View from across the pond: Britain’s “Bernie Sanders” moment: How this unassuming left-wing populist became the leader of the Labour Party:
^^^ In as far as it goes, seems a reasonable summary.
Telegraph still convulsing this morning with about eight more anti-Corbyn pieces.
Would you mind coming back to us with a coherent response once you calm down? Corbyn’s about as anti-fascist as you’re likely to get. And to suggest that the current system is “efficient” is a rather subjective viewpoint (although it’s certainly better than the fucking mess that was BR).
Privatisation was done hastily due to political pressures and without sufficient leverage to achieve the best outcomes for the taxpayers; while the government(s) claimed that the process would result in profits going to the taxpayer and private sector taking the risks, in practice the rail operating companies trousered the profits and offloaded all the risks onto the taxpayer. This has improved considerably (ironically) by the renationalisation of the infrastructure (Railtrack was a terrible idea) and the transfer of responsibility back to the DfT (and TfL) but there are still many problems, some of which have nothing to do with who runs the railway and everything to do with the sheer number of people travelling, London housing issues and the vast amount of money required just to keep the whole system from collapsing.
Should the railways be renationalised? I dunno. It depends on the details of the proposition, but it is neither inherently a return to the bad old days of British Rail nor the onset of a glorious new day for public transport, so let’s not pretend it’s either of those without seeing an actual plan.
Again, this is incoherent babble. Corbyn is not going to be able to reorder the entire economy by fiat even in the unlikely event he ever becomes PM, and there are enormous differences between the UK in the 1970s and the UK now. I’ll believe the utilities are going to be renationalised when Prime Minister Corbyn appoints me as Minister of Flying Pigs.
There was nothing incoherent or babbling about it. Corbyn has said repeatedly that Labour economic policy is up for “debate”. He wishes for more grass roots input into policy decisions. Well, we have just seen that the grass roots have turned towards the hard left in Labour. That leaves much economic policy detail still to be decided, but we sure as hell know in which general direction it is headed. Until it’s future economic/industrial policy has been fully decided people can legitimately hang on old Labours coat tails what they see as it’s past mistakes.
I suspect taking energy/power back into public ownership would have a broad base of support - way beyond the left. The Etonians couldn’t do it for ideological reasons but it looks like a profiteering cartel to a chunk of the population …
Right. So how did we get from “up for debate” to “Mussolini”? I’m pretty sure Benito wasn’t big on consultation and consensus-building.
Also, my read on the recent events is less that the base have turned hard to the left and more that they’ve rejected the centre-right Blairite contingent (see also Tessa Jowell’s defeat) which is not the same thing. The base want a stronger opposition to the government’s austerity measures, particularly as they are affecting the middle class. This is not a return to an idolisation of the working class, much as the Morning Star would like it to be.
Corbyn won because the alternatives were terrible and the Labour leadership as-was were an insular bunch of self-promoting twats who did themselves no favours by trying to shut down Corbyn’s alternative views. If they’d been more competent and more open he wouldn’t have done nearly as well.
Up for debate is not the same as “consensus building”. Depending upon how you interpret up for debate it may be entirely the opposite of consensus building. Up for debate is as far away from consensus as you, or I, wish to make it. Im still not sure what the phrase actually means. It may mean finding a middle consensual ground, or, it *may * mean the enforcement of mob opinion. I see the phrase as a euphemism for mob rule, but may yet be proven wrong. As of yet it’s still a relatively meaningless phrase until we see it implemented.
I agree the Corbyn victory was as much a resounding rejection of Blairism as it was a lurch to the Left. It’s quite likely a healthy mixture of both. I agree partly that it’s a victory for anti-austerity. However, in practice it is much more than that. It’s also a victory for the political and economic baggage that Corbyn, McDonnell and their allies bring with them - tacit support for Sinn Fein/IRA, Hamas, Hezbollah, high levels of immigrantion, and Argentina’s claim over the Falkland Islands etc. This political baggage is exactly the type of policies traditional working class voters dislike about Labour. It’s issues such as these(and others) that drive voters towards parties such as UKIP. I do not see this drift of the working classes towards UKIP halting if Labour continue to hold espouse these opinions.
From the same article:
Isn’t “the enforcement of mob opinion” just another way of saying “democracy”? And while “up for debate” is ambiguous, one would be hard-pressed to interpret it as meaning policy will be dictated from the top.
The wife and I were discussing this last night and think the knives will be out very quickly for McDonnell at the earliest opportunity. Were I a betting man I’d place money on him being the first appointee to go (barring a really juicy scandal elsewhere).
I still think we’re going to see a couple of years of major party infighting ending with Corbyn being replaced by someone else (I suspect Umunna is hoping it’s him, but I’m not confident). And that this is probably for the best for the partyand the country. What we’re NOT going to see is the return of the party of Michael Foot, no matter what the papers say.
Im a democrat, but I also see the concept of democracy as a double edged sword; democracy can very easily turn into mob rule. It all rather depends upon being on the winning or losing side of the democratic process, and just how tolerant the winners are over the losers. Democracy can lead to consensus, or, can lead to a purge.
Listening to some commentators yesterday I was struck by how unliked McDonnell was even within the Left of his own party.
I think Umunna has the same Blair-like baggage as the 3 stooges in the leadership election just past, though I could be wrong. What about Stephen Kinnock as leader? Or is it still too early for him to even have a chance?
I don’t see as big a gap between fascism and socialism that you apparently do. When people talk about nationalizing the railways to make them run better, the obvious comparisons come to mind.
Oh, and I’m perfectly calm. I don’t like in the UK and this result hardly affects me. I’m just amazed at the stupidity of voters who refuse to learn the lessons of history.
So you’re saying an effective campaign slogan for Corbyn would be, “Vote for me - because there’s not a chance in hell that my batshit-crazy ideas will be implemented.”
Fair enough.
Are you under the impression that most of the nationalisations were done in the 70s? Otherwise why say that nationalisation is what made the 70s bad? Most of the nationalisations were at the end of the 40s.
I’m not sure you’re best place to talk about voters being stupid when it comes to history.
Most of the working class voters couldn’t find Hezbollah on a map.
His liking for Sinn Fein is repulsive, but the whole Northern Ireland business seems itself as back in the past as the Fenian bombings in Britain: people got so sick of all the sides that even in NI they are just stuck in limbo going through the motions of caring. High Immigration will continue no matter who gets in; and continued under the Tories since Madame Thatcher’s day. They liked the cheap labour.
With, again no matter who gets in, the move away from jobs because of mechanization etc., the only way for a non-violent transition will be through a rejection of traditional capitalism. The substitution of nationalization for the inadequacies of retarded old private enterprise is a start.
I the history thank you. Yes, nationalization really took off in the 40’s with the British Transport Commission, but there were more nationalizations in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. But the 70’s represented pretty much the nadir of crazy leftism in Britain.
Mind you, that was a worldwide phenomenon. The left screwed things up in the U.S., in Canada, Britain, New Zealand, all over the place. But as they say, those who fail to learn from history are destined to repeat it. I’m sure THIS time it will all work great.
Corbyn’s support of Hezbollah will lose him the Jewish vote. The problem however is not just with his position on Hezbollah but his past support of extremist groups in general. Some of these groups have called for the killing of British soldiers. I do not believe for a second that Corbyn, or the vast majority of his allies, support the killing of British troops. However, his close stance with these groups is precisely what working class Brits despise about much of today’s Left. The same goes with the IRA. Except in the IRA case serving soldiers, former soldiers and families of soldiers will have had close family, colleagues and friends murdered directly by the IRA. In fact im sure almost every constituency in the land will see some family wheeled out in front of local/national press in the lead up to the 2020 election telling their tragic story. Try winning working class voters after that.
Immigration: immigration will remain high. However, at least with UKIP you have a party that at talks tough. You also have a party that is not viewed as putting its head in the sand when it comes to Muslim/indigenous British relations in town after Northern town. If Labour continue to be seen as prioritising immigrants over indigenous Brits then the Labour heartlands will become smaller and smaller. A lurch to the economic left by Corbyn may indeed attract many voters, but the non economic issues will see many continue to drift away. Will Corbyn’s Labour attract more voters than it repels? I can’t say for sure. What I do know is that his past political stance on non economic issues will make it more difficult, much more difficult.
All the major nationalisations were done long before the 70s. Now you claim to know that, what was your point again? I mean, you claimed the 70s were bad due to nationalisation, or at least that’s the implication when you say “nationalisation happened in the seventies; the seventies were bad,” so don’t try to disingenuously claim you weren’t connecting the two.
Labour was at its strongest in the fifties, and so was the economy. The economy also had huge problems under the Tories in the 80s; they shifted the blame to the previous Labour govt, but the previous Labour govt could also have shifted the blame to the previous Tory govt, same as parties always tend to do. Of course in reality it’s always a lot more complicated than one party or movement ever being entirely to blame.
You’re really cherry-picking your information to suit your POV.
Bumping this as we have PMQ’s today, the first featuring Labour’s own “bearded wonder”.
Should be fun. You have to hope that Corbyn will have put a bit more preparation into this than has been shown so far.
My first impressions of him are not particularly favourable. He certainly seems to lack a PM-aura. I simply can’t see him in the top-job. Same with Brown and Miliband (E). It is a heck of a handicap to overcome in a media-driven age.
Labour have their ideology back and I certainly understand why there has been a rush of grass-root labour supporters trumpeting Corbyn’s elevation. That was always likely to happen. What you don’t see is the many, many more silent swing voters making a firm decision not to vote labour in future.
What people seem to be missing is that in the last 40 years the only “electable” labour team was the nu-labour team. By all means be ideologically pure but don’t expect to that to sweep you to power.
In the end I suspect this will turn out OK for Labour. The left will have had their stab at recreating the party, the country will reject it, it’ll all end in tears and a subsequent leader election will bring in a nu-labour style centre-left leader who looks the part. Probably David Miliband or Chuka Umunna.
Now in the meantime, as well as breaking out the popcorn and watching the show unfold in England, I suspect that the SNP will not be best pleased by this outcome. They were so dominant in the recent elections that their expectations for the upcoming Scottish elections may be unrealistically high. The only thing that might reduce their vote would be a very, very different labour manifesto and it may be that this is exactly what Corbyn is constructing.
Of course it could always implode before we get to that point.
Interesting times indeed.
The Conservative government has a working majority of 16.
On Monday, they passed a Trade Union Bill which, among other things, would prevent striking employees from posting on Facebook without giving two weeks notice in writing, make it illegal to bring a loudhailer to a picket without government approval and require picketers to wear armbands for ease of identification. Many Tory MPs were deeply uneasy about these restrictions. The FTconsidered them unnecessary, counterproductive and authoritarian.
On Tuesday, the Tories cut tax credits for the working poor: £3million families whose work doesn’t pay will be £1000 - c. £20/week - worse off next year. Incredibly, this comes at a time when the Tories are working hard to brand themselves as the real party of the working class. Again, many Tory MPs were uneasy about the impact of these changes on their constituents.
Both votes passed with a majority of more than 30.
The pro-Corbyn message was that Burnham, Cooper and Kendall were too afraid of the media and too out of touch with the people Labour is meant to represent to provide effective opposition to these measures. Broadly, I agree - there’s been a terrible reluctance to challenge the Tory narrative on welfare, or stand up for the basic concept of organised labour.
But we have Corbyn. And although nobody could be expected to overturn a Commons majority, what we were promised is principled opposition, broadcast loud and clear so that people know that there’s an alternative and that Labour is on the side of the workers.
Every headline in the papers, and the lead story on the news this morning, was indeed about Corbyn. And how he didn’t sing the national anthem at the Battle of Britain remembrance service. Which compared to both the stories above is meaningless chaff. It was also utterly predictable, given his history and press antipathy for him. He voluntarily created smoke-screen for the people and policies he opposes so deeply. There is no point in returning to ideological purity if the leader you choose is incapable of getting his message across through
Actually, I read that the effective Conservative majority is likely to rise as the DUP are so incensed by Corbyn’s stance on Northern Ireland that they’re unlikely to vote with Labour on anything.
Not to hijack too much, but where in the legislation does it say this? I read the guardian breakdown of the bill and found myself nodding along to all of the main points but it never mentioned those. Overall the bill seemed sensible to me as someone who is only ever inconvenienced by strikes but those highlighted issues seem ridiculously specific and authoritarian to be included. Can you point to the relevant text?