Your allegiance to which political party?

Quoted from Manchester Mariner

I've voted for 3 different parties in my voting lifetime but never for the Tories and unless there was a massive sea change in their outlook highly doubt I ever will. The core values of the Tories are nothing like my own, plus I grew up during the Thatcher years.

There's more chance of donkey rides on the beach being replaced by unicorns than the Tories changing the way they look out to sea  

The origin of their name always reinforces my views of them,..... same as it ever was

"As a political term, Tory was an insult (derived from the Middle Irish word tóraidhe, modern Irish tóraí, meaning "outlaw", "robber", from the Irish word tóir, meaning "pursuit" since outlaws were "pursued men") that entered English politics during the Exclusion Bill crisis of 1678–1681"

Btw, I went with "Other"

My first ever vote was Liberal and I've regularly voted Labour with an occasional Green and/or Independent in the European Elections.... won't be doing that anymore though  

I don't belong to any political party, and I think only a minuscule percentage of the voters do. Therein lies the problem for all parties - what can be decided as policy by a very few people (I think Labour have the most members but still a tiny tiny fraction of the population) means sodomist all to the voters who often want something quite different. I suppose the best recent example is the Labour position on Brexit - determined by the membership but rejected by the voting public in their previous rock-solid Labour heartlands.  

Membership skews people into thinking that the general populace agrees with them; they don't. This is perhaps best illustrated again by Labour who think membership meetings and endless nodding in agreement on social media is real life. It isn't.  

The best party to vote for would at a guess be a combination of the good bits from each, but of course "members" could never agree to something the other side does!

I don't know why a party isn't formed which uses the rather intriguing and novel notion of having a policy on every issue, that mirrors the majority of public opinion.

Labour. I was very right wing when younger but with life experience have drifted leftwards over the years, especially having seen how the working class were made to pay for the banking crash with savage cuts  to the safety net and vital public services (while there is always money available for billionaire tax cuts).

I'm probably now on what you would call the soft left. Not a nationalisation enthusiast but certainly think the wealth generated by one of the richest countries in the world could be spread around more evenly.

  
Seems like a good thread to put this petition on for you all to consider signing?


https://www.change.org/p/north-east-lincolnshire-council-a-full-investigation-in-to-councillor-fenty

Quoted from ska face

Which Labour policy under Corbyn couldn’t you stomach, Pete? Just out of interest as a floating voter.


I see Sir Haircut has whipped to vote for the Brexit deal today, the ham-faced fraud. Labour’s Brexit position in 2019 and their performative objection to it was always just a wedge issue used to get rid of Corbyn. Same as antisemitism. These people don’t care.

Corbyn had generally solid principles but was politically naive. It's a flipping horrible game where the left are up against so much more than the right.

Not sure what other option Labour had than to vote for the Brexit deal, and pragmatically, it would have passed anyway so why give the media a stick to beat you with. The time for decisive action on Brexit was years ago, the ship has sailed.

I'm not convinced by Starmer, but Blair he isnt. He is a self-declared socialist for a start, and policy wise is likely centre-left.

I do find it strange that a lot of Corbynistas spend more time & energy attacking Starmer than they do the Tories. And as for the 'Keith' thing, I mean, come on, it's flipping juvenile.

I'd rather see a radical left government than a centre left government. But if the option is centre-left or this flipping shambolic immoral Tory lot, then christ I'll take a Starmer led Labour party and work from there.

Lefty purity balderdash plays into the hands of the right - who are much better at pluralism and being pragmatic for their 'greater good'. I supported Corbyn's Labour and I support Starmer's Labour, whilst being convinced by neither, each for very different reasons.

Yes the time for decisive action on Brexit was 2017, when Corbyn’s “respect the result” policy delivered Labour’s highest number of votes for 20 years. The problem was the wreckers in the party spent the next two years needling the bloke, chipping away at the leadership, briefing hostile press daily, and even the Shadow Brexit Secretary decided he’d go off and start making his own policies on the hoof. Decisive leadership would’ve been introducing mandatory reselection in 2018, but that opportunity was missed.

Starmer might describe himself as a socialist, but I’d describe myself as having a 12-inch member. In reality, I’ve got a walnut whip, and he’s spent the last 7/8 months purging the party of anyone from the left and has abandoned each and every one of the ten pledges he made during his leadership bid. The bloke’s a weather vane and clearly of little moral fortitude if he’ll abandon the pledges so quickly, effectively admitting he’s lied to the party’s own members.  

Attacking Starmer and attacking the Tories aren’t mutually exclusive - people can do both, and rightly so. Starmer and his front bench might actually like to try it some time, rather than riding on the coat tails of people like Marcus Rashford who have actually forced the govt into action. The teaching unions were abandoned by Starmer and his urine-weak allies, and if it weren’t for the likes of the NEU growing in strength schools would still be at full capacity today.

Yeah, calling him Keith is juvenile, very funny though when you see people lose their minds over it. Keith is a slur now! This from the people who spent the last 5 years calling anyone left of Alan Johnson a trot, communist, Stalinist, antisemite, dangerous, economically illiterate, tankie, terrorist, IRA supporter, Maoist, snowflake, student politics, unserious, divisive, entryist, champagne socialists, liberal elite, detached from reality and whatever else they’d throw each day at fans of the “magic grandpa”. Even “corbynista” is used as a term of derision, rather than acknowledging the party attracted 300,000 new members, predominantly young and working class, in insecure employment, renting, no savings, etc.

Nobody’s looking for left purity, just a crumb of opposition from Keith, who seems to be hoping that the Tories will implode and he’ll just stroll into Downing St in 4 years time. The polls tell a different story.

Well if all the ones on here saying what a bad deal we got with the EU  and we are going to be so worse off they might crumble scar face .

I have said many times I am a floating voter I would like to vote Labour again but you have to have the right leader and sensible policies.

I don't like falling out with fellow town fans over politics.

Time will tell btw I don't think Boris knows what he is doing and I don't rate Starmer  either.

Quoted from grimsby pete

Well if all the ones on here saying what a bad deal we got with the EU  and we are going to be so worse off they might crumble scar face .

I have said many times I am a floating voter I would like to vote Labour again but you have to have the right leader and sensible policies.

I don't like falling out with fellow town fans over politics.

Time will tell btw I don't think Boris knows what he is doing and I don't rate Starmer  either.

Well said were all black and white fans. Politics is best left to politicians who promise the earth for your vote; and then weasel out of what they said "misquoted" is there normal type of excuse.

It doesn't matter who, red, blue or any other colour they all talk the talk and do as the whips tell them.

Quoted from grimsby pete

I don't like falling out with fellow town fans over politics.

Time will tell btw I don't think Boris knows what he is doing and I don't rate Starmer  either.

Thing is Pete sometimes you have to stand your ground or some will try to bully you with their views.

For what its worth I think politics is a minefield. Whatever politicians will do there will always be someone you cant please.

Tough job as well. I remember Theresa May for example. On the outside came across as a nice person and polished. But perhaps not strong enough . I remember reading that the stress of it all was really getting to her.

Who would want to be a politician?. For me the ideal candidate would be someone with a strong character and good morals. Something we all fall short on to some degree or another.

Thing about Theresa May is that she was a excrement politician. She was a excrement Home Secretary (whose 'Hostile environment' created all sorts of still ongoing issues) and proved to be an even more excrement Prime Minister. The fact that Johnson has been even more excrement is neither here nor there. May wanted to be Prime Minister, knowing she faced with an almost impossible situation after Cameron chickened out and did a very poor job once she got the job, almost by default. No sympathy whatsoever.

I'm sure her heart was probably in the right place (unlike Johnson), but it really doesn't help when you're so excrement at your job, does it?

Starmer is the Labour equivalent to Cameron. Wants to get into power because he thinks he'd be good at the job, will do anything to secure his position, but doesn't really have any firm ideals to aim for even if he is elected PM. Without a proper plan of action, you'll get nowhere, as so many governments have discovered in recent years.