New Tory Leader

[horsefly 4,287]

56 minutes ago, Jools said:

Laughable really how you of all people can bemoan politicians for making money out of increased infrastructure which is mainly caused by the mass immigration you approve of.

You can't have one without the other, coco.

Glad you find political corruption so funny thicko!

[Rock The Boat 1,326]

2 hours ago, Jools said:

Anybody can obtain free photo ID from their local authority --- Fifteen quid can fund a photo ID, ffs...

The only people for whom this will make voting more difficult are those who have no right to vote and those who love voting so much they like to do it more than once 😉

 

Sir Wan Kier and the Labour Party will never get the message 👍

They can find ID when they claim benefits, everyone of them.

[Fen Canary 796]

7 hours ago, horsefly said:

I rest my case

I’ll ask you a question. Do you believe that Labour should alter it’s policies and positions in order to win back the working class vote?  Not all working class are the same of course, but generally they’re more patriotic, want law and order more strictly enforced, are in favour of Brexit and a much tighter immigration system etc. Do you think the party should put forward more policies of this style (family, flag) or that they should concentrate on the middle class vote in our university cities they’re currently strong in and leave the old working class vote to the Tories? 

[Herman 9,717]

Labour's policies aren't the problem on the whole, the tories wouldn't have stolen swathes of them otherwise. And following the Blukip, nationalist crap would completely alienate its core and the moderates support. Their main problem has always been leadership, someone with charisma and salesmanship that can sell their policies. Miliband had some great policies and that is why the media went out of its way to destroy him. Corbyn had some good policies, too many, but he never once tried to sell them and only ever preached to the converted. And the great quote about Starmer, judges love him but the jury doesn't, rings true.

[Herman 9,717]

This, very much this.

 

[Fen Canary 796]

48 minutes ago, Herman said:

Labour's policies aren't the problem on the whole, the tories wouldn't have stolen swathes of them otherwise. And following the Blukip, nationalist crap would completely alienate its core and the moderates support. Their main problem has always been leadership, someone with charisma and salesmanship that can sell their policies. Miliband had some great policies and that is why the media went out of its way to destroy him. Corbyn had some good policies, too many, but he never once tried to sell them and only ever preached to the converted. And the great quote about Starmer, judges love him but the jury doesn't, rings true.

Sorry but that’s just burying your head in the sand it looks to me by blaming the media. Labour has lost a large percentage of its core support to the BluKip nationalist crap as you call it due to how it has portrayed itself.

Whether you admit it or not the party has moved away from its traditional working class support in favour of the middle class vote, my question is do you think it should move back to its original base by being more socially conservative, or stick with the outlook of the likes of BLM and Stonewall, be a party for middle class and write off the old heartlands? 

[Herman 9,717]

Out bigot the bigots in other words. I can't see Labour doing that. 

[horsefly 4,287]

1 hour ago, Fen Canary said:

I’ll ask you a question. Do you believe that Labour should alter it’s policies and positions in order to win back the working class vote?  Not all working class are the same of course, but generally they’re more patriotic, want law and order more strictly enforced, are in favour of Brexit and a much tighter immigration system etc. Do you think the party should put forward more policies of this style (family, flag) or that they should concentrate on the middle class vote in our university cities they’re currently strong in and leave the old working class vote to the Tories? 

Herman has answered those questions well so I'll just add a few footnotes to his points. I certainly agree with you that Labour needs to appeal to the working class communities that have voted Tory, but the issues are far more complex and nuanced than you indicate here. You make the serious error of conflating the fact that labour Party policies appeal to university educated  people with the idea that those same policies are aimed fundamentally at those constituencies where such people predominate. Let me take one recent policy as an example; the proposal that all households should be provided with free internet access. This would have been a massive help to poorer families, especially those who can't currently afford to pay for such access. Just imagine how much difference it would have made to those families in coping with the crisis of the last year; they would have had access to essential online healthcare information and resources, and their children would have had access to essential educational resources. Actually you don't need to imagine because you can simply look at the role free internet access played in South Korea's excellent response to the Covid crisis. I could go on to point out how Labour Party policies quite clearly would be of benefit to working class families: NHS investment, redistribution of wealth, increase of the minimum wage, higher taxation for the wealthy, investment in social care, increased rights for workers etc, etc etc. Thus your question, " Do you think the party should put forward more policies of this style (family, flag) or that they should concentrate on the middle class vote in our university cities they’re currently strong in and leave the old working class vote to the Tories?" is an utterly false dichotomy, and is yet another example of attempting to set up an absurd straw man to knock down with ease. 

The problem for the Labour Party is a very traditional one; how to deal with the Tory Party's ability to exploit a peverse tendency in working class communities to turn the blame for their woes on other marginalised people in their communities rather than the people who have the power over determining the policies that affect them. The Hartlepool election provides a perfect example of the phenomena, interview after interview of voters saw the blame for their plight turned on Labour Party "failures" despite the obvious fact that the Tory Party has been in power for the last 10-years. The phenomena was excellently parodied by Johnny Speight in the sitcom "Till Death Us Do Part", proof that there is nothing new in the current tension between a Labour Party that has always been led by "progressive" university graduates and a working class electorate that has always embodied "conservative" (note the small "c") reactionary values. Couple that sitcom with the famous Frost Report sketch about class featuring Cleese, Corbett, and Barker, and you neatly sum up the difficulty Labour faces.

Whatever one thinks of Blair's reign over the Labour Party, he had the nous and pragmatism to recognise the nature of this problem and refused to allow himself to be drawn into the Tory trap of fighting on the ground of those working class "conservative reactionary values". Instead he bigged up Britain and got on with pumping huge amounts of money into education, the NHS, and poverty relief, and secured 13-years of Labour rule. If (and it's a big "if") the Labour Party can once again recover that pragmatic attitude, it will have ample opportunity in the future to recover the faith of working class communities that it is capable of serving their best interests. An economic sh*t storm awaits the country in the wake of a disastrous brexit deal and bungled Covid response, the Labour Party can exploit those failures if it develops the will to do so.

[BigFish 1,986]

3 hours ago, Fen Canary said:

I’ll ask you a question. Do you believe that Labour should alter it’s policies and positions in order to win back the working class vote?  Not all working class are the same of course, but generally they’re more patriotic, want law and order more strictly enforced, are in favour of Brexit and a much tighter immigration system etc. Do you think the party should put forward more policies of this style (family, flag) or that they should concentrate on the middle class vote in our university cities they’re currently strong in and leave the old working class vote to the Tories? 

You ask a serious question, @Fen Canary, so I'll try and give you a serious answer. Firstly, it is clear that Labour's position needs to change. Even before the current run of Conservative governments the parties traditional support was ebbing away. This is common among Social Democratic parties across Europe and is more down to structural factors rather than the party moving away from its core vote. Simply put "the working class" vote that sustained the Party in the 20th century no longer exists. In the supposed "Red Wall" workers, mainly men, worked in industry. Generations were miners, steel workers, dockers, manufacturers and ship builders. Self-interest bound them into trade unions that provided them routes into politics or organising. All that is gone, along with secure, high paid jobs. At the same time there was always a "Blue collar" Tory vote among the Working Class, someone told me it was approximately a third, otheriwse the country would never have had a post-war Tory government. This is what is left, and has probably expanded but only by a little, a few percentage points on top of the traditional support.

Remember Norman Tebbit's "get on your bike and look for work". That is what the best and the brightest of the working class have done. Moved away from the rust belt for education and jobs. They still exist, they still vote Labour but get sneered at as Metropolitan elitists. You can find them in urban areas and yes, university towns and cities. The old Conservative Party has gone, the "One Nation" strain was expelled by Johnson, and now he is doing the same to the remnants of Thatcherite neo-liberalism that remains. In its place is Blukip, a socially conservative, big spending, big state English nationalist party (taking Johnson at his word, difficult but what else have we to go on). There is NOTHING for Labour to gain in moving towards this position and all to lose.

What Labour needs to do is drop the tribalism, finding allies where ever it can. There is a progressive majority in this country and a lot of politically homeless Tories. This can be seen in the results of the Cambridgeshire & West of England mayorality results, concerns over the environment, equality and fairness etc, Scotland & Wales. First step would be an electoral pact with the LibDems, Greens & Plaid. The centre piece of this would be the abolition of the FPTP system in place of PR and greater devolution. Then there are hosts of common policies that can be enacted. That really is the way forward for Labour.

 

[king canary 7,580]

38 minutes ago, BigFish said:

What Labour needs to do is drop the tribalism, finding allies where ever it can. There is a progressive majority in this country and a lot of politically homeless Tories. This can be seen in the results of the Cambridgeshire & West of England mayorality results, concerns over the environment, equality and fairness etc, Scotland & Wales. First step would be an electoral pact with the LibDems, Greens & Plaid. The centre piece of this would be the abolition of the FPTP system in place of PR and greater devolution. Then there are hosts of common policies that can be enacted. That really is the way forward for Labour.

 

Totally agree with this. 

I mentioned (either here or on another thread) earlier that it is difficult to see a clear path to a Labour majority without an SNP collapse in Scotland and that isn't happening anytime soon. So working with the Lib Dems or Greens to flip some Tory marginals with a promoise of serious electoral reform seems the only way forward right now. There is an argument here for giving up on the 'red wall' seats, although that doesn't mean you don't want policies that help the poorest in society. 

[PurpleCanary 5,554]

15 minutes ago, king canary said:

Totally agree with this. 

I mentioned (either here or on another thread) earlier that it is difficult to see a clear path to a Labour majority without an SNP collapse in Scotland and that isn't happening anytime soon. So working with the Lib Dems or Greens to flip some Tory marginals with a promoise of serious electoral reform seems the only way forward right now. There is an argument here for giving up on the 'red wall' seats, although that doesn't mean you don't want policies that help the poorest in society. 

I too agree with BF's analysis. I don't think, though, that Labour and its potential allies should give up on the Red Wall seats. They will only stay Tory if Johnson, who is always big on promises and hopeless on delivering practical results, actually improves the lot of people living in those areas.

The trick, assuming Johnson again fails to deliver, will be to convince those voters that their continuing plight is the result of a dozen or so years of neglectful Tory policies rather than, as many of them apparently believe, a powerless opposition party.

[TheGunnShow 5,933]

1 hour ago, BigFish said:

You ask a serious question, @Fen Canary, so I'll try and give you a serious answer. Firstly, it is clear that Labour's position needs to change. Even before the current run of Conservative governments the parties traditional support was ebbing away. This is common among Social Democratic parties across Europe and is more down to structural factors rather than the party moving away from its core vote. Simply put "the working class" vote that sustained the Party in the 20th century no longer exists. In the supposed "Red Wall" workers, mainly men, worked in industry. Generations were miners, steel workers, dockers, manufacturers and ship builders. Self-interest bound them into trade unions that provided them routes into politics or organising. All that is gone, along with secure, high paid jobs. At the same time there was always a "Blue collar" Tory vote among the Working Class, someone told me it was approximately a third, otheriwse the country would never have had a post-war Tory government. This is what is left, and has probably expanded but only by a little, a few percentage points on top of the traditional support.

Remember Norman Tebbit's "get on your bike and look for work". That is what the best and the brightest of the working class have done. Moved away from the rust belt for education and jobs. They still exist, they still vote Labour but get sneered at as Metropolitan elitists. You can find them in urban areas and yes, university towns and cities. The old Conservative Party has gone, the "One Nation" strain was expelled by Johnson, and now he is doing the same to the remnants of Thatcherite neo-liberalism that remains. In its place is Blukip, a socially conservative, big spending, big state English nationalist party (taking Johnson at his word, difficult but what else have we to go on). There is NOTHING for Labour to gain in moving towards this position and all to lose.

What Labour needs to do is drop the tribalism, finding allies where ever it can. There is a progressive majority in this country and a lot of politically homeless Tories. This can be seen in the results of the Cambridgeshire & West of England mayorality results, concerns over the environment, equality and fairness etc, Scotland & Wales. First step would be an electoral pact with the LibDems, Greens & Plaid. The centre piece of this would be the abolition of the FPTP system in place of PR and greater devolution. Then there are hosts of common policies that can be enacted. That really is the way forward for Labour.

 

Particularly the last bit. Get FPTP abolished, PR doesn't go quite far enough for my liking but would be my compromise position. My personal preference, as ever, would be to go absolutely full Swiss when it comes to public initiatives and the ability of the populace to ask for referendums if a matter is considered such where political elites are drifting too far away from those who they serve.

[Yellow Fever 3,749]

30 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

I too agree with BF's analysis. I don't think, though, that Labour and its potential allies should give up on the Red Wall seats. They will only stay Tory if Johnson, who is always big on promises and hopeless on delivering practical results, actually improves the lot of people living in those areas.

The trick, assuming Johnson again fails to deliver, will be to convince those voters that their continuing plight is the result of a dozen or so years of neglectful Tory policies rather than, as many of them apparently believe, a powerless opposition party.

You need to separate the 'Bluekip/BNP/Reactionary right' ideas/mindset from the practical policies that Johnson might deliver. Levelling up  - I think that's C u m m i n g s - is good and frankly a 'left' idea. Move the treasury and that includes Sunak to say Leeds. Stop the London over-centralization (BBC are  now in Salford).

Compare with Germany  (Berlin/Frankfurt) or USA (Washington/NYC/LA). 

[Yellow Fever 3,749]

27 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

Particularly the last bit. Get FPTP abolished, PR doesn't go quite far enough for my liking but would be my compromise position. My personal preference, as ever, would be to go absolutely full Swiss when it comes to public initiatives and the ability of the populace to ask for referendums if a matter is considered such where political elites are drifting too far away from those who they serve.

The Swiss have many referendums on the same subject - can't see that going down well with many!

But some form of PR well overdue.

[Barbe bleu 816]

7 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

The Swiss have many referendums on the same subject - can't see that going down well with many!

But some form of PR well overdue.

If the wider labour movement wants to get the party electrd they need to forget all these big ideas and concentrate on how they are perceived. The key to victory as i see it lies in aligning the 'message' with the emotional values of the key voters and being positive

Corbyns policies themselves were not his down fall, it was perceptions of him that caused him to be unable to break out.

Edited May 12, 2021 by Barbe bleu

[TheGunnShow 5,933]

2 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

The Swiss have many referendums on the same subject - can't see that going down well with many!

But some form of PR well overdue.

Personally, I like that a lot and would even go as far as to say that is a cornerstone of a functional democracy in that the populace are regularly asked for their opinion. I consider that to be helpful for both politicians and the populace at large as it's a good way of ensuring that both don't drift too far away from each other and changes in views are more promptly taken into account.

A real problem for us in the UK is the sense of insulation from real world problems most of our politicians seem to have, not to mention the whole notion of career politicians. Regular referendums (on average in Switzerland, you're looking at 4 a year) on a wide range of topics strike me as a far better organised way of keeping fingers on the pulse. Also, although I readily say this is merely a suspicion and I cannot utterly confirm, I do suspect this would also mean that voters are likely to be more informed. It is well-known that participation in your average Swiss referendum tends to be quite low, which is sometimes used as a criticism, however I would say that when you know another one is due at semi-regularly intervals, voters can pick and choose more and will probably do it based on awareness of the topic at hand.

[Yellow Fever 3,749]

23 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

If the wider labour movement wants to get the party electrd they need to forget all these big ideas and concentrate on how they are perceived. The key to victory as i see it lies in aligning the 'message' with the emotional values of the key voters and being positive

Corbyns policies themselves were not his down fall, it was perceptions of him that caused him to be unable to break out.

I can agree with most of that - and have said as much. It was not Corbyn's economic policies so much as his general demeanor (being by default anti 'West' and unrealistically critical of our acknowledged dubious past in common with many other countries). Sunak has now spent more money and run up greater debts than McDonell could ever dream off with little to show for it!

There is a truth though that the traditional 'working class' is really an oxymoron now for largely the retired manual worker of yesteryear - often from closed heavy industry that is extremely unlikely to ever return.

I would also add that I think Starmer has probably spent too long now distancing himself from Corbyn and not enough time making his fresh start and new policies - not that I don't have a lot of sympathy with them in the last year in being heard above Covid - the government policies of which he was right to support and even Brexit (which was also overshadowed)

Edited May 12, 2021 by Yellow Fever
Starmer

[Icecream Snow 761]

as per this week's Private Eye, more for the Glorious Leader to ignore

 

[BigFish 1,986]

32 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

The Swiss have many referendums on the same subject - can't see that going down well with many!

But some form of PR well overdue.

Haven't you had enough of referendums? They don't resolve the issues, they are divisive and many of the electorate seldom have the skills to address the question.

Far better to augment PR with subsidiarity. Decision making is then at the lowest possible level, electors votes actually translate into decision making.

 

[king canary 7,580]

1 hour ago, PurpleCanary said:

I too agree with BF's analysis. I don't think, though, that Labour and its potential allies should give up on the Red Wall seats. They will only stay Tory if Johnson, who is always big on promises and hopeless on delivering practical results, actually improves the lot of people living in those areas.

The trick, assuming Johnson again fails to deliver, will be to convince those voters that their continuing plight is the result of a dozen or so years of neglectful Tory policies rather than, as many of them apparently believe, a powerless opposition party.

Give up is probably to strong a term- I more mean not trying to tailor policy just to win those areas. 

[Yellow Fever 3,749]

16 minutes ago, Icecream Snow said:

as per this week's Private Eye, more for the Glorious Leader to ignore

 

 

Time to send the bailiffs round.

A few rolls of wallpaper and the odd drinks stand should do it.

 

More seriously - if this is true what a terrible example.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/may/12/boris-johnson-faces-court-judgment-over-535-unpaid-debt

 

It is TRUE.

Edited May 12, 2021 by Yellow Fever

[Icecream Snow 761]

40 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

More seriously - if this is true what a terrible example.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/may/12/boris-johnson-faces-court-judgment-over-535-unpaid-debt

It is TRUE.

Based on the information in the Guardian article - I'm wondering if someone's pranked him?

"The judgment, issued on 26 October, is for the online county court, whereby people owed a debt can seek recompense through a web-based form, rather than having to attend court. It is listed as an “unsatisfied record”, meaning it had still not been paid."

[Yellow Fever 3,749]

7 minutes ago, Icecream Snow said:

Based on the information in the Guardian article - I'm wondering if someone's pranked him?

"The judgment, issued on 26 October, is for the online county court, whereby people owed a debt can seek recompense through a web-based form, rather than having to attend court. It is listed as an “unsatisfied record”, meaning it had still not been paid."

I doubt a prank but probably an oversight by Johnson (to put it kindly).

I'm guessing these are the new Tory/Brexiteer values we have to all aspire too. Not pay our debts.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57087274

BBC now as well.

Edited May 12, 2021 by Yellow Fever

[ricardo 7,348]

Send the Bailiff's round.

"If you can't pay we'll take it away"😂

[Yellow Fever 3,749]

1 minute ago, ricardo said:

Send the Bailiff's round.

"If you can't pay we'll take it away"😂

Live on Telly please. 50M plus record viewers....

Edited May 12, 2021 by Yellow Fever

[Herman 9,717]

Please bring back deportation for debtors. Norfolk Island sounds nice. 

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

12 minutes ago, Herman said:

Please bring back deportation for debtors. Norfolk Island sounds nice. 

Don't forget South Georgia and Ascension Island are back on the Green List.🐏🐏

[Yellow Fever 3,749]

1 minute ago, keelansgrandad said:

Don't forget South Georgia and Ascension Island are back on the Green List.🐏🐏

No real Tory values  - debtor prison - 12' x 8' (all donations for interior design welcomed) 

[Well b back 3,190]

It will be a mistake and written off, however anyone else it could be a mistake but would not be written off under any circumstances.

Dont you just want it to be John Lewis.

[Yellow Fever 3,749]

37 minutes ago, Well b back said:

It will be a mistake and written off, however anyone else it could be a mistake but would not be written off under any circumstances.

Dont you just want it to be John Lewis.

I'm just bemused WBB. If it was you or me a CCJ judgement  - even if satisfied would be a personal disaster. I pay my debts.

Then again - I can't see how anybody even half responsible or credible could possibly get into this position. It's not as if his whereabouts weren't known! 

If this is the state of his finances, or worse his lackadaisical organizational abilities and lack of personal responsibility he surely isn't fit to run anything!