Off Topic Political Debate

Best £3 any conservative ever spent! Realistically labour can now become honest and appeal to the 20% or so of the electorate who still fall for the idea that socialism can work without taking responsibility for paying for it. The tory party will expand slightly and the liberal democrats will emerge back in the centre ground they once occupied but in a more prevalent position than labour as society has changed. What happens in Scotland is still more worrying to me, reaching that point in life when decisions need to be made as to where to settle for the final phase and it seriously looks as if I'll be driven away from here by the racist Scotts if SNP get their way and independence does come.

 

Good article in the Sunday Times business section by David Smith entitled 'The great escape' about the deteriorating state of Scottish finances and how fortunate for the Scots that they voted against independence. For some, alas, the financial outcome is not the main driver. As independence is a one way trip it would be irresponsible to ditch the safety net of the UK unless they were fairly confident of the substance of the spin spouted by Sturgeon and Salmond.

 

please log in to view this image

 

please log in to view this image

 

More like a threat to the Labour Party, internal warfare has already broken out.

Roll on PMQ's this week.

 

Internal warfare ? and 15,500 new party members within the last 24 hours !

 

Half of the present shadow cabinet has refused to serve under him and slippery Mandelson is trying to organise a coup, does not sound very united?

This is going to be much worse than Michael Foot's ineffective leadership.

 

There may be a problem of unity for a while - for a long time the rank and file of the Labour party has been further left than the parliamentary Labour party, but now the 'basis' has spoken - those who refuse to serve under Corbyn are running against the democratic will of the party and would probably be better off outside of it. With the numbers now joining they can soon be replaced - those who remain will never have been more together. I suggest you devote more time to wondering how the Tory party will survive the next few years intact without fragmenting itself over Europe.

 

The majority of the Labour MP's did not want Corbyn because they simply understand that he is an electoral liability, much worse than Miliband. I agree the others were even less uninspiring but safer as far as the electorate are concerned. The Labour Party will be in such a mess I'm not sure they will be in a position at all to capitalise on any likely Tory problems.

Unfortunately you keep repeating your mistake of over estimating the importance of political party membership in the UK, it really means nothing.

 

Yes, sorry if you do not like me calling him by his given name. So you think a Marxist who openly proclaimed the abolishment of many of the institutions of this country as great - who would exchange them for state Socialism, for which you have repeatedly failed to provide a working example.
Are you really that naive to not realise that JC has been voted in by a mass influx of newly aquired Labour members from the SWP and assorted Marxists and Trots trying to jump on a Socialist bandwagon funded by Unite and other far left supporters - a few years ago it was called Militant Tendency. Do you really believe that these people did not vote in the last election? Do you really believe that a mass of people who could not be arsed to vote in the last election would have all of s sudden got the get up and go to register to become a Labour Party member and then vote for JC? It just does not add up. This is why the Tories are laughing their heads off.

 

Sorry but this reads like the worst McCarthyite paranoia. Do you really think that organizations like the SWP, or any other similar groupings, have the numbers or the organizational capacity to double the numbers in the Labour party ? The Labour party once had 1.7 million members and so it must be more logical to believe that these are returning members. Also the vote amongst older established members of the party was also left of that of the parliamentary party - the latter of which has moved away from its rank and file membership, and this is the result. Ralph Miliband was a Jewish refugee from the Nazis - who wrote books from a Marxist perspective which were highly critical of the type of State socialism found in the Soviet Union (Which Marx also would have been had he lived long enough) - have you ever read Marx ? If not please do before labelling everything which you don't like as either Marxist, Trotskyist or whatever. Which British institutions do you mean here ? If they are those I am thinking of then Miliband was not the only one to want their abolition.

 

Interesting times ahead ...eh...

A labour friend of mine is talking about 2025 election...... as the Labour come back!

Addendum:

Can we all please be careful about stereotyping and sweeping statements on this thread and endeavour to maintain respect for each other in these discussions.

 

Was it McCarthyite paranoia that caused Neil Kinnock to stand up against Militant Tendency with his famous speech regarding sending our redundancy notices to teachers in taxis? There is long history of Marxists, SWP's and Trots becoming members of the Labour party and pushing it to the far left - this is exactly what we are seeing today. Look at the TV picures of JC's meetings, they are full of people holding SWP banners.
No, I am not as familar with the works of Marx as you are, but for me it's just noise from the past. State Socialism has never been demonstrated to deliver the ideals of Marx, it has failed every time.
I still would like to know where all the votes that will bring Labour back to power will come from. Tory voters? UKIP voters? SNP voters? I can only see a few left minded Lib-Dems moving to the Labour. I see The Greens as being impacted the most as the had probably had the most left wing agenda at the last election. Labour will never recover Scotland from the SNP and they will never recover the Tory heartlands, their far left following is not enough and the far left rhetoric is something from the past.
Apologies if my responses seem terse or rude, it was not my intent.

 

WY, your comments are far too sensible for this forum.

 

I am sure that there may be photographs of SWP people amongst those celebrating - cameramen tend to look out for those things, particularly when they are trying to discredit someone. However your idea that Labours' massive increase in membership is due to infiltration from other left wing groups lacks any real evidence. The Party's membership was halved during Blair's term in office, and it is far more likely that these people are now returning. There is a large difference between grass roots Labour and Parliamentary Labour and what people see as 'going left' is actually that the party is becoming more internally democratic at the moment ie. expanding downwards in its decision making - and this will continue under Corbyn.

 

Your socialist 'new dawn' will be as effective as Harold Wilson's and Tony Blair's. They all end in bitter disappointment and debt.

 

Possibly and yes, I have no evidence. But look at the early claim that it was due to UKIP and Tory voters joining the LB to make sure that JC was elected - ended up only a couple of thousand of these new "members" were blocked, so that was also not proven.
But I still have not seen any argument as to where the votes will come from that will secure Labour into power. If the "membership" that secured JC's election was entirely made up of historic Labour voters and they have voted for a far-left candidate, it's not very likely that they would have voted UKIP, Tory or even the Lib-Dems in the last election. I just do not see the link between membership of the LP and how the New New Labour expecto to appeal to the electorate

 

Party politics and the power of governments is so 20th century. There has been a power shift to large (unelected) multinational corporations and they are doing all they can to consolidate their power. In NZ we are facing the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement. I understand that there is a similar agreement for Atlantic states in Europe. The purpose of that is to diminish the amount of control governments have over their internal politics. For example, if a government tried to ban the import of touch screens that are made from minerals sourced from warlords in the Congo because of human rights issues, they would be sued for restricting free trade.

All social and environmental legislation is at risk if large corporations dislike it. It doesn't matter what party is in power. No party will have any real control over these things. Elections in democracies will have as much validity or point as they did in the Soviet Union. Governments will not be where the real power lies.

 

Well put... .we have TPIP over here....just the same as I understand it as you say. Govts generally buy into it.... and if they don't they are likely to be marginalised.....

 

So being in the EU has not protected us...another reason to get out!