Rishi Sunak and the Conservative Party.

[GusB]

What on earth has happened to the Conservatives

"F**k off back to France", seriously?

Lee Anderson: Downing Street backs Tory deputy chairman after he told migrants who don't like barges to 'go back to France'

Labour and Lib Dems call Mr Anderson's remarks "wholly unacceptable" and "toe curling".

news.sky.com

Lee Anderson is the most disgusting politician there ever was, in my opinion. He'll get what's coming to him one day.

 

[nw1]

Anderson reminds me of Terry Dicks, the Tory MP for Hayes and Harlington until 1997, who held similar views and expressed them in the same uncompromising way. From photos, they even appear similar physically. Hayes is the next Parliamentary seat to Uxbridge of course, both falling within the London Borough of Hillingdon, so right wingers are nothing new in the area. Sunak, I suspect, is physically afraid of Anderson.

I've never heard of this individual (Dicks) until now, and a good thing too by the sounds of it. That said, I was aware of Hayes and Harlington being Tory for a good while. It always strikes me as odd that the seat, now known as a safe Labour seat (and specifically that of left-winger John McDonnell) managed to remain Tory in 1992 - particularly with someone who evidently was so extremely right-wing.

Rants against Nelson Mandela, immigrants and gay people were just the start of it. Truly outrageous is his comments immediately prior to the murder of Observer journalist Farzad Bazoft by the Saddam regime on supposed spying charges:

https://www.theguardian.com/news/1990/mar/18/leaders.iraq

"...most despicable of all, Mr Terry Dicks, Conservative MP for Hayes and Harlington (who made a public statement the day before Farzad's execution that he 'deserved to be hanged' and thereby justified the savage act)"

To me this sounds like sucking up to Saddam Hussein. I can only assume that Hayes and Harlington has seen an extreme demographic shift since the mid-nineties. How the seat that has consistently voted John McDonnell since then managed to elect this man in 1992 I don't know.

 

[Yew]

What on earth has happened to the Conservatives

"F**k off back to France", seriously?

Lee Anderson: Downing Street backs Tory deputy chairman after he told migrants who don't like barges to 'go back to France'

Labour and Lib Dems call Mr Anderson's remarks "wholly unacceptable" and "toe curling".

news.sky.com

It seems like they've drank their own Kool-Aid.

 

[nw1]

Lee Anderson is the most disgusting politician there ever was, in my opinion.

Assuming we're talking about post-war UK politicians, I thought so until a short while ago - well maybe 2nd behind Powell.

Now I've read into Terry Dicks, I think I've changed my mind - but Anderson is still thoroughly and utterly revolting, in my opinion.

One key difference of course was that Dicks was just some ranting back bencher - while Anderson is a very public face of the party. This reflects very, very badly on Sunak. And Chalk, too, for sucking up to him. The Conservatives just seem to have gone mad; their strategy seems simply to wind up those of us who are more liberal-minded and for what purpose? Floating voters will not see that as good.

Despite Starmer not being that popular, I'm increasingly seeing a Labour landslide by default, simply because the Tories under Sunak are so utterly, utterly awful and seemingly more interested in right-wing ranting, or supporting those that make right-wing rants, than running the country. I actually think they'd have performed better by retaining Boris.

 

[takno]

Assuming we're talking about post-war UK politicians, I thought so until a short while ago - well maybe 2nd behind Powell.

Now I've read into Terry Dicks, I think I've changed my mind - but Anderson is still thoroughly and utterly revolting, in my opinion.

One key difference of course was that Dicks was just some ranting back bencher - while Anderson is a very public face of the party. This reflects very, very badly on Sunak. And Chalk, too, for sucking up to him. The Conservatives just seem to have gone mad; their strategy seems simply to wind up those of us who are more liberal-minded and for what purpose? Floating voters will not see that as good.

Despite Starmer not being that popular, I'm increasingly seeing a Labour landslide by default, simply because the Tories under Sunak are so utterly, utterly awful and seemingly more interested in right-wing ranting, or supporting those that make right-wing rants, than running the country. I actually think they'd have performed better by retaining Boris.

I don't think Dicks was incredibly unusual in 80s and early 90s governments, and Anderson doesn't really seem all that different to me from Norman Tebbit. We live in different times and I think what he says now sits rather more uncomfortably with the majority of the population, but I think it may be the world that's changed rather than the nasty corners of the Tory benches

 

[nw1]

I don't think Dicks was incredibly unusual in 80s and early 90s governments, and Anderson doesn't really seem all that different to me from Norman Tebbit.

Tebbit, while I profoundly disagree with his hardline right-wing politics, was at least polite with his "on your bike" nonsense; Anderson is not. That I think is a key difference. Anderson, IMO, completely lacks respect for much of the population and just comes across to me as a moronic and yobbish thug.

We live in different times and I think what he says now sits rather more uncomfortably with the majority of the population, but I think it may be the world that's changed rather than the nasty corners of the Tory benches

Perhaps but my experience of the early 90s was a liberal time, more liberal than now perhaps in many ways.

Certainly insulting Nelson Mandela and gay people in 1990 is something that would not gone down well in my peer group. Even when it came to the media, the release of Nelson Mandela in February 1990 seemed to be regarded as a joyous occasion pretty generally. People like Dicks would have been regarded as out of touch dinosaurs at best.

 

[Purple Train]

Assuming we're talking about post-war UK politicians, I thought so until a short while ago - well maybe 2nd behind Powell.

Now I've read into Terry Dicks, I think I've changed my mind - but Anderson is still thoroughly and utterly revolting, in my opinion.

One key difference of course was that Dicks was just some ranting back bencher - while Anderson is a very public face of the party. This reflects very, very badly on Sunak. And Chalk, too, for sucking up to him. The Conservatives just seem to have gone mad; their strategy seems simply to wind up those of us who are more liberal-minded and for what purpose? Floating voters will not see that as good.

Despite Starmer not being that popular, I'm increasingly seeing a Labour landslide by default, simply because the Tories under Sunak are so utterly, utterly awful and seemingly more interested in right-wing ranting, or supporting those that make right-wing rants, than running the country. I actually think they'd have performed better by retaining Boris.

According to Wikipedia, Terry Dicks was nicknamed Phil (short for Philistine) for his opposition to public funding for the arts!

 

[nw1]

According to Wikipedia, Terry Dicks was nicknamed Phil (short for Philistine) for his opposition to public funding for the arts!

The lesser of his sins by some way, by the looks of it.

I can certainly think of some other nicknames but it would be entirely inappropriate to share them here.

 

[edwin_m]

Despite Starmer not being that popular, I'm increasingly seeing a Labour landslide by default, simply because the Tories under Sunak are so utterly, utterly awful and seemingly more interested in right-wing ranting, or supporting those that make right-wing rants, than running the country. I actually think they'd have performed better by retaining Boris.

If Johnson had still been there I'd say they would be in at least as much mess as they are currently. We'd be getting to a point where Johnson was seeing the writing on the wall for his mission (the honour and enrichment of A B de P Johnson) and would agree to anything he thought might help avoid that happening.

 

[dosxuk]

It's pretty obvious that the Boris wing of the Conservative party want to continue to drag the rest of the party to the right after the expulsion of the centrist block, and the party continues to sees the portion of the electorate as most likely to switch to them being those who are currently entertaining voting for UKIP / Reform / BNP - after all it has worked for them in the past - and is probably their only route to victory at the next election (get all the right wing parties to step aside for them, and leave all the centrist/left wing parties to share the rest of the vote as evenly as possible).

 

[nw1]

It's pretty obvious that the Boris wing of the Conservative party want to continue to drag the rest of the party to the right after the expulsion of the centrist block, and the party continues to sees the portion of the electorate as most likely to switch to them being those who are currently entertaining voting for UKIP / Reform / BNP - after all it has worked for them in the past - and is probably their only route to victory at the next election (get all the right wing parties to step aside for them, and leave all the centrist/left wing parties to share the rest of the vote as evenly as possible).

Could be, though I suspect that there aren't enough people who respect a foul-mouthed yob like Anderson for the strategy to be successful.

But it's probably too late in the day to do a complete about-turn and stand on a centre-right, socially-liberal platform. People would see it as ungenuine.

As for relying on the centre/left votes splitting, it might have worked before people had cottoned on to tactical voting en masse. Alex Chalk was very lucky to hold on last time; 982 extra Labour voters choosing to vote tactically would have seen him out, and this time I think people will be far more savvy. So as I said before I'm puzzled by Chalk's strategy, unless he's planning to flee Cheltenham for a safer seat.

 

[dosxuk]

Could be, though I suspect that there aren't enough people who respect a foul-mouthed yob like Anderson for the strategy to be successful.

But it's probably too late in the day to do a complete about-turn and stand on a centre-right, socially-liberal platform. People would see it as ungenuine.

Or worse, they lose a mass amount of existing support to the likes of Reform and perform even worse than expected while not picking up much centralist support.

 

[edwin_m]

But it's probably too late in the day to do a complete about-turn and stand on a centre-right, socially-liberal platform. People would see it as ungenuine.

As for relying on the centre/left votes splitting, it might have worked before people had cottoned on to tactical voting en masse.

Also, in 2019, enough of the centrists took fright at the prospect of Corbyn to vote for Johnson instead. Starmer is fairly unscary to this group, and I agree and most of them will have seen enough of the Tories to have come to their own conclusions.

 

[Busaholic]

I've never heard of this individual (Dicks) until now, and a good thing too by the sounds of it. That said, I was aware of Hayes and Harlington being Tory for a good while. It always strikes me as odd that the seat, now known as a safe Labour seat (and specifically that of left-winger John McDonnell) managed to remain Tory in 1992 - particularly with someone who evidently was so extremely right-wing.

Rants against Nelson Mandela, immigrants and gay people were just the start of it. Truly outrageous is his comments immediately prior to the murder of Observer journalist Farzad Bazoft by the Saddam regime on supposed spying charges:

https://www.theguardian.com/news/1990/mar/18/leaders.iraq

"...most despicable of all, Mr Terry Dicks, Conservative MP for Hayes and Harlington (who made a public statement the day before Farzad's execution that he 'deserved to be hanged' and thereby justified the savage act)"

To me this sounds like sucking up to Saddam Hussein. I can only assume that Hayes and Harlington has seen an extreme demographic shift since the mid-nineties. How the seat that has consistently voted John McDonnell since then managed to elect this man in 1992 I don't know.

Dicks only won by a couple of hundred votes or so after many recounts. He later on sued McDonnell for libel for calling him what he undoubtedly was, and won! He stood down for the 1997 election, but then tried to get nominated for the St Ives seat for some reason - for once my Tory-supporting neighbours saw some sense and refused to endorse him. I'd have enjoyed corresponding with him if he'd have become my MP, but he'd have had to learn to read and write first.

 

[Grecian 1998]

Perhaps but my experience of the early 90s was a liberal time, more liberal than now perhaps in many ways.

It's worth remembering that in the 1990s you still had:

s.28 in schools effectively forbidding any discussion of homosexuality in schools for fear it might be seen as 'promotion' - abolished by Labour in 2000.

The age of consent for gay men wasn't brought in line with the heterosexual one until 2001.

The Monday Club - who favoured 'voluntary repatriation' of certain groups - still had ties to the Conservative Party until 2001.

John Taylor, the Conservative candidate for Cheltenham in the 1992 general election was undermined by racist mutterings within his own party.

Wide-scale racist chanting at football matches wasn't as bad as the 1980s, but didn't drop away completely. Into the 2000s there was a vile chant at many England games starting 'I'd rather ...' using two separate slurs which I won't repeat. There are still incidents at UK football matches, but it usually involves individuals rather than entire sections of the crowd.

As for the treatment of trans people at the time - let's just say the Jerry Springer show had an almost ludicrously horrible approach to this issue and it was quite cheerfully shown over here uncut.

All these things have improved to the extent all these positions now look utterly ridiculous. That is progress at least.

The treatment of refugees / asylum seekers / migrants (all generally lumped into one group and portrayed as 'the other' in the tabloid press hasn't really changed - it was venomous in the 1980s and it still is now. Sadly it's hard to see that changing.

 

[Typhoon]

One key difference of course was that Dicks was just some ranting back bencher - while Anderson is a very public face of the party.

All Parties have ranting back benchers from time to time. Doubtless I could come up with a whole list in time (by consulting the Eye, for instance) but for a start, Labour had Galloway. However, it is his position - junior Minister would be bad enough but he is promoting the party.

I don't think Dicks was incredibly unusual in 80s and early 90s governments, and Anderson doesn't really seem all that different to me from Norman Tebbit.

I think the difference is that Tebbit sounded reasonable, it was only when you dissected the words that you realised that it wasn't. Anderson's use of the F-word is not 'salty language', it crosses a boundary and will offend quite a few elderly, particularly female, traditional Conservative voters. I have been known to swear but if you are in a position of authority, you have to be very careful when you swear, how you swear and to whom you swear. This was not the right situation, it shows a loss of control. Something like 'Maybe they would be happier using 'bonjour' or 'merci'' (spoken in an English accent) would have worked?
(Yes, I know but its a long time since I took French.)

Mordaunt thinks he ought to be referred to as 'He speaks for me, Lee'. Irrespective of my views on migration, he doesn't, I would like to think I would use more measured terms.

 

[takno]

All Parties have ranting back benchers from time to time. Doubtless I could come up with a whole list in time (by consulting the Eye, for instance) but for a start, Labour had Galloway. However, it is his position - junior Minister would be bad enough but he is promoting the party.

I think the difference is that Tebbit sounded reasonable, it was only when you dissected the words that you realised that it wasn't. Anderson's use of the F-word is not 'salty language', it crosses a boundary and will offend quite a few elderly, particularly female, traditional Conservative voters. I have been known to swear but if you are in a position of authority, you have to be very careful when you swear, how you swear and to whom you swear. This was not the right situation, it shows a loss of control. Something like 'Maybe they would be happier using 'bonjour' or 'merci'' (spoken in an English accent) would have worked?
(Yes, I know but its a long time since I took French.)

Mordaunt thinks he ought to be referred to as 'He speaks for me, Lee'. Irrespective of my views on migration, he doesn't, I would like to think I would use more measured terms.

Ahh, interesting. I've always been a heavy swearer even before I moved to Scotland, so didn't even register the swearing. Agreed that that would seem more unreasonable to a large section of their potential voter base.

I tend to agree with penny mourdant that he probably does speak to her, and if she's the most moderate they've got to take over after the next election then we might get to enjoy 10 years of the same oddball feeble opposition as the Tories put up against Blair

 

[nlogax]

All Parties have ranting back benchers from time to time. Doubtless I could come up with a whole list in time (by consulting the Eye, for instance) but for a start, Labour had Galloway. However, it is his position - junior Minister would be bad enough but he is promoting the party.

As grim as Anderson and his ways are, he was just doing his job of being the party lightning conductor and red rag-waver. The Conservatives specifically put him in that position to help maintain support from certain quarters and I have no doubt the swearing further helped that cause.

The real problem for him and the party is his subsequent statement that they'd completely failed on immigration policy. That'll raise all sorts of awkward questions.

 

[nw1]

It's worth remembering that in the 1990s you still had:

s.28 in schools effectively forbidding any discussion of homosexuality in schools for fear it might be seen as 'promotion' - abolished by Labour in 2000.

The age of consent for gay men wasn't brought in line with the heterosexual one until 2001.

The Monday Club - who favoured 'voluntary repatriation' of certain groups - still had ties to the Conservative Party until 2001.

John Taylor, the Conservative candidate for Cheltenham in the 1992 general election was undermined by racist mutterings within his own party.

Wide-scale racist chanting at football matches wasn't as bad as the 1980s, but didn't drop away completely. Into the 2000s there was a vile chant at many England games starting 'I'd rather ...' using two separate slurs which I won't repeat. There are still incidents at UK football matches, but it usually involves individuals rather than entire sections of the crowd.

As for the treatment of trans people at the time - let's just say the Jerry Springer show had an almost ludicrously horrible approach to this issue and it was quite cheerfully shown over here uncut.

All these things have improved to the extent all these positions now look utterly ridiculous. That is progress at least.

The treatment of refugees / asylum seekers / migrants (all generally lumped into one group and portrayed as 'the other' in the tabloid press hasn't really changed - it was venomous in the 1980s and it still is now. Sadly it's hard to see that changing.

I was thinking more of the general population (at least the boomer and X generations) rather than the politicians - of course we still had a lot of the legacy of Thatcher hanging around on the statute books in the early-to-mid 90s which wasn't good. But the general view of the Tories, amongst people I associated with, in the early 90s was that (despite being led by the reasonable John Major) they were rather anachronistic, stuck in the (distant) past with outdated attitudes - which is why, for me, the 1992 election outcome was a big surprise.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Aug 2023 ==

All Parties have ranting back benchers from time to time. Doubtless I could come up with a whole list in time (by consulting the Eye, for instance) but for a start, Labour had Galloway. However, it is his position - junior Minister would be bad enough but he is promoting the party.

I think the difference is that Tebbit sounded reasonable, it was only when you dissected the words that you realised that it wasn't. Anderson's use of the F-word is not 'salty language', it crosses a boundary and will offend quite a few elderly, particularly female, traditional Conservative voters.

Quite. This is why, not only was it an incredibly stupid thing to do, but also strategically poor.

Mordaunt thinks he ought to be referred to as 'He speaks for me, Lee'. Irrespective of my views on migration, he doesn't, I would like to think I would use more measured terms.

That was a bad strategic decision from Mordaunt. She is tipped to be the leader by most after the next election, it seems - so I don't really see what's in it for her in praising Anderson in that way, unless she actually believes it (and I got the impression Mordaunt was the more moderate candidate last year). It just gets her associated with the current lot when presumably the Tories should be trying to break with the past come 2024.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 10 Aug 2023 ==

As grim as Anderson and his ways are, he was just doing his job of being the party lightning conductor and red rag-waver. The Conservatives specifically put him in that position to help maintain support from certain quarters and I have no doubt the swearing further helped that cause.

Though as I said I suspect they will lose more Tory votes than they gain that way. What about all those genteel "soft Tories" in Home Counties and southwestern seats who could easily switch to Lib Dem, and probably will thanks to the (IMV) supremely unintelligent Anderson?

 

[JamesT]

What, this?

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199798/cmhansrd/vo970606/debtext/70606-12.htm



Extract from John McDonnell's maiden speech. Just sounds to me like a robust description of Dicks, "telling it like it is" so to speak. Dicks said some blatantly racist stuff, including, seemingly, a total ban on non-white immigration (see Gadsden Times, Oct 13 1983) so if the court found McDonnell libelled him, well to me it makes me question the neutrality of the court. The judge who found in favour of Dicks should hang their head in shame.

Wikipedia says the libel was in the campaign leaflets. Unfortunately as he settled, there’s no court proceedings to indicate the nature of the libel.

Parliamentary privilege protects comments made in the House, so that speech couldn’t be the basis of legal action.

 

[nw1]

Wikipedia says the libel was in the campaign leaflets. Unfortunately as he settled, there’s no court proceedings to indicate the nature of the libel.

Parliamentary privilege protects comments made in the House, so that speech couldn’t be the basis of legal action.

Sorry, did a bit more digging (so deleted the quote of McDonnell's speech and accompanying discussion as it was irrelevant) and it turns out that the issue was regarding possible support for Saddam from Dicks in 1992.

 

[Typhoon]

Ahh, interesting. I've always been a heavy swearer even before I moved to Scotland, so didn't even register the swearing. Agreed that that would seem more unreasonable to a large section of their potential voter base.

I tend to agree with penny mourdant that he probably does speak to her, and if she's the most moderate they've got to take over after the next election then we might get to enjoy 10 years of the same oddball feeble opposition as the Tories put up against Blair

Sorry, I didn't make it clear, Mordaunt thinks we ought to be saying 'He speaks for me, Lee' (rather than '30p Lee'). To be honest, I think it is very presumptive of her to think that anyone speaks for me (or anyone else). It reeks of Goldwater*'s election slogan in '64 'In your heart you know he's right.'. People don't need to be told what to think, they are quite capable of doing it (or not doing it) for themselves, much as though certain media sources appear to believe otherwise. Many of my parent's generation would defer to their 'elders and betters' but that disappeared in the sixties. Now they may have firm beliefs but they are their beliefs, they may be influenced by others but usually not unquestionably. Yesterday I sat for over an hour in a train at Sittingbourne station - my excuse for my lack of clarity above)), trespasser on the line - 'vulnerable'; a woman started to comment and I assumed, wrongly, the way the conversation would continue; instead she had clearly thought about this - I didn't agree with everything she said but she had built her argument up, not rolling out the standard 'left wing', 'Right wing', 'woke', 'Liberal' whatever argument.

I think the mistake with swearing is to swear at people, rather than swear. I used to swear very softly and calmly as a 'shock' tactic.


* - Barry Goldwater: when the Republicans didn't think Nixon was right-wing enough!

 

[Gloster]

Anderson has received £15,000 from the Carlton Club, an organisation which would not normally have anything to do with someone like him. This is part of the £247,300 that it has given to Conservative MPs and party associations since 2020: in 2020 and 2021 the Carlton received £843,000 in government support.

Just another example of the way in which the Treasury, the responsibility of a Mr Sunak, has been uninterested in making sure that taxpayers’ money is properly used and has not been used to allow companies, almost always large ones, to increase their profits. Or we have the case of Lush Cosmetics: received £5.1 million in support, paid £5 million in bonuses, despite a 90% fall in profits.

Sources: The London Economic and The Grauniad.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Sorry, I didn't make it clear, Mordaunt thinks we ought to be saying 'He speaks for me, Lee' (rather than '30p Lee'). To be honest, I think it is very presumptive of her to think that anyone speaks for me (or anyone else). It reeks of Goldwater*'s election slogan in '64 'In your heart you know he's right.'. People don't need to be told what to think, they are quite capable of doing it (or not doing it) for themselves, much as though certain media sources appear to believe otherwise.

I'm not sure how you get that 'He speaks for me' is trying to tell people what to think, as I can't see that meaning anywhere in it. It seems obvious to me that it's aimed at people who have right wing social views similar to the kind of views that Lee Anderson expresses and who feel that their views are marginalised and ignored by much of the liberal media and culture in our society: Much the same group of people who voted for Brexit with a sense of disillusionment from mainstream politics. In other words, 'He speaks for me' is aimed at shoring up the core socially conservative working class part of the Tory voter base. As such I don't see anything particularly objectionable about the slogan: Unlike many political slogans, it's not making any false or dishonest claims. And since the slogan is not going to appeal to almost anyone outside of the core base, it's not likely to be electorally that productive anyway: It's certainly not going to win the Tories the next election.

 

[nw1]

I'm not sure how you get that 'He speaks for me' is trying to tell people what to think, as I can't see that meaning anywhere in it. It seems obvious to me that it's aimed at people who have right wing social views similar to the kind of views that Lee Anderson expresses and who feel that their views are marginalised and ignored by much of the liberal media and culture in our society: Much the same group of people who voted for Brexit with a sense of disillusionment from mainstream politics. In other words, 'He speaks for me' is aimed at shoring up the core socially conservative working class part of the Tory voter base. As such I don't see anything particularly objectionable about the slogan: Unlike many political slogans, it's not making any false or dishonest claims. And since the slogan is not going to appeal to almost anyone outside of the core base, it's not likely to be electorally that productive anyway: It's certainly not going to win the Tories the next election.

Which is why I am surprised Mordaunt came out with it. As someone who presumably has their eyes on the post of Leader of the Opposition for the next 4-5 years (and perhaps PM after that), in presumably a clean break from the Johnson-Truss-Sunak years, I'd have said it would be in her interest to avoid being associated with such slogans.

So (IMO) it's not objectionable, it's just strategically ill thought out.

While I will never vote Tory, I do hope they start targeting a somewhat different, and less niche, demographic after the next election.

 

[MikeWM]

While I will never vote Tory, I do hope they start targeting a somewhat different, and less niche, demographic after the next election.

The problem is that you appear to want them to be exactly the same as the Labour Party - when there is *already* precious little to choose between the two parties, they basically agree (in practice, if perhaps not in emphasis) on all the important issues (net zero, Ukraine and NATO, pandemic restrictons and signing up to WHO treaties, censorship of the Internet, economic philosophy, high government spending, big state, digitalisation of society, large amounts of net migration).

We need a proper oppositon party that offers a different approach to many of those things. Interestingly, such parties are available from the traditional 'left' (George Galloway's Workers Party), the 'centre' (the SDP) *and* the 'right' (Laurence Fox's Reclaim Party, David Kurten's Heritage Party, possibly Reform but they seem to change their mind too often). Which to me shows that the important political issues are no longer on a traditional left-right split.

 

[nw1]

The problem is that you appear to want them to be exactly the same as the Labour Party - when there is *already* precious little to choose between the two parties, they basically agree (in practice, if perhaps not in emphasis) on all the important issues (net zero, Ukraine and NATO, pandemic restrictons and signing up to WHO treaties, censorship of the Internet, economic philosophy, high government spending, big state, digitalisation of society, large amounts of net migration).

Not necessarily (though admittedly I don't fully support all aspects of current Labour).

In an ideal world:

Labour could be socially liberal, and more left-wing on issues such as workers' rights and public spending.

The Tories could then also be socially liberal, but fiscally conservative, much as they often were under Major and Cameron (despite the efforts of people like Dicks!)

The populist right could then be represented by the current Farage project.

The Lib Dems could be a centrist party, halfway between the Tories and Labour, and particularly strong on liberty and internationalism.

That would put clear water between the parties on many issues.

 

[MikeWM]

That would put clear water between the parties on many issues.

To some degree, but (a) we're terribly far away from that now, and (b) that would only be for economic matters. Even if we got back to that place, Labour and the Tories will still agree on net zero, on Ukraine, on pandemic restrictions and WHO treaties, censorship of the internet, digitalisation of society, etc.

And the issue with getting a range of views of economic matters between different parties is that it isn't 'allowed' anymore. See : Corbyn, Truss - neither of whom had extreme econmic policies, at least that would have been considered extreme in the 70s or 80s, but today went so far beyond the terribly narrow bounds of 'allowed' financial orthodoxy.

 

[The Ham]

ignored by much of the liberal media

Whilst this statement is true, it's questionable as to how much of our media is liberal?

For example is the Daily Mail? The Sun? The Telegraph? The Times? Sky News? GB "News"?

Whilst there's sections which people would argue are (the Guardian and the BBC, the latter is so liberal that it regularly has Farage on it as he's so left wing), it's certainly not all of it.

If not all of of them there's still media which is speaking for the majority, however that then leads to the question that if a news organisation (say the Daily Mail or even GB News) isn't speaking for you at it's too liberal, then the question should be asked by that individual do I need to consider if my views are likely to be socially acceptable by a reasonable percentage of people (not necessarily the majority nor do they agree with them)?

Arguably the very liberal should be more willing to accept as socially acceptable some right wing views (and for that matter left wing views) even if they don't agree with them. For example whilst many liberals wouldn't want the death penalty (or mass nationalisation) they would be accepting of an individual who does - especially if they can give a reasoned argument as to why it should exist.

 

[Busaholic]

Sorry, did a bit more digging (so deleted the quote of McDonnell's speech and accompanying discussion as it was irrelevant) and it turns out that the issue was regarding possible support for Saddam from Dicks in 1992.

That's my recollection of it too. Another thing about Dicks was that he apparently had cerebral palsy, so some who might have been more critical of him bit on their tongues. I have M.S. and I'm always telling people that having a significant disability doesn't necessarily make you a nicer or more moral person, even if you were born with it. There's a guy with a self-propelling wheelchair near me who's one of the nastiest, foul-mouthed, most selfish people I know and I always try to avoid him.