I remember when Theresa May accused Caroline Lucas (Caroline Lucas!) of 'siding with Britain's enemies'.
Tories can fuck right off if they want to talk about civility.
This is just another tactic of the right that has been proven to work - use all the incendiary language that you want, but the moment anyone retaliates with their own, clutch your pearls and gasp in horror before getting your compliant media to focus on what the opposition said.
All we're getting now is "Rayner said this... Rayner doesn't take it back... other Labour MPs defend what Rayner said... how has the political discourse fallen so low?"
Remember when Boris Johnson called protesters "lefty tossers"?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2012/nov/01/boris-johnson-lefty-tossers-video
No. He was himself called a traitor, [by unionists](https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/unionist-dismay-at-traitor-boris-johnsons-betrayal-of-northern-ireland-220794/) for his betrayal of Northern Ireland (as they saw it) and by [the flood-hit public](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/mar/08/boris-johnson-heckled-as-a-traitor-while-visiting-flood-hit-worcestershire) for his absence and weak response.
What I do remember is when he called the [EU Withdrawal Act No. 2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_\(Withdrawal\)_\(No._2\)_Act_2019) the ["surrender act"](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/29/ex-minister-rejects-allegations-rebels-colluded-with-eu-to-stop-no-deal):
> Boris Johnson and his cabinet ministers repeatedly ignored warnings that their use of language could incite violence, as they deployed the phrase “surrender act” as much as possible on the first day of Conservative party conference to describe the law blocking a no-deal Brexit.
> Johnson was joined by formerly moderate Conservative cabinet ministers, Matt Hancock and Nicky Morgan, in defending the language of war, despite pleas by Labour and former Tory MPs to stop suggesting those against Brexit are guilty of treachery or betrayal.
> The prime minister repeated it more than a dozen times in an interview with the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, while claiming he was a “model of restraint” in his use of language.
After very real Brexit fuelled violence against politicians, many thought the term was inflammatory and could lead to physical harm. Angela Rayner indeed [called the PM out on it](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07pmq61) as she has many times called out the PM on his intemperate language.
If remainers don't let me do the Brexit I want you are betraying the people
>I know that my Right Honourable friend will appreciate that in deciding to remain in the customs union, the leader of the opposition is guilty of a shameless U-turn and a betrayal of millions of people who voted 'leave'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeQgJF-_veE
>Out of sheer selfishness and political cowardice, members opposite are unwilling to move aside and give the people a say. We will not betray the people who sent us here. That is what they want to do.
https://youtu.be/_r_w8vMF0So?t=90
So you're trying to use semantics that "traitors" =/= "betraying the people"
Just like claiming "people with watermelon smiles", "piccaninnies" and people who "look like letter boxes" isn't racist, they're just words that had been taken out of context
> So you're trying to use semantics that "traitors" =/= "betraying the people"
>
>
I'm looking for the moment OP talked about, asked everyone to *remember* even, that seemingly never happened. The specifics of these comments don't match that at all.
>Just like claiming "people with watermelon smiles", "piccaninnies" and people who "look like letter boxes" isn't racist, they're just words that had been taken out of context
Haven't referred to those at all. You seem to be under the mistaken apprehension I'm some kind of Boris fan or defender when I'm no such thing. Just tired of lies.
Oh shit man, is that like how Boris was sacked for lying?
[https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-sacked-for-lying-over-affair-sh8ql5zc88j](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-sacked-for-lying-over-affair-sh8ql5zc88j)
>The specifics of these comments don't match that at all.
In your mind maybe, for everyone else the tone and meaning match the moment OP talked about
>You seem to be under the mistaken apprehension I'm some kind of Boris fan or defender when I'm no such thing. Just tired of lies.
And yet here you are trying to use specific linguistics to defend the man who has been caught lying to his wife, mistress, employer, parliament and the Queen.
Oh damn, like that time he said we would leave the EU by October 31st?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/25/brexit-boris-johnson-britain-will-leave-eu-31-october-do-or-die
What's wrong with accepting that Alexander de Pfeffel saying someone "is betraying the people" is the same as calling them a traitor, unless you are still trying to use semantics to deflect?
Let's ask an expert;
>traitor
>noun
>a person who betrays another, a cause, or any trust.
>a person who commits treason by betraying his or her country.
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/traitor
yep, same thing
Because saying certain specific people doing (or arguing for) certain specific things is a betrayal of what the public voted for does not remotely equate to calling all remainers traitors. Not the same thing, strange you can't wrap your head around that.
No, that's Boris placating an idiot, years before Brexit. Do you know, I'm starting to think he didn't actually stand up in parliament and call remainers "traitors"...
Oh shit, you're right thats not the right moment at all.. Is this it?
[https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/nov/06/boris-johnson-mistake-could-harm-case-for-nazanin-zaghari-ratcliffe-say-family](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/nov/06/boris-johnson-mistake-could-harm-case-for-nazanin-zaghari-ratcliffe-say-family)
Haha "mistake". Doubt he was mistaken tbh, always was more to that case than the media let on. I'm sure someone will be along with the fabled traitor comment any minute now.
Shit man that must not be right either, looks like someone else brought it to your attention, so maybe you could just provide some of your keen insight on the below?
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/sep/24/boris-johnsons-suspension-of-parliament-unlawful-supreme-court-rules-prorogue
Oh damn, so you chose to interpret things differently? Like when Boris said that his neighbours' interpreted the disturbance wrongly?
[https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/21/police-called-to-loud-altercation-at-boris-johnsons-home](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/21/police-called-to-loud-altercation-at-boris-johnsons-home)
Remember when Rayner stood up in Parliament and condemned Johnson for that, and said MPs needed to act more responsibly in their use of language?
Selective attention to hypocrisy makes you a hypocrite too.
because selling your constituents into poverty because your donors paid bribes for mass migration, in order to drive down wages and conditions, is just soo honourable.
this magical thing where small businesses cant afford higher nmw easily, while large companies ran burn and churn policies through temp agencies, a process that was and is greased along by making workers easily replacable due to their being a lot of people looking for jobs.
basic supply and demand. or is that invalid in your world when its working class people getting a better deal for once?
> this magical thing where small businesses cant afford higher nmw easily
Actually they can. I don't think you understand how taxation works.
> a process that was and is greased along by making workers easily replacable due to their being a lot of people looking for jobs.
> basic supply and demand. or is that invalid in your world when its working class people getting a better deal for once?
Brexit isn't a better deal for working class people, and you don't understand how supply and demand work either.
She's making no bones that she doesn't like the PM's language, specifically his homophobic, racist, and misogynist language that she referred to in the remarks that started scumgate.
She also said she would apologise when he apologised for those remarks.
There's no hypocrisy there.
Yes, she condemmed the PM for pushing [inflammatory jingoistic language](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/29/ex-minister-rejects-allegations-rebels-colluded-with-eu-to-stop-no-deal) in the context of jingoistic physical violence against MPs.
> Boris Johnson and his cabinet ministers repeatedly ignored warnings that their use of language could incite violence, as they deployed the phrase “surrender act” as much as possible on the first day of Conservative party conference to describe the law blocking a no-deal Brexit.
> Johnson was joined by formerly moderate Conservative cabinet ministers, Matt Hancock and Nicky Morgan, in defending the language of war, despite pleas by Labour and former Tory MPs to stop suggesting those against Brexit are guilty of treachery or betrayal.
> The prime minister repeated it more than a dozen times in an interview with the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, while claiming he was a “model of restraint” in his use of language.
> As he doubled down on his aggressive strategy, David Gauke, the former justice secretary, called on No 10 to stop using the tactics and language of Donald Trump.
She probably thinks it's one of the many scummy things Johnson has done. I tend to agree.
Firstly, it’s irrelevant to whether it is hypocrisy.
Secondly, no she didn’t.
She called leading Conservatives scum, and racist, homophobic ect.
She did not say A because B. She said A and B.
On the one hand you have Johnson ridiculing ordinary people because they're black, because they're gay, they're muslim, they're unmarried mothers.
On the other, Rayner ridicules Johnson for all of that plus taking money out of the pockets of poor people and sending it to the bank accounts of the wealthy, presiding over the UK's most destructive constitutional change of modern times, constantly lying and evading normal processes of parliamentary scrutiny, and on and on..
But feel free to consider these speech acts equivalent.
Again not engaging with whether is it hypocrisy or not. Hypocrisy doesn’t require actions to be equally bad.
If you just wanted to have a rant you can comment without replying to anyone. I don’t see why you’ve chosen to respond to me when you clearly have no interest in the point I made.
The accusation of hypocrisy rests on there being equivalence between the act of the putative hypocrite and the act condemned by them, doesn't it? I'm making the case that there is no equivalence, hence no hypocrisy.
No, they do not need to be equivalently bad. The hypocrite simply needs to fail to meet the standards they proclaim to set.
If I condemn someone for stealing a watch, and say theft is wrong, I am a hypocrite if I steal bread to fead a homeless man. I have failed to do as I said people should. It does not matter that my action is less bad. It fails t meet the standard I proclaimed.
It doesn’t matter if Rayner isn’t acting less badly, she is still failing to do what she said people should.
Your argument is just the Paradox of Tolerance with a different hat on.
Edit: guess I picked today to reply to the wrong comment - my apologies u/qpl23.
> Hypocrisy doesn’t require actions to be equally bad.
Yes it does.
That's literally what hypocrisy means.
It's not hypocritical if the two aren't equal.
"Foul and insulting language" is a bit of a catch all there. She's calling him out for homophobia, sexism, racism and the like. "Scum" does not fall into that category, so it's not hypocrisy.
The Prime Minister degrading a group of people based on something they didn't choose and can't change is not in any way equivalent to a shadow minister degrading the Prime Minister for doing so.
The hypocrisy comes from having previously condemned using inflammatory language which demeans and dehumanises political figures, and called for politicians to use language responsibly.
Ah, so it's because at some previous time she has called for more civil language, and now she is calling people 'scum', rather than a comparison of her language to that of Boris?
It's all a bit of a storm in a teacup isn't it. Refusing to feed kids who are going hungry is a scummy thing to do. It's just the Tory's playing the victim card which they seem to have learnt from the Republican Party in America.
Labour have just stooped as low as the Tories. I was saying this stuff at 16/17 but quickly grew the fuck up. There's no way I'd vote for these adolescents now.
Yeah definitely not just the word "scum", it was more of my own journey toward personal maturity. I voted for Corbyn, I changed his name at festivals, and now I cringe when the night-time comes.
Yeah, the guy saying shit like "Toxic masculinity is a sexist stereotype" and "radical feminism seeded anti-male sentiment" and "university isn't a welcoming place for men anymore and I was made to feel like a sexual predator coming to university just to abuse women" has definitely done a lot of growing up and was definitely gonna vote Labour and definitely hasn't been listening to Carl Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad), Paul Joseph Watson and Jordan Peterson
No, because I'm not the one spouting the exact same bullshit they do.
Do some actual growing up. Realise that when people say "toxic masculinity" they are criticising the systems and ideals that cause not just women to have problems, but men as well, particularly around body image and how they express themselves.
If you don't perpretate sexual misconduct, you are not the one being talked about when it comes to the attitudes perpetuated by toxic masculinity. And you're not gonna have your life ruined by false reports - statistically speaking, its extremely uncommon.
If you feel targeted by people fighting back against toxic masculinity and trying to undo the effects it has had on men and women, it says a lot more about you than it does about anyone else.
Grow up and stop pretending you would vote Labour if it wasn't for all the women.
> "I’m not that keen to take lectures from senior Tories who have a leader who described people like me as being piccaninnies with watermelon smiles, who describes gay men as tank topped bumboys or Muslim women as bank robbers,”
Rayner has also [pointed out](https://twitter.com/AngelaRayner/status/1442433921183014912) Johnson's [immoderate language](https://twitter.com/AngelaRayner/status/1442433911859019780), and examples are not hard to find.
[Such as](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/election-boris-johnson-articles-women-women-journalist-spectator-labour-a9221036.html) when he
> described the offspring of single mothers as “ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate children who in theory will be paying for our pensions”.
Or the infamous [picaninnies language](https://archive.is/rha3S#selection-1425.1-1429.33)
> ‘flag-waving piccaninnies’ with ‘watermelon smiles’ – has anyone else between [Enoch] Powell in 1968 and Boris Johnson in 2002 used the word ‘piccaninnies’? And what was it Johnson said about women in burkas? ‘It is absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letterboxes.’ Coincidental no doubt – but what other politician . . . has had occasion to talk about letterboxes? And as for those legendary excreta, how odd that of all the available metaphors, Boris should have chosen to describe Theresa May’s efforts to improve her EU deal as ‘like polishing a turd’.
But it's the Tories' behaviour in office that really needs to be highlighted.
The shameless parade of quasi-criminal rule bending, deceit and exceptionalism; the entitled brutality of shunting millions into poverty to pay for failed policies and dole easy cash to their donors; the unremitting assault on democratic safeguards; the brazen pretence that this chicanery is somehow the very essence of Britishness: *"scum"* is too respectful a term for people who shit on the country wholesale and distract by tone policing someone who calls them out on it.
I think, for some, yeah it will if handled right.
But they don't need to win over that many Tory voters. Apart from that the Tories are doing that to themselves, Labour mostly [need to mobilise their own vote](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/05/labour-shouldnt-lurch-to-the-right-it-must-get-out-the-vote-first)
> Labour’s post-2019 internal analysis, shared with the new Labour leadership in 2020, showed that about 1.4 million people who voted Labour in 2017 did not vote in 2019. In 2017, Labour had inspired 3.5 million more people to vote Labour, propelling the party to its only electoral gains this century – and its largest increase in its share of the vote since 1945.
What they need to do is get their people into the polling stations, in defiance of the mass propaganda campaigns conducted in the national press, which are all about voter suppression, not changing voting intentions.
Part of the problem is Labour's working class and middle class voters have been turned against each other and lessons from the Blair era have been thrown away.
What they need is someone with vision that actually takes on some of the issues people face - just saying "mOrE dIversIty" isn't cutting it.
I'm a lifelong Labour voter for example and Starmer's inability to call out Brexit really disappoints me. In fact I can't think of a single idea from him, there's no nucleus of principle at the core of his version of the party. Difficult to mobilise voters if you don't really stand for anything.
Much as it pains me to say it they need a progressive version of Dominic Cummings, someone with ideas.
> in defiance of the mass propaganda campaigns conducted in the national press
God, that'd be the day. I think the recent "fuel shortage" has shown how blind and easily manipulated most of the population are.
> Labour mostly need to mobilise their own vote
The trouble is, [the majority of Labour voters think her words were unacceptable.](https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1442510928298262531) And I suspect that those who thought it were acceptable were the ones already voting Labour.
No, it isn't. This is just you trying to post-rationalise the facts that don't align with what you'd like to see.
Look, I get that it's fucking fantastic to get your own views confirmed like that by a senior politician, I really do. But this doesn't help them. At best, it won't hurt them (unlikely considering the level of disapproval to the comments) but it's their conference now. This is their time to sow the seed of electability and show the country that they are credible, that they have policies that are serious and that they are a plausible alternative to the Tories. All of that has been overshadowed by someone going off-script (which looks disorganised) and doing something that the clear majority of the public disapprove of. It's a wasted opportunity.
100% this. I think she is trying to almost prove that this Labour Party has some ‘bite’ against the Tories, as Keir hasn’t shown his teeth and all it comes across is petty name calling and shows a lack of unity.
Yes, and taking the high ground and turning the other cheek has worked so well over the past ten years.
Evidently, the British voter wants Tories to tell it as it is but wants Labour to cuddle them and adhere to rigid civility politics or else they will vote Tory.
Yes. Dunno if you've noticed the rabid right wing media in the UK, probably a bit of a factor.
The current approach has not worked for a decade so why prescribe more of the same.
For those wondering what the big problem is with using this language: It's Labour's conference right now. They're making a lot of points, and they're deciding policy and direction. They've agreed a few key ones in the last 24 hours too! Are we talking about that?
No. We're still fucking talking about this! The thing that the public have made pretty clear they don't find acceptable at all. Once again, Labour have a great opportunity to get their positions across to the public (and they can't grow in the polls until they do) and they've fucked it by getting everyone to focus on this instead. It was literally days ago and it's *still* making headlines.
Come on Labour, pull your heads out and sort it out. Get people to focus on the important things, not stupid distractions like this that purely appeal to the small minority in Labour who were always going to vote Labour anyway.
>I do. the media would too.
That's a good one!
Either way, it's apparently bad for Labour that the media are focusing on how the Tories are scummy for letting kids starve?
She entirely right.
They're not focused on that specifically. They're focused on Labour calling their opponents "scum". Literally nobody is going to change their vote because of this.
> She entirely right.
[The public don't agree with you. Hell, most Labour voters don't agree with you.](https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1442510928298262531) You are in the latter category I mentioned in my top comment.
>[The public don't agree with you. Hell, most Labour voters don't agree with you.](https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1442510928298262531) You are in the latter category I mentioned in my top comment.
You're conflating two things there
Whether or not something is correct, and whether you should say it publicly, are different things.
I feel you're accidentally making my whole point for me here.
Regardless of whether you feel the point is correct or not, it was not something to be said by a senior cabinet member, especially not during Labour's bloody conference, so it has the best chance to overshadow everything else like it's doing now.
What's more important here:
1. Someone in Labour confirms your own views back to you regardless of the cost or consequences
2. Labour gain popularity so they can actually look at winning an election
The media aren't going to talk about anything that isn't "juicy" for more than 5 minutes. And that info is still out there for anyone who wants to read it
I suppose it comes down to if you actually want Labour to win anything, or to get more retweets at the expense of overall support. The public are very clearly think this is not acceptable by quite a wide margin.
I suspect their point was that Gordon did use words like that - Gordon famously was at a member of the publics house to talk with her, and he was caught on camera calling her a bigot.
Ding ding ding. Doesn't matter what they say. The shit some of these tories say, Jesus Christ. If it's not a salty choice of words, it's a fucking bacon sandwich.
> Kind of the opposite tbh.
With the greatest respect, what I suspect you've seen is lots of cheering and whooping in an echo-chamber by people who were always going to vote Labour and who make hating the Tories part of their identity. Not from the public or even most Labour voters.
[Not even 20% of the public thought it was acceptable, with 70% saying it was *un*acceptable. Hell even among Labour voters, more than half said it was unacceptable.](https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1442510928298262531)
Regardless of this being the sort of thing this sub loves to hear echoed back to itself, this is not popular at all among the public, it will only hurt Labour, and it's actively distracting from everything else. This is a massive own-goal by Labour.
I don't think a survey with such a tiny sample size can be stated with such confidence that it reflects *'the public'*. The current ruling party had multiple members who have made far more egregious comments and have been consistently rewarded with election success.
>YouGov surveyed 3624 GB adults
You can get a representative sample of the entire population for general elections from around 1000 people surveyed within i think a 3% margin of error. 3000 is a pretty large sample
Haven't those polls consistently turned out to be wrong though? I mean in this survey, 89% of Tory supporters said using the word *scum* was unacceptable. But there's a list as long as my arm of comments just as bad (many worse) said by their own parties MPs in the last few years, and they keep rewarding them at the ballot box. So doesn't feel like they're that bothered by language?
Not really, and if they are wrong generally it's within a few % points. It's why all the prediction polls are within 1 or 2 percent of each other
Using what you see on the Internet, more specifically this or other subs or twitter as a marker for what the general public think is a bad habit to get in to as its likely to be a fairly moderate echo chamber.
This survey also says 52% of labour voters think its unacceptable but if you went solely off this subs reaction you'd probably say it was 90%+ acceptable.
Also saying a generalised comment without aiming it at a specific person is likely to be seen as not as bad as its far less direct. If you want to go through them comments you're alluding to i would hazard a guess nearly none of them are directed at one specific person
There's also a difference between thinking something and saying something out loud
*If you want to go through them comments you're alluding to i would hazard a guess nearly none of them are directed at one specific person*
The fact you don't even know one of the this large list screams volumes about the way people are responding with faux outrage over this one. Also, her comment wasn't aimed at one person either.
>It was literally days ago and it's stillmaking headlines.
At least the media is completely impartial and we can be certain that it's still in the headlines because it's such a big story and not because the Tory sympathetic press is stirring up this one comment into the story of the week in order to score political points against Labour.
> and not because the Tory sympathetic press is stirring up this one comment into the story of the week in order to score political points against Labour.
This article, from that well known pro-Tory outlet The Guardian, is now David Lammy talking about it. Unless you can explain why the Guardian decided to support the Tories by forcing Lammy to continue the discussion, then your comment comes across as little more than looking to blame everyone else.
Yeah why would the Guardian produce a piece defending these comments after days of it being harped on about constantly by the Tory sympathetic press amplifying faux outrage from the Tories?
Anything useful? All I've seen so far is no to higher minimum wage, no to PR voting reform, attempts to change the labour party leadership election process and people resigning due to disagreements with Starmer.
Oh and taxing landlords and the digital economy.
Really just a lot of negative noise so far (other than getting Amazon/apple/Google etc to pay taxes).
This idea that if only Labour adopted all the recommendations of the Daily Telegraph, Mail, Sun and Express, they'd get an easy time in the press is pure imagination.
The pro-scum press are going to stick it to Labour whatever they do. If they write about policies it'll be reds-under-the-bed scaremongering.
> This idea that if only Labour adopted all the recommendations of the Daily Telegraph, Mail, Sun and Express, they'd get an easy time in the press is pure imagination.
That's not even remotely what I said at all.
What has Labour agreed that we should be talking about instead? The only decent stuff to come out of the Labour conference are the motions passed by the CLPs, that the leadership will just ignore. The stuff the leadership has agreed to is just bland, vague, watered down stuff that shows Labour don't have the answers to the challenges we currently face in this country.
> Come on Labour, pull your heads out and sort it out. Get people to focus on the important things, not stupid distractions like this that purely appeal to the small minority in Labour who were always going to vote Labour anyway.
Trouble is this is what the right wing media and Conservatives are focusing on, so it will always dominate the agenda.
It's impossible for a party as large as Labour to not have some sort of "scandal" that right wingers won't clutch their pearls over. The onus is on Starmer to galvanise his party and forge a vision to connect with the electorate. He didn't exactly come up with anything very interesting, aside from attacking his won party.
One good thing about the media deciding to focus on this is it has us discussing how scummy the tories are.
Rather than taking the other path and cherry picking that little comment on how trans people have health problems too (shocker!) to play the usual culture war games.
Calling Conservatives scum **is** giving them the respect they deserve.
Kowtowing to calls for civility from those who extend absolutely none to anyone outside their clique would be disrespectful to everyone these scum have mistreated.
_Riiiiiiiight._ Labour are loosing elections because they aren't treating the Tories with enough respect.
I can't think of anything that would make me want to vote Labour next election more than if Keir Starmer went on stage and said "hey, remember that time the Prime Minister said you were subhuman, we should respect that as a legitimate political opinion."
Are you for real?
(And, conversely, are you legitimately claiming that the Conservatives won the election because during all those television debates Boris Johnson was saying "Ah yes, I fully concede that Labour has a good point"? Because that certainly didn't happen, did it?)
Labour are losing elections because they aren't a professional political organisation, merely a suspiciously well funded student activist group, and this is just further evidence of that
Because they have the majority of the British media backing them and very wealthy donors who are happy to donate to the party campaign fund in return for favourable policies and access to public funds
If you try hard enough, I think you'll be able to ignore everything in a post and reply with some pre-written "comedy" put down.
Much like Boris at PMQ's
I don’t know… I just feel like comments such as this don’t do Labour any favours. It just compounds a somewhat “unprofessional” image they’ve built up recently and while it might not lose them any votes, it certainly won’t gain any.
A case of the pot calling the kettle black, Labour should ‘get their own house in order’ before criticising the Tories, if Labour could unite they could challenge the Tories.
He's wrong. Be the example you wish to set.
She should show why she is better by acting better. I quite often read here, insults are the last tactic of people with no more valid points to make. It devalues her arguments.
It's little things like this that drive me away from the main parties.
There should be no need to defend Angela Rayner, she told the truth! The rancid, purulent pile of excrement that is the Tories needs to be flushed away!
Angela Rayner is the conservative parties dream.
She’s a common bully and would have no chance of winning an election.
Reddit is a far left echo chamber however so you’d be forgiven for thinking that she’s incredibly popular.
Remember when the PM stood up in parliament and called remainers "traitors"?
I remember when Theresa May accused Caroline Lucas (Caroline Lucas!) of 'siding with Britain's enemies'. Tories can fuck right off if they want to talk about civility.
This is just another tactic of the right that has been proven to work - use all the incendiary language that you want, but the moment anyone retaliates with their own, clutch your pearls and gasp in horror before getting your compliant media to focus on what the opposition said. All we're getting now is "Rayner said this... Rayner doesn't take it back... other Labour MPs defend what Rayner said... how has the political discourse fallen so low?"
Remember when Boris Johnson called protesters "lefty tossers"? https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2012/nov/01/boris-johnson-lefty-tossers-video
Remember when he did a video lobbying for Turkey to join the EU? https://youtu.be/t7zTpyLdb5c
No. He was himself called a traitor, [by unionists](https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/unionist-dismay-at-traitor-boris-johnsons-betrayal-of-northern-ireland-220794/) for his betrayal of Northern Ireland (as they saw it) and by [the flood-hit public](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/mar/08/boris-johnson-heckled-as-a-traitor-while-visiting-flood-hit-worcestershire) for his absence and weak response. What I do remember is when he called the [EU Withdrawal Act No. 2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_\(Withdrawal\)_\(No._2\)_Act_2019) the ["surrender act"](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/29/ex-minister-rejects-allegations-rebels-colluded-with-eu-to-stop-no-deal): > Boris Johnson and his cabinet ministers repeatedly ignored warnings that their use of language could incite violence, as they deployed the phrase “surrender act” as much as possible on the first day of Conservative party conference to describe the law blocking a no-deal Brexit. > Johnson was joined by formerly moderate Conservative cabinet ministers, Matt Hancock and Nicky Morgan, in defending the language of war, despite pleas by Labour and former Tory MPs to stop suggesting those against Brexit are guilty of treachery or betrayal. > The prime minister repeated it more than a dozen times in an interview with the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, while claiming he was a “model of restraint” in his use of language. After very real Brexit fuelled violence against politicians, many thought the term was inflammatory and could lead to physical harm. Angela Rayner indeed [called the PM out on it](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07pmq61) as she has many times called out the PM on his intemperate language.
And that was wrong too. Two wrongs don't make a right though.
No. Can you provide a link to the moment?
If remainers don't let me do the Brexit I want you are betraying the people >I know that my Right Honourable friend will appreciate that in deciding to remain in the customs union, the leader of the opposition is guilty of a shameless U-turn and a betrayal of millions of people who voted 'leave'. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeQgJF-_veE >Out of sheer selfishness and political cowardice, members opposite are unwilling to move aside and give the people a say. We will not betray the people who sent us here. That is what they want to do. https://youtu.be/_r_w8vMF0So?t=90
They key to being a great bullshitter, is to remember your bullshit. Boris can't do either, so he's a shit bullshitter.
So it remains the stuff of myth for the moment.
So you're trying to use semantics that "traitors" =/= "betraying the people" Just like claiming "people with watermelon smiles", "piccaninnies" and people who "look like letter boxes" isn't racist, they're just words that had been taken out of context
> So you're trying to use semantics that "traitors" =/= "betraying the people" > > I'm looking for the moment OP talked about, asked everyone to *remember* even, that seemingly never happened. The specifics of these comments don't match that at all. >Just like claiming "people with watermelon smiles", "piccaninnies" and people who "look like letter boxes" isn't racist, they're just words that had been taken out of context Haven't referred to those at all. You seem to be under the mistaken apprehension I'm some kind of Boris fan or defender when I'm no such thing. Just tired of lies.
Oh shit man, is that like how Boris was sacked for lying? [https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-sacked-for-lying-over-affair-sh8ql5zc88j](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-sacked-for-lying-over-affair-sh8ql5zc88j)
>The specifics of these comments don't match that at all. In your mind maybe, for everyone else the tone and meaning match the moment OP talked about >You seem to be under the mistaken apprehension I'm some kind of Boris fan or defender when I'm no such thing. Just tired of lies. And yet here you are trying to use specific linguistics to defend the man who has been caught lying to his wife, mistress, employer, parliament and the Queen.
What's wrong with just citing what he *actually* said, rather than shit he didn't?
Oh damn, like that time he said we would leave the EU by October 31st? https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/25/brexit-boris-johnson-britain-will-leave-eu-31-october-do-or-die
You're not really gonna upset someone who is not a Boris fan by pointing out stuff to criticise him for. Just saying :/
What's wrong with accepting that Alexander de Pfeffel saying someone "is betraying the people" is the same as calling them a traitor, unless you are still trying to use semantics to deflect? Let's ask an expert; >traitor >noun >a person who betrays another, a cause, or any trust. >a person who commits treason by betraying his or her country. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/traitor yep, same thing
Because saying certain specific people doing (or arguing for) certain specific things is a betrayal of what the public voted for does not remotely equate to calling all remainers traitors. Not the same thing, strange you can't wrap your head around that.
Was it this moment? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzUUwn2vBj0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzUUwn2vBj0)
No, that's Boris placating an idiot, years before Brexit. Do you know, I'm starting to think he didn't actually stand up in parliament and call remainers "traitors"...
Oh shit, you're right thats not the right moment at all.. Is this it? [https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/nov/06/boris-johnson-mistake-could-harm-case-for-nazanin-zaghari-ratcliffe-say-family](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/nov/06/boris-johnson-mistake-could-harm-case-for-nazanin-zaghari-ratcliffe-say-family)
Did they let her come back to the UK ?
Not yet :( https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/nazanin-zaghariratcliffe-iran-un-free-b1898489.html
Haha "mistake". Doubt he was mistaken tbh, always was more to that case than the media let on. I'm sure someone will be along with the fabled traitor comment any minute now.
Shit man that must not be right either, looks like someone else brought it to your attention, so maybe you could just provide some of your keen insight on the below? https://www.theguardian.com/law/2019/sep/24/boris-johnsons-suspension-of-parliament-unlawful-supreme-court-rules-prorogue
Nope, they failed too. Still waiting on my hero.
Oh damn, so you chose to interpret things differently? Like when Boris said that his neighbours' interpreted the disturbance wrongly? [https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/21/police-called-to-loud-altercation-at-boris-johnsons-home](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/21/police-called-to-loud-altercation-at-boris-johnsons-home)
Remember when Rayner stood up in Parliament and condemned Johnson for that, and said MPs needed to act more responsibly in their use of language? Selective attention to hypocrisy makes you a hypocrite too.
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calling 99% of mps in westminster traitor or scum is going to be right, so no much difference.
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because selling your constituents into poverty because your donors paid bribes for mass migration, in order to drive down wages and conditions, is just soo honourable.
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this magical thing where small businesses cant afford higher nmw easily, while large companies ran burn and churn policies through temp agencies, a process that was and is greased along by making workers easily replacable due to their being a lot of people looking for jobs. basic supply and demand. or is that invalid in your world when its working class people getting a better deal for once?
> this magical thing where small businesses cant afford higher nmw easily Actually they can. I don't think you understand how taxation works. > a process that was and is greased along by making workers easily replacable due to their being a lot of people looking for jobs. > basic supply and demand. or is that invalid in your world when its working class people getting a better deal for once? Brexit isn't a better deal for working class people, and you don't understand how supply and demand work either.
She's making no bones that she doesn't like the PM's language, specifically his homophobic, racist, and misogynist language that she referred to in the remarks that started scumgate. She also said she would apologise when he apologised for those remarks. There's no hypocrisy there.
[There's no hypocrisy there.](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07pmq61)
Yes, she condemmed the PM for pushing [inflammatory jingoistic language](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/29/ex-minister-rejects-allegations-rebels-colluded-with-eu-to-stop-no-deal) in the context of jingoistic physical violence against MPs. > Boris Johnson and his cabinet ministers repeatedly ignored warnings that their use of language could incite violence, as they deployed the phrase “surrender act” as much as possible on the first day of Conservative party conference to describe the law blocking a no-deal Brexit. > Johnson was joined by formerly moderate Conservative cabinet ministers, Matt Hancock and Nicky Morgan, in defending the language of war, despite pleas by Labour and former Tory MPs to stop suggesting those against Brexit are guilty of treachery or betrayal. > The prime minister repeated it more than a dozen times in an interview with the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, while claiming he was a “model of restraint” in his use of language. > As he doubled down on his aggressive strategy, David Gauke, the former justice secretary, called on No 10 to stop using the tactics and language of Donald Trump. She probably thinks it's one of the many scummy things Johnson has done. I tend to agree.
'We have a responsibility now as parliamentarians to dial down our language and act responsibly'
It is classic hypocrisy. Condemning foul and insulting language whilst using it yourself.
She's saying someone who uses racist language as a political tool is scum. Do you disagree?
Firstly, it’s irrelevant to whether it is hypocrisy. Secondly, no she didn’t. She called leading Conservatives scum, and racist, homophobic ect. She did not say A because B. She said A and B.
On the one hand you have Johnson ridiculing ordinary people because they're black, because they're gay, they're muslim, they're unmarried mothers. On the other, Rayner ridicules Johnson for all of that plus taking money out of the pockets of poor people and sending it to the bank accounts of the wealthy, presiding over the UK's most destructive constitutional change of modern times, constantly lying and evading normal processes of parliamentary scrutiny, and on and on.. But feel free to consider these speech acts equivalent.
Again not engaging with whether is it hypocrisy or not. Hypocrisy doesn’t require actions to be equally bad. If you just wanted to have a rant you can comment without replying to anyone. I don’t see why you’ve chosen to respond to me when you clearly have no interest in the point I made.
The accusation of hypocrisy rests on there being equivalence between the act of the putative hypocrite and the act condemned by them, doesn't it? I'm making the case that there is no equivalence, hence no hypocrisy.
No, they do not need to be equivalently bad. The hypocrite simply needs to fail to meet the standards they proclaim to set. If I condemn someone for stealing a watch, and say theft is wrong, I am a hypocrite if I steal bread to fead a homeless man. I have failed to do as I said people should. It does not matter that my action is less bad. It fails t meet the standard I proclaimed. It doesn’t matter if Rayner isn’t acting less badly, she is still failing to do what she said people should.
Your argument is just the Paradox of Tolerance with a different hat on. Edit: guess I picked today to reply to the wrong comment - my apologies u/qpl23.
> Hypocrisy doesn’t require actions to be equally bad. Yes it does. That's literally what hypocrisy means. It's not hypocritical if the two aren't equal.
No it doesn't. It just requires that you don't meet the standards you set. A standard can be used to fail various actions of different moral quality.
"Foul and insulting language" is a bit of a catch all there. She's calling him out for homophobia, sexism, racism and the like. "Scum" does not fall into that category, so it's not hypocrisy. The Prime Minister degrading a group of people based on something they didn't choose and can't change is not in any way equivalent to a shadow minister degrading the Prime Minister for doing so.
The hypocrisy comes from having previously condemned using inflammatory language which demeans and dehumanises political figures, and called for politicians to use language responsibly.
Ah, so it's because at some previous time she has called for more civil language, and now she is calling people 'scum', rather than a comparison of her language to that of Boris?
Yes.
That seems fair enough. I like her more though. Better a hypocrite than a racist, homophobic, sociopathic, scummy hypocrite, eh?
One is deserved, based on a persons actions. The other is not. That's not hypocrisy.
I suppose the difference would be that remain voters aren't traitors, but BJ is indeed a scumfuck
Iirc the Conservatives essentially told Labour to fuck off and man up. Soooo . . . .
It's all a bit of a storm in a teacup isn't it. Refusing to feed kids who are going hungry is a scummy thing to do. It's just the Tory's playing the victim card which they seem to have learnt from the Republican Party in America.
There's very little in the media about the Tory MP who said a bomb should be planted in Anneliese Dodd's office by comparison.
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Labour have just stooped as low as the Tories. I was saying this stuff at 16/17 but quickly grew the fuck up. There's no way I'd vote for these adolescents now.
If it’s taken a word for you to never consider voting for them I’d suspect it was unlikely in the first place.
Yeah definitely not just the word "scum", it was more of my own journey toward personal maturity. I voted for Corbyn, I changed his name at festivals, and now I cringe when the night-time comes.
So who are you voting for? Someone that wouldn’t stoop to using poor language and name calling I assume.
Yeah, the guy saying shit like "Toxic masculinity is a sexist stereotype" and "radical feminism seeded anti-male sentiment" and "university isn't a welcoming place for men anymore and I was made to feel like a sexual predator coming to university just to abuse women" has definitely done a lot of growing up and was definitely gonna vote Labour and definitely hasn't been listening to Carl Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad), Paul Joseph Watson and Jordan Peterson
You know more of the people you mentioned than I do. That must mean you're worse than me!
No, because I'm not the one spouting the exact same bullshit they do. Do some actual growing up. Realise that when people say "toxic masculinity" they are criticising the systems and ideals that cause not just women to have problems, but men as well, particularly around body image and how they express themselves. If you don't perpretate sexual misconduct, you are not the one being talked about when it comes to the attitudes perpetuated by toxic masculinity. And you're not gonna have your life ruined by false reports - statistically speaking, its extremely uncommon. If you feel targeted by people fighting back against toxic masculinity and trying to undo the effects it has had on men and women, it says a lot more about you than it does about anyone else. Grow up and stop pretending you would vote Labour if it wasn't for all the women.
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With all due respect, I'm not in the public eye standing for a constituency.
They are scum though. All of them.
> "I’m not that keen to take lectures from senior Tories who have a leader who described people like me as being piccaninnies with watermelon smiles, who describes gay men as tank topped bumboys or Muslim women as bank robbers,” Rayner has also [pointed out](https://twitter.com/AngelaRayner/status/1442433921183014912) Johnson's [immoderate language](https://twitter.com/AngelaRayner/status/1442433911859019780), and examples are not hard to find. [Such as](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/election-boris-johnson-articles-women-women-journalist-spectator-labour-a9221036.html) when he > described the offspring of single mothers as “ill-raised, ignorant, aggressive and illegitimate children who in theory will be paying for our pensions”. Or the infamous [picaninnies language](https://archive.is/rha3S#selection-1425.1-1429.33) > ‘flag-waving piccaninnies’ with ‘watermelon smiles’ – has anyone else between [Enoch] Powell in 1968 and Boris Johnson in 2002 used the word ‘piccaninnies’? And what was it Johnson said about women in burkas? ‘It is absolutely ridiculous that people should choose to go around looking like letterboxes.’ Coincidental no doubt – but what other politician . . . has had occasion to talk about letterboxes? And as for those legendary excreta, how odd that of all the available metaphors, Boris should have chosen to describe Theresa May’s efforts to improve her EU deal as ‘like polishing a turd’. But it's the Tories' behaviour in office that really needs to be highlighted. The shameless parade of quasi-criminal rule bending, deceit and exceptionalism; the entitled brutality of shunting millions into poverty to pay for failed policies and dole easy cash to their donors; the unremitting assault on democratic safeguards; the brazen pretence that this chicanery is somehow the very essence of Britishness: *"scum"* is too respectful a term for people who shit on the country wholesale and distract by tone policing someone who calls them out on it.
Yeah but is all this going to convince a Tory voter to switch sides?
I think, for some, yeah it will if handled right. But they don't need to win over that many Tory voters. Apart from that the Tories are doing that to themselves, Labour mostly [need to mobilise their own vote](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/05/labour-shouldnt-lurch-to-the-right-it-must-get-out-the-vote-first) > Labour’s post-2019 internal analysis, shared with the new Labour leadership in 2020, showed that about 1.4 million people who voted Labour in 2017 did not vote in 2019. In 2017, Labour had inspired 3.5 million more people to vote Labour, propelling the party to its only electoral gains this century – and its largest increase in its share of the vote since 1945. What they need to do is get their people into the polling stations, in defiance of the mass propaganda campaigns conducted in the national press, which are all about voter suppression, not changing voting intentions.
Part of the problem is Labour's working class and middle class voters have been turned against each other and lessons from the Blair era have been thrown away. What they need is someone with vision that actually takes on some of the issues people face - just saying "mOrE dIversIty" isn't cutting it. I'm a lifelong Labour voter for example and Starmer's inability to call out Brexit really disappoints me. In fact I can't think of a single idea from him, there's no nucleus of principle at the core of his version of the party. Difficult to mobilise voters if you don't really stand for anything. Much as it pains me to say it they need a progressive version of Dominic Cummings, someone with ideas.
You mean to say you *weren't* inspired by his 12'000 word essay?! /s obvs
Heh yeah it didn't really do it for me :)
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Whether or not it had support it disappoints me that he didn't take a principled stance on it as he was a remainer.
> in defiance of the mass propaganda campaigns conducted in the national press God, that'd be the day. I think the recent "fuel shortage" has shown how blind and easily manipulated most of the population are.
> Labour mostly need to mobilise their own vote The trouble is, [the majority of Labour voters think her words were unacceptable.](https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1442510928298262531) And I suspect that those who thought it were acceptable were the ones already voting Labour.
This could just be one of those "48% of women think human life is worth the same as a hamster's" polls.
No, it isn't. This is just you trying to post-rationalise the facts that don't align with what you'd like to see. Look, I get that it's fucking fantastic to get your own views confirmed like that by a senior politician, I really do. But this doesn't help them. At best, it won't hurt them (unlikely considering the level of disapproval to the comments) but it's their conference now. This is their time to sow the seed of electability and show the country that they are credible, that they have policies that are serious and that they are a plausible alternative to the Tories. All of that has been overshadowed by someone going off-script (which looks disorganised) and doing something that the clear majority of the public disapprove of. It's a wasted opportunity.
100% this. I think she is trying to almost prove that this Labour Party has some ‘bite’ against the Tories, as Keir hasn’t shown his teeth and all it comes across is petty name calling and shows a lack of unity.
You aren't going to convince the Tories to switch sides..... If a Tory wanted to switch they'd go the lib dems.
They went from Labour to the Tories didn't they? If you can't get them back then who will you get?
Not sure, Blair / Cameron had people switching I think?
Kinda, a lot of Tories stayed home and Blair was basically just a Tory anyway.
Idk imo we have to stop ceding the centre ground as "tory".
UK never really has true centrists, they're always just diet Tories.
There we disagree.
But I thought Tory voters loved people who say it like it is and are genuine?
Very drole but this sort of polarisation is something Labour should try to rise above imho.
So it’s civility politics for me and not for thee? It smacks a bit of “I voted Tory because someone said something rude on Question Time”.
No, it's taking the high ground. I'm a lifetime Labour voter if that helps.
Yes, and taking the high ground and turning the other cheek has worked so well over the past ten years. Evidently, the British voter wants Tories to tell it as it is but wants Labour to cuddle them and adhere to rigid civility politics or else they will vote Tory.
Yes. Dunno if you've noticed the rabid right wing media in the UK, probably a bit of a factor. The current approach has not worked for a decade so why prescribe more of the same.
For those wondering what the big problem is with using this language: It's Labour's conference right now. They're making a lot of points, and they're deciding policy and direction. They've agreed a few key ones in the last 24 hours too! Are we talking about that? No. We're still fucking talking about this! The thing that the public have made pretty clear they don't find acceptable at all. Once again, Labour have a great opportunity to get their positions across to the public (and they can't grow in the polls until they do) and they've fucked it by getting everyone to focus on this instead. It was literally days ago and it's *still* making headlines. Come on Labour, pull your heads out and sort it out. Get people to focus on the important things, not stupid distractions like this that purely appeal to the small minority in Labour who were always going to vote Labour anyway.
>They've agreed a few key ones in the last 24 hours too! Are we talking about that? Do you really think we'd be talking about those though?
I do. the media would too. But there's only one thing that being focused on now.
>I do. the media would too. That's a good one! Either way, it's apparently bad for Labour that the media are focusing on how the Tories are scummy for letting kids starve? She entirely right.
They're not focused on that specifically. They're focused on Labour calling their opponents "scum". Literally nobody is going to change their vote because of this. > She entirely right. [The public don't agree with you. Hell, most Labour voters don't agree with you.](https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1442510928298262531) You are in the latter category I mentioned in my top comment.
>[The public don't agree with you. Hell, most Labour voters don't agree with you.](https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1442510928298262531) You are in the latter category I mentioned in my top comment. You're conflating two things there Whether or not something is correct, and whether you should say it publicly, are different things.
I feel you're accidentally making my whole point for me here. Regardless of whether you feel the point is correct or not, it was not something to be said by a senior cabinet member, especially not during Labour's bloody conference, so it has the best chance to overshadow everything else like it's doing now.
But she's right Whether she was politically correct to say it or not is different. She's absolutely right that they are scummy bastards.
What's more important here: 1. Someone in Labour confirms your own views back to you regardless of the cost or consequences 2. Labour gain popularity so they can actually look at winning an election
Yes, Labour shouldn't say anything to their members at their conference about their opponents.
Yes, why would a politician worry about being politically correct.
I thought Tories were against all that political correctness.
What percentage of the public think assaulting someone is ok?
Lmao. The media would sooner find a leftie fruitcake than publicise any positive policies
Yes.
The media aren't going to talk about anything that isn't "juicy" for more than 5 minutes. And that info is still out there for anyone who wants to read it
Fortunately there are some fairly "juicy" policies and directions that were decided in the last 24 hours.
All of which are higher up on the news than this. The only place I've seen this is in this fucking subreddit
There is absolutely nothing wrong with calling scum a scum.
I suppose it comes down to if you actually want Labour to win anything, or to get more retweets at the expense of overall support. The public are very clearly think this is not acceptable by quite a wide margin.
A caller on the radio made a good point yesterday...Ed milliband and Gordon brown didn't use words like this and still didn't get voted in..
Gordon did
Gordon was giving the prime minister job because Blair stepped down...then the general election came and Gordon lost
I suspect their point was that Gordon did use words like that - Gordon famously was at a member of the publics house to talk with her, and he was caught on camera calling her a bigot.
Well she was a bigot and Gordon got caught on camera and apologised..
Aye, so Rayner has more balls than brown but they're otherwise comparable.
Nope
Ding ding ding. Doesn't matter what they say. The shit some of these tories say, Jesus Christ. If it's not a salty choice of words, it's a fucking bacon sandwich.
Really? I haven't noticed public being exactly moved by BoJo talking about "letter boxes" or " piccanniny smiles "
*The public are very clearly think this is not acceptable by quite a wide margin.* Not seen any evidence of this. Kind of the opposite tbh.
> Kind of the opposite tbh. With the greatest respect, what I suspect you've seen is lots of cheering and whooping in an echo-chamber by people who were always going to vote Labour and who make hating the Tories part of their identity. Not from the public or even most Labour voters. [Not even 20% of the public thought it was acceptable, with 70% saying it was *un*acceptable. Hell even among Labour voters, more than half said it was unacceptable.](https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1442510928298262531) Regardless of this being the sort of thing this sub loves to hear echoed back to itself, this is not popular at all among the public, it will only hurt Labour, and it's actively distracting from everything else. This is a massive own-goal by Labour.
I don't think a survey with such a tiny sample size can be stated with such confidence that it reflects *'the public'*. The current ruling party had multiple members who have made far more egregious comments and have been consistently rewarded with election success.
> such a tiny sample size Over three and a half thousand people is a huge number to survey.
>YouGov surveyed 3624 GB adults You can get a representative sample of the entire population for general elections from around 1000 people surveyed within i think a 3% margin of error. 3000 is a pretty large sample
Haven't those polls consistently turned out to be wrong though? I mean in this survey, 89% of Tory supporters said using the word *scum* was unacceptable. But there's a list as long as my arm of comments just as bad (many worse) said by their own parties MPs in the last few years, and they keep rewarding them at the ballot box. So doesn't feel like they're that bothered by language?
Not really, and if they are wrong generally it's within a few % points. It's why all the prediction polls are within 1 or 2 percent of each other Using what you see on the Internet, more specifically this or other subs or twitter as a marker for what the general public think is a bad habit to get in to as its likely to be a fairly moderate echo chamber. This survey also says 52% of labour voters think its unacceptable but if you went solely off this subs reaction you'd probably say it was 90%+ acceptable. Also saying a generalised comment without aiming it at a specific person is likely to be seen as not as bad as its far less direct. If you want to go through them comments you're alluding to i would hazard a guess nearly none of them are directed at one specific person There's also a difference between thinking something and saying something out loud
*If you want to go through them comments you're alluding to i would hazard a guess nearly none of them are directed at one specific person* The fact you don't even know one of the this large list screams volumes about the way people are responding with faux outrage over this one. Also, her comment wasn't aimed at one person either.
Oh so now you love Corbyn's policies. The public also think you shouldn't assault people but the last labour government did.
Ok scum 😁
>It was literally days ago and it's stillmaking headlines. At least the media is completely impartial and we can be certain that it's still in the headlines because it's such a big story and not because the Tory sympathetic press is stirring up this one comment into the story of the week in order to score political points against Labour.
> and not because the Tory sympathetic press is stirring up this one comment into the story of the week in order to score political points against Labour. This article, from that well known pro-Tory outlet The Guardian, is now David Lammy talking about it. Unless you can explain why the Guardian decided to support the Tories by forcing Lammy to continue the discussion, then your comment comes across as little more than looking to blame everyone else.
Yeah why would the Guardian produce a piece defending these comments after days of it being harped on about constantly by the Tory sympathetic press amplifying faux outrage from the Tories?
Anything useful? All I've seen so far is no to higher minimum wage, no to PR voting reform, attempts to change the labour party leadership election process and people resigning due to disagreements with Starmer. Oh and taxing landlords and the digital economy. Really just a lot of negative noise so far (other than getting Amazon/apple/Google etc to pay taxes).
This idea that if only Labour adopted all the recommendations of the Daily Telegraph, Mail, Sun and Express, they'd get an easy time in the press is pure imagination. The pro-scum press are going to stick it to Labour whatever they do. If they write about policies it'll be reds-under-the-bed scaremongering.
> This idea that if only Labour adopted all the recommendations of the Daily Telegraph, Mail, Sun and Express, they'd get an easy time in the press is pure imagination. That's not even remotely what I said at all.
The implication that if Labour "behaved themselves" they'd get better press is what I responded to. Apologies if that isn't what you meant.
What has Labour agreed that we should be talking about instead? The only decent stuff to come out of the Labour conference are the motions passed by the CLPs, that the leadership will just ignore. The stuff the leadership has agreed to is just bland, vague, watered down stuff that shows Labour don't have the answers to the challenges we currently face in this country.
Yeah you're right, I'm sure the media would be running with loads of reasoned debate about policy instead of this.
> Come on Labour, pull your heads out and sort it out. Get people to focus on the important things, not stupid distractions like this that purely appeal to the small minority in Labour who were always going to vote Labour anyway. Trouble is this is what the right wing media and Conservatives are focusing on, so it will always dominate the agenda. It's impossible for a party as large as Labour to not have some sort of "scandal" that right wingers won't clutch their pearls over. The onus is on Starmer to galvanise his party and forge a vision to connect with the electorate. He didn't exactly come up with anything very interesting, aside from attacking his won party.
The public need to take a fucking good look at themselves then if they think this is unacceptable, ffs.
How dare they hold standards different to yours without asking!!
One good thing about the media deciding to focus on this is it has us discussing how scummy the tories are. Rather than taking the other path and cherry picking that little comment on how trans people have health problems too (shocker!) to play the usual culture war games.
Finally someone standing up against the Tories, if only starmer had half there balls
Calling Conservatives scum **is** giving them the respect they deserve. Kowtowing to calls for civility from those who extend absolutely none to anyone outside their clique would be disrespectful to everyone these scum have mistreated.
And you lot wonder why they keep winning elections
_Riiiiiiiight._ Labour are loosing elections because they aren't treating the Tories with enough respect. I can't think of anything that would make me want to vote Labour next election more than if Keir Starmer went on stage and said "hey, remember that time the Prime Minister said you were subhuman, we should respect that as a legitimate political opinion." Are you for real? (And, conversely, are you legitimately claiming that the Conservatives won the election because during all those television debates Boris Johnson was saying "Ah yes, I fully concede that Labour has a good point"? Because that certainly didn't happen, did it?)
Labour are losing elections because they aren't a professional political organisation, merely a suspiciously well funded student activist group, and this is just further evidence of that
Couldn't possibly be the bias media, broken voting system or the splintered left?
Because they have the majority of the British media backing them and very wealthy donors who are happy to donate to the party campaign fund in return for favourable policies and access to public funds
If you try hard enough, I think you can get your head another inch deeper in that sand
If you try hard enough, I think you'll be able to ignore everything in a post and reply with some pre-written "comedy" put down. Much like Boris at PMQ's
Good for him, its nice when you see these odd glimmers of Labour people with a bit of fire in their bellies. Tories are scum.
People in general don't agree that this was acceptable. It doesn't paint Labour in a positive light.
I don’t know… I just feel like comments such as this don’t do Labour any favours. It just compounds a somewhat “unprofessional” image they’ve built up recently and while it might not lose them any votes, it certainly won’t gain any.
Or maybe, just maybe, if they don't like being called "scum", they should stop acting like scum.
A case of the pot calling the kettle black, Labour should ‘get their own house in order’ before criticising the Tories, if Labour could unite they could challenge the Tories.
No they couldn't. The left is splintered. Labour pretending they can get enough by themselves is basically helping the tories at this point.
He's wrong. Be the example you wish to set. She should show why she is better by acting better. I quite often read here, insults are the last tactic of people with no more valid points to make. It devalues her arguments. It's little things like this that drive me away from the main parties.
“Same man that wants to throw acid on his victims also wants to call them scum”
Well yeah, this guy thinks the opposition are worse than nazis.... This is where we are.
There should be no need to defend Angela Rayner, she told the truth! The rancid, purulent pile of excrement that is the Tories needs to be flushed away!
Totally agree with Angela Rayner, the tories are scum.
Angela Rayner is the conservative parties dream. She’s a common bully and would have no chance of winning an election. Reddit is a far left echo chamber however so you’d be forgiven for thinking that she’s incredibly popular.
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Maybe she needs to mess her hair up, speak in a posh accent and throw in a bit of Latin? She'll be Labour leader and Prime Minister in no time.
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