Corb Blimey!

[DCI Harry Batt]

Corb Blimey!

It's important to remind the traditional right in Labour, as well as the new right, that the Blair/Brown years were much, much worse than just "Iraq bad, everything else good".

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

Corb Blimey!

Luke R wrote:

Oracle has decided that the mythical Middle England is Tory and any deviation from that canon is electoral heresy. 'Hey, you have to cater to those racists - you don't want to lose the valuable racist vote in the name of ideological purity, do you?'

A problem that certain types on the left has (I would include Corbyn's lot in that group), is they're so obsessed with their own perceptions of social justice they're not really ever going to connect in significant enough numbers with the people who they need to vote for them.

For example, most folk don't see themselves as racist, and respond negatively to those who call them racist. The politics of the left-left is so obsessed and bogged down with race and sex they're hard to take seriously on things that really do matter to most people, even when they've got a decent idea.

There is a lot of open field between insulting people for their misguided beliefs and leaving those beliefs unchallenged by peddling to their lower instincts.

I'm not talking about alienating people. I'm talking about putting an alternative message on the table. If you call a working-class racist a racist cunt you will only make him more defensive, but it you show him he's choosing the wrong enemy you might help to change attitudes.

[Come along, Min]

Corb Blimey!

Vulgarian Visigoth wrote: There is a lot of open field between insulting people for their misguided beliefs and leaving them unchallenged by peddling to their lower instincts.

I think most people don't really see themselves as misguided in their beleifs. They come to them quite earnestly.

The two main types that vote Labour are Metropolitan clever dicks and tribal traditionalists, I'm not sure they're capable of gaining much else. That's the disconnect the left has with their possible electorate atm.

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

Corb Blimey!

Luke R wrote:

There is a lot of open field between insulting people for their misguided beliefs and leaving them unchallenged by peddling to their lower instincts.

I think most people don't really see themselves as misguided in their beleifs. They come to them quite earnestly.

The two main types that vote Labour are Metropolitan clever dicks and tribal traditionalists, I'm not sure they're capable of gaining much else. That's the disconnect the left has with their possible electorate atm.

So you think people are born die with their beliefs set in stone? There are plenty of examples of right-wingers turned left-wingers and left-wingers turned right-wingers, and a lot of grey space in between. Most people are not that political anyway.

As for Labour's electoral prospects, that diagnosis puts you in the chorus line with the Labour right. Fortunately they're hellbent on solving that problem by mimicking the Tories. They might as well give up. Who needs a copy when you've got the original?

[Lucy Waterman]

Corb Blimey!

The Tories are not the same as the Labour right.

Do you have a problem with short-term memory?

But to address your point again, the reason why we shouldn't give up is that it's only by getting in power that you can make a positive difference to people's lives.

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

Corb Blimey!

Lucy Waterman wrote: The Tories are not the same as the Labour right.

Do you have a problem with short-term memory?

I certainly don't have a probelm with long-term memory.

[Lucy Waterman]

Corb Blimey!

Vulgarian Visigoth wrote:

The Tories are not the same as the Labour right.

Do you have a problem with short-term memory?

I certainly don't have a probelm with long-term memory.

I dunno. The way the British people have voted since 1945 seems to have passed you by.

[ad hoc]

Corb Blimey!

Lucy Waterman wrote:

But to address your point again, the reason why we shouldn't give up is that it's only by getting in power that you can make a positive difference to people's lives.

Currently though it's you lot who've given up

[Lucy Waterman]

Corb Blimey!

Anyway, let's make this conversation less circular for a bit.

I was chatting to a passionately Corbyn-supporting (and actively involved) friend of mine the other night. Asked him what he thought the biggest challenge was in the intermediate term.

His feeling was that the most pressing concern is not the Labour right, not the media, but keeping satisfied those who have projected their hopes and desires onto JC - including everyone from key aides to £3 supporters.

[Lucy Waterman]

Corb Blimey!

He was also v clear that JC is not a Trot or a Tankie, but an anarcho-syndicalist. Leftie label fans take note!

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

Corb Blimey!

I don't know if he's that but in any case it's hardly a new-fangled term, is it? Less think tank pap and more classics, Lucy!

[Lucy Waterman]

Corb Blimey!

Tsk, I know that. I've seen the Holy Grail enough times. Hadn't thought of JC in those term though.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Corb Blimey!

Is he bollocks an anarcho-anything.

[Vulgarian Visigoth]

Corb Blimey!

Lucy Waterman wrote:

The Tories are not the same as the Labour right.

Do you have a problem with short-term memory?

I certainly don't have a probelm with long-term memory.

I dunno. The way the British people have voted since 1945 seems to have passed you by.

If you cast your mind further back, once upon a time there was no Labour Party. And then there was. And they won elections. They might as well have said: 'We'll never displace the Liberals and the Tories. They have the hearts and minds of the great British public!' Surely a significant part of the population was previously disenfranchised, but so is now, de facto if not de iure.

May I also remind you that Corbyn wasn't supposed to win the primary?

It really rubs a cynic like me the wrong way to play the role of the wide-eyed dreamer here, but there is cynicism and there is Peter Mandelson territory.

[Come along, Min]

Corb Blimey!

Vulgarian Visigoth wrote:
So you think people are born die with their beliefs set in stone? There are plenty of examples of right-wingers turned left-wingers and left-wingers turned right-wingers, and a lot of grey space in between.

No I don't think that at all, but they're more likely to identify with politicians who don't think they're 100% wrong, call them racist or show them general disdain. Particularly the voting types and particularly on the subject we're talking about here.

[NHH]

Corb Blimey!

What TT said. he might well be a syndicalist, but the thread running his politics all his life is a deep and abiding statism.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Corb Blimey!

TonTon wrote:

Get real mate. Read anything about tax credits? The NHS? The BBC? No difference, yeah. Smart guy.

PFI is doing a great job of helping to kill the NHS. Good work.

No it isn't. It's a very small percentage of the total NHS spend. The problem is that individual trusts are responsible for paying it, and it kills them.

Nationalize the PFI payments and there's no big problem for the NHS. And that's without doing major renegotiations like in Northumbria or Herefordshire.

Wales has no PFI but still has lots of the problems the English NHS does. It's the overall resources that are the problem.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Corb Blimey!

Tubby Isaacs wrote:

PFI is doing a great job of helping to kill the NHS. Good work.

No it isn't. It's a very small percentage of the total NHS spend. The problem is that individual trusts are responsible for paying it, and it kills them.

That is part of the PFI problem caused by Labour, indeed. But £2bn a year and rising is a lot of money.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Corb Blimey!

Vulgarian Visigoth wrote:

The Tories are not the same as the Labour right.

Do you have a problem with short-term memory?

I certainly don't have a probelm with long-term memory.

I dunno. The way the British people have voted since 1945 seems to have passed you by.

If you cast your mind further back, once upon a time there was no Labour Party. And then there was. And they won elections. They might as well have said: 'We'll never displace the Liberals and the Tories. They have the hearts and minds of the great British public!' Surely a significant part of the population was previously disenfranchised, but so is now, de facto if not de iure.

What does that actually mean? Biggest difference in fiscal plans between the parties since 1992 or perhaps 1987, per the IFS.

The SNP's spending policies were hardly different to Labour's, and they got over half of the votes in Scotland. Indeed, the SNP's tax raising policies were copied off Labour.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Corb Blimey!

TonTon wrote:

PFI is doing a great job of helping to kill the NHS. Good work.

No it isn't. It's a very small percentage of the total NHS spend. The problem is that individual trusts are responsible for paying it, and it kills them.

That is part of the PFI problem caused by Labour, indeed. But £2bn a year and rising is a lot of money.

I'm not defending the policy, but 2% of the NHS budget isn't killing it. 15% of a trust budget on PFI payments, that's a killer.

It's a manufactured crisis.

[Snake Plissken]

Corb Blimey!

Lucy Waterman wrote:
It's just something people who are abdicating the responsibility of providing an opposition can tell themselves to make themselves feel better.

Well, as soon as Tristram Hunt et al start providing an opposition to the Government rather than their own Party, you will let us know.

It is a sign of how far out of touch the PLP is that 11 out of the 17 internal PLP committees are chaired by people who voted for Liz "4.5% of the vote" Kendall.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Corb Blimey!

This is the killer policy (as opposed to a merely bad one), utter populist bollocks that Brown never went near:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e344e79c-71af-11e5-9b9e-690fdae72044.html

A hastily buried official report has estimated that the government is spending an extra £6bn a year protecting pensioners’ incomes and warns that the cost of doing so in future years could spiral further.
The warning came in a report from the Government Actuary’s Department, which was published last week on the government website but was removed a day later; an official said it had been published “in error”.

Whatever their considerable faults, PFI payments aren't all extra- they include lots of running costs and interest we'd be paying anyway.

The Tories even got a Lib Dem (Steve Webb) to do the legwork in securing the rightwing pensioner vote.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Corb Blimey!

snakeplissken wrote:

It's just something people who are abdicating the responsibility of providing an opposition can tell themselves to make themselves feel better.

Well, as soon as Tristram Hunt et al start providing an opposition to the Government rather than their own Party, you will let us know.

It is a sign of how far out of touch the PLP is that 11 out of the 17 internal PLP committees are chaired by people who voted for Liz "4.5% of the vote" Kendall.

Kendall got 41 MPs. There's an element of "balancing Corbyn" in electing so many of her supporters.

[Snake Plissken]

Corb Blimey!

Tubby Isaacs wrote:

Kendall got 41 MPs. There's an element of "balancing Corbyn" in electing so many of her supporters.

In the name of party unity, obviously.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Corb Blimey!

snakeplissken wrote:

Kendall got 41 MPs. There's an element of "balancing Corbyn" in electing so many of her supporters.

In the name of party unity, obviously.

Could have been the Shadow Cabinet elected like that...