Current Affairs The Labour Party

[Bruce Wayne]

Again, you are willfully misinterpreting what I am saying. It is not a question of tribe, but a question of values.

Unfortunately, Labour is currently the only serious Party proposing much that is helpful, but this was not always the case.

The Conservative Party was far more constructive in the first half of the century than it has been since the mid 1970s.



If you want to talk about twaddle you'd expect in a children's book, we can start with your idea that Corbyn will be administering the railways personally, by himself.

We both know that you actually know better.

We also know that the number of people who could even name the shadow transport secretary is minuscule, much less how Andy McDonald's background as a lawyer makes him qualified for the job. All they know is they believe in nationalization of the railways as a good thing.

My point is that from experience, values and ideas matter a whole lot less than one's ability to implement them properly. You have no evidence that a Corbyn government will be able to run the railways better than they are currently run. None at all. It's a belief in the same way that Brexiters believe we will be better outside the EU.

This has been the problem in politics for an age. Corbyn is barely qualified to run a tea party (Economist humour), much less a government. He has absolutely no experience of doing anything but campaign. I fear he'd be no better than Trump, constantly campaigning because the nitty gritty of government is both beyond him and boring to him, so he's forever fighting tomorrow's battles, even when no campaigns are there to be run.

 

[abelard]

We also know that the number of people who could even name the shadow transport secretary is minuscule, much less how Andy McDonald's background as a lawyer makes him qualified for the job. All they know is they believe in nationalization of the railways as a good thing.

My point is that from experience, values and ideas matter a whole lot less than one's ability to implement them properly. You have no evidence that a Corbyn government will be able to run the railways better than they are currently run. None at all. It's a belief in the same way that Brexiters believe we will be better outside the EU.

This feels like rudimentary civics class.

Literally nobody has ironclad evidence of how the future will unfold. By definition.

This is why we have elections. People want the railways to improve. If they vote for Corbyn and things don't improve, or get worse, they can vote for somebody else.

You seem to be struggling with very basic concepts this morning...

 

[orchard]

We also know that the number of people who could even name the shadow transport secretary is minuscule, much less how Andy McDonald's background as a lawyer makes him qualified for the job. All they know is they believe in nationalization of the railways as a good thing.

My point is that from experience, values and ideas matter a whole lot less than one's ability to implement them properly. You have no evidence that a Corbyn government will be able to run the railways better than they are currently run. None at all. It's a belief in the same way that Brexiters believe we will be better outside the EU.

This has been the problem in politics for an age. Corbyn is barely qualified to run a tea party (Economist humour), much less a government. He has absolutely no experience of doing anything but campaign. I fear he'd be no better than Trump, constantly campaigning because the nitty gritty of government is both beyond him and boring to him, so he's forever fighting tomorrow's battles, even when no campaigns are there to be run.

Labour would have to be on some serious cheeba to beat Grayling's record.

 

[orchard]

This feels like rudimentary civics class.

Literally nobody has ironclad evidence of how the future will unfold. By definition.

This is why we have elections. People want the railways to improve. If they vote for Corbyn and things don't improve, or get worse, they can vote for somebody else.

You seem to be struggling with very basic concepts this morning...

He's scared, don't be too harsh on him mate.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

This feels like rudimentary civics class.

Literally nobody has ironclad evidence of how the future will unfold. By definition.

This is why we have elections. People want the railways to improve. If they vote for Corbyn and things don't improve, or get worse, they can vote for somebody else.

You seem to be struggling with very basic concepts this morning...

Not at all, you seem to be struggling with how projects work in the real world where turnaround times aren't measured in half a decade. We're living in an age that is supposed to revolve around experimentation at a small scale before using the evidence from those experiments to scale up. Government is the opposite of that. It's big bets that you're [Poor language removed] if they go wrong. The railways could be no more re-privatized if the Corbyn experiment failed in 5 years than Brexit could be reversed on a six pence.

We're not playing Sim City here.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Labour would have to be on some serious cheeba to beat Grayling's record.

Grayling is atrocious, but I fail to see how anything other than tribalism can underpin the belief that McDonald would be any better. He hasn't done anything even remotely transport related in his entire life, yet is in a position whereby he would run a nationalized rail network. That's absurd, even allowing for the fact that politicians do much less than civil servants in actually running things.

Seriously. The shadow secretary for defense was a teacher before entering politics (via the NUS). I'm generally a peacenik, but how on earth do these people get these jobs?

 

[Jebus_lives]

We also know that the number of people who could even name the shadow transport secretary is minuscule, much less how Andy McDonald's background as a lawyer makes him qualified for the job. All they know is they believe in nationalization of the railways as a good thing.

My point is that from experience, values and ideas matter a whole lot less than one's ability to implement them properly. You have no evidence that a Corbyn government will be able to run the railways better than they are currently run. None at all. It's a belief in the same way that Brexiters believe we will be better outside the EU.

This has been the problem in politics for an age. Corbyn is barely qualified to run a tea party (Economist humour), much less a government. He has absolutely no experience of doing anything but campaign. I fear he'd be no better than Trump, constantly campaigning because the nitty gritty of government is both beyond him and boring to him, so he's forever fighting tomorrow's battles, even when no campaigns are there to be run.

You'd be hard pressed to find someone worse than Chris Grayling.

 

[orchard]

Grayling is atrocious, but I fail to see how anything other than tribalism can underpin the belief that McDonald would be any better. He hasn't done anything even remotely transport related in his entire life, yet is in a position whereby he would run a nationalized rail network. That's absurd, even allowing for the fact that politicians do much less than civil servants in actually running things.

Seriously. The shadow secretary for defense was a teacher before entering politics (via the NUS). I'm generally a peacenik, but how on earth do these people get these jobs?

Ministers taking responsibility for their roles rather than subbing it out to another party isn't a good thing?

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Ministers taking responsibility for their roles rather than subbing it out to another party isn't a good thing?

I assumed both that we're talking about a Labour government and that the people in shadow roles today would assume ministerial roles in that government. You could extend it out. John Asworth not only has no experience outside of politics, but he has no background in health/medicine, yet is shadow minister for health. Angela Raynor has no background in education yet is education minister. Long-Bailey is a solicitor yet would be in charge of business and idustrial strategy.

There is barely anyone in the shadow cabinet with the slightest background in the area they would be presiding over. There's blind faith and there's blind faith.

 

[Jebus_lives]

Grayling is atrocious, but I fail to see how anything other than tribalism can underpin the belief that McDonald would be any better. He hasn't done anything even remotely transport related in his entire life, yet is in a position whereby he would run a nationalized rail network. That's absurd, even allowing for the fact that politicians do much less than civil servants in actually running things.

Seriously. The shadow secretary for defense was a teacher before entering politics (via the NUS). I'm generally a peacenik, but how on earth do these people get these jobs?

As a student of law, without wanting to demonstrate any bias, the politicians held in highest regard throughout history - in the UK and USA have worked or studied Law.

Lincoln, Coolidge, Roosevelt (both of them), Lloyd George, Atlee...

 

[abelard]

it's like we should have some sort of "civil service", or something, to balance representative democracy with technical skill

 

[catcherintherye]

We also know that the number of people who could even name the shadow transport secretary is minuscule, much less how Andy McDonald's background as a lawyer makes him qualified for the job. All they know is they believe in nationalization of the railways as a good thing.

My point is that from experience, values and ideas matter a whole lot less than one's ability to implement them properly. You have no evidence that a Corbyn government will be able to run the railways better than they are currently run. None at all. It's a belief in the same way that Brexiters believe we will be better outside the EU.

This has been the problem in politics for an age. Corbyn is barely qualified to run a tea party (Economist humour), much less a government. He has absolutely no experience of doing anything but campaign. I fear he'd be no better than Trump, constantly campaigning because the nitty gritty of government is both beyond him and boring to him, so he's forever fighting tomorrow's battles, even when no campaigns are there to be run.

People have no guarantees things would be run better under a Corbyn government, but it appears you seem certain they would be ran terribly under a Corbyn government. Surely either both of these things can be true, or neither of them?

 

[Bruce Wayne]

it's like we should have some sort of "civil service", or something, to balance representative democracy with technical skill

Brexit has surely shown they're no guarantee against hopelessness above them.

 

[catcherintherye]

I assumed both that we're talking about a Labour government and that the people in shadow roles today would assume ministerial roles in that government. You could extend it out. John Asworth not only has no experience outside of politics, but he has no background in health/medicine, yet is shadow minister for health. Angela Raynor has no background in education yet is education minister. Long-Bailey is a solicitor yet would be in charge of business and idustrial strategy.

There is barely anyone in the shadow cabinet with the slightest background in the area they would be presiding over. There's blind faith and there's blind faith.

Our system (for better or worse) doesn't operate on that basis though. It's not America where you find competent people in each area. The civil service effectively run each department. Most politicians have limited experience with overseeing budgets and projects that are required to run big departments. It may be a problem but it's not a problem unique to Labour or indeed to Corbyn.

The limitation on Corbyn's cabinet is not that they don't have direct influence in certain areas. It's a myth that getting a business man in to run business for the country works, or a teacher to run education, an NHS doctor to run the NHS etc. The limitation for Corbyns team is more that they lack the necessary political experience in how to navigate the civil service who de facto operate the minutiae of how these departments run. To me this is a far more logical position to take.

 

[catcherintherye]

Not at all, you seem to be struggling with how projects work in the real world where turnaround times aren't measured in half a decade. We're living in an age that is supposed to revolve around experimentation at a small scale before using the evidence from those experiments to scale up. Government is the opposite of that. It's big bets that you're [Poor language removed] if they go wrong. The railways could be no more re-privatized if the Corbyn experiment failed in 5 years than Brexit could be reversed on a six pence.

We're not playing Sim City here.

The smarter people around Corbyn (which I fully accept may be a smaller sub section) are acutely aware that there is very little that could be changed in 5 years (relative to what the expectations will be). This will be the enormous sticking point of the Corbyn government, how this demoralism is both handled and framed.

If it is done properly it could represent a seismic shift with the politics that went before it. A kind of reverse 1979 (or a 1945 election) whereby a sharp change in direction was established and a new paradigm takes it's place. That is already starting to happen, though there is a certain polarisation in both directions. it's difficult to see the neoliberal consensus holding though.

For Corbyn the critical thing is not really the specificity of railways and their ownership, but rather does he make people who voted for him feel that society is becoming fairer, and that there is enough change to counter for the inevitable disappointments that will come alongside it.

Corbyn needs to select wisely which issues he makes a point of, to hopefully demonstrate to the wider public that bringing services under democratic control and reducing the amount of money lost to profit can actually provide a more efficient service, so there is an increasingly confident and strong grass roots call for more of it.