[crabcakes_windermere]

I think it's enormously difficult. On one side you have people like Winegums and Rachel from Swindon - people who are "always on" and who won't accept anything other than constant demands for Tories to fuck off and die and everyone to be entirely on message about everything at all times within an incredibly narrow set of parameters. They don't want to make a case why they should be in charge, they just want constant protest until everyone who isn't them are silenced.

On the other you have the bulk of the general population who just for the most part want to get on with things. They get riled up when they think people are having too easy a time who don't deserve it, or people are getting away with something they shouldn't. They're less right-wing than the papers would like, but more right wing than the Corbyn fans would like and *significantly* so for the working class, who are no longer natural Labour members because they might still be poor but most often they are no longer literally labouring. The new working class are in call centres and have IT skills, not down a pit with a shovel. They'll get behind campaigns by Marcus Rashford, but they'll struggle to care about a human rights lawyer securing freedom to stay in the UK for an asylum seeker who had committed a minor crime.

Then of course there's the modern right wing and their commentators. Johnson, Gove, Hartley-Brewer, Farage, Toby Young, and so on. Grifters and graspers.

Then you have the informed left/centre/some of the centre right. The hard(er) left despise them because they put things like "not fucking up the economy with brexit" over "but we can't support this politician because they didn't back our call for a national strike in solidarity with Venuezuelan corn farmers" (exaggerated example). The difficulty here is that unlike the other groups, they accept that there aren't simple answers or extremes and find simplistic arguments a turn-off.

What do I mean? Well take Corbyn's free broadband policy. The right hate it because it's anti-capitalist. The left love it and have been banging on about how "Corbyn was right" because of covid and some kids not having internet access. But was he right?

After all, he didn't simply propose free broadband for all - he proposed *nationalising* broadband (removing competition in a product where competition really works - it has driven down prices and driven up service) because it's just a knee-jerk thing to nationalise, and he proposed it at a time when there was no pandemic so no obvious need other than "hey, here's something people pay for we can make free". But explaining why the idea has *some* merits, but the proposed execution was questionable, the reasoning equally questionable, and the timing of the policy smacked of kitchen sinkism made by a man whose ideas haven't moved on since 1978 means it probably wasn't a great idea is full of complexities and nuance.

And in a nutshell, this is Labour's problem. They have to try appeal to the people who can cope with complex explanations, and people who want simple answers - and different simple answer groups want different simple answers. The right don't have this problem, and that's the conservative's luxury - people will vote for them anyway because they just don't want the left, and they see the left as everyone who isn't them, bolstered by a cheerleading press and an electoral system that weighs things heavily in their favour.

[mr angry manchester]

Excellent points CW. On nationalisation, I think there probably is a will to renationalise things like the railways and utilities and 're introduce regulation on the buses, as the private sector hasn't worked, it's just driven prices up and service down. The bus deregulation of the 80s was stupid in the extreme, it was just knee jerk privatisation of something that was just there and had to be interfered with on ideological grounds.

Things like BT and broadband work in the private sector, so I would leave them alone

[bluebellnutter]

I genuinely think the way to sell it is "the apparatus of society is run for everyone and provides the tree-trunk off which business grows". Basically means that the infrastructure of the state is publicly owned (railways, utilities, Royal Mail) which provides the basis off which any idiot can start a business doing whatever they want. In my experience it's a position people find it very hard to argue against unless they're a headbanger.

[mr angry manchester]

Jack Monroe, who has aided in embarrassing the government and also assisted in alleviating food poverty, is now getting stick from Corbyn cultists. These people are just fucking mental.

[Andy McDandy]

Maybe invoke the war. "Do you want the kraaahts gettin' their 'ands on this?".

[youngian]

Jack Monroe, who has aided in embarrassing the government and also assisted in alleviating food poverty, is now getting stick from Corbyn cultists. These people are just fucking mental.

Like Tracey Ullman and Rachel Riley, there’s no sign of atonement from reactionary traitor Monroe. Jack notes three years ago that Corbyn wasn’t good at his job

[crabcakes_windermere]

Jack Monroe, who has aided in embarrassing the government and also assisted in alleviating food poverty, is now getting stick from Corbyn cultists. These people are just fucking mental.

As I said, you can never stray off message even once, no criticism of the leadership is countered, and mention of another person in terms that aren't outright hostility (let alone friendliness) if they've already been marked as "unclean" by an act of their own disloyalty is forbidden. And absolutely EVERYTHING must ALWAYS be framed in a way that absolves Corbyn of blame for entirely unrelated acts. Did you say you weren't entirely satisfied with him once in 2017? You personally handed the 2019 election to the Tories. Doesn't matter if you voted for him, campaigned for him and told literally everyone you ever met to vote for him and not to vote for any other party - that act of disloyalty proves you were working against him and wanted him to lose, and the fact you didn't grow up in a wheelie bin eating soot proves you're just another champagne socialist red tory.

It's absolutely fucking unhinged.

[Oblomov]

Thanks for the write up MAM, I've adopted a similar tack of picking my battles with my dad and his friends in recent years. It's futile to try bringing them on board with social justice for minorities, they only understand it in terms of things they enjoy becoming vilified and them being guilty by association.

I still wince when my dad drops a racist barb but I abide by it because I know he's not going to join any British Union of Fascists marches, and we have far more productive conversations on our common ground i.e. corrupt cronyist politicians and the working man continually getting shafted.

I doubt I'll convince him to vote Labour but if he goes to either Lib Dem or UKIP then that's one less vote for the Tories at least!

[Andy McDandy]

None of them grew up in a wheelie bin eating soot; it's all contrived "realness". Picked up along with the scratty jumper in freshers week.

Much like Laurie Penney's genteel poverty, Withnail lite flat share. There's a certain type of poor that requires quite a lot of money to pull off.

[mr angry manchester]

I am always reminded of "Common People" by Pulp when these wankers are mentioned .

[Kreuzberger]

Niemöller should be a set text.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Jez fans BTL not happy with the news that Labour's given up on fantasy tax raising from people who aren't us.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Interesting view here from somebody formerly on Team Jez who's responded well to the defeat.

[crabcakes_windermere]

“Jez fans BTL not happy” is more or less the default for anything.

[The Weeping Angel]

Jack Monroe, who has aided in embarrassing the government and also assisted in alleviating food poverty, is now getting stick from Corbyn cultists. These people are just fucking mental.

As I said, you can never stray off message even once, no criticism of the leadership is countered, and mention of another person in terms that aren't outright hostility (let alone friendliness) if they've already been marked as "unclean" by an act of their own disloyalty is forbidden. And absolutely EVERYTHING must ALWAYS be framed in a way that absolves Corbyn of blame for entirely unrelated acts. Did you say you weren't entirely satisfied with him once in 2017? You personally handed the 2019 election to the Tories. Doesn't matter if you voted for him, campaigned for him and told literally everyone you ever met to vote for him and not to vote for any other party - that act of disloyalty proves you were working against him and wanted him to lose, and the fact you didn't grow up in a wheelie bin eating soot proves you're just another champagne socialist red tory.

It's absolutely fucking unhinged.

I had a similar experience with a Stoke based sociologist who called me a scab on twitter as I refused to accept the democratic decision of the membership and undermined him continuously. I mean I voted Labour in both 2017 and 19, canvassed in both those election voted Labour in local elections campaigined for Labour candidates in those elections even one who I think is a wally, but because I criticised Corbyn and pointed out he was unelectable that makes me a scab. It does feed into my pet theory that the online left especially think being a socialist automatically makes you a good person.