
And apparently another one who is annoyed as they thought they were actually going to be an MP and going to Westminster. Not sure how true any of those stories are but the AI one especially seems very odd when you look at it. Nobody knows who they are, they were never seen out campaigning, they've absolutely no social media presence, didn't turn up for the count and has his full address listed as just 'South Norfolk' on all the literature and declarations.
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And when people that vote such people are called thick, they get upset?
 
SWP's back said:
And when people that vote such people are called thick, they get upset?
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I saw a brilliant video this week. It featured a man in a union flag suit. He spoke to Reform voters and told them that he was sick of people thinking that all 'they' were about was immigration. They agreed, and he went on to say, 'there is so much more to 'us' isn't there, so what's your favourite other policy?' The responses were really embarrassing. He moved on to saying that he agreed with changing the funding of the NHS, zero-hour contracts staying, and so on. When they were horrified by those ideas, not knowing that they were policy, he replied with well that's 'our' policy. The people had absolutely no idea.

This is an absolute replica of MAGA: it is far more about socking it to Labour and the Tories (Libs and Dems) than about anything else, and understandably because these people have been left behind in our nation's surge towards greater and greater inequality. They genuinely have no idea what they are voting for though in policy terms.
 
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oldius said:
I saw a brilliant video this week. It featured a man in a union flag suit. He spoke to Reform voters and told them that he was sick of people thinking that all 'they' were about was immigration. They agreed and he said there is so much more to 'us' isn't there, so what's your favourite other policy? The responses were really embarrassing. He moved on to saying that he agreed with changing the funding of the NHS, zero-hour contracts staying, and so on. When they regaled against those ideas, he replied with well that's 'our' policy. The people had absolutely no idea.

This is an absolute replica of MAGA: it is far more about socking it to Labour and the Tories (Libs and Dems) than about anything else, and understandably because these people have been left behind in our nation's surge towards greater and greater inequality. They genuinely have no idea what they are voting for though in policy terms.
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If you ask the majority of people who 'hate' kier starmer why they 'hate' kier starmer the answer is usually lots of mumbling and incoherence. They hate Kier Starmer because GBNews and Twitter have told them to, they don't actually know why. Got in-laws in that boat and it's embarrassing.
 
From Reforms wins.

6 have now stepped down after racist social media posts were discovered.

5 have quit because they thought the position was paid.

2 have turned out to have died before getting elected.

1 quit because he though he was running to be an MP.

1 didn’t exist at all.

1 turned out to be a foreign national without a work visa.

One week in and 16 gone already.
 
ZenHalfTimeCrock said:
Personally though, I prefer Cas Mudde’s distinction between the radical and extreme right, which is discussed here:

politicalquarterly.org.uk

Review: The Far Right Today, by Cas Mudde

The thrust of Cas Mudde's book explains how ‘the far right in general, and the populist radical right in particular’ has become normalised in the mainstream.
politicalquarterly.org.uk politicalquarterly.org.uk
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I've bought Cas Mudde's book from the link you provided (thank you). So far it's quite the read. It’s one of the few things I’ve found lately that actually lays out the modern right-wing playbook in a serious, structured way rather than reducing everything to headlines and outrage.

Feels like that kind of analysis is severely lacking in a lot of UK journalism these days (and probably elsewhere too).
The only other political book I've read is the one that Peter Oborne wrote (The Assault on Truth: Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and the Emergence of a New Moral Barbarism). Was surprised Oborne was so critical of the pair of them as I thought he'd be the type of journalist to look on them both favourably, but seems he's an actual proper journalist that calls this stuff out. We need a lot more of these types.
 
domalino said:
From Reforms wins.

6 have now stepped down after racist social media posts were discovered.

5 have quit because they thought the position was paid.

2 have turned out to have died before getting elected.

1 quit because he though he was running to be an MP.

1 didn’t exist at all.

1 turned out to be a foreign national without a work visa.

One week in and 16 gone already.
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Is that really true?
 
bluejon said:
If you ask the majority of people who 'hate' kier starmer why they 'hate' kier starmer the answer is usually lots of mumbling and incoherence. They hate Kier Starmer because GBNews and Twitter have told them to, they don't actually know why. Got in-laws in that boat and it's embarrassing.
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Within an extremely short time-frame, he was being labelled as the worst PM in history. At that time, it was a laughable statement but the extensive use of bot accounts has meant that this has become folklore and readily accepted. Oh how we forget the debacle of the previous 14 years.
 
domalino said:
From Reforms wins.

6 have now stepped down after racist social media posts were discovered.

5 have quit because they thought the position was paid.

2 have turned out to have died before getting elected.

1 quit because he though he was running to be an MP.

1 didn’t exist at all.

1 turned out to be a foreign national without a work visa.

One week in and 16 gone already.
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Lord above.
 
oldius said:
Within an extremely short time-frame, he was being labelled as the worst PM in history. At that time, it was a laughable statement but the extensive use of bot accounts has meant that this has become folklore and readily accepted. Oh how we forget the debacle of the previous 14 years.
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Spot on. It was gobsmacking the amount of vitriol being thrown at him as soon as he got in, significantly more than anything we saw towards the clowns that were in number 10 prior to him.
 
Blackley_Blue said:
There's a couple of newly elected Green councillors that might follow suit going off some of their newly discovered historical social media posts....


Politics in this country really is the pits.

Oh for a competent centre party.
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Do as I say, not as I do...

 
ballbag said:
The only other political book I've read is the one that Peter Oborne wrote (The Assault on Truth: Boris Johnson, Donald Trump and the Emergence of a New Moral Barbarism). Was surprised Oborne was so critical of the pair of them as I thought he'd be the type of journalist to look on them both favourably, but seems he's an actual proper journalist that calls this stuff out. We need a lot more of these types.
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I do know of that book but the one I’ve read by Oborne is The Fate of Abraham: Why the West is Wrong About Islam.

That was pretty good, especially the section on Churchill and Islam.

Am pleased that you’re finding Mudde helpful. Can’t recall whether he mentions it but his own brother is an adherent of the far-right in the Netherlands and has even been convicted of hate crime-related offences if I recall rightly.

The best author I know of who has similar expertise is Julia Ebner. She’s an academic but one who infiltrates far-right and Islamist groups, both online and in-person. So her three books partly read like thrillers because she sometimes operates undercover.

In her latest one, Ebner focuses on the tactics the far-right have deployed to nurture the shift in the Overton window that we’re seeing in the UK, France and Germany. These are developments she is able to track because she is fluent in English, French and German.
 
oldius said:


The silence from much of our media is appalling.
If this were Angela Rayner, they would be utterly relentless in their pursuit.
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Much of the media haven't been silent, that's just not true, you can't really have a dig at a dishonest tosser like Farage then misrepresent whats going on yourself. You think no one on here reads or watches the news? A couple of right wing papers and GB news is not 'much of the media'
 
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