Corbyn

[Suff]

The last time the Labour government was voted in on a left wing ticket, the single largest chunk of their voters lived in council houses and paid rent..........

Paying for services and safety is one thing.

Paying for a left wingers wet dream is something entirely different.

It's not me I'm thinking of with these taxes. It is those who still think like council house tenant even when they are paying higher rate tax. Of which, as I have articulated, more people are paying because the threshold to earning power has lowered.

Time will tell. I'm fairly comfortable about it.

[Workingman]

Why does it matter where people live? Are all council house tenants Labour voters and all those in private rented, Tories? I bet not - nowhere near.

We do not know what Corbyn's wet-dream is and we are far from certain that he will not withdraw before...

Give it till the elections I posted earlier are over, then we might know what the public, not the media and Westminster bubblers, think.

[Kaz]

Quite right Frank! My husband is a life-long Labour voter and has never lived in a council house, and has always earned well. He just believes in a fairer society......

I do too.

[Workingman]

Kaz, Corbyn, like all leaders of all parties before him, will have to give and take. All parties are broad churches and there has to be room to manoeuvre in every one.

Can he do it? I will not bet against him, not yet.

[TheOstrich]

I certainly wouldn't write him off, but in the short term, it remains to be seen how his fellow MPs react to his victory. Will we see a united or a fragmented Party. It will be instructional seeing the shape of the new Shadow Cabinet, and also what happens at Party Conference time.

Overall, I wouldn't vote for him. He has espoused some things I quite like, such as renationalisation, but withdrawal from NATO, loss of Trident, welcoming immigrants, talking to terrorists - none of those policies could I support. But I'm no loss to Labour, as by instinct I'm a kipper. I have only voted Labour once in my life and that was to help elect Tony Blair first time around - a mistake I'm not keen to repeat ......

[cromwell]

I think that's a bit where I am Os. I'm all in favour of a judicious bit of re-nationaisation, and I admire the way Corbyn conducted himself through the campaign AND I'm glad that the three slogan reciters got trashed by him.
But the minute I saw the "refugees welcome" posters held up by his supporters behind him I thought "Oh dear...".

[Workingman]

The figures for the march are certainly interesting depending on who is reporting, they range from "a few thousand" to "tens of thousands". Not one of the reports mentions that 65 million+ did not attend.

[cromwell]

The figures for the march are certainly interesting depending on who is reporting, they range from "a few thousand" to "tens of thousands". Not one of the reports mentions that 65 million+ did not attend.

The most telling thing is that there aren't many photographs of the march from a high level, which would give you a better idea of numbers.

[Suff]

Clearly I'm not getting through.

My Brother is a life long Labour voter, has never lived in a council house and has half a million in the bank (so he tells me), owns a cottage in Norfolk and half a 3 bedroom home just off "millionaires row" in North London....

He believes in a fairer society too.

So do I and I do mean a FAIR society, not a Revenge society.

So I will have one more go and that's it I'm out.

When you live in a council house and pay council rent, protected by the laws and almost impossible to throw out of your home, then you make certain decisions in the way that you vote.

When you are in that situation you could care less about the economy, care less about whether the firm you are working for is going to go bust or whether you will have a pension or anything left to leave your children.

When you buy your council house and buy ISA's and opt out into a private pension scheme, that all changes. When your wages flirt with the higher tax bracket, simply because the tax threshold is not moving faster than the average wage, the minimum wage or even inflation, that all changes.

When you come from a middle class family like my brother and I do and you choose to be a Labour voter for your own political or conscience reasons, then you will probably be a Labour voter for life, because that is the way you think. My brother won't even go to work unless he gets 200k PLUS expenses. Yet he will never vote other than Labour. He thought Gordon Brown Deserved my respect as PM (That caused a family fight I can tell you).

However when you vote Labour because it's in your own best interests to do so, then you are unlikely to stop voting in your own best interests. So when Labour suddenly start damaging your equity, taxing your hard earned income and ensuring that your legacy for your children is going to vanish before it ever gets there, then people who vote in their own best interests are going to take a long hard look at Labour. Something they never did before.

I have never seen an analysis of what the wealth of council house sales did to the demographics of UK voters, but here is my take.

Once Maggie started selling off the council house stock, people's attitudes began to change. No longer could you just go out on strike and ignore the rent until you get back to work and then pay it off over a decade to the council. Mortgage companies can foreclose and you're out on the street. After the council houses were sold foreclosures hit record heights. Mainly because attitudes had not changed. However we are more than 2 decades past that first flush of sell offs. People know the reality of owning rather than renting.

In my mind, the only way Labour could get back in, in an environment post the council house sell off, was to become "more Tory". To those who had bought into the "social cause" of Labour, this was a betrayal, a bare faced throwing out of all those principles that Labour had so long stood for. For those who were voting out of self interest, it was a no brainer, Blair was giving more!

Most notably, Blairite Labour won elections. Three of them. Brownite Labour lost the only election it tried to fight. Why? Because, in my mind, self interest voting is more a traditional Labour voter thing than a Tory voter thing. There are a LOT of "soft Tories" but there are a hell of a lot fewer Left Wing self interest Labour voters. Why? Because the Labour left wing see's those self interest voters as it's engine for spending money. They have money so they should give it.

Never mind the ex labour voter, still living in the council house they bought because it was cheaper than the rent, struggling to pay their council tax because the house is now valued at £500k. Unable to sell and move unless they move to undesirable rented accommodation.

Yep those people are just going to LOVE Corbynite politics. They're going to LOVE uncontrolled Council Tax rises. They're going to LOVE being told to sell their home and pay for everything, health, rent, medicines, transport, whilst Corbyn spends hundreds of billions taking over transport and then giving pay rises to the nationalised employees by 3% over inflation.

They're going to LOVE leaving that home they have put everything into for the last 25 years because it's "fairer" to raise the minimum wage, have a "living wage" for others, pay MORE to benefits and give NOTHING to them because they sit on an asset which is nothing more than a millstone round their necks.

They just going to salivate about not being able to pass on the wealth of their home they have spend the last 25 years growing, to their family.

That's going to really go down a STORM.

How do I know this? Because my rabidly labourite neo communist brother in law practically begged his Labour father to buy his council house. His reasons in the end? Not so we could help him, he Didn't mind only having a coal fire and immersion hot water, no radiators in the house and no freezer in 1994. He'd only just upgraded from his "cold shelf" to a fridge a decade before.

In the end my father in law chose to buy his council house because he would have something to leave to his children. No other reason.

So when the Council started, finally, putting double glazing and central heating into these houses, I was the one who paid to put double glazing and heating into my in law's house. My labourite brother in law and my semi itinerant sister in law couldn't afford it and, of course, there were no grants available. He had a house so my father in law could take a mortgage. Even though he was a pensioner. Labour council at work for the vulnerable in the community.

So when you say to me "What does it matter where people lived", you think I am some middle class "have", who has no idea what he's talking about....

Well the funny thing about middle class people is they can go down as well as up. I went down for a long time before I dragged myself out of the pit and made the life I have today.... Don't ever think I forget where I was or what I experienced on the journey.

If' that doesn't explain my experience and what I'm saying, nothing ever will....

My take? Corbyn will find out just exactly how many people think what he wants is a good idea at the next election. He may even win. He'll never win another one and Labour itself will be damaged for another 22 years.

Not that I care either way. People get what they vote for. The question is whether they actually understand what they voted for. My take is that post Thatcher Britain has had to learn to understand what they are voting for. They may not be able to articulate exactly what they DO want. But they know what they DON'T want within seconds of seeing it.

One final point. Those who made the decision to be a Labour voter because it was the "right" thing to do are all about integrity and the quality of his leadership. Those who are voting in self interest, on the other hand, don't give a damn about integrity or the quality of his leadership, he just needs to deliver to make their lives better!

[Aggers]

Quite right Frank! My husband is a life-long Labour voter and has never lived in a council house, and has always earned well. He just believes in a fairer society......

I do too.

That applies to me, too, except that I stopped voting Labour when it became New Labour.