Labour Leader: Keir Starmer V

[SteveS1]

I take the trouble to alternate.

Honestly, you have your take on things and that's fine, but you cannot ever express it without slipping in some crude straw man or ad hom cliche. Drood took the time to offer a long, well-reasoned response to your post and what does he get? Oh, he's not grown up enough to see the bigger picture, just likes the feels. Eternal opposition and purity tropes following in quick succession.

That's just your deliberate misrepresentation. At no point did I suggest what you are making out and hopefully Drood can see that.

 

[TheDecameron]

I suspect that is the most likely outcome at this stage, possibly with Labour the largest party.

I don’t see how Labour could win a majority as they are just too weak and so easily shot in a barrel by the right-wing press (Corbyn still on the radar etc). Their surgical removal from Scotland by the vastly more credible SNP has almost certainly finished them as a FPTP contender, but they are likely too slow moving and wedded to their mid-20th century glory days to grasp this. They really do need to wake up and grasp that the only times they have ever challenged Tory rule was a very brief period under Attlee, a couple of times under Wilson, and then Blair. That is the entirety of Labour success over the 120 year period of its existence. The Attlee government is notable as it is one of very few UK governments that left things better than they found them. Wilson was probably a net gain, and Blair who was really just a Tory rebranding with all the deregulated free-market, war-mongering and outsourcing one would expect from an old-school (i.e. pre-Trump-era) Tory government, albeit a more equitable approach to health and education.

I hope to hell that Labour wake up and grasp the only possible way forward for the UK is a shared PR manifesto pledge with all other progressive parties that moves to implement immediately in the case of a hung/coalition parliament. That is the only way to purge minority elite rule from the UK. Everything else is rearranging deckchairs on a sinking Tory nation.

We no longer have need of Labour in Scotland, the SNP are delivering policies that Labour are now too frightened to. Nurse pay and child benefit being two recent examples. It seems that in order to get their voters in England back off the Tories, they are now Tory Lite, especially on Brexit and immigration. Once a party starts pandering to these views, they’re dead to me and it would seem the majority in Scotland.

 

[ks.234]

I hope to hell that Labour wake up and grasp the only possible way forward for the UK is a shared PR manifesto pledge

While I agree, I also feel that the biggest problem faced by the UK is the monetarist economic model that prevents much needed investment because it is based on a false assumption that government spending is dependant on tax.

This country is in the state it’s in because we’ve been sold a lie about fiscal constraints on government spending, and the lie that we can’t afford to invest in our infrastructure or measures to tackle climate change. We can, and we should.

 

[Seanm]

That's just your deliberate misrepresentation. At no point did I suggest what you are making out and hopefully Drood can see that.

OK apologies. I'm easily triggered.

 

[Tony L]

While I agree, I also feel that the biggest problem faced by the UK is the monetarist economic model that prevents much needed investment because it is based on a false assumption that government spending is dependant on tax.

It is all the same thing and no reform of any value can occur whilst we use the Tory system of government and an entirely toothless and lacklustre Labour party so willingly props it up. Absolutely everything starts with building a democracy. Only after that is in place can any genuinely radical or innovative solutions gain traction. I absolutely guarantee you the UK Labour Party will never place anything even remotely close to an MMT argument anywhere near a manifesto. They are a cowering blue-rinsed lapdog in a 120 year long state of Stockholm Syndrome. The key reason we have Tory elite rule with a minority voteshare.

 

[Cav]

I have been a Socialist and Trade Union member all my adult life. I have voted Labour all my adult life.

So what do I do when the Labour Party is no longer Socialist and has not been for years?

Waste my vote on any of the other no-hoper Parties? Not vote at all? In my area Tories are always returned so I am wasting my vote anyway.

I won't see PR in my lifetime.

It is a sad situation.

 

[ks.234]

It is all the same thing and no reform of any value can occur whilst we use the Tory system of government and an entirely toothless and lacklustre Labour party so willingly props it up. Absolutely everything starts with building a democracy. Only after that is in place can any genuinely radical or innovative solutions gain traction. I absolutely guarantee you the UK Labour Party will never place anything even remotely close to an MMT argument anywhere near a manifesto. They are a cowering blue-rinsed lapdog in a 120 year long state of Stockholm Syndrome. The key reason we have Tory elite rule with a minority voteshare.

Corbyn flirted with MMT, he was advised by Bill Mitchel and his Fiscal Responsibility was a nod to MMT, which is why it was attacked by May and her Magic Money Tree. The problem is that if Corbyn, or anyone tried to expose the Tory Lie on tax, they would face an onslaught of ridicule and anger. We need more members of the public to appreciate the simple truth that government spending does not depend on tax before we can have an honest democracy. At present we have a democracy built on a great big lie, if we are to improve, we, the voters, need to recognise the lies for what they are.

I agree that Labour will not challenge the lie, but nor will any of the other parties, so we need to challenge the taxation lie whenever it raises it’s head, then one day a TV interviewer might do the same

 

[Joe Hutch]

Then the Tories will nick the idea and claim it as their own. They’re already quite shameless in disowning anything done in the past ten years of Tory government, so adopting MMT won’t cause them any problems, and the press will back them. See also Sunak’s oft-declared wish for a ‘low tax economy’.

 

[ks.234]

Then the Tories will nick the idea and claim it as their own. They’re already quite shameless in disowning anything done in the past ten years of Tory government, so adopting MMT won’t cause them any problems, and the press will back them. See also Sunak’s oft-declared wish for a ‘low tax economy’.

Does it matter who nicks the idea? The Covid response proves that MMT describes the truth of how money is created, but that truth is hidden under the lie that a tax rise in the form of NI was necessary to fund Care. If the Tories expose their own lies, so be it!

 

[Dave H.]

Corbyn flirted with MMT, he was advised by Bill Mitchel and his Fiscal Responsibility was a nod to MMT, which is why it was attacked by May and her Magic Money Tree. The problem is that if Corbyn, or anyone tried to expose the Tory Lie on tax, they would face an onslaught of ridicule and anger. We need more members of the public to appreciate the simple truth that government spending does not depend on tax before we can have an honest democracy. At present we have a democracy built on a great big lie, if we are to improve, we, the voters, need to recognise the lies for what they are.

I agree that Labour will not challenge the lie, but nor will any of the other parties, so we need to challenge the taxation lie whenever it raises it’s head, then one day a TV interviewer might do the same

IIRC under McDonnell as SC the LP went further than that, at least at the ideas level, with an economics advisory group featuring Piketty, Varoufakis, Wren-Lewis etc. Not necessarily all arguing for adopting MMT, but laying the conceptual ground for a radically different economic policy platform.

But then the party had the audacity to mention free broadband, and had, politically/media speaking, to be killed with fire and the Earth comprehensively salted.

 

[Joe Hutch]

Does it matter who nicks the idea? The Covid response proves that MMT describes the truth of how money is created, but that truth is hidden under the lie that a tax rise in the form of NI was necessary to fund Care. If the Tories expose their own lies, so be it!

Well, yes it does matter, in terms of what the money is spent on. Imagine the sort of loony vanity projects Boris would push through if cost was no longer an object, and how much (more) money would end up in the pockets of his mates.

 

[LecsonQuad]

Until and unless the Labour party becomes a Social Democratic party I can't see it getting elected. The old left of Corbyn is history and that part of the party is deciding that principled opposition is better than Government. If the Conservatives can get rid of Scotland what would be left would become almost a one party state rather than the two party state in the style of a democracy that we live in now. Starmer has a lot of work to do to change the labour party to something electable and may not be able to do it.

 

[Seanm]

IIRC under McDonnell as SC the LP went further than that, at least at the ideas level, with an economics advisory group featuring Piketty, Varoufakis, Wren-Lewis etc. Not necessarily all arguing for adopting MMT, but laying the conceptual ground for a radically different economic policy platform.

But then the party had the audacity to mention free broadband, and had, politically/media speaking, to be killed with fire and the Earth comprehensively salted.

The broadband thing was fascinating. For about 24 hours all the talk was of how the Tories were panicking, how would they respond to such a good idea. And then it was like a switch was flipped: it was an awful idea! Hilariously bad! How out of touch is this party! British political journalists can turn on a dime, en masse, but this was really something. Would love to know who changed all their minds overnight.

 

[Tony L]

The broadband thing was a terrible idea. Effectively yet another step towards state control of the internet. Far better to have competition in this area IMHO. The more complex and distributed the infrastructure the harder for the Dorries, Patels, Straws, Mays, Blunketts etc to stick their snide authoritarian little beaks into it.

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

I have been a Socialist and Trade Union member all my adult life. I have voted Labour all my adult life.

So what do I do when the Labour Party is no longer Socialist and has not been for years?

Move to Scotland! I was an LP for decades, but stopped a short time after Blair arrived and showed his true colours. I had some brief hope with Corbyn. But the LP is clearly now hag-ridden by Tory-lite and can't shake them out. Whereas as others have pointed out, Scotland (and maybe Wales) have a different path in mind. The more in thrall Engurlund is to Toryism, the more the Scots will want to be rid of it. Here the future seems more in the area of SNP and Greens with a rather more social view of how things should be.

 

[Joe Hutch]

The broadband thing was fascinating. For about 24 hours all the talk was of how the Tories were panicking, how would they respond to such a good idea. And then it was like a switch was flipped: it was an awful idea! Hilariously bad! How out of touch is this party! British political journalists can turn on a dime, en masse, but this was really something. Would love to know who changed all their minds overnight.

‘You cannot hope to bribe or twist
Thank God! the British journalist
But seeing what the man will do
Unbribed, there is no reason to’.

(Source forgotten)

 

[Brian]

The broadband thing was a terrible idea. Effectively yet another step towards state control of the internet. Far better to have competition in this area IMHO. The more complex and distributed the infrastructure the harder for the Dorries, Patels, Straws, Mays, Blunketts etc to stick their snide authoritarian little beaks into it.

On the contrary, free broadband was a brilliant idea. Look around at how people are working nowadays since covid.

 

[ks.234]

Well, yes it does matter, in terms of what the money is spent on. Imagine the sort of loony vanity projects Boris would push through if cost was no longer an object, and how much (more) money would end up in the pockets of his mates.

But he does that already, this government really does have a Magic Money Tree. The tax lie is only ever deployed when it comes to spending on things this government despises, like poor people. When it comes to bunging money the way of his mates, suddenly tax is no hindrance at all and the sky’s the limit. The point about exposing the truth about the Magic Money Tree is Johnson couldn’t then hide behind the lie that spending on the NHS, Education, Climate Change etc etc is not possible because the government can’t afford it.

There really is a Magic Money Tree, our public services and the climate all need a fair shake.

 

[ks.234]

Starmer has a lot of work to do to change the labour party to something electable and may not be able to do it.

All he has to do is be more Tory, of course he’ll be able to do it…

 

[Cav]

Move to Scotland! I was an LP for decades, but stopped a short time after Blair arrived and showed his true colours. I had some brief hope with Corbyn. But the LP is clearly now hag-ridden by Tory-lite and can't shake them out. Whereas as others have pointed out, Scotland (and maybe Wales) have a different path in mind. The more in thrall Engurlund is to Toryism, the more the Scots will want to be rid of it. Here the future seems more in the area of SNP and Greens with a rather more social view of how things should be.

Why would any sane person choose to move to Scotland?