The Labour Party

[Workingman]

I honestly do not get this desire for Labour to be decimated.

If that happens Cameron might be tempted to give Sturgeon another referendum in the hope that Scotland goes away. Scotland then applies to the EU and joins the € and Labour permanently loses 59 seats. Even if they ever win some back they are not rUK MPs.

That leaves rUK to the right wing of politics. For how long? Who knows. The Conservatives would always be the major party and could be pushed even more to the right by UKIP, if UKIP survives.

Neither Scotland, nor the rUK, would have effective oppositions and that, to me, is a recipe for disaster.

[Suff]

I honestly do not get this desire for Labour to be decimated.

You know all those people in the Midlands and the North who hate the Tories because of the mess of unemployment and destruction of the old power bases in the 80's?

I have exactly the same issues with Labour from the 70's and I'm not letting that hate go either.

What's more, the Blair and Brown years only served to confirm to me that no incarnation of Labour will ever be in the interests of the economy of the country or the businesses of the country or those who make their lives out of that economy.

Therefore I never want them in power again. Ever and I'd go a long way to see that they aren't if I could.

[TheOstrich]

I honestly do not get this desire for Labour to be decimated.

Just two words - Tony Blair. OK, let's make it four - Gordon Brown. The former is a weasel and a con-man, not least over immigration. The latter stole my pension with his tax grabs.

But in fairness, give it a few more years, and I'm quite sure I'll be rooting for the Tories to be decimated too. Cameron is a twerp, May is all talk and no action, and Johnson a joke.

From which I am sure you'll deduce that I have no faith in, or time for, any of the current politicians or political parties at the moment ......

[Aggers]

During the whole of my working life I voted for Labour, even when I attained Senior Management positions in industry, because in my mind Labour's policies were nearer
to the Christian beliefs which have governed my journey through life.

Tony Blair's New Labour ended that, but I would certainly support Labour again,
providing they promised to carry out the nationalisation of essential public services,
such as Water, Gas, Electricity and Transport, and also do something about kerbing
those greedy fat cats in the Financial sector.

Interestingly, Several of my acquaintances have recently expressed similar views.

[Kaz]

My Dad voted labour all his life but heartily disliked Tony Blair and didn't vote for him. Corbyn believes in many of those things you mention Aggers..........

[Suff]

Interesting reading about the birth of the NHS.

I find it very interesting to note that Labour only finished what was already an ongoing project. I also note the statement

During the war, a new centralised state-run 'Emergency Medical Service' (EMS) employed doctors and nurses to care for those injured by enemy action and arrange for their treatment in whichever hospital was available. The existence of the EMS made voluntary hospitals dependent on the Government and there was a recognition that many would be in financial trouble once peace arrived.[5] The need to do something to guarantee the voluntary hospitals meant that hospital care drove the impetus for reform.

In short the British medial system would have fallen apart of some kind of NHS had not been introduced. Now I' grant you that the scope of the NHS was down to Labour, but the implementation had it's roots in the coalition government of the war.

I'm pretty much willing to assume that the utilities, also nationalised after the war, were in the same position, businesses which had become totally dependent on the state during the war. With the exception of the water boards in 73.

I'm pretty much with the downsides stated here. The upsides never really showed.

I'm very much for a social state. But there is nothing in the Christian teaching that you can't make a profit or grow your business. So long as you show a little human charity and kindness. Workers are entitled to a fair wage for the work they do.

They are not, however, entitled to the shirt off your back just because you employ them and you are not obliged to run your business into the ground to support them all even if the work they do does not pay for their work.

Unless you happen to be my Grandfather and are "given" a company with the express instructions that the current workers keep their job for life and you do not close down or sell the company off until they are all retired. Which he did and then organised a buyout with a company so large that it safeguarded the pensions of those workers for life. Which is why he got the company. My Grandfather was a life long Conservative of a Conservative family who believed his word was his bond.

Labour has run this battle so long that they have finally talked themselves into a corner. I'd love Corbyn to win because he will show the country just how few of the "core labour values" are shared by the people who have benefitted from them. A little piece of Karma if ever there was one. I've seen that one in live technicolour....

As for the Unions? Christian Charity? More like the Godfather with less humanity.

[Workingman]

Few, if any people, under the age of 45 know what old Labour stood for, and none of them lived it.

For those over the age of about 70 there will be things that appeal, and appeal greatly, in what Corbyn says. For many of the younger voters being left-wing is also appealing - it is, sort of, a right of passage. When those things are taken into account writing Corbyn off could be dangerous.

However, things have moved on from the Michael Foot days and also of Militant Tendency and Corbyn must know that some of his more extreme views will have to be dropped in order for the party and electorate to support him and Labour.

Right-wingers might dream that Labour with Corbyn as leader is finished, but I am not so sure.

[medsec222]

Interestingly Ken Livingstone was speaking on Sky this morning and he was saying that he had known Jeremy Corbyn for a good many years, and that if he was elected he would probably consult widely and listen to all viewpoints, rather than make a decision at the top and filter it down as a done deal, as usually happens. The other candidates are definitely lack lustre, Liz Kendall being the least offensive. Andy Burnham seems to adapt and change almost daily, and Yvette Cooper's holier than thou attitude won't win her too many votes.

[Suff]

Before WW1 the balance of the economy was 89% poor and 11% rich/middle class. After WW2 this came down to about 70:30. By the time Maggie had finished breaking down the old social order, by which I mean she didn't tear down the rich but elevated the poor, that balance was closer to 50:50.

After Blair that balance had changed again and was closer to 35:65. In that scenario is it any wonder that "Old" Labour values are failing?

Old Labour values were about sticking it to the Landowners and the Mill owners and giving back to the people who worked all their lives and then relied on their children to look after them in their old age, if they even made old age.

There is a saying that in America, when a Rolls Royce goes by, the poor look at it and say "that is going to be me". In the UK the same poor look at the car and say "I'm going to key that car".

This attitude is being broken to a degree. As more and more people are pulled up into middle class, they are less and less concerned with the politics of revenge and more and more concerned with social politics. Because as they grow more wealthy they are more concerned about keeping that wealth and also about the benefit and health of their children as they grow up.

This is where Blair found his middle ground. The people who don't want the Tories to tear down all the safeguards and grow the economy at the expense of the poor AND the middle classes.

If Foot could not push his retrograde Labour agenda in the 1980's when millions were out of a job, when benefits really were subsistence level income, when hope was low and industries lay in the ruins of Labour largess and Conservative medicine, then just exactly how does Corbyn think he's going to push this same agenda to a country which is in a totally different position. Where the Conservatives have shrunk the C and Lib Dems find it hard to keep the middle ground when both left and right encroach on their political heartland.

So, yes, I want a political Neanderthal to take over the leadership of the Labour party and drive them right off the cliff. Because only then will the Labour party and all the other parties take a long hard look and produce the good, effective, political opposition we need. One which focuses on the people and the economy and not on agendas and revenge. It's time to stop making ourselves economically sick so we don't have to keep taking the economic medicine that is so painful to all of us.

I want Old Labour dead and I want new people with principles. Not Dinosaurs with principles.

Is it so much to ask?

Today I read the real story behind Executive CEO pay. Yes that report which says CEO's are getting massively ridiculous pay and it is rising out of control. This is Old Labour politics.

So let's apply 2015 politics to this.

These "CEO's who are taking the piss" are 100 people out of 31 million working.
If we remove the 2 CEO's who more than doubled their pay (one going from the 20million range to 40 million range), then average out the pay we get a totally different picture.

The other 98 have taken an average real world drop in pay of ~5% in the last 5 years.

So let's play the Old Labour game. Let's blame the "rich" and spend billions buying out utilities and rail and every other big business in the country. Hell, let's buy the banks out, after all we can borrow half a trillion, we can just print more if it's an issue....

In reality more people are better off than they have ever been. Some are worse off and that will never change until we change the attitudes and balance of government, workers and companies. But, in reality, today, "They're never had it so good" still works today.

However if we want to change those attitudes and that balance, we're not going to do it by spending hundreds of billions of £ which will, by the way, do nothing more than make those "fat cats" even more fabulously rich as the Government will never get away with just taking them, they'll have to pay for them.

Why will they have to pay? Because they'll have to borrow money no matter what we do, as we're still in a budget deficit situation. If they want to borrow money to keep the country running, they're going to have to ask those they are stealing from to stump it up. Not working very well for Greece right now is it?

Yeah we can just print money. Worked for Zimbabwe... Sort of.....

Old Labour? Where is my disgusted snort smiley when I need it????

[Suff]

Interestingly Ken Livingstone was speaking on Sky this morning and he was saying that he had known Jeremy Corbyn for a good many years

Ahhh, Livingscum, as I live and breathe. I was wondering when he would raise his smirking noggin. He, of course, who started a war with Maggie that he lost, at the cost of many Londoners jobs. He who became Mayor of London and became unelectable because of nepotism, contract favouritism, holding up the vital desalination plants which Boris brought in and tried to override the people with a bridge they did not want. The person who lied to everyone about the traffic and tied it in knots for years before bringing in his road tax... Erm, Congestion charge....

Honestly anything that man says is, to me, mired with a contagious disease.

Next Gorgeous George will stick his weasely mug over the parapet and spout some noxious noise.

It is amusing though. What people like Corbyn can drag out of the closet.