advertisement


Next Labour Leader II

Status
Not open for further replies.
Seanm said:
In a two party system, one party moving to an extreme doesn't compel the other to move to the opposite extreme if there's a genuine appetite for the centre ground. It's just not logical.
Click to expand...
Interesting. Is this a debating tactic?

When the labour party moved to the extreme the conservatives had the option to remain moderate or move to the extreme. If labour had remained moderate moving to the extreme wouldn't have been viable because labour would have picked up almost all the centre votes. By moving to the extreme labour and the conservatives made pretty much the whole of the centre swing votes. The conservatives proved effective at using a disaster they created (brexit) to shift swing votes in their favour which was remarkable given their social and economic record while in power. It is hard to overstate the ineptness of the hard left controlled labour party.
 
h.g. said:
Interesting. Is this a debating tactic?

When the labour party moved to the extreme the conservatives had the option to remain moderate or move to the extreme. If labour had remained moderate moving to the extreme wouldn't have been viable because labour would have picked up almost all the centre votes. By moving to the extreme labour and the conservatives made pretty much the whole of the centre swing votes. The conservatives proved effective at using a disaster they created (brexit) to shift swing votes in their favour which was remarkable given their social and economic record while in power. It is hard to overstate the ineptness of the hard left controlled labour party.
Click to expand...
Not a debating tactic but a sign of impatience for which I apologise. However, you do appear to have retreated into the ‘hard left’ attack meme rather than address my question. My question was about your support for the 99% against the 1%, which appears to be in contradiction to your persistence in maligning the only man who has stood up for the 99% since god knows when. I agree that the majority should be the main beneficiaries of politics rather than the few, but the 99% vs 1% argument is not a moderate policy that will come from the centre ground in which you seem to place so much faith.

The Labour Party was moderate centre ground before the election in 2015 yet failed to win after years of Tory austerity and misrule. And failed despite the absence of Brexit or AS. Not long after losing that election the Labour Party announced it had listened to the people and waved through the Tory Welfare Bill making life even more difficult for significant numbers in the 99%.

Moving to the moderate centre ground just meant moving ever right and ever closer to the 1%

You are absolutely right that mainstream politics should be about politics for the 99% rather than the 1%, but it won’t come from the moderate centre ground.
 
All this 99% vs 1% reminds me of the Labour slogan 'For the many, not the few'. I've always thought that was terrible, in terms of meaning primarily, but also psychologically: it ends on a downer, whereas political slogans should be inspiring. It is precisely three words too long.

I don't want my representatives to inspire hatred of anyone, even unpopular groups like the rich. In fact, especially unpopular groups. Mainstream politicians used to mostly understand that this should be avoided, but even since the Great Recession, we've been hearing an awful lot about the sins of bankers, in particular. And, if we ponder this for a moment, I think we know what that is code for.

Furthermore, when you go for the rich, you don't just alienate them. You also turn off anyone who aspires to join them, or even thinks that their children might, one day.

By all means, explain that those with the broadest shoulders will bear the heaviest load. That's entirely fair. (By and large, they already do, by the way.) But do it in a positive way, and make sure that the society you are trying to build has benefits for everyone who contributes.

Kind regards

- Garry
 
glancaster said:
All this 99% vs 1% reminds me of the Labour slogan 'For the many, not the few'. I've always thought that was terrible, in terms of meaning primarily, but also psychologically: it ends on a downer, whereas political slogans should be inspiring. It is precisely three words too long.

I don't want my representatives to inspire hatred of anyone, even unpopular groups like the rich. In fact, especially unpopular groups. Mainstream politicians used to mostly understand that this should be avoided, but even since the Great Recession, we've been hearing an awful lot about the sins of bankers, in particular. And, if we ponder this for a moment, I think we know what that is code for.

Furthermore, when you go for the rich, you don't just alienate them. You also turn off anyone who aspires to join them, or even thinks that their children might, one day.

By all means, explain that those with the broadest shoulders will bear the heaviest load. That's entirely fair. (By and large, they already do, by the way.) But do it in a positive way, and make sure that the society you are trying to build has benefits for everyone who contributes.

Kind regards

- Garry
Click to expand...
Yes
 
h.g. said:
Interesting. Is this a debating tactic?

When the labour party moved to the extreme the conservatives had the option to remain moderate or move to the extreme. If labour had remained moderate moving to the extreme wouldn't have been viable because labour would have picked up almost all the centre votes. By moving to the extreme labour and the conservatives made pretty much the whole of the centre swing votes. The conservatives proved effective at using a disaster they created (brexit) to shift swing votes in their favour which was remarkable given their social and economic record while in power. It is hard to overstate the ineptness of the hard left controlled labour party.
Click to expand...
I think there's a fundamental imbalance here that means it doesn't work even in abstract terms (only the Conservatives seem to have an agenda), but the historical facts simply don't support it. The coalition's implementation of austerity was economically and socially already quite extreme, and so was the hostile environment. These crucial moves were made long before anyone had heard of Corbyn. It was then up to Labour to decide whether to allow the Tories to continue to define the centre, or try to develop their own answers to austerity. They tried the first route and of course the Tories *continued to move right*, under pressure from UKIP and the ERG (hence Brexit). The Tories are following their own trajectory, which was basically established in the late 1970s. Holding Labour responsible for this is bananas.
 
ks.234 said:
You are absolutely right that mainstream politics should be about politics for the 99% rather than the 1%, but it won’t come from the moderate centre ground.
Click to expand...
We require policies that serve the interests of both the 1% and the 99% reasonably equally (capital and labour) like we had from 45 up to the 70s. Ignoring the interests of the 1% and attempting to impose a command economy in various sectors will cause capital to withdraw. This is not what is required. We need the government to divert capital away from wealth redistribution and towards wealth creation and an improved productivity if we are to reverse our slide to the bottom in the developed world for the 99%. This requires (restoring in many cases) regulation and a government that is trusted to preserve stability by capital.

It doesn't need to be socialism for the rich of the kind we have today where the 99% to a large extent make good any systemic losses of the 1%. The wealth redistribution component of capital will almost certainly support a Singapore-upon-Thames to be delivered by the current government if they choose to jump that way but this will not necessarily be in the interests of the wealth creation component of capital. A "f*ck business" approach is likely to backfire on the conservatives if business can see a viable alternative. Whether labour want or are able to move towards being that alternative remains to be seen but attempting to serve just the interests of the 99% without considering the interests of the 1% is unlikely to actually end up serving the interests of the 99%. Trust is normally to be found in the moderate rational centre not the extremes of left or right unless you are of the faith.
 
h.g. said:
We require policies that serve the interests of both the 1% and the 99% reasonably equally (capital and labour) like we had from 45 up to the 70s. Ignoring the interests of the 1% and attempting to impose a command economy in various sectors will cause capital to withdraw. This is not what is required. We need the government to divert capital away from wealth redistribution and towards wealth creation and an improved productivity if we are to reverse our slide to the bottom in the developed world for the 99%. This requires (restoring in many cases) regulation and a government that is trusted to preserve stability by capital.

It doesn't need to be socialism for the rich of the kind we have today where the 99% to a large extent make good any systemic losses of the 1%. The wealth redistribution component of capital will almost certainly support a Singapore-upon-Thames to be delivered by the current government if they choose to jump that way but this will not necessarily be in the interests of the wealth creation component of capital. A "f*ck business" approach is likely to backfire on the conservatives if business can see a viable alternative. Whether labour want or are able to move towards being that alternative remains to be seen but attempting to serve just the interests of the 99% without considering the interests of the 1% is unlikely to actually end up serving the interests of the 99%. Trust is normally to be found in the moderate rational centre not the extremes of left or right unless you are of the faith.
Click to expand...
If we require politics to serve to 100%, why do you divide it into the 99 and the 1 in the first place?

If you hold up the post war consensus (45 to the 70’s) as a period of holding up the interests of capital and Labour, are you calling for ‘nationalisation, strong trade unions, heavy regulation, high taxes and a generous welfare state’?
 
ks.234 said:
If we require politics to serve to 100%, why do you divide it into the 99 and the 1 in the first place?
Click to expand...
Because from the 70s up to a decade ago the 1% got all the benefits of the UKs growth while the 99% on average in real terms got none. Since a decade ago the 1% have been taking more than the UKs growth leading to the 99% getting poorer on average which is destabilising our society. From 45 upto the 70s growth was pretty much equally shared with everyone getting richer which is an equitable stable position and after a period of wealth readjustment (it has gone too far) is what any rational government should seek to achieve.

ks.234 said:
If you hold up the post war consensus (45 to the 70’s) as a period of holding up the interests of capital and Labour, are you calling for ‘nationalisation, strong trade unions, heavy regulation, high taxes and a generous welfare state’?
Click to expand...
Although the approach distributed growth fairly equally it drove up inflation which made it progressively less attractive for capital to invest in wealth creation. This is largely why things started to deteriorate in the 60s and eventually go bang in the 70s. Add to that a strong shift towards services away from strong unionised centres of wealth creation and we can confidently say attempting a direct reimplementation today would be unwise. If we are to avoid a command economy which is unlikely to be successful, we must empower those supplying their labour and the government must stop abdicating responsibility and regulate to direct capital away from socially destructive investment (e.g. printing money to redistribute wealth in, for example, existing housing rather than printing money to balance wealth creation) and towards wealth creation.

Of course, before politicians and the general population can get seriously involved in the relative merits of alternative ways to address the problem they have to stop being distracted by minor issues and get to grips with the central issue of what has blocked the benefits of growth from flowing to the 99% for the last 40 years. Once that is widely understood and accepted a range of fixes could be expected to follow fairly naturally but this is only likely to happen if enough of the general population take an interest. The occupy movement for example didn't really penetrate significantly into the general population and so this is far from a minor ask.
 
Survation (who we know have a great track record recently) is showing Long-Bailey ahead in its latest poll of party members:

R. Long-Bailey: 51%
K. Starmer: 49%
https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1217520616007503872

I think she will do it. Mainly because Starmer is too dull to build momentum (forgive the pun). Lacks energy and inspiration. Too cautious. I don't see him winning over the Corbynista massive (who are likely to be still very massive among the membership).

Plus Long-Bailey will probably say plenty of big, daft, unachievable, simplistic, ill-thought-out things. Which will go down well.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.


advertisement


Back
Top