The Labour Thread

[Stringy]

Just show me a comparable country, run by socialists, that is a success.

France is a basket case, youth employment is high, a huge number of those in work are employed in the public sector and any government which tries to change their terms and conditions to get their economy competitive is met with strike action. They invariably back down.

I don't want to get into an argument over semantics here but there's no point in providing a comparable socialist country because Labour aren't proposing a socialist society. They are proposing a social democracy. It isn't radical and it's not dangerous.

Undoubtedly these nations have their limitations and their own problems. But just have a look around Europe. Scandinavia and Germany are hardly on the brink.

 

[JaseTheVillain]

Just feel I should add to the graphs, as we all like a good graph don't we?

 

[Renegade]

Just show me a comparable country, run by socialists, that is a success.

France is a basket case, youth employment is high, a huge number of those in work are employed in the public sector and any government which tries to change their terms and conditions to get their economy competitive is met with strike action. They invariably back down.

I don't want to get into an argument over semantics here but there's no point in providing a comparable socialist country because Labour aren't proposing a socialist society. They are proposing a social democracy. It isn't radical and it's not dangerous.

Undoubtedly these nations have their limitations and their own problems. But just have a look around Europe. Scandinavia and Germany are hardly on the brink.

Agreed.

On top of this, the preoccupation with those that think more socialism is the road to ruin always seems to be the economy. What about the other things that a society should be judged on? Such as its citizens' happiness, health, sense of community? The UK and the USA rank lower than more "socialist" societies when it comes to quality of life, societies that Labour might aspire towards. The top four in the following list all fit this label:

https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.jsp

What use is a strong economy if you don't have the rest? What do we sacrifice to have strong numbers? And what does it say about countries that have slightly weaker economies that care more about fairness and have happier populations?

 

[Benji]

We're supposed to have blind faith in trickle-down economics. A model that in the long term has never worked in practice, and hasn't even been a viable theory or principle since the advent of automated technology.

 

[Pagnell]

The problem with trickle down economics is that it relies on the majority of people to not be inherently selfish. It's on a sticky wicket from the start.

 

[The Paranoid Pineapple]

Always think it's amusing when people insist that nationalisation isn't viable. Other countries seem to manage it perfectly well, and we seem quite content to let state-owned foreign companies run services in this country. Why is it ok for Arriva (subsidiary of Deutsche Bahn, Germany), Abellio (Dutch), Trenitalia (Italy) or Keolis (France) to own or part-own franchises but not the UK government? Or for EDF (France) to be such a big player in the UK's energy market? British Rail was crap because it suffered from years and years of chronic underinvestment, not because nationalisation per se is unworkable. In truth, I've never really understood the rationale for privatisating railways or utilities. I thought that the whole idea of privatisation, whether one agrees with it or not, is that increased competition will drive up standards and you'll ultimately end up with a better service. But all you have with the railways (and indeed the water companies) is a series of regional monopolies who are able to charge you fairly extortionate prices for what might be a pretty shoddy service. In the case of the railways, the franchises are so long that if the services are shit, it's simply tough luck (see Southern). If you need to get a train from Brighton to London you can't take your business elsewhere because no other provider has the means!

Interesting too that Labour had a comfortable lead among all groups except the retired. It's almost as though the latter have been cossetted and had their benefits protected while the rest of the population fret about stagnating wages and savage cuts to public services. And they did particularly well with young people? Why, it's almost as though this group has at best been at ignored, and at worst treated with utter contempt by a succession of governments. It's no surprise that a generation that's been forced to shoulder a disproportionate amount of the post-recession burden has become increasingly concerned about their future prospects and security and yet, rather than engaging with these concerns, the predominant attitude still seems to be one of condescension - the young are naive idealists! But why are people supposed to believe that New Labour apparatchiks, or Conservatives, or supposed "moderates" are the credible choice when they struggle to pay the rent, see no improvement in their living standards and can't foresee ever owning their own homes? They, in contrast to a man widely derided and ridiculed, appear to be completely devoid of solutions. I hope Corbyn successfully wiped a few smiles off those faces in the early hours of Friday morning.

 

[Look Out There Are Llamas]

Oeuf I give you a standing ovation my honourable friend.

 

[Captain Scumbag]

Interesting too that Labour had a comfortable lead among all groups except the retired. It's almost as though the latter have been cossetted and had their benefits protected while the rest of the population fret about stagnating wages and savage cuts to public services.

The really interesting thing about the figures is how poorly they support the “old people = selfish bastards” narrative that usually emerges whenever the conservatives win (or don’t lose) an electoral contest – see also IndyRef1 and Brexit.

Just to be clear, I'm not accusing you of granny bashing (you are making a different point, I know). Just saying that the stats are interesting considering the two main parties’ manifestos. For example:

Labour guaranteed the state pension ‘triple lock’ for the duration of the next parliament. The Tories proposed to ditch this for a ‘double lock’ from 2020.

Labour pledged to freeze the state pension at 66. The Tories said they would increase it in line with changes to life expectancy.

Labour guaranteed the Winter Fuel Allowance as a universal benefit. The Tories pledged to means-test it.

Labour pledged to invest significantly more (like, £20 billion more, if memory serves) in the NHS.

Labour pledged to create a tax-payer funded National Care Service (for social care). The Tories’ bright idea will be forever remembered as the Dementia Tax.

If the nation’s coffin dodgers really were a bunch of cossetted, selfish shitbags who only care about protecting their benefits, they would have voted for Labour in their droves. Whatever reasons they had for voting Tory, it didn't have much to do with that.

 

[JaseTheVillain]

I'd argue the older voters are more likely to read the print media, the vast majority of which backed the Tories massively. I've no way of actually quantifying this (them reading print media, not the right-wing bias, that's obvious to anyone with half a brain cell) however, so take it more as me brainstorming.

 

[Benji]

I'd argue the older voters are more likely to read the print media, the vast majority of which backed the Tories massively. I've no way of actually quantifying this (them reading print media, not the right-wing bias, that's obvious to anyone with half a brain cell) however, so take it more as me brainstorming.

Here it is quantified: http://www.journalism.org/media-indicators/newspapers-daily-readership-by-age/

 

[smat]

Taking all of my self-control not to 'like' my Blairite friend's Facebook post from 2015 about how everyone should vote for Liz Kendall in the leadership election.

 

[Alty]

Here it is quantified: http://www.journalism.org/media-indicators/newspapers-daily-readership-by-age/

Still, that shows correlation rather than causation. It might be that these people being the only ones to have vivid memories of the 1970s is what keeps them voting Tory.

Everyone here is remarkably sanguine about income and corporation tax hikes. Even as someone who voted for Corbyn I do have concerns about whether the implementation of Labour's manifesto promises would lead to a flight of people and capital. I think if people are honest with themselves they just don't know what'll happen. London seemed to attract a lot of French people after Hollande got in. It's not inconceivable that the tables could turn under Macron and Corbyn.

 

[Look Out There Are Llamas]

Still, that shows correlation rather than causation. It might be that these people being the only ones to have vivid memories of the 1970s is what keeps them voting Tory.

Everyone here is remarkably sanguine about income and corporation tax hikes. Even as someone who voted for Corbyn I do have concerns about whether the implementation of Labour's manifesto promises would lead to a flight of people and capital. I think if people are honest with themselves they just don't know what'll happen. London seemed to attract a lot of French people after Hollande got in. It's not inconceivable that the tables could turn under Macron and Corbyn.

Right. That was also a reservation of mine when voting Labour.

 

[The Paranoid Pineapple]

Still, that shows correlation rather than causation. It might be that these people being the only ones to have vivid memories of the 1970s is what keeps them voting Tory.

Everyone here is remarkably sanguine about income and corporation tax hikes. Even as someone who voted for Corbyn I do have concerns about whether the implementation of Labour's manifesto promises would lead to a flight of people and capital. I think if people are honest with themselves they just don't know what'll happen. London seemed to attract a lot of French people after Hollande got in. It's not inconceivable that the tables could turn under Macron and Corbyn.

Corporation tax hikes which would, erm... be at a rate lower than they were in 2010? Radical!

Absolutely astonishing that any fervent Brexiteer would, without any apparent hint of irony, be concerned about "a flight of people and capital"! That's more likely to be hastened by leaving the EU which you're... err, remarkably sanguine about!

 

[Stringy]

I'd argue the older voters are more likely to read the print media, the vast majority of which backed the Tories massively. I've no way of actually quantifying this (them reading print media, not the right-wing bias, that's obvious to anyone with half a brain cell) however, so take it more as me brainstorming.

My little theory is that fewer older people went into further education or went to university (which is fine), but this tendency makes more cynical and less tolerant.

When they vote they aren't motivated by self financial interest. It's a vote to halt social change.

 

[Captain Scumbag]

Absolutely astonishing that any fervent Brexiteer would, without any apparent hint of irony, be concerned about "a flight of people and capital"! That's more likely to be hastened by leaving the EU which you're... err, remarkably sanguine about!

Please bear in mind that Alty was thinking like a Tory until about a week ago. He lost his mind last Thursday and God only knows where his thinking is now, but chances are some remnants of the typical Tory vision for Brexit (0.01% corporation tax and so on) are still there, if only on a subconscious level.

 

[Jockney]

My little theory is that fewer older people went into further education or went to university (which is fine), but this tendency makes more cynical and less tolerant.

When they vote they aren't motivated by self financial interest. It's a vote to halt social change.

Also a fairly insidious viewpoint, if you study its implications, and doesn't stand up to reason anyway. The fight for social and economic justice has *always* been fought for and by a working class that until recently did not have universal access to Higher Education. The social reactionary Tory vote is also middle-class and usually 'well'-educated. *Most* people who vote Conservative do so more for material reasons than explicitly ideological, but proximity to a much-romanticised and ostensibly deceased Empire, along with post-war growth created quite a few of the contemporary Conservatives who meet both criteria.

 

[Stringy]

Also a fairly insidious viewpoint, if you study its implications, and doesn't stand up to reason anyway. The fight for social and economic justice has *always* been fought for and by a working class that until recently did not have universal access to Higher Education. The social reactionary Tory vote is also middle-class and usually 'well'-educated. *Most* people who vote Conservative do so more for material reasons than explicitly ideological, but proximity to a much-romanticised and ostensibly deceased Empire, along with post-war growth created quite a few of the contemporary Conservatives who meet both criteria.

Oh yeah it was a pretty lazy viewpoint if you read it as a generalisation and applied it to every Conservative to have ever existed.

The kind of person I had in mind when I wrote that comment was one of those baby boomers from a working class town who left school, worked down the pit and still voted Tory. You hear stuff from them like 'ooh, bloody Nu-Labour letting in those immigrants!' Surely these lot were duped.

 

[Jockney]

Oh yeah it was a pretty lazy viewpoint if you read it as a generalisation and applied it to every Conservative to have ever existed.

The kind of person I had in mind when I wrote that comment was one of those baby boomers from a working class town who left school, worked down the pit and still voted Tory. You hear stuff from them like 'ooh, bloody Nu-Labour letting in those immigrants!' Surely these lot were duped.

Duped, definitely, but the left has generally done a terrible job disentangling immigration from the much more (admittedly complex) deadening effects of globalisation on communities. The pro-immigration advocates that are represented in the MSM are usually people who simultaneously argue for increased marketisation and outsourcing of services. There are people who make those sort of arguments but also identify as leftists: a bewildering cognitive dissonance. There hasn't been an internationalist case for immigration and against globalisation in mainstream political discourse for nigh-on forty years. Hopefully that is changing. I think the people you're talking about are already beginning to be won round.

 

[Alty]

Corporation tax hikes which would, erm... be at a rate lower than they were in 2010? Radical!

Absolutely astonishing that any fervent Brexiteer would, without any apparent hint of irony, be concerned about "a flight of people and capital"! That's more likely to be hastened by leaving the EU which you're... err, remarkably sanguine about!

I could just as easily turn it around and say that the same lefties who bizarrely kept quoting right-wing think tanks and big corporations in warning against Brexit are now confident these tax changes will do no economic damage despite obviously being disadvantageous to those same organisations. It's not consistent.

The difference with Brexit is that it's about a restoration of British self-government. I've always maintained that there's a possibility - a likelihood, even - of a period of instability and economic difficulty immediately post-Brexit. But that it'd be worth it long-term because we'd be spared the budget contributions, could avoid the inappropriate type/level of migration to the UK, could forge new trade deals with non-EU countries (including poor ones the EU insists on hitting with tariffs) and a whole host of other things that could see us grow into a more successful country.

If - and I accept I don't know, it's merely a concern - the UK goes into a period of economic stagnation a la France under Hollande as a result of Corbynite policies, where are the long-term gains? The deficit we've all been working our balls off to reduce will go back up.

Deep down inside I still like a lot of social democratic policies. But then I see what should be the less controversial aspects of social democracy getting short shrift from those supposedly on the left and the right and I just question whether it can actually work. The Tory social care policy was probably the best thing in their manifesto and would have benefitted poor old people and young tax payers. Both of whom currently get a raw deal. And yet it got crucified.

Dunno. I'm not feeling optimistic about any of it at the minute. Two hung parliaments in the last three in a country with limited history of cross party cooperation doesn't particularly bode well either.

 

[rudebwoyben]

I just think that this notion of British self-government is a nonsense, it's an unachievable chimera. We pool our sovereignty with other countries in many cases because it brings better results than acting unilaterally.
This article summarises it pretty well: https://www.irishtimes.com/business...exit-shambles-will-be-ugly-1.3119237?mode=amp

 

[Aber gas]

Jezza speaking to a few mates.

 

[.V.]

Jezza speaking to a few mates.

Meanwhile in Liverpool...

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/watch-moment-theresa-booed-leaves-13234066

 

[Aber gas]

Meanwhile in Liverpool...

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/watch-moment-theresa-booed-leaves-13234066

I never thought I'd see a prime minister address the Glastonbury crowd but here we are. What a time to be alive.

 

[Look Out There Are Llamas]

You didn't.

 

[Aber gas]

You didn't.

Yes I did.

 

[Jockney]

I have problems with Mason and some of his positions, but full marks for this sort of trolling.

 

[Laker]

Corbyn is quite good at talking to his "own people" - is those who already agree with him. It's convincing the rest of the country which will be more challenging.

 

[Jockney]

Corbyn is quite good at talking to his "own people" - is those who already agree with him. It's convincing the rest of the country which will be more challenging.

The implications of this post are that there was already a core base of nearly 13m supporters. If that is true (it isn't), then he has the next election wrapped up as long as he doesn't make a horrendous error.

 

[Abertawe]

Corbyn is quite good at talking to his "own people" - is those who already agree with him. It's convincing the rest of the country which will be more challenging.

Wow mate, is your internet okay? That post took a year to show.