Malcolm Turnbull has been elected leader of the party after a leadership spill. I’ve gotta say, it’s something of a relief; I’ve despised every second of my awareness that Tony fucking Abbott was PM. Turnbull is another slimy corporatist, but at least stuff like gay marriage and CO2 reduction could be on the cards now, and he actually seems capable of statesmanship.
I’m sad to say this looks like what I’ll have to be content with, while the UK gets Corbyn, and Sanders goes from strength to strength… better than nothing, I guess.
Leader of the New Democrats (our social democratic party). They voted against Bill C-51 (Harper’s Anti-terrorism Act), for instance, where the Liberals did not, so he and his party are somewhat like Sanders or Corbyn in putting their money where their mouths are.
Sweet. I thought Trudeaux was Canada’s lefty hope? Though I admit, I don’t know a great deal about it.
(ETA: just looked em up on teh googlez. They seem OK. You saying these guys are gonna kick Harper out? For realz? Joy. Also, spleling fail on ‘Trudeau’. Oops)
There has been a lot of ABC (anyone but Conservatives) going around. Right now, the NDP is leading in the polls, Conservative cabinet ministers are jumping ship,
Trudeau and the Liberals have been losing points for little things like voting for C-51. I’m an old Red Liberal from Québec, and I won’t vote for him. It would work better if he had some principles he abided by, instead of trying to make decisions by political calculation, e.g., “Canadians want to feel safe from the nasty Terrorists, so we’ll go along with this.” Well, no, most of us have a pretty good sense of how dangerous “Terrorism” is (i.e., no real danger to the country at all).
Awww, man, the Labour Party decides to be socialist again, Abbot gets prescribed a dose of extra-strong fuck-off tablets, and now you’re telling me Harper is likely getting sacked too? Am I getting a raise this week too, or what?
Keep an eye on the man from Vermont as well. (He doesn’t surprise me - that state is almost Canadian in its political culture.)
I think we may be seeing a sea-change in the politics of the English-speaking countries. I expect plenty of resistance, but people may be starting to realise just how much they are being screwed by the current corporatist system. It’s about time: corporations are probably the least competent entities to run a society.
Well, I scored a new job that pays an awesome wage for a bike mechanic, plus crazy bonuses… dude who’s showing me the ropes has made more than 100k in a year like three times
Abbott won because the Labour party was just appallingly bad. They killed themselves with infighting, and the voters really had no chioce.
But he was never popular. He has too much of that US conservative to him that just doesn’t work well with much of Australia.
Our two main parties aren’t supposed to be liberal vs conservative. They were workers “Labour” vs business “Liberal trade laws”. Labour has its share of bigots, Liberals have socially liberal members.
Anyway Turnbull? Let’s see. If he is " Balance the budget, but don’t be an Arsehole to refugees", he might get my vote. But will that mean a rise of nasty Hate Parties?
Perhaps, but Friedman’s influence came from telling the people in charge precisely what they wanted to hear, and, naturally enough, they made sure to broadcast it far and wide. I’m not sure that Piketty appeals to the elites in the same way.
Well, no, but he’s completely bitchslapped economist groupthink, exposing the majority of his colleagues as wishy-washy frauds, and provided much-needed ammo (by the truckload) to anyone tackling that institutionalised idiocy.
We had Andrew Bolt (our own Aussie Rush Limbaugh?) suggesting that the Libs might split with the nuttier Conservatives not wanting to belong to a party that might do things like legalise gay marriage and think about Global Warming.
I’d be quite fine with this. Trim the party to being a bunch of accountants with less reactionary loons. I could vote for that.
We are going to get Muslim Hate Parties at the next election. You can see them getting up to speed. And if the Libs stop doing the Stop The Boats dog whistling, the Fans of that stuff will go elsewhere for their Two Minutes of Hate.
