Current Affairs The Labour Party

[orchard]

"... this suggestion that McDonnell says is "interesting" and requires years of discussion and fine tuning before it even becomes an "idea"... "

 

[orly]

its not a bad level now with Gordon Browns 7 year rule impossible to fiddle .....but for life on a very low level, he is also going to tax people with gardens marxist idiot......

Lol

 

[dead_soft]

It was debated on LBC - that article has now been surpassed by 2 grand to your children......

What on earth are you going on about?

 

[dwightschrute]

Incredible how easily duped people are by scare stories in our right wing media (no offence Joey66), would be funny if it didnt mean constant rule from austerity crazed tories governing by Stockholm syndrome

 

[Aberblue]

Obviously taxes of all kind woud go up under a Corbyn government. Mind you, the way Johnson & Hunt are promising the moon to all and sundry, they'll have to rack up taxes too.

Log story short = we're doomed!

 

[Methuselah]

Someone once said 'those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it'. What does political history for Britain tell us? It tells us that every Labour government since the war (excluding the Attlee government) have screwed the economy. And before anyone says 'where did you read that, Daily Mail or Telegraph', the answer is - I lived through it, that's how I know. The key word for a Labour government is 'Increase'. I can tell you now, with confidence, what will increase if Labour win the next election.

Wages
Inflation
Strikes
Taxes
Unemployment
National Debt

I class myself as a 'floating voter'. I have voted for Labour on several occasions and Conservative on several occasions. I always vote for the party who I think will do best for the country at a point in time. Sadly, Labour have let me down every time. The danger for this country is that the current lot who run Labour would be worse than any of the past failed Labour governments. Don't know how many general elections I have left but I hope that, one day before I depart, I have the opportunity to vote Labour again.
I mentioned the Attlee government above. I was too young to vote in the election after the war, but have studied it since. I think the Attlee government was the best government there has been since the war. Labour inherited a bankrupt country after the war and achieved miracles. They were unlucky that rationing was still going on at the next election and people wanted a change. Things were changing and the Conservatives got in just at the right time, mega lucky.

 

[tsubaki]

Someone once said 'those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it'. What does political history for Britain tell us? It tells us that every Labour government since the war (excluding the Attlee government) have screwed the economy. And before anyone says 'where did you read that, Daily Mail or Telegraph', the answer is - I lived through it, that's how I know. The key word for a Labour government is 'Increase'. I can tell you now, with confidence, what will increase if Labour win the next election.

Wages
Inflation
Strikes
Taxes
Unemployment
National Debt

I class myself as a 'floating voter'. I have voted for Labour on several occasions and Conservative on several occasions. I always vote for the party who I think will do best for the country at a point in time. Sadly, Labour have let me down every time. The danger for this country is that the current lot who run Labour would be worse than any of the past failed Labour governments. Don't know how many general elections I have left but I hope that, one day before I depart, I have the opportunity to vote Labour again.
I mentioned the Attlee government above. I was too young to vote in the election after the war, but have studied it since. I think the Attlee government was the best government there has been since the war. Labour inherited a bankrupt country after the war and achieved miracles. They were unlucky that rationing was still going on at the next election and people wanted a change. Things were changing and the Conservatives got in just at the right time, mega lucky.

so basically what you are saying is that the best Labour government was the one that was the most left wing?

 

[roydo]

so basically what you are saying is that the best Labour government was the one that was the most left wing?

Never really thought about it like that. The Attlee government did what it had to do, rather than being mired in a dogmatic ideology. But thats me remembering History lessons from decades ago.

But either way, "Left Wing" circa 1945 is a different animal to "Left Wing circa 2019.

 

[tsubaki]

Never really thought about it like that. The Attlee government did what it had to do, rather than being mired in a dogmatic ideology. But thats me remembering History lessons from decades ago.

But either way, "Left Wing" circa 1945 is a different animal to "Left Wing circa 2019.

I think that (that Attlee had to do what his Government did) is a perception born out of the success of that Government - after all, the right can hardly now say that it was a disaster that everyone got affordable (and better) healthcare, education, housing, workplace rights, social security provision and pensions so they pretend that Attlee had to do it even though the truth was that Labour was bitterly attacked, with the same predictions of doom, for doing all of it and that it was done as part of an ideological platform (probably the most ideological up until 1979).

Of course this Labour is a different animal to the 1945 one (for a start, 1945 had a lot easier time of it) but it is facing the same attacks.

 

[summerisle]

I think that (that Attlee had to do what his Government did) is a perception born out of the success of that Government - after all, the right can hardly now say that it was a disaster that everyone got affordable (and better) healthcare, education, housing, workplace rights, social security provision and pensions so they pretend that Attlee had to do it even though the truth was that Labour was bitterly attacked, with the same predictions of doom, for doing all of it and that it was done as part of an ideological platform (probably the most ideological up until 1979).

Of course this Labour is a different animal to the 1945 one (for a start, 1945 had a lot easier time of it) but it is facing the same attacks.

Churchill's 'Gestapo' diatribe was one of a long and continuing line of Tory smears.

 

[roydo]

I think that (that Attlee had to do what his Government did) is a perception born out of the success of that Government - after all, the right can hardly now say that it was a disaster that everyone got affordable (and better) healthcare, education, housing, workplace rights, social security provision and pensions so they pretend that Attlee had to do it even though the truth was that Labour was bitterly attacked, with the same predictions of doom, for doing all of it and that it was done as part of an ideological platform (probably the most ideological up until 1979).

Of course this Labour is a different animal to the 1945 one (for a start, 1945 had a lot easier time of it) but it is facing the same attacks.

Sorry, you misunderstood my point about "having" to do it. What I meant was the mood music back then, (according to O Level history anyrate), was similar to post WW1. As in the war(s) had been won by normal men and women. That sacrifice was ripe to be rewarded. And right.

You were presumably around back then, so will bow to your personal experience though.

 

[tsubaki]

Sorry, you misunderstood my point about "having" to do it. What I meant was the mood music back then, (according to O Level history anyrate), was similar to post WW1. As in the war(s) had been won by normal men and women. That sacrifice was ripe to be rewarded. And right.

You were presumably around back then, so will bow to your personal experience though.

I wasn't - but my point was that its our perception of what that electorate thought that is probably faulty. If anything they did not want to be screwed over in the way that their fathers had been after WW1, so voted for socialism rather than promises.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

so basically what you are saying is that the best Labour government was the one that was the most left wing?

Circumstances were pretty unique though, no? They had a combination of euphoria after winning the war, still a large degree of state control over things left over from the war (and the difficulty of opposing things aimed at boosting the 'heroic' populous, especially by doctors who were always opposed to the NHS), a pretty high esteem for socialist policies due to Russia's role in the war, and an endowment from the Marshall Plan to rebuild (although most historians blame Labour for wasting that money by failing to modernise British industry, which led directly to German ascendancy and the 'sick man of Europe' state).

In other words, I don't think we can take that and say well Jezzer must be what we need now...

 

[NilSatisOptimum]

so basically what you are saying is that the best Labour government was the one that was the most left wing?

Certainly we are in most difficult times since that period.

What with Brexit, food banks for working people, house ownership collapsing, social care for every age group disappearing, NHS being rowed back and what is profitable of health care are already in private hands in many parts of England.

We have energy companies and network investing billions in other countries while UK bill payer is left footing the bill. Crumbling transport, train network nationalised, then privatised, then renationalised once shareholding is no longer viable. Prison and probation services are a joke..

Wont take much to be left wing given the task and the legacy of the amoral, so called centre ground has left us.

 

[tsubaki]

Circumstances were pretty unique though, no? They had a combination of euphoria after winning the war, still a large degree of state control over things left over from the war (and the difficulty of opposing things aimed at boosting the 'heroic' populous, especially by doctors who were always opposed to the NHS), a pretty high esteem for socialist policies due to Russia's role in the war, and an endowment from the Marshall Plan to rebuild (although most historians blame Labour for wasting that money by failing to modernise British industry, which led directly to German ascendancy and the 'sick man of Europe' state).

In other words, I don't think we can take that and say well Jezzer must be what we need now...

I know, thats why I said they had it easier than Labour do now. I just think its amusing that people - and its not just on here - who are suspicious (at best) of Labour and who drone on about Marxism seem to think that the best Labour government was the one that was clearly the most socialist.

Also I think its a bit much to say that Labour failed to modernise British industry, especially British manufacturing. Most of that wasn't nationalized between 1945-51 (indeed a lot of it never was) and the choice to the owners was to either keep running things as a business and earn profits or to invest in the future; most of them tried the former and so we are now where we are. It should also be pointed out that the interventionism of that government hasn't been seen since 1979 and yet industry hasnt recovered - despite considerable assistance, lower tax rates etc, and you can see the same short-termism at work across the British economy, culminating of course in this latest bit of idiocy with Brexit.

Finally don't forget that the choice between profit and investment wasn't one that the Germans ever had to make until relatively recently, because so much of the country had been levelled and most of the rest had been carted off as reparations. The German state had to rebuild almost everything.