Posted by John Monro on December 14, 2019, 10:07 am, in reply to "#### you all!!"
What on earth is this thread all about? So contributors to this site over the last few months, or perhaps the last three years since the EU referendum have had serious differences about what it all means. So what? So has the rest of the country The Brexiteers won not just because they had a small majority in the referendum, but they won because for the most part they were implacable, nothing but Brexit whatever the cost, whatever the stupidity, whatever the illogicality. With that sort of stubborn and unreasoning certainty a political fraudster can easily make his mark. Just as Trump did. Just as any number of populist style politicians and movements, not always confined to the right. Identify the mass concern, exaggerate it, talk of nothing else, traduce your opponents and lie as much as you need to, and tell people you're the only person who can deal with it. Works again and again.
The Tories' political machine does nothing other than to seek power, whatever it takes - and they use the most modern techniques of information gathering and propagandising to ensure it. In comparison, Labour's efforts were childishly amateur. The fact that Labour were politically divided was not the ultimate issue, as the Tories were just as divided as Labour. But the Tories identified the ultimate issue, leave the EU.
Labour should never have agreed to this election, it turned out to be suicidal. They allowed the Tories to escape all responsibility for their years of arrogance, austerity and sheer incompetence by giving them on a plate their own heads. Another few months of political shambles was a small price to pay for an eventual solution to Brexit and an election which could then take place on the important issues.
As for Corbyn he was neither as bad as those like Keith or any number of political commentators make out, but not as good as many of us fondly imagined. He was fifty fifty victim and culprit. But even as a culprit, an honest man doing his inadequate best and guided by a long serving moral compass. Beaten by a man and a political creed with no moral compass at all.
And for the shouting here I do not understand you. None of us can tell the future, and some shout with cynicism and some shout with hope. Hope gets dashed, that's true, but cynicism doesn't even bother to hope and the cynic's "I told you so" is nothing more than a useless brain burp. Just everyone, calm down. More than any disappointment with Corbyn or Labour or deep concern about Johnson and his extreme right wingers, I am more disappointed with the sheer waywardness of so much of humanity as proven in this election, because we have rather more important things to do than choosing between Brexit or Remain, socialism or capitalism - we actually have to invent something better than either to ensure our survival - imminent and compounding troubles, Kunstler's "Clusterfcuk", none of which were allowed to intrude for consideration in this election. Frogs in the saucepan come to mind.