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The rant was not intended to imply that Labour cannot be criticised - they can and should be but proportionally at this stage, they aren’t holding the conch - but for the utterly bankrupt “Labour and the Tories are the same” BS.
Big_Ted-
but for the utterly bankrupt "Labour and the Tories are the same" BS
Yeah, nobody actually believes this. Which is why I said this earlier:
these statements—from the left at least—are generally not being literal about exact equality between the major parties' policy programmes, as I'm sure you've figured out. Any vaguely left-wing commenter can clearly see the destructive nature of the Conservative government and it's basically without question that Labour is preferable.
My point is that there's an annoying rift between otherwise progressive people on largely partisan terms, and it's not necessary in the slightest. What's the actual difference in policy preference? How does it differ from others?
Anyway, I've had my rant too I suppose, so I'll duck out of this for a bit.
slippers
Oh, maybe I wasn't very clear! There's every reason to criticise both with equal focus. Labour will have at minimum five solid years of a hefty majority, so if they're sticking with an outdated economic model in what will likely be an unstable, low-growth, high-inequality period it will have much farther-reaching consequences than some minor Tory's banal sex extravaganza, or Angela Rayner's tax affairs.
The Tories trash every public service, public endeavour, and public conscience they can get their hands on, and have set the conversation for decades — that needs arguing against at all costs, at every opportunity. Most media interviewers however don't raise the social, human or environmental cost of their policies in response, and sit happily in silence thinking that some pound coins have been spared under the guise of neutrality.
If we want to see progressive policies, critique is all we've got, basically.