What's the furthest do you reckon he's walked in any given day in the last 40 years?
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- Jan 2012
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- The Hammers, until Mark Noble goes.(he's still there, sort of)
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Originally posted by The Awesome Berbaslug!!! View Post
Right, But the person they have to start with is John McDonnell, and anyone else involved in drawing up that manifesto. Also I'm not talking about radical redistributive stuff. The thing I'm talking about is super basic and timid. That Manifesto was basically a list of promises to a wide variety of groups, that would all be funded out of efficiencies and cracking down on tax evasion, (Which is by far the weakest form of promise because the funding is so nebulous and uncertain) but contained next to nothing for people dependent on welfare payments to keep the show on the road, while leaving in place the worst excesses of Osborneism. They didn't leave all of these things out because they were scared of a backlash from their more centrist mps. They left them out because they either don't understand, or they simply don't fucking care. If they understood or cared, that would have been a lot more prominent, particularly when they were lining up for an electoral massacre, and were in desperate promises mood.
You're probably broadly correct; Labour could be more radical. They will be, once the next bunch come through (the other year I sat in on a Momentum meeting at 8pm on a Saturday night, with about 200 mainly younger people talking about how to develop an economics that better benefitted the working class). Corbyn and others have opened that space up, it'll take a few years of gestation. I expect the next Labour manifesto to be more radical, and the one after that to be more so, etc.
But instead, you suggest that they start by deselecting John McDonnell - I'm afraid that your own hyperbole nearly always ends up destroying whatever arguments you have.
*(I'm assuming that your binary choice is all there is.)
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Originally posted by johnr View Post
I doubt if McDonnell doesn't understand that stuff, so I have to conclude that it must be because he simply doesn't fucking care about people that are dependent on welfare payments*. His entire political career has just been a front. It's probably because, as you said a few pages back, he'll be retiring soon and so doesn't need to worry about them, or himself - he really is alright Jack. The fucker.
I am worried that the only lesson that the left has taken from the last ten years is that Fiscal macro-economic stability is a big meanie and can be ignored. Rather than seeing things like osborneism as a transfer of money from the many to the few, while ignoring macro-economic stability completely which in itself is going to come back and bite everyone in the hole..
You're probably broadly correct; Labour could be more radical. They will be, once the next bunch come through (the other year I sat in on a Momentum meeting at 8pm on a Saturday night, with about 200 mainly younger people talking about how to develop an economics that better benefitted the working class). Corbyn and others have opened that space up, it'll take a few years of gestation. I expect the next Labour manifesto to be more radical, and the one after that to be more so, etc.
But instead, you suggest that they start by deselecting John McDonnell - I'm afraid that your own hyperbole nearly always ends up destroying whatever arguments you have.
No I'm making the point that if you're going to start deselecting people on the grounds that e10 suggested, then you'd probably have to start there because the bloody glass slipper fits all too well.
People have to stop giving the Current Labour Leadership too much credit for being "Left wing" or lend them much in the way of support on those grounds, Because they might talk like a reheated tony Benn, but when it comes down to the economics of things, (Europe aside) they're a lot more like Tony fucking Blair.Last edited by The Awesome Berbaslug!!!; 28-02-2019, 21:27.
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- Jan 2012
- 3291
- Worthing
- The Hammers, until Mark Noble goes.(he's still there, sort of)
- Garibaldi, dipped in tea.
So you'd start by deselecting John McDonnell before, I dunno, Liam Byrne, cos the former isn't left-wing and/or intelligent and/or young enough?
Mind you, if there's going to be no left-wing politics in 5 years time, and also/therefore no time for anyone younger to come through, then there's no point in deselecting McDonnell at all...
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- Mar 2008
- 18786
- Revelling In The Hole
- England, Chelsea and Tooting and Mitcham. And Surrey CCC. And Wimbledon Dons Speedway (RIP)
- Nairn's Cheese Oatcake
Originally posted by MsD View PostThe Brexit reverse-Jarrow march is a very funny idea.
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Good piece by Anthony Barnett IMO on who should- or rather shouldn't - lead the referendum campaign i(f there is one )
If they lead the pro-EU side in a new referendum, we will be destroyed. A well-funded alliance will deploy its expertise and, boy, will they throw in everything they can, and more, to secure Brexit.
Their key skill is in the dark arts of voter suppression. Paul Hilder has set out an authoritative analysis of how it works. Voter suppression uses psychographic algorithms to identify key segments of the population. They are then forensically targeted with quick videos showing, for example, Blair on the People’s Vote platform and then on a ski ride in Davos, calling for a new referendum – with his net worth as the subtitle. The message: that the referendum is a rip-off and “they are all the same”. Market testing reveals what images and phrases “work”. The aim is not to convert, but to disillusion and thereby turn young voters especially into abstainers.
A strong rebuttal of such foul and cynical methods has a chance of defeating them. But if the images used include Mandelson on a yacht with George Osborne and the notorious Russian aluminium oligarch Oleg Deripaska, not to speak of Blair, and they are at the helm of the campaign to remain, such charges will have the sting of truth.
Of course, everyone must be given the opportunity to redeem themselves. At this crucial moment, the best way that current controllers of the People’s Vote can do so is to step aside.we need the designated campaign to be inspired by democracy and led by the new generation. For beyond the familiar faces, new and often female leaders are emerging with the creative energy to set out a European path that backs free movement, governs migration, welcomes good regulation and secures our liberties and freedom.
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McDonnell's a far more important figure than Corbyn – both more flexible and more radical in his thinking and, unusually for someone in his position, a proper listener. Speaking as someone who knows him vaguely (and has a good mate who works for him), he's always struck me as far more open to new ideas and thinking than most MPs. Since the cobbled-together-on-the-hoof 2017 manifesto, McDonnell's organised scores of economics gatherings, conferences, meetings etc to look at how to build a new economy. And while we're not there yet and this might sound like waffle, just about the last person in Labour you want to get shot of if you want new thinking is him.
And an important semantic point: I wasn't calling for deselections, I was proposing mandatory reselection, with the election of alternative candidates if better ones are put forward. A "deselection", by contrast, is a sack first, replace second policy.
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Originally posted by E10 Rifle View PostMcDonnell's a far more important figure than Corbyn – both more flexible and more radical in his thinking and, unusually for someone in his position, a proper listener. Speaking as someone who knows him vaguely (and has a good mate who works for him), he's always struck me as far more open to new ideas and thinking than most MPs. Since the cobbled-together-on-the-hoof 2017 manifesto, McDonnell's organised scores of economics gatherings, conferences, meetings etc to look at how to build a new economy. And while we're not there yet and this might sound like waffle, just about the last person in Labour you want to get shot of if you want new thinking is him.
And an important semantic point: I wasn't calling for deselections, I was proposing mandatory reselection, with the election of alternative candidates if better ones are put forward. A "deselection", by contrast, is a sack first, replace second policy.
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The NI-RoI fishing dispute has been resolved for now, but will take the Dáil some time to restore the status quo ante.
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- Mar 2008
- 20753
- Black Country Green Belt
- Crusaders FC, Norn Iron, not forgetting Serendib
- Blueberry vodka Jaffa cake on marzipan base
Bit of a row about nothing, if there's never going to be a hard borderLast edited by Duncan Gardner; 01-03-2019, 13:29.
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- Mar 2008
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- Revelling In The Hole
- England, Chelsea and Tooting and Mitcham. And Surrey CCC. And Wimbledon Dons Speedway (RIP)
- Nairn's Cheese Oatcake
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Originally posted by Nefertiti2 View Posttldr.
They need to be really radical like you except in all the ways you're not radica,l because it would be financial madness.
This promise repeated just before christmas, not to raise tax on anyone earning less than £80k needs a bit of a closer examination. People in the top half of the income distribution in the UK simply don't pay very much tax. Median earnings in the UK are £30K. On that you pay £3,600 in tax and £2600 in NI, giving you an effective tax rate of 21%. A single person who earns £50k a year Pays £8,300 in income tax, and £4,600 in national insurance, giving you an effective tax rate of 26%. Someone earning an equivalent €58k a year in ireland pays 33%. Someone earning £80K in the UK pays £20,300 in income tax, and £5,200 in NI. That is an effective tax rate of 32%. That's not very high. That's a very high level of income, and a very low level of taxation for a supposedly left wing party to say. "This person is paying too much tax and we're not going to increase it" Someone earning €93k a year in ireland pays an effective tax rate of 38%. Our effective tax rates aren't very high by european standards. And this is before you get into the world of UK Tax allowances and deductions.
Whatever about the Manifesto, Labour have since then vowed not to raise taxes on anyone earning below 80K, and who knows where they stand on the Benefit cap now, but they aren't proposing to scrap universal credit. just make it work better. This is all really bad. They're at the point where they can still promise any old shite, and this is what they promise. They may as well print up "I'm with Gideon" badges. Now you may not like this. But a) this is true b) It is important c) it is relevant d) takes an axe to the left wing credentials of the current labour leadership, because it makes shit of their anti-"Austerity" platform, and makes them look very similar to Blairites, but with a different flavour of spin.
It's just something to bear in mind.
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Originally posted by E10 Rifle View PostMcDonnell's a far more important figure than Corbyn – both more flexible and more radical in his thinking and, unusually for someone in his position, a proper listener. Speaking as someone who knows him vaguely (and has a good mate who works for him), he's always struck me as far more open to new ideas and thinking than most MPs. Since the cobbled-together-on-the-hoof 2017 manifesto, McDonnell's organised scores of economics gatherings, conferences, meetings etc to look at how to build a new economy. And while we're not there yet and this might sound like waffle, just about the last person in Labour you want to get shot of if you want new thinking is him.
And an important semantic point: I wasn't calling for deselections, I was proposing mandatory reselection, with the election of alternative candidates if better ones are put forward. A "deselection", by contrast, is a sack first, replace second policy.
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