Please tell me you're joking. This is exactly the same as the laughably lame "One Nation Labour" (which thankfully seems to have died a death). It really is quite amusing and insulting at the same time that these people think some vacuous slogan/soundbite is going to change people's minds, rather than actual policies.

 

With that said, despite my constant sneering at your posts, I am starting to increasingly think the Conservatives might get a majority, on a shockingly low turnout, because with the best will in the world I really can't see already-disillusioned Labour supporters flocking to the polling booths to vote for a party promising more cuts and endlessly prattling on about "zero-based spending reviews" and "public service reform". Frankly I'm starting to think it's probably in Labour's interests for them to lose - if we're going to get Tory policies eitherway after 2015, it may as well be a Tory government carrying them out, and then maybe when they see that a Tory-lite policy platform doesn't even work in getting them votes then there'll be a SLIGHT chance of a Labour Party reverting to being....an actual Labour Party, the kind which was so successful for so many years, rather than "New Labour" which succeeded electorally for two elections but then started bombing at an alarming rate.

Oh don't be ridiculous. If the last four years have taught us anything it's that pandering to the supposed centre ground during an election campaign won't stop a government from doing whatever the hell it wants as soon as they get into office.

 

Not to mention that a Tory win in 2015 would, in their eyes, legitimise all the things they've been holding off doing while they've got the Lib Dems in tow. I didn't think I'd have to point that out to you.

I would love to believe that Labour are just saying this stuff to get elected, and that if they get in they'll revert to being a proper Labour government and dump all this nonsense about needing to cut the deficit and will end the bullying of benefit-claimants and poor people, but I'm pretty sceptical. I can just see them cowardly surrendering at the first yelp of horror from "the markets".

I really need to read through this at some point. 46 pages? Wow.

I would love to believe that Labour are just saying this stuff to get elected, and that if they get in they'll revert to being a proper Labour government and dump all this nonsense about needing to cut the deficit and will end the bullying of benefit-claimants and poor people, but I'm pretty sceptical. I can just see them cowardly surrendering at the first yelp of horror from "the markets".

Even if that were true, it'd be hardly as bad as the current lot - let alone the prospect of a galvanised Tory majority.

Please tell me you're joking. This is exactly the same as the laughably lame "One Nation Labour" (which thankfully seems to have died a death). It really is quite amusing and insulting at the same time that these people think some vacuous slogan/soundbite is going to change people's minds, rather than actual policies.

 

With that said, despite my constant sneering at your posts, I am starting to increasingly think the Conservatives might get a majority, on a shockingly low turnout, because with the best will in the world I really can't see already-disillusioned Labour supporters flocking to the polling booths to vote for a party promising more cuts and endlessly prattling on about "zero-based spending reviews" and "public service reform". Frankly I'm starting to think it's probably in Labour's interests for them to lose - if we're going to get Tory policies eitherway after 2015, it may as well be a Tory government carrying them out, and then maybe when they see that a Tory-lite policy platform doesn't even work in getting them votes then there'll be a SLIGHT chance of a Labour Party reverting to being....an actual Labour Party, the kind which was so successful for so many years, rather than "New Labour" which succeeded electorally for two elections but then started bombing at an alarming rate.

There's a lot to respond here, so pull me up if it gets confusing which bit I'm replying to at any point:

 

- the bit a lot of party advisers don't seem to get is that a new label for the party doesn't really make sense if it doesn't speak as a snappy summary of the kinds of policies that the party are selling. One Nation Labour could potentially have been an absolutely excellent summary for a certain group of policies which aimed to, well, eliminate the 'two nations' and reintegrate society (could've been anything - to pick a few ideas that could fall easily and understandably under that umbrella, compulsory National Citizens Service, twinning of private schools with the least successful secondary schools coupled with an Assisted Places Scheme to the best state/public schools for gifted children of families in the bottom 10% of incomes, reuniversalising benefits, mutualising the railways, introduction of a National Care Service). The problem was that 'One Nation' just became an utterly meaningless label that got applied to any and all policies Labour came out with - there was no broader philosophical strand which ran through all of them and explained the ideology behind them, it was just 'here's what Labour's saying today. Oh, and it's One Nation for some reason'.

 

The Workers' Party thing could conceivably make sense (even if it is totally laughable considering how much people on the lowest incomes are just trodden down) if it's linking, say, a big increase in the minimum wage, a few headline-grabbing and heinously cynical policies on out-of-work benefits that make Craig spaff himself at his desk, increases in the personal allowance, etc etc etc. Doubt it'll work and it's far too close to the election for it to really sink in unless they really go to town on it (and they don't just apply 'it's a Workers' Party Conservative policy' to every single policy announcement they put out regardless of whether it really speaks to that focus or not), but if they focus it on those types of policies it'll at least make more sense as an understandable soundbite than One Nation Labour ever ended up doing. Hopefully it being a patent load of crap and a hopefully imminent torrent of memes (a la 'I'll cut the deficit, not the NHS') will put paid to that though.

 

- A couple of speeches =/= 'endlessly prattling on about'. The way you're going on you'd think a) it was the central topic of conversation in the Labour Party's message at the moment, and b) that most Labour voters were aware of it. I'm not really sure what your objection is to zero-based spending on principle either - as the old chestnut goes, socialism's the language of priorities. Do you think all of that £700 billion of UK government spending is being spent effectively? Efficiently? Do you think it's all being spent in the right place and that there isn't some being spent in some areas that could be spent better elsewhere? It's not exactly a terrifying prospect (and, to answer your point above, there's a difference between the statements 'cuts will improve services' and 'reduced spending doesn't have to mean reduced services'. That's the whole point of public service reform - to make sure that you can get the most out of the money and work to guarantee that reduced spending doesn't mean reduced services.)

 

- I'm almost crying at the statement 'if we're going to get Tory policies either way after 2015, it may as well be a Tory government carrying them out'. Please Danny, either stop this hysterical hyperbole, or stop calling yourself a left-winger, as that's not a sentence any self-respecting one would say. I realise there's not much I can do at this point to try and change your mind that 'making sure you don't spend shitloads more than you bring in' isn't a Tory policy, and indeed that it's harmed the Labour Party for so long to let it be defined in the public imagination as one.* But are you saying you'd really take: immigration vans, unilateral boundary review, marriage tax allowance, scrapping the Human Rights Act, scrapping Housing Benefit (and an assortment of others) for under-25s, unlimited tuition fees, a scrapped inheritance tax, harsher cuts than Labour would ever bring in (these lot are doing it for the sake of a smaller state per se and smaller taxes, rather than just trying to balance any books. There is no end point if they realise they can get re-elected regardless of how much they go at it), all in the sake of waiting for a Labour Party that goes into an election with no vision for improving public services beyond 'give them more money' and no explanation for funding that money beyond 'borrow it. don't care if people we borrow it from don't like it.'? I hope you can hold your breath, because that isn't ever happening. And you're viewing the 'actual Labour Party' of the past through seriously rose-tinted glasses if you think that's ever what it used to be.

 

 

 

 

*yeah, that actual Labour Party which was 'so successful for so many years' wasn't really successful for that many years, in most part because of that. It was generally only when the public were confident enough we wouldn't go wild on the credit card like a pissed aunt that they were happy enough to trust us with power - Attlee aside because of the 'peace dividend', so people broadly didn't care as society was awful and they knew there was a lot of money available to spend on improving it now we didn't need to spend it all on blowing shit up. Even then that was such a one-off scenario that it doesn't really bear comparison.

- I'm almost crying at the statement 'if we're going to get Tory policies either way after 2015, it may as well be a Tory government carrying them out'. Please Danny, either stop this hysterical hyperbole, or stop calling yourself a left-winger, as that's not a sentence any self-respecting one would say. I realise there's not much I can do at this point to try and change your mind that 'making sure you don't spend shitloads more than you bring in' isn't a Tory policy, and indeed that it's harmed the Labour Party for so long to let it be defined in the public imagination as one.* But are you saying you'd really take: immigration vans, unilateral boundary review, marriage tax allowance, scrapping the Human Rights Act, scrapping Housing Benefit (and an assortment of others) for under-25s, unlimited tuition fees, a scrapped inheritance tax, harsher cuts than Labour would ever bring in (these lot are doing it for the sake of a smaller state per se and smaller taxes, rather than just trying to balance any books. There is no end point if they realise they can get re-elected regardless of how much they go at it), all in the sake of waiting for a Labour Party that goes into an election with no vision for improving public services beyond 'give them more money' and no explanation for funding that money beyond 'borrow it. don't care if people we borrow it from don't like it.'? I hope you can hold your breath, because that isn't ever happening. And you're viewing the 'actual Labour Party' of the past through seriously rose-tinted glasses if you think that's ever what it used to be.

*yeah, that actual Labour Party which was 'so successful for so many years' wasn't really successful for that many years, in most part because of that. It was generally only when the public were confident enough we wouldn't go wild on the credit card like a pissed aunt that they were happy enough to trust us with power - Attlee aside because of the 'peace dividend', so people broadly didn't care as society was awful and they knew there was a lot of money available to spend on improving it now we didn't need to spend it all on blowing shit up. Even then that was such a one-off scenario that it doesn't really bear comparison.

 

But you seem to be defining "successful" as just when Labour politicians happen to be in power. Labour might have rarely been in government between world war 2 and when Thatcher came in, but their ideas dominated that entire period. If it's a choice between Tory governments carrying out Labour policies as we regularly got in the 1950s and 60s, or a Labour government carrying out Tory policies, give me the former anyday. But Tory governments only carried out those policies because there was always a Labour party constantly making those arguments and promoting those ideas even if it (maybe) cost those particular people the chance of being in government.

 

I genuinely don't understand the mindset that getting people who happen to wear Labour rosettes into government limousines is the biggest priority, and policies are secondary, as if political parties are just football teams who people should always root for, rather than bodies to actually represent specific people and promote specific principles. (Some Newsnight correspondent tonight summed it up best--she said something like no party would completely rule out coalition because "at the end of the day, they all want to be ministers" -- if ever there was a quote which encapsulated the type of attitude people detest about politicians, that quote would be it.) Much as it pains me to say it, the batshit crazy Tory backbench MPs obsessed with Europe are the only people in mainstream politics right now who seem to stand for something more than just being in power for the sake of being in power, and are actually willing to say they don't care if promoting their views lead to the Tories being voted out of government because they consider their principles more important.

Edited February 26, 201411 yr by Danny

I'm not - the Labour Party was in power for much more than eight years before Blair (eighteen to be precise). And it wasn't so much Labour's ideas that dominated the period before Thatcher as Keynesianism which dominated the period - for the entirety of the Western world, not just the UK. The Labour Party of the time was far more than just Keynesianism - you didn't suddenly find the Conservatives embracing the joys of state monopoly as a result of Labour's opposition, which was a huge part (even to the extent of opposing the creation of ITV!) of their ideological identity (plus, if you're after a Keynesian Labour Party - you've got one right here right now. After all, Keynes's lesson was deficit spending in a recession, so long as you made up for it in the boom years...).

 

For much the same reason, it would be absurd to say the Conservatives were 'so successful' from 1997 through to 2008 - sure, we didn't bring back exchange controls and wage and price boards. Guess the Tories won that round, eh? (Along with, well, pretty much everyone's livelihoods outside of Tony Benn) But like hell would Thatcher have signed up to post-neoclassical endogenous growth theory (where's that MASSIVE DISCO SMILEY because I think it ought to be made compulsory to post it every time that phrase is ever said) - the defining basis of New Labour, holding in essence that the state does have a big role to play in society (and that actually, society does exist in the first place), through investing in capital and skills training, along with working to ensure people weren't left behind at the bottom - take the minimum wage, tax credits, SureStart et al. And to the extent that the Tories might have gone along with ideas like academies, tuition fees and foundation hospitals - who cares that it adhered with 'privatisation and free market doctrine!!!1!!' given the results from them have broadly improved so many lives?

 

You're trying to define my belief as if the simple-minded football team view is what it is - it isn't. Indeed, it's because of policy that I think it's absurd to prefer a Conservative win at the next election, as there's no way in hell you're going to get Labour policy out of it (short of an increased minimum wage, and well...we'll wait and see on whether he actually goes through with that one, and it certainly wouldn't make up for all the rest). Which was actually the point I was making, so I'm not sure why you brought up the analogy - do you honestly not think that Ed Miliband's government would differ hugely from the Tories on policy in most areas outside of the deficit? (Hell, it'd probably differ hugely on the deficit as well - watch the Tories go for tax cuts the second they get enough surplus. Watch Labour actually use that surplus to restore funding.)

I'm not - the Labour Party was in power for much more than eight years before Blair (eighteen to be precise). And it wasn't so much Labour's ideas that dominated the period before Thatcher as Keynesianism which dominated the period - for the entirety of the Western world, not just the UK. The Labour Party of the time was far more than just Keynesianism - you didn't suddenly find the Conservatives embracing the joys of state monopoly as a result of Labour's opposition, which was a huge part (even to the extent of opposing the creation of ITV!) of their ideological identity (plus, if you're after a Keynesian Labour Party - you've got one right here right now. After all, Keynes's lesson was deficit spending in a recession, so long as you made up for it in the boom years...).

 

For much the same reason, it would be absurd to say the Conservatives were 'so successful' from 1997 through to 2008 - sure, we didn't bring back exchange controls and wage and price boards. Guess the Tories won that round, eh? (Along with, well, pretty much everyone's livelihoods outside of Tony Benn) But like hell would Thatcher have signed up to post-neoclassical endogenous growth theory (where's that MASSIVE DISCO SMILEY because I think it ought to be made compulsory to post it every time that phrase is ever said) - the defining basis of New Labour, holding in essence that the state does have a big role to play in society (and that actually, society does exist in the first place), through investing in capital and skills training, along with working to ensure people weren't left behind at the bottom - take the minimum wage, tax credits, SureStart et al. And to the extent that the Tories might have gone along with ideas like academies, tuition fees and foundation hospitals - who cares that it adhered with 'privatisation and free market doctrine!!!1!!' given the results from them have broadly improved so many lives?

 

You're trying to define my belief as if the simple-minded football team view is what it is - it isn't. Indeed, it's because of policy that I think it's absurd to prefer a Conservative win at the next election, as there's no way in hell you're going to get Labour policy out of it (short of an increased minimum wage, and well...we'll wait and see on whether he actually goes through with that one, and it certainly wouldn't make up for all the rest). Which was actually the point I was making, so I'm not sure why you brought up the analogy - do you honestly not think that Ed Miliband's government would differ hugely from the Tories on policy in most areas outside of the deficit? (Hell, it'd probably differ hugely on the deficit as well - watch the Tories go for tax cuts the second they get enough surplus. Watch Labour actually use that surplus to restore funding.)

 

What do you mean "outside of the deficit"? Saying you're going to make huge spending cuts just to get a surplus pretty much rules out the prospect of them doing anything good on virtually ANYTHING that matters, because any leftwing goals almost always require spending money, and that's just the way it is - and I'm sorry, but that's not going to be changed by any number of fantasyland arguments about public service "reforms" somehow magically making services get better with less money going into them, or for them to make huge cuts but somehow not make them affect anything that matters (again, if either of these things were possible, why has no politician managed to do them before? It requires believing the current crop of Labour politicians are somehow more ingenious than any politicians to have ever walked this earth before, which....just no).

 

I didn't say I preferred a Conservative win, I said it was probably in Labour's interests to lose it if they're really planning on implementing their current disastrous plan of huge unnecessary spending cuts. I'll probably vote Labour as the slightly lesser of two evils, but I'm not going to get enthusiastic about policies which are only marginally less terrible than the alternative, nor am I going to start tribally crowing about how superior Labour are to the Conservatives when the differences between them (as things stand) looks like truly splitting-hairs stuff. Imo, the only thing that would be significantly different if the Conservatives won would be that we might quit the EU, which although I'd probably prefer to stay in, I really wouldn't lose much sleep over at all.

Edited February 26, 201411 yr by Danny

Minimum wage has gone up to £6.50, tax on Bingo is going to be cut to 15%, the start of the attempted tory revival among the working class has begun

 

Once minimum wage goes up further and the tax allowance goes up to over 10k it is game on

Ah, bingo, that GREAT ELECTION DECIDER.

 

It's ALRIGHT MAM, don't matter that the gas bill's rocketing, you might win A BIT MORE AT THE BINGO

 

MIDDLESBOROUGH, TORY GAIN

Ah, bingo, that GREAT ELECTION DECIDER.

 

It's ALRIGHT MAM, don't matter that the gas bill's rocketing, you might win A BIT MORE AT THE BINGO

 

MIDDLESBOROUGH, TORY GAIN

 

A 300,000 people petition was given to the government calling for bingo tax to be slashed, clearly enough care about it, it is not the important issue of the day but 300,000 people clearly care about it, if that is bought in and some more money thrown at them enough might think that the tories are the party that thinks about them and vote for us

On that logic deporting Justin Bieber would have won the election for Romney.

On that logic deporting Justin Bieber would have won the election for Romney.

Thank GOD Obama fired back with that pledge to change the national anthem to Ignition (Remix) *.*

 

 

(poll) BOUNCE BOUNCE BOUNCE BOUNCE BOUNCE BOUNCE BOUNCE

This p**** thing could be very damaging for labour, the sun is on the case now and with some damaging revelations about Hewitt and Dromey, this could affect their poll ratings unless Ed takes decisive action to condemn them and sack them both from the labour party

 

'Labour chiefs support sex with 10 year olds'

 

Sun readers tend to be less bright than say Telegraph or Independent readers so could well start seeing labour as 'the p**** party' or 'the paedos friend' likewise people walking past a copy of the Sun seeing 'labour chiefs' would assume Ed was involved

 

Wouldn't surprise me if by this time next week Labour poll lead has all but gone

Edited February 28, 201411 yr by Sandro Raniere

Nope. It's a case of "boy who cried wolf" now. The press have tried these desperate attacks on Labour too many times now for them to really be taken seriously. This new Patricia Hewitt discovery actually looks like it has a bit more seriousness to it (she put her name to something calling for the age of consent to be lowered to 10? Which is....naive to say the least), but I'm pretty sure the few people who were paying attention to this "scandal" in the first place will have completely switched off by now after the non-story of Harriet Harman's tenuous links.

 

Also, I'm fairly sure the Sun ascribing this story to "Labour chiefs", on the basis of one erstwhile health secretary from years ago who is no longer an MP, is very misleading and quite possibly libellous.

Edited February 28, 201411 yr by Danny

Let's be serious here. Nobody actually thinks Harriet Harman supports paedophilia.

(Well, who isn't a swivel eyed 'below the line' cyberkipper)

Let's be serious here. Nobody actually thinks Harriet Harman supports paedophilia.

 

I don't think for a moment she does, most of it happened before she joined the NCCL but Hewitt comes out of the whole thing very badly, sure it was a different era 30-40 years ago with different attitudes/values but she has handled this appallingly, instead of coming clean from the beginning she brushed the whole thing under the carpet until The Sun found the smoking gun

Yeah, but who cares about Patricia Hewitt? She's not even an MP anymore.

Yeah, but who cares about Patricia Hewitt? She's not even an MP anymore.

 

Yeah but would the typical Sun reader know that? They would see the headline 'senior labour figures', start ranting about paedos without bothering to read the article and never vote for labour again

 

Unfortunately a Sun reader type has the same vote as an intelligent person