Posts by Matthew Andrews

  • Speaker: Britain: the crisis isn't…,

    Good to see all the predictions like this one were wrong. I hope the numerous commentators making these predictions look again at the detail and context rather than the opinion polls and the red tops. There was a lot in the polls, the campaign, and previous experiences around Brexit, Sanders, and Trump to give wiser heads pause for thought. Maybe better thought out comment from the commentators would give us a better understanding of where we are actually at in terms of politics and democracy - instead we get ill informed pieces such as this one providing no insight as to what the actual state of the polity is.

    London • Since Apr 2017 • 3 posts Report

  • Speaker: Britain: the crisis isn't…, in reply to Nick Russell,

    And this, right here, is why the Labour Party is f*cked. I hope the last person to leave will turn out the lights, and leave Corbyn in charge of an empty room. Maybe then he and Momentum will finally be happy

    Labour now has the largest membership of any party in Western Europe. This does mean something - it is highly unlikely in the UK that you would get 500,000 people that have views that are strongly enough held to pay to join an organisation, but at the same time be so completely out of step with public opinion that the party has no future.

    London • Since Apr 2017 • 3 posts Report

  • Speaker: Britain: the crisis isn't…, in reply to Russell Brown,

    That doesn't really prove anything - I know a lot of Labour Party members (and am one) who are very happy that the party actually stands for something now (surely the leadership votes are a better indication of what the party members think than what a few friends think?), the 26,000 leaving reporting was a bit of spin: it includes lapsed memberships, came after 1000s of new members were not allowed to vote in the leadership election and estimates, but it was represented as an exodus from Corbyn's leadership. And Momentum changed the membership rules in response to criticism - not forcing all members of Momentum join Labour, rather only allowing Labour members to join Momentum. And seriously - the entryism comment?

    This post is really disappointing. There is no analysis, no balance, no insight and it a looks a lot like a lot of Guardian comment pieces (thankfully not so much now the election has been called) - if it contained a few capitalised action words and talked about the loony left it could have come from the Express. There is the potential for something interesting at the beginning - either in terms of May's reasons for calling the election (election fraud charges making her majority less secure - as both SNP and UKIP have called it) or in terms of the volatility of politics in this country, and many other countries, particularly regarding the opinion polls - the Brexit referendum is being seen as a possible game changer for the political landscape here, but no-one really knows if it will pan out that way. All of this makes the election quite volatile - a number of commentators are saying they think May has made a big tactical error. It does look likely that the Conservatives will win - but that doesn't mean its inevitable or that Labour party the rank and file have given up. We haven't.

    London • Since Apr 2017 • 3 posts Report