The Truth Behind Traingate

Thread nearly done?

Oh, durhamjen your posts are so amusing.?

baggs
In 'durhamjenspeak' that is the same, subtilises don't come into it.

I agree with your last sentence, elegran, but I think the current leadership (note for possible misunderstanders: I said leader_ship_, not leader, though he is included in the term) behave as if they believe that the two parts of that sentence should be the other way round. i.e. they do seem to see the Party as some non-evolvable organism.

There is an interesting article by Daniel Finklestein today about why 'true' socialism always ends with the Stasi.

Too subtle, Baggs She used a sensible political tactic. She didn't say vote for Labour even if that means you might as well just throw away your ballot paper, so she is a Traitor To The Cause and she has to go. Rules is rules.

Into my mind comes a biblical quotation "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath". The party is there as a framework for the reforms that it hopes to make, not as a Procrustean bed to which all must conform with no consideration of circumstances or have arms and legs cut off to fit.

And up here, as elegran has intimated already, reducing what some see as the 'threat' of the SNP was more important than winning Labour seat in parts of Scotland where Labour has never really had much of a presence anyway.

So, she did not "tell people to vote Tory". She talked political tactics like the shrewd woman she is.

"Speaking on Sky News, the Scottish politician said: “The reality is the vast majority of seats across Scotland, it’s only the Labour party that can beat the SNP.

“There are a few differences in the Borders and the Highlands where the Tories might be better placed but right across Scotland’s centre belt, where the vast majority of Scotland’s population lives, the only party that can beat the SNP is the Labour party.”

What were her actual words?

Perhaps Ms Dugdale knew more than the Tory party did about their chances of winning by a landslide!

The Tory party in Scotland is not identical to the Tory party in England, and the Labour party in Scotland is not identical to the Labour party in England. Successive PMs and UK party leaders have discovered this when they applied one-size fits all (What FitzGeorge FitzRobert? Not necessarily)

Annie, do you want a Tory government?

Puzzling, supporting tactical voting is not 'quite the same' as advising vote Tory to keep the SNP out

Boidiversity in Westminster means not voting for the party that thinks it is going to win by a landslide, I would have thought.
And certainly not telling your labour voters to vote for the winning party.

Interesting today that there are 15 Tory MPs who have decided to support Labour's bill on free school meals in the holidays. Why do you think they are doing that?
Are they worried about their seats in future? Surely not with Kezia Dugdale suggesting that labour supporters vote Tory.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/aug/30/high-profile-tories-back-labour-bill-on-free-meals-in-school-holidays

Labour Scotland has had four leaders in three years and the Labour Party one leader for two years !

Mmmm. For suiting her actions to the situation where she was leading the party (one where it was either an SNP win or the Conservative party getting a few more votes but not winning? She may have prevented Scotland from breaking away from the UK. Seeing the wider (at that moment and in that place) picture? The UK breaking away from the EU was one upheaval, Scotland departing would have been anoither.

Another whose values were the same as yours, but whose method of achieving those values was not yours?

In my constituency, the choice was effectively SNP or Lib-Dem. The LibDem was elected. Biodiversity in Westminster is a Good Thing.

Not quite the same as telling members to vote Tory, is it?
That kept the government in power, because 12 Scottish MPs are now Tory.
Is that right, Annie? Is that what she should have done?
Is that what you did in Wales?

Some posters here certaintly supported tactical voting to keep the tories out

It is immoral, actually. But a leader of a labour party telling members to vote for the Tory party is against the rules. She should have been barred then, but wasn't.

In fact voting Tory is immoral. I'm sure you know that. We've been told often enough what bastards they are ?

Oh, but it should be, elegran. Anything else would be immoral ?

The whole world is not ENTIRELY divided into voting either emphatically for or emphatically against Tories. In some places there is a bit more subtlety.

The alternative in Scotland was to vote SNP and Independence. A labour vote would have been wasted - whistling into the wind.

Was it a bid to decrease the power of the SNP? A tactical voting suggestion?

You do realise that the reason Tories are in power at the moment is because Kezia Dugdale told her supporters to vote Tory at the last election, don't you?

As the next leader will be a corbinite I am sure some are very pleased she has made way