Current Affairs The Labour Party

[tsubaki]

What difference will that make though? Maybe it will pull a few more votes as Corbyn's image has been tarnished but most of the country vote for what the party promises to do and not the leader themselves. The media will still have their crosshairs aimed at whoever picks up and runs with the same policies ready to knock the new person down.

So just from my humble point of view a slight twist will make all the difference. Say instead of targeting landlords (some might have lucked into second home ownership - in fact I know someone who has) why don't labour come out and say they will kick-start the biggest social housing building programme (happy @tsubaki ?) since WWII. That way the end result is the same, more housing available. The council get assets which they can eventually sell to the tenants (once the build has been paid) at discounted rates, which they should use to build more. Private rents and house prices should go down due to the increased availability. That sounds a positive policy to announce, instead of one targeting people who have helped themselves. Later on policies can be put in place to curb the Fowler's and Rodgers' property empires of this world with capped rents and gains taxes, but these are on the down low.

I agree entirely that is what Labour should be doing (indeed I think I've said so on a few occasions), but we should not pretend that building a large number of social housing units will not have exactly the same effect as directly targetting landlords will. Rents are going to fall, as are house prices and it will quite quickly start to ruin those people who bought at (what will become) the top of the market.

 

[The binman chronicles]

The financial crisis was global, and obviously not Labour's fault, but mindless privatisation and deregulation made it much worse than it would have been. An instructive comparison is in Canada, which resisted the trend to cease governing its banks, and which as a result had no financial crisis whatsoever, save the impact of the American meltdown.

And on the other hand, the inefficient and extremely expensive financialisation of the public sector, the entire model of awarding monopoly contracts, and all the harm this has caused and continues to cause, is New Labour's responsibility as much as anyone else's.

Privatisation, a very British disease

Britain is an extreme oddity regarding privatisation: nowhere else in the advanced world is there such a willingness to sell everything that isn’t nailed down. Time and again the British public is ripped off and sold out by its leaders.

www.opendemocracy.net

I mean... I'm not the one struggling to be balanced about Blair here... ; )



Well, except that millions of people in Britain were protesting against it before it had even started...

The millions that protest don't have to weigh up the pros and cons of going to war in meaningful terms. Easy to be all for peace but that didn't stop terrorists turning planes into weapons. You could just be placid about the situation I suppose and let them off but would that stop further attacks?

I'm about as balanced to Blair in the same way you are about Corbyn.

 

[abelard]

Yet simultaneously we're told by Labour now that austerity was a choice from the Tories, not a necessity...

It was a choice, and it was the wrong choice.

When there is a recession (never mind what happened in 2008), fiscal stimulus is the only successful response. Contracting the economy further through austerity will only compound the problem. This is one of the most basic macroeconomic principles and it has been borne out through modelling and in practice again and again. There is no serious economic debate on this question.

The fact that Labour then had nothing else to offer is exactly what I'm referring to when I accuse them of economic illiteracy.

I have already explained this at least five times since I started posting on here, but people just will not understand that the way a government should operate during periods of hardship is not the way a household should operate during periods of hardship.

 

[abelard]

The millions that protest don't have to weigh up the pros and cons of going to war in meaningful terms. Easy to be all for peace but that didn't stop terrorists turning planes into weapons. You could just be placid about the situation I suppose and let them off but would that stop further attacks?

I'm about as balanced to Blair in the same way you are about Corbyn.

I mean... what on earth did Iraq have to do with 9/11? There can't seriously still be any doubt about this, can there?

Are we really still trying to argue that Iraq is an any way complicated or excusable?

Good grief.

 

[catcherintherye]

Yet simultaneously we're told by Labour now that austerity was a choice from the Tories, not a necessity...

The reality of course is that you are right to an extent, but it's not the real story - the financial crisis would have destroyed any government of the time, regardless of action or inaction - only the scale of destruction is up for debate.

The financial crash was an international global crash. Labour have some fault in it too, but oddly not in the way the majority of the media/political commentators said. Their mistake was not regulating the market, adopting an uncritical and dare I say is very naive assumption that there were no drawbacks to the market and that were there any we would be immune from them. I remember some talk at the time of ending the cycle of boom and bust. All intellectual idiocy and left us more exposed than we ought to have been.

However what followed were teachers, police officers, fire fighters, nurses, cleaners, post officers etc were all blamed for the financial mess. A myth was created that the problems came from overspending on such areas. The reality was that the public sector was creaking through lack of investment even back then. The deficit had been paid down to it's lowest level (substantially lower than 1997). This was allowed to stand by journalists and TV editors as a valid mainstream analysis of what occurred.

Austerity, and particularly how austerity was administered (focussing on the poorest in our society) while cutting taxes on the wealthiest was a political choice. It didn't have to be administered in the way it was. The majority of the EU countries, and indeed Obama's America adopted a different approach and emerged stronger than we did as a result (we continue to spiral down the global rankings on GDP).

The debt is now double what it was in 2010, yet we have Johnson going round making spending pledges. I think that tells you everything you need to know about the supposed necessity of cuts that were made. It's one thing to say you agree with said cuts but it's quite another to suggest there was no alternative.

 

[The binman chronicles]

I agree entirely that is what Labour should be doing (indeed I think I've said so on a few occasions), but we should not pretend that building a large number of social housing units will not have exactly the same effect as directly targetting landlords will. Rents are going to fall, as are house prices and it will quite quickly start to ruin those people who bought at (what will become) the top of the market.

Totally agree, but it is a nice way of putting it and if they don't pay attention they may even vote along with us, instead of seeing a headline they can't miss.

 

[Tubey]

Wait until the next financial crisis. The Party is only just getting started.

Likewise, it is always amazing how people cling to the idea that New Labour was 'centrist', mostly just because they say so.

In economic and foreign policy terms, their objectives were every bit as radical and ideologue-driven as anything Corbyn is attempting.

Anyone who sets up Momentum and UKIP on opposite poles and Blair in the middle sees the world in terms of received narrative, and not policy.

Blair started centre-left politically, not far off Smith, and gradually shifted centre-right as he lost sight of the original vision and got in bed with George Bush and big business. The economy trumped societal benefit for him by the end of his run.

But when he won the landslide in 1997, it was a centre-left social platform with a centre-right economic one. It was known as The Third Way.

By around 2007, Blair was clearly very much centre-right, veering more right every day, and had lost his way.

 

[catcherintherye]

Honestly, 2015 wasn't far off. The problem there was Ed Milliband couldn't counter the gloss of Cameron at an election - you know, eating bacon sandwiches, the Millstone, "Red Ed" and so on...

But yeah, politically it was left of centre of Blairism but had decent appeal. If Labour were ran on roughly the same platform now they'd eviscerate the Tories in 2019, but you'd have had to have had four years of sensible opposition under a leader with wider appeal to make that a reality.

All that said, I think that's Corbyn's best hope - a 'tame' left of centre manifesto that counters the ridiculous "Stalin" extremism argument from the Tories would be very much the best thing to do. Just a bit of moderation - bin off the "ban private schools" type of crap and just have a common sense, reasonably costed manifesto that would persuade voters to hold their nose and take a chance on Corbyn.

It's so easy to forget that we've had literally a decade of austerity and Tory incompetence that should make the Labour win an absolute certainty by default. It is an open goal in theory, yet it isn't, because Labour have done everything in their power to look as bad as the Tories at every step.

So what went wrong for Miliband was that he was criticised in the press for eating a bacon sandwich? Not that his half way house policies led to Labour voters being so unenthused that they just didn't turn out to vote for him?

On the second point that we need a more moderate candidate he could not be so easily framed as "Stalin" it's worth noting that Miliband, Brown and Blair were all accused of being Stalin too. It' doesn't matter how much you moderate, as Labour leaders you are going to be called Stalin, and probably attacked for eating a bacon Sandwich, it's the nature of the beast.

 

[zzr45]

Are all Landlords evil? Just checking.

 

[The binman chronicles]

I mean... what on earth did Iraq have to do with 9/11? There can't seriously still be any doubt about this, can there?

Are we really still trying to argue that Iraq is an any way complicated or excusable?

Good grief.

To be honest I don't think you are reasonable enough to understand the full implications and choices on offer at the time to delve into the details. You can just stick to your narrative and I'll keep to mine.

 

[Tubey]

It was a choice, and it was the wrong choice.

That lack of a sarcasm font hurt here I think.

When I said "Yet simultaneously we're told by Labour now that austerity was a choice from the Tories, not a necessity...", it was very much in a sarcastic way. I agree fully that at the very least infrastructure should have been heavily invested in to boost the economy rather than cutting back absolutely everything as the Tories did.

My point was it wasn't Labour who implemented austerity. Labour by 2010 where dead - it isn't fair to paint that Labour as akin to 1997 Labour as the same thing.

 

[abelard]

To be honest I don't think you are reasonable enough to understand the full implications and choices on offer at the time to delve into the details. You can just stick to your narrative and I'll keep to mine.

What were the implications of not going to war then?

 

[catcherintherye]

Blair started centre-left politically, not far off Smith, and gradually shifted centre-right as he lost sight of the original vision and got in bed with George Bush and big business. The economy trumped societal benefit for him by the end of his run.

But when he won the landslide in 1997, it was a centre-left social platform with a centre-right economic one. It was known as The Third Way.

By around 2007, Blair was clearly very much centre-right, veering more right every day, and had lost his way.

Thats a fair analysis. The problem is, in all honesty that the Blairites (and other centrists groups) have fetishised what Blair did in office, particularly at the end, to such an extent that they have lost site of the broader principles of what he stood for in the mid 90's and how he built a winning formula. They seem to want to win an unwinnable argument, that the party Blair left (rather than the one he built) is the path to victory. They are a very embittered group of people who remain too obsessed with settling scores rather than winning an election within the context of 2019.

As a Corbyn "supporter" (albeit a critical one) it's very unlikely had any of a number of Blairite characters, had dropped the snide and ridiculous plotting and adopted Blairs method from the mid 90's it's unlikely we'd have been able to hold on with Corbyn as leader.

 

[Tubey]

So what went wrong for Miliband was that he was criticised in the press for eating a bacon sandwich? Not that his half way house policies led to Labour voters being so unenthused that they just didn't turn out to vote for him?

On the second point that we need a more moderate candidate he could not be so easily framed as "Stalin" it's worth noting that Miliband, Brown and Blair were all accused of being Stalin too. It' doesn't matter how much you moderate, as Labour leaders you are going to be called Stalin, and probably attacked for eating a bacon Sandwich, it's the nature of the beast.

Yes, but it's now 2019 - the Tories are as wide open as never before. Cameron in 2015 was a mountain to climb for Milliband - May in 2017 and Johnson in 2019 are comparative molehills due to the turmoil they've went through.

Also, when you say moderate, I have to stress I'm not saying Labour should be absolutely dead centre with their political position. They should be centre-left - their focus should always be to the left. That's what they exist for. No, I'm simply saying they shouldn't extreme left.

 

[catcherintherye]

Yes, but it's now 2019 - the Tories are as wide open as never before. Cameron in 2015 was a mountain to climb for Milliband - May in 2017 and Johnson in 2019 are comparative molehills due to the turmoil they've went through.

Also, when you say moderate, I have to stress I'm not saying Labour should be absolutely dead centre with their political position. They should be centre-left - their focus should always be to the left. That's what they exist for. No, I'm simply saying they shouldn't extreme left.

No fair points. However weren't the Tories there for the taking in 2015? You had a coalition partner, who lost 15% of their vote because of betrayals of policy from the right, and a left leaning party couldn't convert net any of those voters. That election was an open goal for Labour. They had 1 job. Win disaffected Liberal Democrat voters.

As for the 2nd, I suppose the terms moderate, centre left and extreme left are debatable aren't they? What is clear though, is every Labour leader in the last 25 years has been accused of being Stalin, irrespective of where they sit politically. Moving back to the centre left is not going to make those accusations go away. The Conservatives view anyone to their left as akin to Stalin.