Manchester mayor Andy Burnham might actually have a chance of saving Labour from itself, which is exactly why Keir Starmer won’t give him a chance, argues Ash Sarkar.
I think that still fits in with what @wewbull@feddit.uk is saying. There is a right shift in votes because of extensive promotion by the media, which acknowledges the problem but offers a fascist solution, which is picked up by some voters. However other voters are disenfranchised and end up not voting. The overall shift in votes is to the right but the population itself is not right wing, the votes are not representative of the population because those who disagree don’t vote for alternatives and instead don’t vote at all.
There’s also a relentless propaganda effort to convince voters to abstain from voting unless there’s a party that exactly matches their views in every aspect of the party’s manifesto. If they fail one narrow single-issue purity test, of if their leader looks funny while eating a sandwich: game over.
If both the major parties are wrong on an issue, I ask which one is more likely to do a U-turn. You can never have everything in a democracy. But then, in an authoritarian system, you’ll probably get nothing but a boot in the face. Some people might think those are somehow equivalent. I don’t.
I think that still fits in with what @wewbull@feddit.uk is saying. There is a right shift in votes because of extensive promotion by the media, which acknowledges the problem but offers a fascist solution, which is picked up by some voters. However other voters are disenfranchised and end up not voting. The overall shift in votes is to the right but the population itself is not right wing, the votes are not representative of the population because those who disagree don’t vote for alternatives and instead don’t vote at all.
There’s also a relentless propaganda effort to convince voters to abstain from voting unless there’s a party that exactly matches their views in every aspect of the party’s manifesto. If they fail one narrow single-issue purity test, of if their leader looks funny while eating a sandwich: game over.
If both the major parties are wrong on an issue, I ask which one is more likely to do a U-turn. You can never have everything in a democracy. But then, in an authoritarian system, you’ll probably get nothing but a boot in the face. Some people might think those are somehow equivalent. I don’t.
Oh that’s fair, I didn’t really consider the ones who did not vote
…because you were looking at the shadow.
I’m getting real tired of your damn shadow puppets, Plato :-)
Fair. :-)