In the 1970s, Labour had a decent leader -Harold Wilson -who had a first degree in economics. He was not on the hard left -he had contempt for Bennism -the word then for Corbynism -nor was he an early Blairite. He was mainstream. As was James Callaghan his successor. As was John Smith in the 1990s. It is to this mainstream-neither of the hard left Corbynistas, or the Blairites on the right of the party, the party of Wilson, Callaghan and Smith that Labour needs to return to. Longstanding Labour voters like me yearns for an end to the factions that Labour has been captured by since 1994.
Corbyn did not dare to present a Corbynista manifesto to voters in June 2017. Instead he stole Blair's 1997 slogan "For the Many, not the Few", made the Blairite promise that income tax and NI for 90% would not rise, and pretended that he could fund vast spending promises on a tax revenue that would be no greater than which was available to Blair and Brown.Even Corporation Tax would not rise higher than it was under Gordon Brown. Not only did he run away from his own fabled principles by not presenting a Corbynista manifesto, but he conned millions into believing in a Mr Micawber in reverse economics which suggested that you can spend ten shillings and sixpence when you only get 4 shillings and tuppence in revenue.
Now Labour is stuck with Corbyn until 2022 for his vanity loves the Stalinist adoration, the songs and poems to his name. But he is unlikely to win the 2022 election, and it would be even worse if he did because his failure would be so spectacular, he would disappoint so many expectations, his bubble would burst with such a spectacular "pop", that Labour would be out at the following election with a landslide, and out of power for a generation.
Not just a decent leader. Denis Healy, Roy Mason, Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, Barbara Castle, Tony Crosland, Peter Shore, David Owen, Richard Crossman, Michael Foot, it was a party full of talent and ideas, some barmy but most pretty mainstream and focussed on the people they were wanting to serve. The comparison with the current shadow cabinet (or even the present cabinet) is pretty painful. Public service no longer attracts the talent it did.
It was just such a shame such 'talent' made such a mess of the economy in the 1970s
But the Tories were in office for half of the 1970s.
With regard to the labour party, the problems run much deeper than leadership. It is being steadily overtaken by what is essentially a coalition of left wing activists. The rump of long standing members from the Milliband era are in retreat, resigning their positions in CLP's largely under threat of being run out by momentum. That isn't true everywhere, but it is what I have seen over the past six months.
A lot of members who are active in CLP's are, in my experience, even further to the left than the policy platform adopted by the party. They believe in crazy, crazy stuff. Opening up borders. Abolishing prisons. Mad stuff that is surely electorally suicidal. As has always been the case with the labour party, these activists mainly see the party as a platform for their ideas, which they are so convinced represent universal truths, that they are blinded to the reality of how harmful they would be in terms of electability.
The trade unions don't fulfill the moderating role that they used to within the party, in fact they themselves have largely been taken over by radical activists with the broader trade union membership not being politically engaged. The only time that they will act as a moderating influence on the party is where there is a direct conflict with their members interest, eg Unite over Trident.
These underlying dynamics mean that I am fairly sure that the party is heading towards disaster, and 2017 was simply a high water mark. It will descend in to squabbling between rival extreme left factions, as has been the case in the past, and adopting madder and madder ideas. It is not held together by a coherant and defensible set of ideas, other than blaming the tories for everything. Of course, I could well be wrong in this analysis, but that is what I see.
Just hoping Corbyn will get too old and go away won't defeat Corbynism. In fact his replacement might not be so thick and so stubborn. McDonnell is far more dangerous for exactly those reasons.
The Tories do a piss poor job of explaining why Corbynism will be such a disaster.
Compare how they destroyed Ed Miliband straight away. They didn't let him frame the rules of the game, they picked up on any nonsense ideas and attacked the potential downsides.
Blair and Bad Al did the same when they were in power.
Why would anyone under 40 who does not remember the strikes and high inflation and inefficient industries and relatively low GDP per capita of the UK in the 70s be concerned about Corbynism? After all he is offering them free tuition fees, a big pay rise if they work in the public sector, cheaper rail tickets and electricity and housing all paid for by the rich
Perhaps they could try informing the public? Also Miliband was promising quite a few of those things (albeit more moderately as with Eddie Spheroids they tried to find measure that were vaguely possible in reality), and Team Posho went to town on the flaws.
A line of attack that lost a certain amount of credibility and potency after both Cameron and May adopted many of Miliband's plans.
The thing was, Cameron / Osborne machine had killed lots of Miliband ideas way before the election. May as you say has copied some and they just ceded the ground of things like free uni, re-nationalization, etc.
If Bad Al was working for the Tories (not that he would), he would have whipped up all sorts of "independent" reports and placed stories etc to highlight disasters of said policies. Would be drip drip drip drip.
The Tories just hoping Corbynism will go away, it won't. They need to fight the flawed ideas.
Some ideas of their own would be a start. All we have had is T May standing on the steps of No. 10 demonstrating that she understood the problem, and then..... nothing.
Right.
Actually the world works far better when you have competing ideas, people debate them, etc etc etc. The Tories at the moment are devoid of any ideas. The budget being a good example. Not all ideas have to cost money.
You don't get something for nothing. Maintaining the status-quo costs money. Good ideas cost money short-term, but save long-term.
You don't get something for nothing. Maintaining the status-quo costs money. Good ideas cost money short-term, but save long-term.
Not necessarily. But in general yes. My point was despite the government saying they are still on a tight budget, it doesn't mean you can't think of new ideas that over the course of 5 years will be revenue neutral.
What we got from the budget was keep calm and carry on. For a lot of people that is exactly what they didn't want to hear.
You don't get something for nothing. Maintaining the status-quo costs money. Good ideas cost money short-term, but save long-term.
Not necessarily. But in general yes. My point was despite the government saying they are still on a tight budget, it doesn't mean you can't think of new ideas that over the course of 5 years will be revenue neutral.
What we got from the budget was keep calm and carry on. For a lot of people that is exactly what they didn't want to hear.
True, although with the need to stabilize matters it was about the best they could have managed at the time I think.
You don't get something for nothing. Maintaining the status-quo costs money. Good ideas cost money short-term, but save long-term.
Not necessarily. But in general yes. My point was despite the government saying they are still on a tight budget, it doesn't mean you can't think of new ideas that over the course of 5 years will be revenue neutral.
What we got from the budget was keep calm and carry on. For a lot of people that is exactly what they didn't want to hear.
Wish more politicians had heard of the second law of thermodynamics.
Incidentally, @FF43 's post from April this year after the EU's negotiating guidelines were published looks more and more prescient with each passing day.
I wonder if Eurosceptics who were incredulous at the time would care to reread it now:
As far as I can see, the EU negotiators have played this superbly from their point of view. Unless the EU mucks up (which is possible) it will be in complete control of the process for the next decade or more:
1. Get the exit stuff agreed first, including the money, which is their immediate requirement.
2. Concede the UK's requirement of discussing the long term arrangement before the actual leave date. However this is contingent on the exit stuff making "sufficient progress" first. The EU has complete discretion over when "sufficient progress" has been made.
3. Discuss broad directions for the the long term arrangement, code name Canada Plus, but the actual negotiations take place after the exit.
4. Having spent time on the exit stuff and the directions discussions, they are coming up against the Brexit deadline and haven't discussed the transition arrangement yet. Yeah, well that's going be current system continuing - payments, ECJ, FoM etc. It's only interim and Britain wouldn't want to throw away the long term outcome it wants AND at the same time go over the cliff edge.
5. Britain has now formally exited. The EU can be very leisurely about Canada Plus. After all the original "Canada deal" has taken 14 years so far and still isn't fully ratified. The EU gets the continuity it wants through the "transition arrangements", while the uncertainty is all on the UK side. Do businesses plan for Canada Plus, continuing transition or cliff edge? They will decide it's easier to be based in the rEU. The UK will also find it difficult to get trade deals through because the counter-parties don't know what the UK-EU arrangement is.
Eventually, the EU will have to agree Canada Plus and the UK will get what it originally wanted. By then it will be a very ground-down country with the oxygen sucked out of Euroscepticism. And the EU will have made its point. The UK will never be less in control than during that long transition.
With regard to the labour party, the problems run much deeper than leadership. It is being steadily overtaken by what is essentially a coalition of left wing activists. The rump of long standing members from the Milliband era are in retreat, resigning their positions in CLP's largely under threat of being run out by momentum. That isn't true everywhere, but it is what I have seen over the past six months.
A lot of members who are active in CLP's are, in my experience, even further to the left than the policy platform adopted by the party. They believe in crazy, crazy stuff. Opening up borders. Abolishing prisons. Mad stuff that is surely electorally suicidal. As has always been the case with the labour party, these activists mainly see the party as a platform for their ideas, which they are so convinced represent universal truths, that they are blinded to the reality of how harmful they would be in terms of electability.
The trade unions don't fulfill the moderating role that they used to within the party, in fact they themselves have largely been taken over by radical activists with the broader trade union membership not being politically engaged. The only time that they will act as a moderating influence on the party is where there is a direct conflict with their members interest, eg Unite over Trident.
These underlying dynamics mean that I am fairly sure that the party is heading towards disaster, and 2017 was simply a high water mark. It will descend in to squabbling between rival extreme left factions, as has been the case in the past, and adopting madder and madder ideas. It is not held together by a coherant and defensible set of ideas, other than blaming the tories for everything. Of course, I could well be wrong in this analysis, but that is what I see.
Have you ever read Apocalypse Delayed by Nick Tyrone? You might find the first half interesting (the second half is truly dreadful and not worth the effort).
You don't get something for nothing. Maintaining the status-quo costs money. Good ideas cost money short-term, but save long-term.
Not necessarily. But in general yes. My point was despite the government saying they are still on a tight budget, it doesn't mean you can't think of new ideas that over the course of 5 years will be revenue neutral.
What we got from the budget was keep calm and carry on. For a lot of people that is exactly what they didn't want to hear.
Wish more politicians had heard of the second law of thermodynamics.
Of course they've heard of it, they're taking back control of all laws, remember? Next up, Gravity - constantly holding us down, who does it think it is?
In the 1970s, Labour had a decent leader -Harold Wilson -who had a first degree in economics. He was not on the hard left -he had contempt for Bennism -the word then for Corbynism -nor was he an early Blairite. He was mainstream. As was James Callaghan his successor. As was John Smith in the 1990s. It is to this mainstream-neither of the hard left Corbynistas, or the Blairites on the right of the party, the party of Wilson, Callaghan and Smith that Labour needs to return to. Longstanding Labour voters like me yearns for an end to the factions that Labour has been captured by since 1994.
Corbyn did not dare to present a Corbynista manifesto to voters in June 2017. Instead he stole Blair's 1997 slogan "For the Many, not the Few", made the Blairite promise that income tax and NI for 90% would not rise, and pretended that he could fund vast spending promises on a tax revenue that would be no greater than which was available to Blair and Brown.Even Corporation Tax would not rise higher than it was under Gordon Brown. Not only did he run away from his own fabled principles by not presenting a Corbynista manifesto, but he conned millions into believing in a Mr Micawber in reverse economics which suggested that you can spend ten shillings and sixpence when you only get 4 shillings and tuppence in revenue.
Now Labour is stuck with Corbyn until 2022 for his vanity loves the Stalinist adoration, the songs and poems to his name. But he is unlikely to win the 2022 election, and it would be even worse if he did because his failure would be so spectacular, he would disappoint so many expectations, his bubble would burst with such a spectacular "pop", that Labour would be out at the following election with a landslide, and out of power for a generation.
Not just a decent leader. Denis Healy, Roy Mason, Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, Barbara Castle, Tony Crosland, Peter Shore, David Owen, Richard Crossman, Michael Foot, it was a party full of talent and ideas, some barmy but most pretty mainstream and focussed on the people they were wanting to serve. The comparison with the current shadow cabinet (or even the present cabinet) is pretty painful. Public service no longer attracts the talent it did.
It was just such a shame such 'talent' made such a mess of the economy in the 1970s
But the Tories were in office for half of the 1970s.
And introduced the most massive reorganisation of English local government since, probably, the Normans, much of which was subsequently undone, primarily under Thatcher.
You don't get something for nothing. Maintaining the status-quo costs money. Good ideas cost money short-term, but save long-term.
Not necessarily. But in general yes. My point was despite the government saying they are still on a tight budget, it doesn't mean you can't think of new ideas that over the course of 5 years will be revenue neutral.
What we got from the budget was keep calm and carry on. For a lot of people that is exactly what they didn't want to hear.
Wish more politicians had heard of the second law of thermodynamics.
Of course they've heard of it, they're taking back control of all laws, remember? Next up, Gravity - constantly holding us down, who does it think it is?
With regard to the labour party, the problems run much deeper than leadership. It is being steadily overtaken by what is essentially a coalition of left wing activists. The rump of long standing members from the Milliband era are in retreat, resigning their positions in CLP's largely under threat of being run out by momentum. That isn't true everywhere, but it is what I have seen over the past six months.
A lot of members who are active in CLP's are, in my experience, even further to the left than the policy platform adopted by the party. They believe in crazy, crazy stuff. Opening up borders. Abolishing prisons. Mad stuff that is surely electorally suicidal. As has always been the case with the labour party, these activists mainly see the party as a platform for their ideas, which they are so convinced represent universal truths, that they are blinded to the reality of how harmful they would be in terms of electability.
The trade unions don't fulfill the moderating role that they used to within the party, in fact they themselves have largely been taken over by radical activists with the broader trade union membership not being politically engaged. The only time that they will act as a moderating influence on the party is where there is a direct conflict with their members interest, eg Unite over Trident.
These underlying dynamics mean that I am fairly sure that the party is heading towards disaster, and 2017 was simply a high water mark. It will descend in to squabbling between rival extreme left factions, as has been the case in the past, and adopting madder and madder ideas. It is not held together by a coherant and defensible set of ideas, other than blaming the tories for everything. Of course, I could well be wrong in this analysis, but that is what I see.
Have you ever read Apocalypse Delayed by Nick Tyrone? You might find the first half interesting (the second half is truly dreadful and not worth the effort).
Thanks, it looks like an interesting book, but I fear it will just be too depressing.
You don't get something for nothing. Maintaining the status-quo costs money. Good ideas cost money short-term, but save long-term.
Not necessarily. But in general yes. My point was despite the government saying they are still on a tight budget, it doesn't mean you can't think of new ideas that over the course of 5 years will be revenue neutral.
What we got from the budget was keep calm and carry on. For a lot of people that is exactly what they didn't want to hear.
Wish more politicians had heard of the second law of thermodynamics.
Of course they've heard of it, they're taking back control of all laws, remember? Next up, Gravity - constantly holding us down, who does it think it is?
Gravity is British. Classically down to Earth.
Alright, but electromagnetism had better watch out, I don't trust it.
In the 1970s, Labour had a decent leader -Harold n spend ten shillings and sixpence when you only get 4 shillings and tuppence in revenue.
Now Labour is stuck with Corbyn until 2022 for his vanity loves the Stalinist adoration, the songs and poems to his name. But he is unlikely to win the 2022 election, and it would be even worse if he did because his failure would be so spectacular, he would disappoint so many expectations, his bubble would burst with such a spectacular "pop", that Labour would be out at the following election with a landslide, and out of power for a generation.
Not just a decent leader. Denis Healy, Roy Mason, Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, Barbara Castle, Tony Crosland, Peter Shore, David Owen, Richard Crossman, Michael Foot, it was a party full of talent and ideas, some barmy but most pretty mainstream and focussed on the people they were wanting to serve. The comparison with the current shadow cabinet (or even the present cabinet) is pretty painful. Public service no longer attracts the talent it did.
It was just such a shame such 'talent' made such a mess of the economy in the 1970s
But the Tories were in office for half of the 1970s.
'And introduced the most massive reorganisation of English local government since, probably, the Normans, much of which was subsequently undone, primarily under Thatcher.'
Indeed so. The Heath Government inherited a Balance of Payments Surplus and a Budget Surplus in June 1970.By March 1974 , it had managed to squander both - and to bequeath to Labour a rapidly rising inflation rate of 13.5%.
You don't get something for nothing. Maintaining the status-quo costs money. Good ideas cost money short-term, but save long-term.
Not necessarily. But in general yes. My point was despite the government saying they are still on a tight budget, it doesn't mean you can't think of new ideas that over the course of 5 years will be revenue neutral.
What we got from the budget was keep calm and carry on. For a lot of people that is exactly what they didn't want to hear.
Wish more politicians had heard of the second law of thermodynamics.
Of course they've heard of it, they're taking back control of all laws, remember? Next up, Gravity - constantly holding us down, who does it think it is?
Gravity is British. Classically down to Earth.
Alright, but electromagnetism had better watch out, I don't trust it.
In the 1970s, Labour had a decent leader -Harold n spend ten shillings and sixpence when you only get 4 shillings and tuppence in revenue.
Now Labour is stuck with Corbyn until 2022 for his vanity loves the Stalinist adoration, the songs and poems to his name. But he is unlikely to win the 2022 election, and it would be even worse if he did because his failure would be so spectacular, he would disappoint so many expectations, his bubble would burst with such a spectacular "pop", that Labour would be out at the following election with a landslide, and out of power for a generation.
Not just a decent leader. Denis Healy, Roy Mason, Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, Barbara Castle, Tony Crosland, Peter Shore, David Owen, Richard Crossman, Michael Foot, it was a party full of talent and ideas, some barmy but most pretty mainstream and focussed on the people they were wanting to serve. The comparison with the current shadow cabinet (or even the present cabinet) is pretty painful. Public service no longer attracts the talent it did.
It was just such a shame such 'talent' made such a mess of the economy in the 1970s
But the Tories were in office for half of the 1970s.
'And introduced the most massive reorganisation of English local government since, probably, the Normans, much of which was subsequently undone, primarily under Thatcher.'
Indeed so. The Heath Government inherited a Balance of Payments Surplus and a Budget Surplus in June 1970.By March 1974 , it had managed to squander both - and to bequeath to Labour a rapidly rising inflation rate of 13.5%.
Wasn't there the small matter of taking us into the EEC (as was) too? Mind, that has been easier to reverse than buggering up the county boundaries. Tho'd have thunk it?
Mildly amused the EU repeatedly says nothing's agree until everything's agreed, and when Davis makes a similar comment suddenly people are wetting themselves.
On-topic: interesting possibility. Would seem to be a two horse race.
Mr. Eagles, if May's seat is the second, whose would be the third?
Eesh, I see your grasp of history is only matched by your grasp of geography.
Maidenhead is in Berkshire.
The other Kent seats that might see by-elections are Thanet South and Dover.
What’s happening re Charlie Elphicke?
Mrs May has behaved disgracefully towards him, weeks after his suspension he's still not been told what he's been accused of.
Funny how all those who accused Labour of acting shamefully towards Carl Sargeant have gone silent.
In this case the allegations have been passed to the police. The party is quite right not to discuss the matter with him until the police have finished their job. That includes not giving him details of the allegations. Apart from other considerations, anything the party tells him may allow him to work out the source of the allegations which could compromise the police investigation. That is not disgraceful behaviour by Mrs May or the party. It is absolutely correct behaviour when dealing with possible criminal charges.
Just hoping Corbyn will get too old and go away won't defeat Corbynism. In fact his replacement might not be so thick and so stubborn. McDonnell is far more dangerous for exactly those reasons.
The Tories do a piss poor job of explaining why Corbynism will be such a disaster.
Compare how they destroyed Ed Miliband straight away. They didn't let him frame the rules of the game, they picked up on any nonsense ideas and attacked the potential downsides.
Blair and Bad Al did the same when they were in power.
Why would anyone under 40 who does not remember the strikes and high inflation and inefficient industries and relatively low GDP per capita of the UK in the 70s be concerned about Corbynism? After all he is offering them free tuition fees, no student debt, a big pay rise if they work in the public sector, cheaper rail tickets and electricity and housing all paid for by borrowing and the rich
I'm well over 40 and I will just say to anyone under 40 reading that the seventies were nowhere near as bad as they get painted, and very few of the problems that there were originated in the Labour Party.
You don't get something for nothing. Maintaining the status-quo costs money. Good ideas cost money short-term, but save long-term.
Not necessarily. But in general yes. My point was despite the government saying they are still on a tight budget, it doesn't mean you can't think of new ideas that over the course of 5 years will be revenue neutral.
What we got from the budget was keep calm and carry on. For a lot of people that is exactly what they didn't want to hear.
Wish more politicians had heard of the second law of thermodynamics.
Of course they've heard of it, they're taking back control of all laws, remember? Next up, Gravity - constantly holding us down, who does it think it is?
Gravity is British. Classically down to Earth.
No. We thought it was, but we only held it 1687-1906, so about as long as the Empire. Electro-magnetism is Scottish. Strong and Weak have a very unBritish look to them.
In the 1970s, Labour had a decent leader -Harold Wilson -who had a first degree in economics. He was not on the hard left -he had contempt for Bennism -the word then for Corbynism -nor was he an early Blairite. He was mainstream. As was James Callaghan his successor. As was John Smith in the 1990s. It is to this mainstream-neither of the hard left Corbynistas, or the Blairites on the right of the party, the party of Wilson, Callaghan and Smith that Labour needs to return to. Longstanding Labour voters like me yearns for an end to the factions that Labour has been captured by since 1994.
Corbyn did not dare to present a Corbynista manifesto to voters in June 2017. Instead he stole Blair's 1997 slogan "For the Many, not the Few", made the Blairite promise that income tax and NI for 90% would not rise, and pretended that he could fund vast spending promises on a tax revenue that would be no greater than which was available to Blair and Brown.Even Corporation Tax would not rise higher than it was under Gordon Brown. Not only did he run away from his own fabled principles by not presenting a Corbynista manifesto, but he conned millions into believing in a Mr Micawber in reverse economics which suggested that you can spend ten shillings and sixpence when you only get 4 shillings and tuppence in revenue.
Now Labour is stuck with Corbyn until 2022 for his vanity loves the Stalinist adoration, the songs and poems to his name. But he is unlikely to win the 2022 election, and it would be even worse if he did because his failure would be so spectacular, he would disappoint so many expectations, his bubble would burst with such a spectacular "pop", that Labour would be out at the following election with a landslide, and out of power for a generation.
Not just a decent leader. Denis Healy, Roy Mason, Roy Jenkins, Shirley Williams, Barbara Castle, Tony Crosland, Peter Shore, David Owen, Richard Crossman, Michael Foot, it was a party full of talent and ideas, some barmy but most pretty mainstream and focussed on the people they were wanting to serve. The comparison with the current shadow cabinet (or even the present cabinet) is pretty painful. Public service no longer attracts the talent it did.
It was just such a shame such 'talent' made such a mess of the economy in the 1970s
But the Tories were in office for half of the 1970s.
Only under Heath, Thatcher had to beat both him and Labour to change the direction of the country
Comments
A lot of members who are active in CLP's are, in my experience, even further to the left than the policy platform adopted by the party. They believe in crazy, crazy stuff. Opening up borders. Abolishing prisons. Mad stuff that is surely electorally suicidal. As has always been the case with the labour party, these activists mainly see the party as a platform for their ideas, which they are so convinced represent universal truths, that they are blinded to the reality of how harmful they would be in terms of electability.
The trade unions don't fulfill the moderating role that they used to within the party, in fact they themselves have largely been taken over by radical activists with the broader trade union membership not being politically engaged. The only time that they will act as a moderating influence on the party is where there is a direct conflict with their members interest, eg Unite over Trident.
These underlying dynamics mean that I am fairly sure that the party is heading towards disaster, and 2017 was simply a high water mark. It will descend in to squabbling between rival extreme left factions, as has been the case in the past, and adopting madder and madder ideas. It is not held together by a coherant and defensible set of ideas, other than blaming the tories for everything. Of course, I could well be wrong in this analysis, but that is what I see.
The best thing that could possibly happen to Trump is 9/11 2.0. He knows that.
What we got from the budget was keep calm and carry on. For a lot of people that is exactly what they didn't want to hear.
https://twitter.com/SamCoatesTimes/status/940304552447959040
And introduced the most massive reorganisation of English local government since, probably, the Normans, much of which was subsequently undone, primarily under Thatcher.
Indeed so. The Heath Government inherited a Balance of Payments Surplus and a Budget Surplus in June 1970.By March 1974 , it had managed to squander both - and to bequeath to Labour a rapidly rising inflation rate of 13.5%.
Wasn't there the small matter of taking us into the EEC (as was) too? Mind, that has been easier to reverse than buggering up the county boundaries. Tho'd have thunk it?
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