Dawlish Discussion

I have been reading the main political parties' election content. It seems to be the same old propaganda, except for the Reform UK Party. They have fresh ideas and I particularly like their plans to tackle immigration.

Take a look at their 'Contract' document, which contains a lot of commonsense. https://assets.nationbuilder.com/reformuk/pages/253/attachments/original/1718625371/Reform_UK_Our_Contract_with_You.pdf

I'm pretty convinced now that I will be voting Reform. (I'm nothing to do with the Reform Party or any party)

That's brilliant he's putting in a local appearance.

https://www.middevonadvertiser.co.uk/news/pay-to-view-rally-for-farage-at-trago-699005

It's being live-streamed on YouTube

Wrigley won't be liking this turnout. 

@burnside Oh I don't know about that. His local Illiberal Undemocrat regime is definitely authoritarian. He's probably taking notes.

In any case the turnout at Trago and rise of Reform will hit the Tories the hardest, so Wrigley will be hoping Farage and Hilditch do him a favour. That said some polls have Reform UK ahead of or just behind the Lib Dems in our Constituency. If you trust the polls. Wrigley is deluded if he can't see that his dreadful record in local government won't lose him votes to Labour, Reform UK and the South Devon Alliance.

The turn out for Farage at Trago Mills is encouraging. Glad to see so many people are able to see through the media's bias towards the left.

@Paul There is no left, only centre-right to far right. Although everything seems to the left from Reform UK's perspective I guess.

There are a lot of people on the left of politics in the UK from my experience. Many don't realise it and think they are normal and good people.

The problem is, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

@Steve Whether there are a lot of people politically on the left or not in the UK, all the national parties are on a continuum from centre-right to far-right, so any left leaning people are not represented anyhow and therefore pose no threat to the status quo when it comes to the ballot box.

How do you define 'normal and good people'?

@Steve Braverman is not left of centre, neither is Truss, Rees Mogg, Johnson, Sunak - Brexit happened because the Tories shifted even further to the right. The Cons have never been left of centre. Lib Dem policies are clearly right of centre, plus they went into coalition with the Tories in 2010 - 2015 which is hardly a leftist move. Anything leftist in Labour was purged after Corbyn was kicked out and Starmer has just resurrected Blair's New Labour Mark 2 which is definitely centre right, he's welcomed in right wing Tory defector Elphick.

How do you define left-wing policies?

I know you're not defining 'normal or good people' - that's why I asked you to define it.

Who do you believe the good guys are? And the bad guys for that matter?

There are a few right-leaning politicians but most are left-leaning, and most support big government, the nanny state, the green agenda, deficit spending, etc.

Brexit happened because the majority voted for it. Brexiteers were across the political spectrum. Labour has a eurosceptic heritage.

I don't believe any are the good guys. I believe policies are either good or bad.

@Steve, you misunderstand. Brexit happened because Cameron made the EU referendum a manifesto promise that for once the Tories couldn't break for fear of Farage and the then UKIP. That's how it came about, because the Tories moved to the right.

I wasn't questioning the actual vote. I hope that clarifies it. And indeed Corbyn and McDonald were critical of the EU project, which they saw as neolibral expansionism.

All political parties support the removal of decision making from national parliaments to undemocratic institutions not necessarily linked to a nation state. Farage will just side with Trump and his US allies and plough ahead with the Atlantic Bridge project as the Tory right did with Fox and Mogg. The UK will just become a US dependancy rather than part of the EU, swapping one super-state project for the other more established English speaking one.

They'll all blame the nanny state rather than tackle corruption and multi-national corportions paying next to no tax in overseas tax havens, taxes that should be used for public services, education, healthcare etc, here in the UK. All parties will allow our money to flow out of the country into the hands of corporations, oligarchs, etc including Reform UK.

There is a Green Agenda, it's called the Green New Deal and that's simply about powerful elites across the globe consolidating their control whilst transitioning from fossil fuels to other energy forms. None of it is about environmental protectionism or ecologically sustainability, it's all about sustaining ther own political and economic power at the top of the tree. There's a business opportunity, money to be made from new technologies - economic growth isn't compatible with ecological sustainability looking generations into the future, not base on the current neo-capitalism/neoliberalist status quo.

For those who believe human induced climate change is a myth, then it's one hell of a conspiracy on a global scale involving an entire scientific community, journalists, governemnts and countries that have never been able to work unison on a global scale in the entire history of human existance.

If it is a great big hoax then I find that encouraging that human beings can co-operate on such a mind-boggling scale. Maybe it could be used for good? Maybe we can all work tohgether on a planetary scale to save the planet, whether it's from ourselves or aliens or whatever. Maybe we can end all wars!

War is just never-ending now as it's a means to launder and shift vast sums of capital, it's nothing to do with democracy. the Ukraine is no longer a democracy, the US helped depose their elected leader in 2014, but a paece accord and a buffer stae between NATO, EU and Russia would be great for peace but not for the business of war an corporate expansionism. Farage is right about poking the Russian Bear, but he and Trump won't prevent corporate global expansionism eroding legitimate democratic interests.

haha - I don't disagree with quite a bit of what you write. Except I don't see what you call big government and I call neoliberalism being anything to do with socialism. Our politicians are puppets with billionaire media moguls, multinational corporate interest and the establishment, so old boys networks linked to Harrow, Eton Oxbridge unis, the aristocracy and monarchy as well as foreign oligarchs pulling the strings. None of that sounds very socialist to me. None of it's linked to the working class, the proletariat, trade unionism and any movement to nationalize vital public services or state run industry. Which we'd consider socialist or leftist. 

I believe what you call big government uses the language of the left at times to appear egalitarian, democratic, etc but under the surface it is increasingly authoritarian eroding civil liberties and civil rights which benefits powrful elements that we've always identified as the right.

I'm in favour of decentralizing government and greater devolved power in the different nations and regions. Small government is often used as an excuse to shrink and dismantle the welfare state as we're seeing with the privatization of health care, dentistry in particular - making money out of basic human needs - which points to rampant capitalism rather than socialism to my mind and has occurred under the Tories and their Lib Dem partners for those 5 years in coalotion and New Labour before that and under Thatcherism prior to that.

I am in favour of limiting government interference in our lives as the UK is the most surveilled nation on earth and we don't have true democracy, but we first need to address corruption and power structures and no national party is willing to do anything about this, because ultimately they're all part of it, including Reform UK.