Jeremy Corbyn's time is up

[mauvais]

Throws tantrum and walks out at one of the most important meeting/issues this century. There are times when a politician has to work with their arch enemy/opposition and this is one of them. No way to do business at the best of times.
still we know who we can rely on during a national crisis.

Umunna isn't arch anything. Archery target at best.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

May has absolutely no intention of constructively engaging with any other parties at all, any more than she ever has. If anything, inviting the Tingers provided Labour with a good excuse to exit, given how entirely irrelevant they are to the process anyway.

 

[redsquirrel]

You are right about the Tinge, but that’s not a good analogy. Work is what we do with half our lives and unions should use their influence to make it better. As long as the bottom line is they will take action when required.

Sorry I'm unclear are you arguing that unions should work with employers?

 

[pseudonarcissus]

Why should people who stabbed their party in the back - the party they owe their entire careers to - expect that party's leader to even acknowledge their existence?

Are we talking about the independent group, or Mr Corbyn’s career prior to becoming leader?

 

[Idris2002]

Are we talking about the independent group, or Mr Corbyn’s career prior to becoming leader?

His career opposing labour policies like the iraq war, you mean?

 

[Mr Moose]

Sorry I'm unclear are you arguing that unions should work with employers?

Define what you mean by they should not if it’s unclear. I’m simply talking about how organisations work.

 

[redsquirrel]

Define what you mean by they should not if it’s unclear. I’m simply talking about how organisations work.

I don't think unions should work with employers at all, not if they are doing what they are supposed to be for and standing up for their members. By definition it is in the interest of employers to increase the exploitation of labour and it's in the interests of labour (and so should be in the interests of unions) to oppose that exploitation.

 

[Patteran]

Why should people who stabbed their party in the back - the party they owe their entire careers to - expect that party's leader to even acknowledge their existence?

And what do people think would have come out of this meeting? Some magic beans that solve the crisis by necromancy and soothsaying?

And presumably if he'd stayed, the inevitable, irreconcilable differences between Labour & TIG would have been highlighted as proof of his callousness towards the national interest instead. Either action would have been instrumentalised & then contrasted with May's speech - at least this way round, there's a degree of control - plus an opportunity to annoy Chuka. The game's rigged - I wonder if to some degree Corbyn's long-term immersion, investment & apparent faith in the potential & correctness of proper parliamentary procedure, makes him vulnerable to this kind of trap.

 

[two sheds]

The TIG isn't actually a party yet is it? Hardly fits in a meeting of party leaders.

 

[two sheds]

No offence but that doesn't remotely answer the question I asked.

Your question should have been clearer then . Or are you not interested in the conditions people people live under?

There has been "poverty, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness" for decades, both prior to and after the PWSC so clearly the presence of these cannot be the determining factor in the setting up (by who BTW?) of the PWSC?

What? The PWSC address those five things quite successfully for 30 years. You seem to suggest that the PWSC contract made no difference to peoples' lives. That's a gross distortion. Of course it didn't eliminate them, nobody is suggesting it did. Set up by the Attlee government in 1945 under pressure from the working class as butchers has pointed out?

We currently have "full employment.

You think casual work with no pension and sick pay, along with zero hours contracts and taking people off benefits to fiddle the figures equate to full employment with pension and sick pay? I've seen you make good political points but I'll remind you of this when you tell people they're falling for tory propaganda.

And the 2017 Labour Party manifesto did not argue for nationalisation but for "state involvement". You cannot see the conflict that would arise between an independent BoE and a Labour government intent on re-introducing some of the basis for the PWSC? How do you think the BoE would react to the nationalisation (without payment) of industries, to the legalisation of secondary picketing or closed shops?

The BoE seems quite happy with quantitative easing - £375 billion of it since 2008. I don't know, though, what *would* it do about legislation of secondary picketing and closed shops?

Labour councils are currently implementing cuts and attacking workers. What are striking workers in Birmingham currently being attached by a Labour council to do?

Yes I hate to see that. But again the cuts are being forced on them by the government. Where does the money come from? If they set an illegal budget the government will just take over the running of the council. That's not going to help improve conditions for peoples' lives.

All you seem to have is vote Labour in a GE (the same position you had two years ago). I find it genuinely amazing that someone who counts themselves part of the labour movement is so unaware of the past triumphs of the movement. You can't see any lessons from Poplar?

No, I'm not saying "just vote Labour". I have great respect for the work people are doing in resisting austerity. It's not "either/or" it's "both/and". I hate seeing Labour councils impose austerity but as you say, "conditions have changed" . I can understand why Labour counciles don't set illegal budgets. It needs money for investment, where does that come from? It can't come from the rates or business rates because those are set. It can't come from building new houses because the government won't allow that. Set an illegal budget and the government will take over administration. There's no benefit in that to people.

This is as weak as your comments on the PWSC. I don't have to offer an alternative to point out that your argument for a return to the PWSC, rests on a significant misunderstanding of such.

Well yes I recall Dr. Johnson saying that you don’t need to be a shoe repairer to know that your boots don’t fit. But if you’ve got someone standing watching the shoe repairer saying You don’t want to do it that way that’s never going to fit, then it’s fair to ask how *they* would do it.

 

[two sheds]

Sometimes I feel like there should be a bell or something for when people who should really know better offer up this crap as an argument. As though anyone on any thread on Urban has ever remotely suggested shouting REVOLUTION COMRADES is the best/only alternative to election-chasing. If you're going to argue about the efficacy of direct action and extra-parliamentary mass politics at least argue on its active merits rather than falling back on sub-Daily Mail sneering that your opponent is Citizen Smith.

Yep and there should be a bell for when people who should know better offer up nothing but contempt for democratic socialism. It would be ringing all the fucking time.

I have no problem with revolutionary socialism and anarchism - from what I've seen they're how you'd want to set up a society. It's the arrogant, contemptuous sneering from some revolutionary socialists that I have a problem with. But carry on, it's a great look for the left.

 

[two sheds]

any revolution you care to examine will have done some things well, others frankly poorly. you don't have a revolution so everything's done better: that isn't going to happen from the get-go, it'll take some time to right things. but there's vast quantities of human labour which go into doing things which if they aren't actually actively destructive of the planet then are wasteful useless toil. but the major reason for a revolution isn't that everything would miraculously get better but that we'd no longer have today's fat pigs lording it over everyone, that people would be able to work together in ways that simply aren't possible now.

Yes can't argue with any of that. I'd love to see a Labour government come in with a large windfall tax on all the profiteering that's been done at the expense of the rest of us since 1979. I remember the tories doing it years ago so there's good precedent.

One of my reservations about a revolution though is how you stop the regime from becoming just as bad as the same old fat pigs. What if it's the Swappies who take over for example?

the problem now with democratic socialism is its absence. i'd love to see some democratic socialism but it's just not available.

Although renationalization and expansion of co-operatives and other things now in the manifesto would go some (small) way. I don't really think Corbyn could do it because of the baggage he's got that's been pointed out on here, but it's those policies that persuaded me to vote Labour. That and improved workers' rights and rent controls would go some way to improve conditions people are living under. I think that's worth a try while people who want to organize for a revolution do that.

 

[Pickman's model]

Although renationalization and expansion of co-operatives and other things now in the manifesto would go some (small) way. I don't really think Corbyn could do it because of the baggage he's got that's been pointed out on here, but it's those policies that persuaded me to vote Labour. That and improved workers' rights and rent controls would go some way to improve conditions people are living under. I think that's worth a try while people who want to organize for a revolution do that.

nationalisation / renationalisation isn't in and of itself socialist. i compare corbyn with the labour governments of the past and he comes up wanting. where are redistributive tax policies? - corbyn doesn't propose any real shift in the tax rates, nothing there like the washed out pink socialism of harold wilson and 'red' james callaghan. our houses of parliament have never been so filled with incompetents, charlatans, mountebanks and straight up frauds as they are today, and no good can come from such people.

 

[redsquirrel]

Your question should have been clearer then . Or are you not interested in the conditions people people live under?
What? The PWSC address those five things quite successfully for 30 years. You seem to suggest that the PWSC contract made no difference to peoples' lives. That's a gross distortion. Of course it didn't eliminate them, nobody is suggesting it did. Set up by the Attlee government in 1945 under pressure from the working class as butchers has pointed out?

Oh for goodness sake I've not made any such suggestion. This is absolute cobblers, I've not made any argument that the PWSC was not a good thing. You're arguing against imaginary opinions.

I'm arguing that the PWSC arose out a certain set of material conditions and I was trying to get you to identify those conditions, to say why you think the PWSC came about at that period in time (it certainly wasn't just because there was poverty). Because IMO those material conditions no longer exist and thus trying to turn the clock back to 1945 is not possible. That doesn't mean mild social democratic reforms aren't possible but like butchersapron I see the 25 years post WWII as an outlier, and so the development of capitalism over the next 25 years is not going to, in fact cannot, see the type of systematic changes that we saw from 45-70.

 

[two sheds]

You don't actually have to do anything illegal to start with. You could just use the reserves.

My Labour council in Sheffield increases reserves year on year at the same time as closing services like libraries, childrens centres and adult social care. It has something like £200 million in reserves, which is more than most - but if you combine all Labour councils they have reserves that are larger than the GDP of at least ten EU countries.

If Labour councils were to make clear to people that they would use reserves to protect services, and then launch a campaign to get more money off the Tories, they'd get a pretty good reaction I think. And McDonnell could then pledge that an incoming Labour govt would restore their funding and replenish their reserves.

My first reaction to this was that yes it's a good solution but thinking about it I'm not so sure. I think the tories would love it. Once the reserves are gone, they'd have to start selling assets and renting them out from the people they'd sold them to, which would cut into budgets even more. There'd be some proper service cuts then I think.

Even if the council did break the law though and run an illegal budget - what are the Tories gonna do? In a city like mine there are no Tory councillors or MP's. Is this govt honestly strong enough to come to Sheffield and take over the running of the city? It would be a political nightmare for them.

Yep but the Mail and the Sun and the rest of them would be running news stories all the time on how irresponsible Labour councils are and how they're frittering away all their taxpayers hard earned money. That the government's had to step in to take back control and all the cuts would be made necessary by their wasteful Labour councillors.

In Northamptonshire the county council went bust, despite carrying out cuts, and the Tories sent commissioners in.

That was a tory council though. I don't think the government would be as sympathetic to labour controlled areas. As it is the tory controlled councils get more money than labour ones, I think they'd love to choke off services even more to dissuade people from voting labour.

I hate to see it, too, but I can see why Labour councils feel they have to make the cuts. While we've got a tory government they make the rules and they've got us by the balls.

 

[Rob Ray]

Yeah that's the thing which depresses me about this era of politics in a nutshell.

That The Left is expected to enthusiastically coalesce around this new dawn of staying in NATO, keeping nukes, 10,000 new cops, managed migration, (paid for) nationalisation of some utilities, tax plans which put less pressure on the top rate than Thatcher etc. In living memory that would have been close to a red Tory position.

Our collective horizons are now so short that anything more ambitious is now sneered at as pie in the sky, and I don't think there could be any greater indictment of Parliamentary politics than this being being the case 95 years on from the first Labour government.

 

[redsquirrel]

Sorry Rob Ray is that to anyone in particular or just a general comment (either way I agree)

 

[Rob Ray]

Was replying to Pickman's but people posted in between

 

[Pickman's model]

Was replying to Pickman's but people posted in between

the bastards

 

[two sheds]

nationalisation / renationalisation isn't in and of itself socialist. i compare corbyn with the labour governments of the past and he comes up wanting. where are redistributive tax policies? - corbyn doesn't propose any real shift in the tax rates, nothing there like the washed out pink socialism of harold wilson and 'red' james callaghan.

I know, but we're much further to the right now than we were during wilson and callaghan years. He's proposing a much further move to the left than they did since there's all the tory/new labour years to reverse. He has said he'll increase rates to 50% and 75% for the top earners.

our houses of parliament have never been so filled with incompetents, charlatans, mountebanks and straight up frauds as they are today, and no good can come from such people.

Yes another good point that I can't really argue with .

I'll swear I remember some new young Labour women MPs giving really good interviews after the election we could do with a couple of them taking over. Or perhaps I'm thinking of Mhairi Black we could put in a transfer request

 

[danny la rouge]

I know, but we're much further to the right now than we were during wilson and callaghan years. He's proposing a much further move to the left than they did since there's all the tory/new labour years to reverse. He has said he'll increase rates to 50% and 75% for the top earners.

Look up the top earner tax rate through the 50s and 60s - it was around 90%. That’s Churchill, Eden, MacMillan, Douglas-Home, Wilson. So Corbyn’s tax policies are “less left wing” than 4 Tory PMs. In 1970, Heath reduced it to 75%. So Corbyn is “as left wing as Heath”. In 1974 it was put back up to 83% under Wilson II.

If you want to compare Corbynism with Butskellism, you’re going to find many measures that put Corbyn to the right of Butskellism. And the question you’ve got to ask yourself is why? Why is Corbyn now portrayed as “way out radical”, when Churchill of all people precided over a 90% top rate of income tax? And that’s what butchersapron and redsquirrel have been trying to explain.

 

[grit]

Yeah that's the thing which depresses me about this era of politics in a nutshell.

That The Left is expected to enthusiastically coalesce around this new dawn of staying in NATO, keeping nukes, 10,000 new cops, managed migration, (paid for) nationalisation of some utilities, tax plans which put less pressure on the top rate than Thatcher etc. In living memory that would have been close to a red Tory position.

Our collective horizons are now so short that anything more ambitious is now sneered at as pie in the sky, and I don't think there could be any greater indictment of Parliamentary politics than this being being the case 95 years on from the first Labour government.

Don't know if it was a fabricated quote. But I remember my father telling me years ago that when Thatcher was interviewed and asked what she considered her greatest achievement. Her response was apparently "new labour"

 

[Idris2002]

Look at this fucking idiot:

 

[Sprocket.]

Don't know if it was a fabricated quote. But I remember my father telling me years ago that when Thatcher was interviewed and asked what she considered her greatest achievement. Her response was apparently "new labour"

‘’Tony Blair’’ actually.

 

[Idris2002]

Don't know if it was a fabricated quote. But I remember my father telling me years ago that when Thatcher was interviewed and asked what she considered her greatest achievement. Her response was apparently "new labour"

She must have been running through the last of her marbles at this point, though, surely?

 

[FridgeMagnet]

Look at this fucking idiot:

It’s been illuminating, if predictable, how many FBPE types seem to spend half or more of their time blaming Corbyn for Brexit.

 

[Pickman's model]

She must have been running through the last of her marbles at this point, though, surely?

https:// con servativ ehom e.bl ogs.com /centre right/2 008/04 /m aking-his tory.ht ml

 

[Sprocket.]

View attachment 165182
https:// con servativ ehom e.bl ogs.com /centre right/2 008/04 /m aking-his tory.ht ml

The conniving bastard.

 

[Mr Moose]

I don't think unions should work with employers at all, not if they are doing what they are supposed to be for and standing up for their members. By definition it is in the interest of employers to increase the exploitation of labour and it's in the interests of labour (and so should be in the interests of unions) to oppose that exploitation.

So not on health and safety or training and development or even company/organisational strategy?

 

[grit]

She must have been running through the last of her marbles at this point, though, surely?

Dunno, but frankly its ringing true these days.