And given Andy went about his leadership campaign three parts 'left on tax and the economy, continuity New Labour on everything else, position self as northern outsider elsewhere', that interview is hilariously transparent in Andy positioning himself to be the grassroots candidate at the next leadership election (the positioning on the NHS reforms he brought in for one, and on academies). I wouldn't trust a leadership manifesto from him to be gospel at all.

 

I do really like Andy's ideas on social care integration and the land value tax, but there's always been something about him I've found a bit off-putting (although at this stage he's probably my first choice out of all the front-runners if we did have a leadership election in 2015. Yvette Cooper is seriously overrated). I've never been able to warm to him after finding out he went to a pride festival once and then spent twenty minutes lecturing a lesbian couple on why they shouldn't be allowed to adopt. Like...it takes some balls to do that, there of all places, but still...

Also there's a cat's chance in hell that Labour will finish third behind the Tories in the Euros. I still think we're going to win them, regardless of the Westminster wisdom that UKIP have it in the bag.

If we're lacking a clear direction now, what the hell would triggering a leadership contest a year before the election do?

If we're lacking a clear direction now, what the hell would triggering a leadership contest a year before the election do?

 

Bring someone in who actually stands for something more than "I want to be Prime Minister / want Labour to be in government", and has the balls to stand up to the prats who are stuck in a 1990s timewarp?

Bring someone in who actually stands for something more than "I want to be Prime Minister / want Labour to be in government", and has the balls to stand up to the prats who are stuck in a 1990s timewarp?

I'd love it to happen but practically we are far beyond the point of no return when it comes to sticking with Ed until the election. Any change in leadership would be instantly cast as a sign of a disorganised and divided opposition.

crikey, i've been away from labour party discussions a few months and all those unpopular statements I made about Ed seem to have had some impact on discussions.

 

For what it's worth, I tend to agree with most of the comments above. So many lost opportunities to take a moral stand - not of the "make yourself unelectable" extreme sort, just more socially-caring ones by fighting the rich n powerful, who can afford to pay more tax until things improve, however long that takes.

 

"We're all in this thing together" spirit, rather than "except for the rich who keep on getting shit-loads of cash for ruining whole companies and organisations". Local government staff have had salary cuts, despite contracts agreeing how much you're paid when you agreed to take the job on, and nothing to do with poor performance. Fat cats in gov supported companies at the least should be subject to the same when they don't perform.

What makes you think you were responsible for Danny effectively just getting continually more frustrated with the leadership?

What makes you think you were responsible for Danny effectively just getting continually more frustrated with the leadership?

 

to paraphrase one or more of your previous responses...

 

"what makes you think I wasn't joking"

 

I realise smiley faces are banned from any political discussion that you're likely to post on, you've made it very plain that you don't like them. Just can't win, eh? Damned if you do damned if you don't. Maybe HHOK would be acceptable or just post some rules.

 

The mood that comes over is that comments are being somewhat more realistic than they were months ago.

 

You do realise that anyone tempted to join in offering there opinion quickly realises it's actually not a "discussion" (as it says on the label) so much as an "activist newsletter" where anyone dissenting gets short shrift and personal abuse. PS ignoring all of my points, as per, and just focusing on a one-line retort.

 

Plus ca change.... Good luck with generating all those voters....

Edited March 15, 201411 yr by popchartfreak

to paraphrase one or more of your previous responses...

 

"what makes you think I wasn't joking"

 

I realise smiley faces are banned from any political discussion that you're likely to post on, you've made it very plain that you don't like them. Just can't win, eh? Damned if you do damned if you don't. Maybe HHOK would be acceptable or just post some rules.

 

The mood that comes over is that comments are being somewhat more realistic than they were months ago.

 

You do realise that anyone tempted to join in offering there opinion quickly realises it's actually not a "discussion" (as it says on the label) so much as an "activist newsletter" where anyone dissenting gets short shrift and personal abuse. PS ignoring all of my points, as per, and just focusing on a one-line retort.

 

Plus ca change.... Good luck with generating all those voters....

Pardon me for assuming you were being self-righteous again.

 

We'd been having some rather interesting discussions, actually. It helps that Tirren and Danny realise that it's not all about them.

Poll for the European elections puts UKIP in first place on 30%, ahead of Labour on 28%. Tories 21%, Lib Dems 8%, just ahead of the Greens on 6%.

I haven't looked at how proportionate the European seats to votes ratio is likely to be, could be interesting.

 

(not just saying this because we're behind, honest)

Someone on Politicalbetting said they thought on those figures that Labour would end up with one more seat than UKIP, assuming turnout is even everywhere. That said, that scenario would still probably be written up as a UKIP win, because all the average person would care about is share of the vote.

 

**

 

New YouGov poll shows that only 19% of people now think the economy would be doing better if Labour had won the 2010 election, which is the worst figure yet. Plus, support for the government's economic plans vs Labour's has increased. So Ed Balls's master strategy of winning "economic credibility" or "earning the right to be heard" or whatever nonsense jargon, has resulted in....Labour having less economic credibility than ever. As always. Not that that would be surprising to anyone who isn't in the Westminster parallel-universe freakshow: if you implicitly concede your opponents' argument is right, and stop arguing for any alternative whatsoever, then obviously the average person is also going to think there's no alternative.

Saying you should spend to stimulate the economy in recession and then pay back for it in times of growth isn't the same argument the Tories were making at all, which is that you should cut in recession to avoid deficit and continue cutting. That's like saying Keynes was making the same argument as Milton Friedman. I'd rather we weren't designing economic policy on the basis of 'what's the easiest message to sell?'.

 

Not that there aren't glaring assumptions there anyway. It assumes 1. that most people even know what Labour's policy on this is (I don't have a figure to hand but at a guess I'd say it was near certain the majority of people in the UK still think Labour's policy is to increase spending and reverse the majority of the cuts, and where people have heard the current policy, short of the tiny minority in the country who use the word 'neoliberal', a lot probably think Ed Balls is just saying it to get credibility and doesn't actually intend on keeping to those measures - i.e. the default measure most people have about the Labour Party, that it's nice but dim and hopeless on the economy, rather than that it's a group of traitors who are out to cosy up to bankers.) and 2. that the continual slow increase in support for the government's economic policy isn't the really obvious answer that, oh, the economy's growing and slowly more people are feeling it and favourig the government by default.

Whoever had the idea of Labour Buzzfeeds is brilliant.

 

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jonashworth/if-you...-tories-ar-g4no

Nice attempt to wash over the fact that they were the one's who ditched the 10p tax band in the first place...

Nice attempt to wash over the fact that they were the one's who ditched the 10p tax band in the first place...

More to the point, why not use the same amount of money to increase the basic allowance, i.e. the 0% tax band? Or, alternatively, the starting point for paying National Insurance as that is now some way below the basic allowance for income tax.

Raising the Tax free rate would be nice, but the reintroduction of a 10% tax band as well would be just lovely.

 

 

I think NI kicks in at around £400/month. Tax comes in at around double that these days. Thankfully it's at a much lower rate than Tax.

Nice attempt to wash over the fact that they were the one's who ditched the 10p tax band in the first place...

And the ones who introduced it before then too.

I kind of almost miss the hilarity of Craig coming in and insisting that every tiny giveaway Osborne commits to means the next election is a guaranteed Conservative landslide, before echoing three lame soundbites (all along the lines of 'making Britain Great again' or 'the party of the worker not the shirker').

 

Almost being the operative word there.

'Helping hardworking families' is the other empty rhetoric we hear, when what they actually mean is continuing to support rich elite bast*rds.

Edited March 19, 201411 yr by Doctor Blind