Keir Starmer's time is up

[TopCat]

Petty-bourgeois diletantes. I love that one.
Never had an idea of what it meant.

 

[Pickman's model]

Petty-bourgeois diletantes. I love that one.
Never had an idea of what it meant.

Sounds like the starter in a michelin-starred restaurant

 

[belboid]

Sounds like the starter in a michelin-starred restaurant

The Red Restaurant. PBD to start with, a main course of boeuf bourgeoisie and finishing with Millionaire Shortbread (made from actual millionaires).

 

[belboid]

Petty-bourgeois diletantes. I love that one.
Never had an idea of what it meant.

whatever you want it to mean, comrade, whatever you want it to mean.

 

[brogdale]

Petty-bourgeois diletantes. I love that one.
Never had an idea of what it meant.

He called me that over in the census thread!

 

[steeplejack]

Petty-bourgeois diletantes. I love that one.
Never had an idea of what it meant.

It's how a "middle-class lifestylist prick" was referred to 200 years ago I think

 

[Serge Forward]

Petty-bourgeois diletantes. I love that one.
Never had an idea of what it meant.

Sp - dilettante!!!!!!!111!!1

 

[belboid]

Sp - dilettante!!!!!!!111!!1

my dictionary lists both as acceptable

 

[Serge Forward]

my dictionary lists both as acceptable

Il tuo dizionario è il lavoro di un dilettante

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I usually get to this point in a ‘discussion’ and think fuckit I can’t be bothered but ...



Aaaaaand you start again by suggesting I’m discussing dishonestly. You’ve been doing this for nearly two years now, and it’s a lie. I say a lie rather than a mistake because you’ve seen the post right at the beginning of our ‘discussions’ where I clearly considered it. Butchersapron gave me a reasoned response as to why the conditions were unique (high growth rates during the PWSC). I said I would study his post and did, and came back with a discussion backed by graph suggesting that wasn’t so.

Jeremy Corbyn's time is up

He’s normally right on things like this and I was actually expecting him to reply pointing out where I was wrong, but I was certainly expecting someone to address the points I made. If you’d have actually been interested in a discussion, this is where you’d have started. Instead you picked on one sentence and then started the repeated mantra “you refuse to consider”.

There’s also at a first glance for example

Jeremy Corbyn's time is up
Jeremy Corbyn's time is up
Jeremy Corbyn's time is up

You may not agree with what I said but to say I’ve not considered it (and why it collapsed) is a lie. Why do you keep doing this? Why can you not discuss as a fucking human being without calling people scum and treating them with contempt?

Again, I made a simple point in response to Smokeandsteam‘s “Can you give an example of where the approach you are talking about has actually worked? Or come close to working? ”. The answer to that is clearly the PWSC.

You ignore that and are now back into aggressively and repeatedly demanding I make your argument for you (a tactic of yours). That’s not how honest discussions work. If you want to talk about why the conditions came about then talk about it. I’m not stopping you and if I agree I’ll tell you and if I don’t I’ll disagree. Like I did with Butchersapron.

So, aside from the political will of an elected government to recognize the British peoples’ fight against fascism, you tell me why the conditions came about? Why aren’t they possible now when they were possible in a country that had been half destroyed by war?



You’re again contemptuously dismissing something that I’ve not actually said. I didn’t call the PWSC socialist or even a move to socialism. I said that the elements of full employment from nationalizing the energy, water supply and communications industries (the ‘means of production’, yes?) along with free healthcare, unemployment benefits, free education and subsidized housing are “socialist results” (particularly compared to what was there before WWII and what we have now for that matter). I

Whenever I mention the PWSC you jump in and demand that the conversation move away from the PWSC itself and its benefits for working people. Fine that it was an attempt to manage capitalism rather than establish some socialist utopia. Of course it was a mixed economy and the situation in the country wasn’t perfect and there were great inequalities. And yes once the PWSC had been established it was carried forward by both labour and tory governments. That was the nature of it. So what? The point I made was that it was successful for a good 25 years. Why can’t you just accept that?

By return to PWSC-like policies I mean reinvest in the NHS (reverse privatization, reopen and invest in hospitals, improve wages for nurses etc), build council houses (properly energy efficient this time, and not on green belt), reintroduce student grants and wipe out existing student debts, introduce rent controls to greatly reduce rents, renationalize where possible the essential industries (rail, water, electricity ...) and aim for full employment again by that and by investing in new industries. Fund it by taking from those who can afford it like stopping tax evasion and unethical avoidance, and windfall tax for the coronavirus profiteers.

And note I’m not saying the result will be as successful as before, just that they are the right thing to do. I asked you before and you’ve repeatedly ignored the question: “What else should a government do other than alleviate poverty, invest in the country and workforce, and improve healthcare and travel and essential utility infrastructure? ” You really disagree with this? I’m not saying it will lead to some great socialist society, I’m saying it will be a fuck of a sight better than what we have now.

This is what you repeatedly refuse to discuss, along with what is the alternative. You snipped that from my last reply, too. You clearly don’t have a practical alternative, which is why you’re silent on it. I’m happy for people to work for a socialist revolution – but what should we do in the meantime? Your answer is to leave the tories to it. You’ve repeatedly said labour’s approach is “at least we’re not the tories”. If that’s true then your approach is “let the tories run riot”.

These PWSC-like measures seem really popular within the population. Is anyone except for the right wing against them? So why would they not have worked at the last election, and what do you mean by they won’t work? Just repeating “conditions have changed” is a bollocks argument really isn’t it.



Again, you’re dismissing something that I’ve not actually said. I made a simple throw-away remark that Thatcher came in with a hammer to smash the PWSC. I was clearly referring only to the UK, and if I’d said that she on her own was responsible you’d have a point but I didn’t did I? Because that would be a stupid thing to say. And you add on a string of questions which if I don’t answer you’ll doubtless complain I’ve dishonestly refused to consider.

Of course Thatcher took a hammer to the PWSC. She and her governments set about privatizing the nationalized industries, forcing up unemployment to 3 million which forced down wages and helped to break the unions. They forced the sell-off of council houses with councils not being allowed to rebuild so helping to force up rents to the insane levels we have now. She froze grants and introduced student loans that now hang over people for years. She consistently underfunded the NHS and introduced the review that led to NHS competition. And yes both tory and labour governments took their own hammers both before and since – so what? They’ve all bought into the neoconservative model.



Again, you’re demanding that I make your argument for you. You tell me and I’ll let you know if I agree. And perhaps tell me why it was an elected government that led to such great improvements in conditions for the working class and not revolution?

Good post.

Regarding the differences between 45 and 75, the moral strength of a people that have just lived through a war to demand real change shouldn't be underestimated, I don't think. Reading the Conservative manifesto for 1945, quite a few things would have been done similarly if they had been elected. Housing, education and health policies would have been broadly similar. We might have ended up with different forms of a welfare state, but a welfare state of some kind would have been implemented. The biggest difference between tories and labour involved the nationalisation of industry, which is the one big idea of Attlee's govt that the Tories opposed (they later came to accept it, of course, for a time).

1945 Conservative Party Manifesto - CONSERVATIVEMANIFESTO.COM

That for me is a clue to when meaningful change is likely or possible. Directly after a crisis of some kind. 2008 was a chance to change course. It was spurned. Covid could be another. It's likely to be spurned as well, I would guess, but it's still a little early to tell.

Who is in power still matters, though. A Corbyn-style govt in 2008 may have acted differently towards the banks. A Corbyn-style govt may have acted differently in response to Covid. It was Thatcher, not Labour, who launched a war on the unions. Labour did nothing to reverse it, but that's not so different from it being Labour, not the Tories, who nationalised industry in 45, with the tories doing nothing to reverse it until Thatcher.

 

[belboid]

Good post.

Regarding the differences between 45 and 75, the moral strength of a people that have just lived through a war to demand real change shouldn't be underestimated, I don't think. Reading the Conservative manifesto for 1945, quite a few things would have been done similarly if they had been elected. Housing, education and health policies would have been broadly similar. We might have ended up with different forms of a welfare state, but a welfare state of some kind would have been implemented. The biggest difference between tories and labour involved the nationalisation of industry, which is the one big idea of Attlee's govt that the Tories opposed (they later came to accept it, of course, for a time).

1945 Conservative Party Manifesto - CONSERVATIVEMANIFESTO.COM

That for me is a clue to when meaningful change is likely or possible. Directly after a crisis of some kind. 2008 was a chance to change course. It was spurned. Covid could be another. It's likely to be spurned as well, I would guess, but it's still a little early to tell.

Don't know about housing or education, but tory plans for a health service that covered the nation were vastly different from the NHS. That's why they voted against it over twenty times, and why Churchill called it akin to national socialism.

And lets not forget that Atlee was in government throughout the war and eld the 'home effort' - including ensuring that rations were actually an improvement on the amount of food many families could afford pre-war.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Don't know about housing or education, but tory plans for a health service that covered the nation were vastly different from the NHS. That's why they voted against it over twenty times, and why Churchill called it akin to national socialism.

And lets not forget that Atlee was in government throughout the war and eld the 'home effort' - including ensuring that rations were actually an improvement on the amount of food many families could afford pre-war.

What strikes me about that Tory manifesto (and a big clue as to why they lost) is that it is extremely defensive - basically, we agree with Labour about X, Y, Z, with great praise for what the labour people in the wartime govt had done. They do explicitly promise universal health coverage, though. Maybe it would have taken a form similar to those of other European countries rather than the NHS, but some kind of universalism would have been there.

 

[belboid]

What strikes me about that Tory manifesto (and a big clue as to why they lost) is that it is extremely defensive - basically, we agree with Labour about X, Y, Z, with great praise for what the labour people in the wartime govt had done. They do explicitly promise universal health coverage, though. Maybe it would have taken a form similar to those of other European countries rather than the NHS, but some kind of universalism would have been there.

It wasn't going to be 'universal' tho, it was going to be 'comprehensive' - which may sound like mere petty-fogging but would have been quite significant. The bit about universities is an indicator of how they wanted a bunch of local (but semi-co-ordinated) services which were almost entirely professional led. Could have been anything from being like the french service to the US lack thereof.

(It also strikes me how incredibly thin the manifestos were then, really quite generic and vague)

 

[littlebabyjesus]

(It also strikes me how incredibly thin the manifestos were then, really quite generic and vague)

Is that partly, or mostly, because they expected people to read them? How many people read the manifestos today? Surely it's almost nobody. They're read by the media, etc, in order to trip the parties up, take them on over funding promises, etc, but they're not created to actually be read by the mass of voters. That 45 manifesto from the tories is a direct address to the voters.

 

[two sheds]

Many did so including me. Not sure I held my nose either. The one time it worked we got the Iraqi war.

I wonder though, would we have invaded if it had been a tory government? All except two tories voted for it, and a tory government would presumably have wanted to brownnose the americans just as much. We might not have had Blair's weapons of mass destruction lie but I wouldn't put that past the tories either.

 

[ska invita]

Is that partly, or mostly, because they expected people to read them? How many people read the manifestos today? Surely it's almost nobody. They're read by the media, etc, in order to trip the parties up, take them on over funding promises, etc, but they're not created to actually be read by the mass of voters. That 45 manifesto from the tories is a direct address to the voters.

a lot of people wanted to read the Corbyn 2017 manifesto on paper but it was really hard to get hold of
(as opposed to a pdf)

i guess just like a book it depends how good it is!

 

[ska invita]

I wonder though, would we have invaded if it had been a tory government?

of course

 

[Puddy_Tat]

I wonder though, would we have invaded if it had been a tory government? All except two tories voted for it, and a tory government would presumably have wanted to brownnose the americans just as much. We might not have had Blair's weapons of mass destruction lie but I wouldn't put that past the tories either.

of course

from memory, the tories and their friends in the press were (with a small handful of exceptions) calling for the UK to join in the first minute the americans wanted us to, rather than hanging about waiting for the weapons inspectors to report...

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I wonder though, would we have invaded if it had been a tory government? All except two tories voted for it, and a tory government would presumably have wanted to brownnose the americans just as much. We might not have had Blair's weapons of mass destruction lie but I wouldn't put that past the tories either.

We can't know of course, but far from certain, I would say. France and Germany stayed out. In the French case, it was a r/w president who said 'non'. Alternative histories are always fraught, so I think in this case the safest we can say is that it was very much Blair's war - he wanted it, he got the false evidence together to justify it, and the rest of the labour govt, with just one exception, went along with it, out of whatever, moral cowardice mostly. If Blair had said no, none of them would have disagreed with that either, I suspect.

 

[two sheds]

Although 84 labour MPs voted against. There might have been more if it was a tory government proposing it (unless Blair whipped them of course).

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Although 84 labour MPs voted against. There might have been more if it was a tory government proposing it (unless Blair whipped them of course).

The bit where we enter the fog, I think, concerns the effort Blair expended to ensure the war happened, the lies he created for it. Any other government would presumably have had to do similar. It took energy and motivation to take Britain into that war. That energy and motivation came primarily from Blair.

From memory, the tories used Blair's lies as the reason for supporting the war, so they were covered after the event in the sense that they hadn't told the lies, they'd just chosen to 'believe' them. Would they have had the energy and motivation to create those lies if they'd been in power? Possibly. I don't think it's certain, though.

In terms of this thread, that war was what finally broke things for me wrt labour or any kind of voting. Like many others, I felt things only changed when Corbyn became labour leader. Now we're back to me feeling totally disenfranchised again.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Although 84 labour MPs voted against.

But only one member of the govt resigned over it. Spineless cunts.

And he ended up dead a couple of years later soon after it became crystal clear that everything he had said was true.

 

[brogdale]

kinnel

 

[Pickman's model]

kinnel

Parliament

Next

 

[Pickman's model]

The bit where we enter the fog, I think, concerns the effort Blair expended to ensure the war happened, the lies he created for it. Any other government would presumably have had to do similar. It took energy and motivation to take Britain into that war. That energy and motivation came primarily from Blair.

From memory, the tories used Blair's lies as the reason for supporting the war, so they were covered after the event in the sense that they hadn't told the lies, they'd just chosen to 'believe' them. Would they have had the energy and motivation to create those lies if they'd been in power? Possibly. I don't think it's certain, though.

In terms of this thread, that war was what finally broke things for me wrt labour or any kind of voting. Like many others, I felt things only changed when Corbyn became labour leader. Now we're back to me feeling totally disenfranchised again.

Yes, it's all about you

 

[ska invita]

kinnel

i know doing interviews takes years of skill, and in general im glad there are politicians like her around who have worked in the social sector and ended in parliament due to union work, but its really not that hard this
-we cant give a precise figure, but we fully support our union negotiators, and we want a significant pay increase
-yes we proposed 5% whilst Tories were repeatedly defunding the NHS - the labour party always supports key workers, we founded the nhs etc etc

instead instincts are all wrong, embarrassed of past, generally slippery, leading to garbled we wont even stand by 5% because the electorate rejected the manifesto

its another open goal here for Labour and they come across defensive and miserable

 

[The39thStep]

kinnel

How times change, I knew her in Unison used to spend a bit of time drinking with her in the pub when we were on strikes for better pay. She became our branch secretary, in those days if Labour Councils had come out with the dross she just spoke about our pay she'd have ripped them to shreds .

 

[hitmouse]

Can't believe that so many people have spent so long discussing the ins and outs of Labour's 2019 defeat - was it Brexit, was it antisemitism, was it this or was it that - and they've all managed to miss the obvious truth that Rayner's discovered: Labour lost because they were too nice to NHS staff. Bravo to Rayner for finally making the effort to reach out to the crucial nurse-hating vote.

(belated edit after I eventually remembered how to spell the useless sod's name.)

 

[AmateurAgitator]

kinnel

This is a good example of why I don't trust any politician and don't vote.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

The Labour line - let the pay review body and the unions negotiate and we would accept their final recommendation- isn’t a bad one. On paper. But it’s also one of those that because of triangulation, timidity and a series of qualifying underlying caveats that does not pass the most simple political test: is the policy clear and do people understand it?

I have to say I agree with Steps point above as well. I wanted to like Rayner and valued her class and TU background. But she’s been massively disappointing since being elected.