You're talking about two different electorates. Corbyn's huge popularity with the Labour Party and his all time worst polling in the country at large illustrates that well.
UK General Election - 12th December 2019 | Con 365, Lab 203, LD 11, SNP 48, Other 23 - Tory Majority of 80
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I do sometimes look back and marvel at the fact that the biggest political issue we had to deal with back then was an outbreak of foot and mouth disease.
Cameron fecked us all over
Anyway the whole point about wishing for someone like David Miliband is a bit of a misnomer. I suspect the Right-Wing gutter press would paint him as a marxist with a traitrous father as well.
But would David Miliband do any better? What actual policies would he put forward that would offer vast improvement to the country, thus addressing its main ailments? Would he actually possess any charisma to win an election and maintain a reliable voter-base? Corbyn's fairly shite as a politician, and is likely headed for defeat, but this idea everything would suddenly be okay if we just pretend it's the mid-2000s again just sort of ignores everything's that changed since then and the failings of New Labour.
Well yes, exactly!
It’s just the constant, arrogant unwillingness (amongst some) to acknowledge that the Labour Party moved left because there was a genuine desire for it to do so, mostly prominently amongst the young and disenfranchised, that is endlessly infuriating.
Whether that desire and that drift will ultimately ever be enough to carry them back into power alone is another matter altogether (seemingly not, at present) but it’s absolutely crucial to acknowledge that it actually exists FFS! And that moving everything back to 2007ish will lose those voters just as readily as the self avowed “centrists” have been lost now. Something that was already patently obvious when that very same vote was exactly what enabled the Lib Dem side of the Coalition and the end of Labour government to begin with! (A vote that would probably now go to the Greens if Labour tried to revert to Blairism)
Unless of course the idea is that they’d all suck it up in the end for the greater good?... in which case it only highlights just how selfish and unreasonable said avowed “2007 centrists” are being themselves, for blithely and automatically expecting it of everyone else whilst outright refusing to consider it themselves. (Or of course it’s the assumption that they’d win back enough Tory voters and feck off the young and disenfranchised... in which case, it’s probably worth evaluating what side you actually think you’re on?)
Rewinding everything isn’t going to work. Brexit wasn’t a cause, it was a consequence.
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I think we’re beyond the point where we can compare how D Miliband would do. It made sense during the Ed and Ed days, but we’re way beyond that point now, it’s a different era. What i do know is that it’s almost ten years since Ed Miliband declared New Labour to be dead and Labour haven’t really looked like getting into Government in that time. Moving increasingly to the left may work in the end but certainly hasn’t been a silver bullet.
I feel like it's also got to be remembered that while Labour did incredibly well under Blair, part of their wider success among the electorate meant they were fast losing an increasingly unhappy party-base who just weren't particularly connected to the party itself anymore. And the voters they'd gained by moving to the centre weren't loyal, dedicated voters: in many cases they were people who were happy to vote Tory again once their fortunes started to improve. Which left Labour in a potentially dire position wherein they were not only losing votes but also losing any sort of genuine party-base, because the party just wasn't sure what it represented any longer.
Whether Corbyn's right for the party or not is another discussion, but I'm struggling to see where someone like David Miliband would have improved their fortunes or provided a lasting base for continuing Labour success. It's just easy for centrists to imagine he'd have done alright because he was never actually leader.
It hasn't been, but then I'd argue that, in part, Corbyn's lack of success has been down to the fact that he's a fairly rubbish politician himself, and due to some of the problematic statements he's made in the past when it comes to things like anti-Semitism etc.
Vaguely speaking a lot of people are fairly keen on Labour policies and wealth redistribution. They agree that inequality is too high, they feel like the economy isn't working for them and that austerity hasn't necessarily improved things, especially with Brexit looming, and they value public services like the NHS. The problem is finding a politician who can successfully convey these ideals while winning an election: it arguably isn't going to be Corbyn who does it, but it'd be silly for any Labour leader to come in and essentially ignore these demands for change when its' clear what way the tide is turning.
...and precisely this is the most significant factor in the fall of Labour in Scotland.
The saddest thing is, it makes 0 difference who any of us vote for. Whoever wins will feck us over in one way or another.
But isn't this why Blair won three elections. He offered a left of centre compassionate capitalism. The only way a hard left socialist party is going to win power is if the electorate become hard left socialists. And they aren't (well not at the moment). Centrist politics, with business-friendly policies and low levels of income tax is what most people want. Basically because 'you and yours' must come first. If there can be a decent health system and good support for the poor then that is ideal. To argue from an extreme position that the whole system needs to be changed is never going to resonate with the silent majority. And it is majorities that count here not the argument between people that sit three standard deviations either side of the median.
There are different levels of being fecked over. It still matters to vote.
But this only works for so long: at some point if you want to have strong public services - which should obviously be the goal of Labour - then you need to pay for that with taxation. Labour should be on the side of the average worker: they should be willing to tackle exploitative big businesses who hurt workers, and who are benefiting from increasing inequality. That doesn't mean they have to be anti-business, per se, it just means the party should be working towards an environment where it's not seen as acceptable to exploit your workers relentlessly and dodge taxes you should otherwise be paying. And the rich should quite rightfully be expected to pay a higher share than the rest of us.
The problem with Blair's approach was that he wanted a world where no one had to pay more tax but where public services could also be improved at the same time, a world where banks were deregulated to do whatever they wanted, as if this wasn't going to have negative consequences in the longer term. Ultimately the policies Blair promoted aren't going to fix things like the housing crisis etc. We need to be able to move past what he offered and look for new fixes.
Also, Blair was playing to an electorate that was both socially conscious and upwardly mobile. One of those things isn’t the same as it was.
there is a lot of truth in that - its a shame for the current iteration of the labour party that many simply want to race to the left and shout at anybody to their right that they are an uncaring tory / are selfish / are thick etc in their mind the left looks like
1 standard deviation = red tory / blairite scum
2 standard deviation = yellow tory / tory enabler
3 standard deviation = moderate
4 standard deviation = current labour
5 standard deviation = momentum
6 standard deviations = the future!
Interesting points @Cheesy
Broadly I think Blair's government did a good job, and Blair would've been able to do even better if his party would've let him go further and faster with reform. I also think the coalition government did a pretty good job in difficult circumstances post financial crisis. I think the past four years have been poor from a governance perspective, dominated by a European referendum that didn't need to be called at that time, and we need a clear vision of the future to get back on a positive course.
Exactly, Blair is probably more hated in the Labour party than the conservative party these days.
What do you mean?
If you look at the last 50 years the direction of travel has been away from socialism. For me it has only been the austerity imposed after the crash that has let the left back in. That and housing - on that point I agree with you. Whoever wins this election needs to have that high on the agenda. Labour's proposals for 'big' business may be popular but those will have the money to get around the regime. It'll be SME's that bear the brunt. Many operate on small margins and will be squeezed out of existence.
The issues you seem to have with Britain is simply one of style and not one of any substance. I could list million things wrong with this place - Foodbanks, homelessness, the inhuman treatment of disabled people, housing etc etc. But for you it appears to be that you woke up the day after the 2016 referendum and thought - feck my future holiday plans could be effected now(Without of course realising the policies that you are largely supportive of helped give Leave the win).
If the answer to the question what is wrong with Britain, is to go back 4 years. Then in my view you've got nothing.
The fact that we've, generally speaking, been travelling away from socialism doesn't mean that's guaranteed to continue now. The young have generally always been more to the left than their peers, yes, but in the last election we saw an even greater number of young people opting for Labour than usual because Labour were the party offering them policies that actually benefited them, something most political parties just hadn't been doing.
With the housing crisis and uncertainty surrounding jobs that'll come from increasing automation, this seems likely to continue. While I'm no fan of Thatcher and think her economic agenda has probably lead to a lot of the problems we're seeing today, you could at least argue that those who succeeded under capitalism genuinely succeeded, albeit at the expense of less fortunate people. But now that's not even necessarily the case - even lots of skilled university graduates are struggling to find reliable work or get onto the housing market. That's inevitably a major problem, because the perks of capitalism for the average worker are supposed to be...well, being able to own capital.
Austerity may have been implemented by the Tories but it was indicative of a wider political and economic agenda wherein rich bankers were able to break the rules and avoid punishment as a result, with poorer people punished instead to try and boost the economy. Austerity may have been implemented by a Tory government but Labour still bear some level of responsibility for the crash because their own deregulation of the banking sector and their willingness to completely placate big business at all costs didn't exactly help. This is only really sustainable for so long: at some people begin to push back. The argument capital will simply move abroad, again, doesn't really work for me; the rising inequality we're seeing just isn't sustainable for society in the long-term and we need to be building broad coalitions at an international level in order to address that. Simply saying there's nothing we can do about it isn't really good enough anymore.
Cheers. I've been broadly critical of Corbyn myself at the time and while I agree with aspects of his economic agenda, I don't think it's necessarily flawless; nevertheless I do think we're actually seeing someone propose some genuine change that, in parts, could be transformative to the UK economy in a way we've not seen in decades. And some of those transformations are genuinely needed.
Much as I don't like Blair it'd be silly to deny his governments didn't do some good within the country and it's undoubtedly the case that there were plenty of reforms and initiatives which were far better than any Tory government would've offered, but I'm not sure how some people can sit around and blindly ignore a lot of the problems his political philosophy later brought to the country, and pretend that some of the mismanagment during his own government's tenure hasn't led to some of the major problems we're seeing now. Wanting better times to return is fine, but those better times can't automatically be used as a template for how to fix things when the political environment has changed massively.
If you could name me a perfect country in the world then your contention might have some validity, but there isn't one. We've got to look at what's possible rather than living in nevernever land. People not being able to afford food is obviously a problem, as is homelessness and the other issues you highlighted, but do you genuinely believe these are problems because our recent governments haven't cared? I think these problems still exist because they are difficult problems to solve.
I don't know what you are talking about regarding holiday plans etc. I supported Leave in the referendum. I just think it was stupid from Cameron to make it an issue at that point in time when there was still a lot that needed to be done, and now as problems haven't been addressed they have been magnified.
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Completely agree with most of your diagnoses, and I actually think that a lot of Labour's current policies from an economic perspective make sense. I just don't like the language of class warfare, don't like blaming all our problems on people like Mike Ashley and Trump and have no trust in Corbyn/McDonnell that they will keep welfare and NHS spending under control.
What? The rise in foodbanks has literally coincided with the implementation of Tory austerity from 2010 onwards. That austerity was justified by them due to the crash beforehand...which occurred because of rich and greedy wealthy people who will themselves not have been affected by things like foodbanks. In any developed and decent country where the aim to move forwards this is quite clearly a problem insofar as foodbank use wasn't as commonplace before. To look for policies that rectify this is not fantasy; it's just basic, decent politics.
But surely it's at least better to be governed by people who are going to implement policies with the aim of improving things for the wider population, as opposed to people who don't really care? I have my own issues with Corbyn and McDonnell, but we're at least seeing politicians propose new ideas which might help the wider population.
I completely agree, and that is the kind of thing I mean when I'm saying the governance of the past 4 years has been bad. These kind of problems, which had become clear by 2015 (but not too long before) should have been solved by now.
But they haven't been, because the governing party don't have much of an interest in solving them. Part of their ideology is that people should be able to help themselves instead of relying on government interference.
For a party who hates their own incredibly recent past, this seems rich.
I wish that was true but I don't think so. If you let spending get out of control everyone loses in the long term, it is an extreme example but I genuinely believe Hugo Chavez had his heart in the right place and was trying to do his best for the country, and you see how that ended up.
My preferred government is a party who is economically literate/competent and carers. But I would choose someone who is economically competent and doesn't care over vice versa, as it is easier to recover from the former than the latter.
Not to mention the reason Labour lost power was ultimately of their own doing because they lost an election under what had been a fairly poor government, with the added fact they'd added some fairly sneaky stipulations to Scotland's devolution referendum which denied us devolution even though the majority voted in favour.
So who here supports a £30k salary for McDonald’s staff?
Does anyone not? Why would you be against it.
Yet when I said, your post below was short sighted, you asked why... Is this back tracking?
Happily. I think minimum wages should be aggressively increased to see how far they can go before we start seeing unemployment problems. This includes gig economy.
There was no need for the problems I listed in the first place.
“Austerity is the idea that the 2008 financial crash was caused by Wolverhampton having too many libraries.” - Alexei Sayle
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Honestly mate the tories have played a blinder on you.
It won't work at all but I quite like when the Labour left has a go at the SNP.
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