Yes, oppositonalism will certainly have a growth spurt…

You’re half right.

A bigger reason is that their ideologies do not stand up to scrutiny. They operate as a faith. Like a religion. And as such they are not hampered by scientific truth, economics, statistics, history or current events or even the truth before their own lying eyes.

That’s why you always hear them speak in intangibles.

And speaking in intangibles doesn’t really stand up online, where every point can be backed up with a link to hard evidence. Many of the right wing blogs succeed in this way. They speak in tangibles. And as such their arguments are far more powerful.

But you’re right about the heckling. You see that much more on left wing blogs. Just look at how often online posters like Sunny resorts to an irrelevant personal attack.

You see, deep-down, the left know they can’t really win the argument.

But that doesn’t prevent them from being hungry for power or influence.

Really? People will hold you to this assertion, now immortalized on the web. The reason left-wing mentalities never succeed online or anywhere else is simple: they are envious and resent success in others, preferring to smear, snipe, backstab, undermine and heckle. Such is their lot.

Are you now so completely devoid of ideas, intellect and originality that you are reduced to “digging up dirt on the opposition”?

Being a Socialist,you don’t understand money.I’m telling you that you will be unable to steal from one section of society to give to another.People have been working on a solution to irrational thought for several years now.It’s all done bar the shouting (and it will be the Socialists who shout together with the few who knew what was what but were happy to profit).I hate Socialism because it is theft.That will change very shortly.I’m looking forward to it.

I believe in:

- equality of opportunity (which would mean, in Boyo’s Socialist Utopia) a banning of private education and health, for example, along with a pay differential which did not exceed 10 X from bottom to top

- equality of being, which would enforce biological equality through the law and state institutions. It is ideological in so much as it is post-Enlightenment and views all religions/ cultural traditions as strictly private matters that should not curtail the above rights.

- economically it is relatively pragmatic, based on what works (private ownership of public transport, no, telecommunications, yes)

er… that’s pretty much it.

What your “liberal left” means to me is

- next to none of the above (ok, maybe the last)
- an atomisation of Socialism in to single-issueism to suit the agenda (divide and rule) of the bourgeois.
- a consolidation of inequality, in particular based upon ethnicity, which is essentially racist

That your supposedly “liberal left” is now the mainstream is the greatest tragedy of all, and a massive win for the forces of inequality.

I’d love for you to persuade me otherwise Sunny.

But would the SNP garner much support south of the wall? After all, its main selling point is Scottish independence. Simon Heffer might vote for you I suppose.

Sunny:

A danger? I would say rather that such a split would resolve many of the differences amongst lefties.

This is what raises Labour’s failure to almost Shakespearean proportions – they have largely succeeded in the fundamentals of government but have been brought low by the very thing they once mastered: being liked.

I didn’t say talkboards were enough, but the original point still stands.

Rumbold – we’ve talked about the split between the liberal-left and old-school conservative Labour vote before. I don’t think a big split is going to happen but yes there is that danger. It needs to be addressed.

Confusing that is exactly what has got the left into trouble. I take the point that there is an issue about how this debate has been framed, but framing is only one thing.

Working within that framework – the art of the possible – is more important in having an impact. Rants on talkboards don’t cut the mustard I’m afraid.

I’ve got a whole bunch of polls and stats to show otherwise. I think the problem is the way the left frame the debate.

I’ll write more about this another time. But I’m happy on economic grounds. The problem with the Labour party was their perceived economic incompetence and lack of pragmatism rather than people rejecting the welfare state (which is one big redistribution programme).

Aren’t you looking forward to all the decisions over the next five years being made by people like him?

Asian countries may have a relatively small central government they do have very large local government so the comparisons can be a bit misleading. Additionally, what many places don’t have is a national NHS.

The really interesting question is whether in the event of an Asian credit crunch their governments would let shareholders go under.

I suspect that Europe is actually rather stronger than it looks at first glance – as has been the case at many points in history.

I’d sort of agree that Labour, as it sees itself, is a busted flush. I don’t think the SDP is the last switch we will ever see. I’d have thought that a lot of the Labour Party would be happier with a Liberal train of thought.

Still, it just makes my lot stronger. For we are the true left.

Any chance that an SNP candidate could be elected much beyond Berwick upon Tweed? If we could take over Newcastle, Manchester and Liverpool, well. A bear may dream. This awful state ought to be put to bed. And that includes Labour, Tories and Libertarians

Brilliant!

Hard to believe that we have such differing memories of the 1970s. I’d always been under the impression that the whole pre-Thatcherite Price Commission/Exchange Controls/98% marginal tax rates/In Place of Strife/British Leyland era was a bit left wing. If that era was too right wing for you, and the level of state intervention too inadequate, then so be it. Each to his own.

As for the demographics thing, yes the conventional wisdom is that the UK is well-placed. But a lot of demographic projections (Lester Brown, Paul Ehrlich) in the last 50 years have proven hopelessly wrong because they relied excessively on extrapolation. I reckon that the same is true in the UK. A combination of the new points system, new Tory restrictions, a weaker sterling and the unwinding of the A8 effect (ie Poles returning home as the living standard gap to their home countries narrows) means that immigration projections might be too high. Investing is all about betting against conventional wisdom, and in this case I’m willing to take that bet in as much as it impacts real house prices in the UK.

Oh. For the record, I didn’t advocate banks going to the wall. I advocated bank’s shareholders and bondholders going to the wall. Big difference

The left-leaning classical liberals (there are a few of them), would then decamp to one of the two groupings on the right: the first would have a much more libertarian flavour, with the focus on trusting individuals (big statists being motivated by fear and distrust of people- see socialism), and free markets. The second would be a hard-right rump, socially consevative, pro-business, anti-immigration, etc.

I do hope so!

* The Blessed George Orwell found a quote somewhere or other: ” … the octopus of fascism has sung its swan song”

I remember the 70s and 80s relatively well.

I searched in vain for arguments in your post to disagree with, but there didn’t appear to be any.

“Pure socialism” in the 1970s?! “Demographic trend in the next 10 years”?! This in the only country in Europe which has projected population growth.

I’m glad I don’t come to you for investment advice.

As for the “policies” I would “implement”, well we’ll have to agree to disagree – so you and the Tory party, alone among Govts and most serious economists would have let the banks go to the wall.

One does not have to have an A level in economics (which i don’t, although my wife has a couple of doctorates) to know what happened the last time they did that. But as I averred to in my first post, what do facts matter to sleepwalkers?