by Workingman » 28 Sep 2016, 10:47
It is staggering the way politicians, of all parties, believe that they can control the way people think on any particular topic. They should have the quote from Abe Lincoln tattooed in reverse on their foreheads:
"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."
So what does Corbyn do? He trots out the tired old mantra: “Migrants that have come to this country make an enormous contribution to it." and sadly some people still fall for it. It is true that down the years many migrants have made great contributions to the country, but all of them, all the time?
If migrants come here to work for minimum wage (or less) then by the time their tax credits, housing, health, education, transport, and other infrastructure costs, are taken into consideration they become net takers. Throw in the fact that in some sectors of the economy they are taking jobs from the local workforce leaving Britons on benefits, and when their benefits are taken into consideration the migrant's net take grows substantially. The vast majority of migrants fall into the the low wage category. This is especially true of migrants over the past decade or so.
The one bright spot on the horizon is that Corbyn/McDonnell are not the Labour party and it, to its credit, has systems in place to give the PLP (Labour MPs) some control over policies and what gets into its manifesto.
I think that Labour are playing a canny game at this conference. They are making big promises this far out from the election on things I suspect they know cannot be delivered in full. Don't be surprised to see quite a lot of it slowly reined in over the next few years. There will be no big U turns, just a gentle clawing back, bit by bit, to more reasonable levels, but the ideas will be out there and the other parties will have to react.