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Labour Leader: Keir Starmer VII

mandryka said:
It's close to seeing capitalism as the baddie

What we have presented, as an alternative, amounts to the first steps in challenging that dominant model of ownership and control. We have shown, in simple, practical terms, how a government committed to addressing those profound, structural problems could implement key policies that would rectify them. Its goal would be nothing other than the creation of an economy which is fairer, more democratic, and more sustainable; that would overturn the hierarchies of power in our economy, placing those who create the real wealth in charge; that would end decades of under-investment and wasted potential by tearing down the vested interests that hold this country back The historic name for that society is socialism, and this is Labour's goal.

Alternative-Models-of-Ownership.pdf (labour.org.uk)

But this thread isn't the place for the discussion I think, because it's ancient history, and others want to talk about Starmer (who, from this perspective, has absolutely nothing interesting or valuable or inspiring to say! I can understand your frustration.)
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I’d have thought that turning the economy from a private utility to a public one would be a suitable objective for any Labour leader!
 
Actual Labour policy and strategy under Corbyn was pretty accommodating to the financial sector - remember McDonnell’s
mandryka said:
It's close to seeing capitalism as the baddie

What we have presented, as an alternative, amounts to the first steps in challenging that dominant model of ownership and control. We have shown, in simple, practical terms, how a government committed to addressing those profound, structural problems could implement key policies that would rectify them. Its goal would be nothing other than the creation of an economy which is fairer, more democratic, and more sustainable; that would overturn the hierarchies of power in our economy, placing those who create the real wealth in charge; that would end decades of under-investment and wasted potential by tearing down the vested interests that hold this country back The historic name for that society is socialism, and this is Labour's goal.

Alternative-Models-of-Ownership.pdf (labour.org.uk)

But this thread isn't the place for the discussion I think, because it's ancient history, and others want to talk about Starmer (who, from this perspective, has absolutely nothing interesting or valuable or inspiring to say! I can understand your frustration.)
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That passage, and the document as a whole, and Labour's actual economic policies and strategy under Corbyn and McDonnell, really do give the lie to the idea that they were hawking Them and Us antagonism and conspiracy theory: overall it's both pluralistic and accommodating. There's certainly nothing anti-capitalistic about any of that.
 
Which ever way you cut this, “Keir’s” battleground with “Rish” lies in England. There will be no significant contribution elsewhere. The issues the former chooses to mirror in the latter, like the dead anti-EU albatross round both their necks, the ‘left behind’ regions and individuals, Albanians*, selling off the NHS, gender identity (we know from Conservative central office Starmer believes women can have penises) and who can keep taxes down the most and hold out against the impoverished asking for more.
It’s an utterly bleak future.


*serving suggestion only, content may vary at discretion of Nigel Farage/ Murdoch/Rothermere
 
Tony L said:
So how are you going to persuade Labour to implement a far fairer PR electoral system as part of their manifesto for what looks like a landslide win next election. This will be the best hope the UK has ever had to implement a real functional democracy. The ruling Tory elite are currently held in utter disgrace. Their lies, grift and corruption is visible to all. Labour’s membership and union backers are on side, as is public opinion. So what are you going to do about ‘the Keir problem’? This is the only thing standing between the UK and real democratic reform.
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I’m not a Labour activist, nor a party member, I can’t persuade Labour of anything nor do I know how to. I said earlier in #3422, the best chance for PR in my lifetime was in 2010. I believe it will prove the only chance. As was shown decisively by the LIbDems, no party that gains influence under FPTP is going to promote changing to PR. Labour does not stand between the UK and democratic reform, they all do, no party really wants PR.

My primary interest in this is I dislike tory ideology and I want to see them replaced in govt by something better. You have a better grip on internal Labour workings than I do and there are a few Labour party (ex)activists here who will have an understanding of how to influence Labour policy, they may even know the names of some Labour MPs who are not tories, assuming they are not now all tories. Somehow influencing those MPs about PR could be a good place to start.

By the way, if Labour did add PR to their manifesto, what would you say to the Scots nationalists who could help prevent a Labour majority and a UK PR system given the 40 seats they are chuffed about taking from Labour? After all, the SNP is happy with FPTP, their supporters know it and are voting for it.
 
Brian said:
I said earlier in #3422, the best chance for PR in my lifetime was in 2010.
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It wasn’t. The LDs were a tiny minority party trying to force the right-wing UK establishment to do something it fully understood would wipe it out forever.

The best chance for PR/democratic reform the UK has ever had is right now. Labour look set for a truly massive majority, i.e. the same absolute power the Tories used to force their totally destructive far-right Brexit and rob the country blind. That level of uncontested power is on the way to them. They have a fully democratic mandate from both their membership and the trade union movement to implement PR. It has been passed. The only thing standing in the way is that useless prick Starmer. He’ll ruin it and just hand the country back to minority elite Tory rule in a term or two. He has the opportunity sitting in front of him to change history.
 
Brian said:
I’ll have to post some of those numbers again, :rolleyes: especially as it came up irt how the SNP benefits from FPTP.
(snip repetition)
...but yeah, nationalism has huge support in Scotland according to the nationalists.
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The Government in Scotland is an alliance between the SNP and Greens. That is based on who people voted for. Anyone can speculate or wishfully think about what the rest *might* have voted for, but didn't when given the chance.

And the support isn't purely for Independence. It is also for the various *policies* of the SNP + Greens. e.g the differences in income tax and various benefits they have made wrt the situation down south. Here the biggest incomes face a higher tax rate - to fund some of the extra 'welfare' some get here. They'd do more, but are limited by Westminster. That restriction probably causes some of those who vote SNP/Green to do so.

Thus the point in the context of this thread's *subject* is that the SNP+Greens are rather more 'radical' (in the very limited terms set by down south) than the LP or LDs.

If Stare-More was more like the SNP/Greens in social/economic policy I might think him worthwhile. But he is behaving move like Tory Plan B again. Terrified of being monstered by the Daily Maul.

Result is that a Stare-More Westminster would be 'less awful' than the Tories, but not tackle the root causes of the UK's economic/social problems. So after a few years they'd be chucked out as failures and the Tories would resume vampiring the people as before, blaming the 'last lot' for the effects.

Bascially, Stare-More allows the wealthy/powerful to use him as a warning to keep the Tories on their side by showing they can be (temporarily) dispensed with.

Say this as someone who was a LP Member for decades, but left once Blairism and its grip became clear. Saw it from the inside, and watched what it did internally. Clear enough that its happened again.
 
mandryka said:
Alternative-Models-of-Ownership.pdf (labour.org.uk)
[/I]
But this thread isn't the place for the discussion I think, because it's ancient history, and others want to talk about Starmer (who, from this perspective, has absolutely nothing interesting or valuable or inspiring to say! I can understand your frustration.)
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If someone wants a debate about "capitalism" I'd recommend reading some of Ha-Joon Chang's books first to see just how many different forms of 'economics' it can mix and muddle. It would be perfecly possible to alter how it is arranged to operate. Indeed, it has evolved and morphed anyway over the years and from one country to another.
 
Tony L said:
It wasn’t. The LDs were a tiny minority party trying to force the right-wing UK establishment to do something it fully understood would wipe it out forever.

The best chance for PR/democratic reform the UK has ever had is right now. Labour look set for a truly massive majority, i.e. the same absolute power the Tories used to force their totally destructive far-right Brexit and rob the country blind. That level of uncontested power is on the way to them. They have a fully democratic mandate from both their membership and the trade union movement to implement PR. It has been passed. The only thing standing in the way is that useless prick Starmer. He’ll ruin it and just hand the country back to minority elite Tory rule in a term or two. He has the opportunity sitting in front of him to change history.
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Disagree on para 1. There was a referendum (AV...a fudge) in 2011, the LibDems actively destroyed the opportunity for PR in exchange for personal gain. They then enabled austerity and the road to brexit between 2010-2015.

Yes, it’s been passed, but I’ll await the GE manifesto to see what it actually says.
 
Brian said:
Disagree on para 1. There was a referendum (AV...a fudge) in 2011, the LibDems actively destroyed the opportunity for PR in exchange for personal gain. They then enabled austerity and the road to brexit between 2010-2015.
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Exactly. They had no power. We can argue if they were right or wrong at that point to be bullied the way they were, I personally think they should have walked out, but the simple fact is they had no power to force PR against the weight of the Tory Party and a UK establishment, including Labour, who were dead set against any democratic reform or political accountability.

Things are very different today. Public opinion has shifted hugely and PR is far better understood. The Labour Party membership, the vast majority of the trade union movement, the Mayor of Manchester and even a fair chunk of the PLP are now firmly in favour of PR. It is a motion that passed overwhelmingly at Labour Party Conference. The time to achieve change is right now. The blockage is “Sir” Keir Starmer who it would appear will do nothing to upset the Tory establishment.
 
ks.234 said:
Same as Lib Dems in 2011
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Again, power. What could they do when an overwhelming number of Tories were against it, Labour were against it, the right-wing press was against it, and the vast majority of the general public didn’t even understand the FPTP system is totally rigged. They had no chance and liking/hating them has no influence on this fact. They helped make the argument we hear far more today, but they failed to shift what was a series of insurmountable objects.

Labour have a membership and trade union mandate to implement PR and will have the power to do so should “Sir” Keir Starmer choose to.

The thing you and Brian are missing is if the LDs had won a majority they would unquestionably have implemented PR. Labour look set to secure one of the largest majorities in UK history and they almost certainly won’t break with Tory establishment programming. Dull grey nothing man does nothing.
 
Tony L said:
Again, power. What could they do when an overwhelming number of Tories were against it, Labour were against it, the right-wing press was against it, and the vast majority of the general public didn’t even understand the FPTP system is totally rigged. They had no chance and liking/hating them has no influence on this fact. They helped make the argument we hear far more today, but they failed to shift what was a series of insurmountable objects.

Labour have a membership and trade union mandate to implement PR and will have the power to do so should “Sir” Keir Starmer choose to.

The thing you and Brian are missing is if the LDs had won a majority they would unquestionably have implemented PR. Labour look set to secure one of the largest majorities in UK history and they almost certainly won’t break with Tory establishment programming. Dull grey nothing man does nothing.
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The Lib Dems biggest sin is not their massive PR failure but that they choose to enable austerity
 
ks.234 said:
The Lib Dems biggest sin is not their massive PR failure but that they choose to enable austerity
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An austerity the Labour Party were largely in agreement with, and unlike the Labour Party the LDs ensured those on the lowest wages were lifted out of taxation rather than cutting at the other end as is the Tory way. For low earners such as myself this was actually a huge deal. pfm paid jack shit at the time!

I remember the arguments from Labour who then, just as now, had accepted responsibility for the global financial collapse and were trying their hardest to be good little Tories. Osborne was clearly an idiot and managed to push us into a double-dip recession, but Clegg, Cable etc pretty much burped-up Alistair Darling’s spending plans intact and that is what was adhered to after Osborne’s obvious failure.

FWIW I really don’t want to waste time defending the LDs, I’m no longer a voter, though I do rate them as vastly less authoritarian/gammon-nationalist than Labour of any era. The voting record since 2010 speaks volumes. Contrast and compare at your leisure. The LDs have been on the right side of way more arguments than Labour, and they still are. Both in the HoC and HoL. They certainly don’t mass abstain on authoritarianism for fear of the Daily Mail and Express.
 
If the LDs hadn't propped up Cameron's first government we would be in a very different place. And there probably wouldn't have been a second Cameron government and a Brexit referendum. The LDs are a rather different party now, but under Clegg they were entirely despicable apologists for ruthless austerity (and I think Clegg's later career as Zuckerberg's patsy makes it very clear what sort of person he is). They bear an enormous responsibility for our current shitshow.
 
Tony L said:
An austerity the Labour Party were largely in agreement
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Precisely. We live under an amoral neoliberal economic ideology that is embraced by all 3 parties in England and the SNP.

The politics of amorality will obviously tend to authoritarianism because democracy and protecting the vulnerable needs constant vigilance, and while the Tories have used the cloak of amorality to take that authoritarianism, corruption and greed to dangerous levels, it is rather missing the point to compare any two parties on a scale of good or an alternative to the real and overwhelming problem that is an economic model without morality
 
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sideshowbob said:
If the LDs hadn't propped up Cameron's first government we would be in a very different place. And there probably wouldn't have been a second Cameron government and a Brexit referendum. The LDs are a rather different party now, but under Clegg they were entirely despicable apologists for ruthless austerity (and I think Clegg's later career as Zuckerberg's patsy makes it very clear what sort of person he is). They bear an enormous responsibility for our current shitshow.
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Very, very true. Worse than the Tories.
 
Tony L said:
Again, power. What could they do when an overwhelming number of Tories were against it, Labour were against it, the right-wing press was against it, and the vast majority of the general public didn’t even understand the FPTP system is totally rigged. They had no chance and liking/hating them has no influence on this fact. They helped make the argument we hear far more today, but they failed to shift what was a series of insurmountable objects.

Labour have a membership and trade union mandate to implement PR and will have the power to do so should “Sir” Keir Starmer choose to.

The thing you and Brian are missing is if the LDs had won a majority they would unquestionably have implemented PR. Labour look set to secure one of the largest majorities in UK history and they almost certainly won’t break with Tory establishment programming. Dull grey nothing man does nothing.
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If the LibDems won a majority under FPTP they would ditch that manifesto pledge for PR before the end of day one. They are a major reason why we are where we are, they are way more responsible than Labour. They were not forced into bed with the tories.

Unforgivable.
 
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