The Chairman Mao resembling, Monarchy hating, threat to Britain, Labour Party thread

[TrentVilla]

Just now, ml1dch said:

Given that current Tory policy appears to be cribbing from old National Front leaflets, I'm not sure that last one is quite right. 

That is why I said “seemed” he absolutely went for the middle ground to get elected.

[NurembergVillan]

51 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

I fear he's a new Blair, perhaps without foundation and certainly without sound evidence until such point as there's a manifesto, but there are lots of things that hint in that direction.

I hope he's a new Blair. As Mark says above, things soured but I can't remember a more optimistic period for our country during my lifetime.

43 minutes ago, darrenm said:

Piers Corbyn is a dangerous lunatic who shouldn't be given any oxygen of publicity. It's unfair to group him with the left because he clearly isn't.

Correct. But there are those on the right who latch onto the Corbyn name and weaponise it against the left - there are plenty of political toe-dippers who will willingly read the Mail and believe whatever skewed perspective is presented to them.

Which then brings us full circle as to why it's important Starmer presents his "new Labour" to these people.

[TrentVilla]

8 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

We seem to have turned the Tory party thread into the Labour Party thread by talking about Starmer.

Amusing irony notwithstanding, we should probably take this to the Labour thread.

 

Is their a difference? Maybe we should merge them....

[HanoiVillan]

13 minutes ago, blandy said:

He was a labour party member and councillor, though he left Labour in opposition to Iraq war. He is something of a Marxist and is definitely of the loony left.

Sure he's not a Labour member now, but he is of an ilk with many on the very left of Labour, but as you say also a proper barmpot.

I've just gone through his Twitter feed, and his two animating issues appear to be 1] Vaccines are fake, made up by Bill Gates, and a way to control the population, and 2] Global warming is made up nonsense.

I really don't think these are typical or representative opinions on the Labour left.

[darrenm]

Going on from Tony Blair, can anyone tell me anything that New Labour did which:

1. has seen a lasting improvement / not been able to be ripped down easily by the Tories?

2. actually done what it was meant to do?

For example, the Freedom of Information Act. FOI requests just get denied whenever anyone doesn't want to give the info out anyway, so that's pointless.

[blandy]

4 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I've just gone through his Twitter feed, and his two animating issues appear to be 1] Vaccines are fake, made up by Bill Gates, and a way to control the population, and 2] Global warming is made up nonsense.

I really don't think these are typical or representative opinions on the Labour left.

Sure, I agree. Those aren't. Like we all agree, he's an oddball and conspiracy theorist.

Some of his views on more mainstream things are, though shared by some on the Labour very left and many of them are the ones who are most vocal and virulently anti-Starmer. But he's a side issue - I hadn't intended for him to be the subject of convo as an individual.

[blandy]

52 minutes ago, darrenm said:

The only hope Labour will have to stay relevant is to make an electoral reform pact with other parties

Absolutely spot on.

[blandy]

5 minutes ago, darrenm said:

Going on from Tony Blair, can anyone tell me anything that New Labour did which:

1. has seen a lasting improvement / not been able to be ripped down easily by the Tories?

2. actually done what it was meant to do?

For example, the Freedom of Information Act. FOI requests just get denied whenever anyone doesn't want to give the info out anyway, so that's pointless.

Pretty much anything any Gov't does or enacts can be overrriden by a new Gov't. It's just how long it takes.

I'd argue the "education, education, education" mantra of Blair's early term and the action that followed it remains, at least in part, a legacy. More Uni places, change in the N.I situation, Debt relief for 3rd world nations, intervention in Kosovo and Sierra Leone, attitudes around LGBT. There's more.

He poisoned things utterly with Iraq war and was too timid initially when he should have been braver, in that he followed on, but eased Tory economic ideas on public debt, when he should have thrown them out completely.

[Seat68]

8 minutes ago, darrenm said:

Going on from Tony Blair, can anyone tell me anything that New Labour did which:

1. has seen a lasting improvement / not been able to be ripped down easily by the Tories?

2. actually done what it was meant to do?

For example, the Freedom of Information Act. FOI requests just get denied whenever anyone doesn't want to give the info out anyway, so that's pointless.

Good Friday agreement, Lords reform, minimum wage. 

[Demitri_C]

Another tony blair??

 

No thanks to that war criminal. Rather starmer is his own man and brings a new ideology. 

Personally i dont think he has done that bad so far

Edited February 1, 2021 by Demitri_C

[Chindie]

Blair is toxic. Sure for a while his premiership was a golden period, and that period is also the last time we've had something even vaguely competent as a government, but the public impression of him and New Labour is inherently of Iraq and the banking crisis (even if the latter isn't really a Labour problem).

The moment Blair is invoked, or New Labour mentioned, you've lost. Whatever a return to that position looks like, it's going to need to be branded well.

[darrenm]

2 minutes ago, blandy said:

Pretty much anything any Gov't does or enacts can be overrriden by a new Gov't. It's just how long it takes.

I'd argue the "education, education, education" mantra of Blair's early term and the action that followed it remains, at least in part, a legacy. More Uni places, change in the N.I situation, Debt relief for 3rd world nations, intervention in Kosovo and Sierra Leone, attitudes around LGBT. There's more.

He poisoned things utterly with Iraq war and was too timid initially when he should have been braver, in that he followed on, but eased Tory economic ideas on public debt, when he should have thrown them out completely.

Yeah I was trying to be careful by saying "easily" ripped down. I know anything can be removed but if you're careful you can make them very tough to be removed. 

1 minute ago, Seat68 said:

Good Friday agreement, Lords reform, minimum wage. 

GFA is a good one, yes.

Lords reform - seems to have had the opposite to desired effect. More life peers means people can be 'paid off' for favours with peerages. e.g. Lebedev, Austin.

Minimum wage - hasn't really kept up with the times. Unless I'm wrong there was no act to ensure it always stays as a percentage of cost of living etc?

[Seat68]

3 minutes ago, darrenm said:

Yeah I was trying to be careful by saying "easily" ripped down. I know anything can be removed but if you're careful you can make them very tough to be removed. 

GFA is a good one, yes.

Lords reform - seems to have had the opposite to desired effect. More life peers means people can be 'paid off' for favours with peerages. e.g. Lebedev, Austin.

Minimum wage - hasn't really kept up with the times. Unless I'm wrong there was no act to ensure it always stays as a percentage of cost of living etc?

Are you putting the tories being Tory at New Labours door? New Labour did some good stuff, Conservative governments may have ended, changed or quietly shelved things. That’s on the Tories. 

[darrenm]

2 minutes ago, Seat68 said:

Are you putting the tories being Tory at New Labours door? New Labour did some good stuff, Conservative governments may have ended, changed or quietly shelved things. That’s on the Tories. 

No, just that New Labour seem to have gained a lot of credit for seemingly little. My view is pretty similar to George's:

 

[NurembergVillan]

1 minute ago, darrenm said:

No, just that New Labour seem to have gained a lot of credit for seemingly little. My view is pretty similar to George's:

The work he did in improving the lives of the disadvantaged and elderly, particularly during his first term, would never have been enacted by a Tory government.

That Labour government halved child poverty, yet now we've got UNICEF sending food parcels to the UK.

[ender4]

25 minutes ago, darrenm said:

 

Minimum wage - hasn't really kept up with the times. Unless I'm wrong there was no act to ensure it always stays as a percentage of cost of living etc?

I'm pretty sure that minimum wage has gone up faster than cost of living (CPI) over the past 15 years.

i don't have proof, but feel like i've read that in many places over the years.

Edited February 1, 2021 by ender4

[OutByEaster?]

57 minutes ago, NurembergVillan said:

I hope he's a new Blair. As Mark says above, things soured but I can't remember a more optimistic period for our country during my lifetime.

It was incredibly optimistic, which is why it left such a sour taste when it turned out to be a lie. It was very much like Britpop, the other big lie of the mid 90's, it promised to take all the interesting and exciting ideas and principles of the times and make them the new amazing cool Brit nation and then, when we got there it was just crap in a shiny wrapper. 

1 hour ago, NurembergVillan said:

Correct. But there are those on the right who latch onto the Corbyn name and weaponise it against the left - there are plenty of political toe-dippers who will willingly read the Mail and believe whatever skewed perspective is presented to them.

Which then brings us full circle as to why it's important Starmer presents his "new Labour" to these people.

And this is the bit that got me here - I don't think he's doing that, he seems to be instead telling them "I'm like you, I'm working on the same things as your guys, you don't need to be scared." he's not presenting a new Labour, he's almost presenting the values of the older Conservative party, persuading Tory voters he's more Cameron than Corbyn and that he's a safer pair of hands for (small c) conservative values than that frightful Boris chap. I want him to be using his platform to do one of the two things I'd expect from an opposition leader - explaining the things that make him different and better than the government or highlighting it's failings - instead he's agreeing the hell out of them so as not to scare the pensioners.

I mean, in fairness, it might work and he can then whip off the mask on the day he's elected, but it makes me really uncomfortable.

 

 

[ender4]

6 minutes ago, ender4 said:

I'm pretty sure that minimum wage has gone up faster than cost of living (CPI) over the past 15 years.

i don't have proof, but feel like i've read that in many places over the years.

found this:

Quote

We estimate that the combined effect of NMW upratings on the lowest paid workers, and those paid just above them in the wage distribution, has been to increase their pay by £60bn in real terms over the first 19 years of the minimum wage. The very lowest paid now have hourly pay around £2.70 more in real terms than would have been the case in the absence of the NMW. To a full-time worker that difference is an additional £5,000 per year.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/20-years-of-the-national-minimum-wage

So Minimum Wage has outstripped cost of living by an extra £2.70 (£5k annually) in real terms over the past 19 years since it was brought in.

Edited February 1, 2021 by ender4

[HanoiVillan]

16 minutes ago, Seat68 said:

Are you putting the tories being Tory at New Labours door? New Labour did some good stuff, Conservative governments may have ended, changed or quietly shelved things. That’s on the Tories. 

Yes and no IMO.

Of course the Tories have to take responsibility for their own actions; surely no-one disagrees with that. But Labour were in power, with unassialable majorities, for 13 years (2 years longer than Thatcher, for comparison purposes). Yet they did not leave anything like as big an imprint on the fabric and structure of British society as Thatcher did, and one would expect the actions of the current Tory party - not least, the near-irreversible decision to leave the EU - to have more of a lasting impact as well, even though the Tories have only actually had a majority for 3 of the last 11 years, and a truly safe one for only one year.

It's telling that your list of three lasting Labour accomplishments - the minimum wage, Lords reform and the Good Friday Agreement - were all done in the first term. Leaving aside whether Lords reform was good in the first place (definitely not IMO) and the extent to which Labour deserve the credit for the GFA (much of which was already basically in place when Labour came to power, and which was obviously an international achievement), they clearly achieved more, and more lasting impact, prior to their second term and especially prior to 9/11.

[ender4]

1 hour ago, darrenm said:

Going on from Tony Blair, can anyone tell me anything that New Labour did which:

1. has seen a lasting improvement / not been able to be ripped down easily by the Tories?

2. actually done what it was meant to do?

For example, the Freedom of Information Act. FOI requests just get denied whenever anyone doesn't want to give the info out anyway, so that's pointless.

Increased funding for the NHS (even after taking inflation into account).

Winter fuel payments

free bus passes for over 60's 

childcare/nurseries - every 3 year old gets 24 hours per week free

massive school building programme

interest rates decision making given to Bank of England to decide, so it would be used as economic policy rather than just political policy.

civil partnerships

Edited February 1, 2021 by ender4