New 'left-wing' think tank....

[love detective]

Westminster launch

says it all really

 

[articul8]

but even so - this is meant to be the unions creating a new think tank grounded in the real experience of working class people. Bollocks. From what I've seen it's barely distinguishable from the Fabians.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

went to its Westminster launch today. Depressingly little sign of any "thinking" - a bit of "inequality is bad, poverty is bad" stuff but nothing much to say about it other than warmed over social democratic stuff about taxation and the welfare state. Frances O'Grady (who is of course senior bureaucrat in chief) at least made reference of the need to talk about economic democracy - but fear she meant something like Will Hutton's stakeholder stuff.

The really hard stuff - tackling the unaccountable power of the bond markets and finance capital more generally, the total erosion of even formal liberal democratic sovereignty across Europe, actually slamming the breaks on catastrophic climate change - nothing. Not even the merest hint of criticism of One Nation politics and the idea that the interests of capital and labour can be reconciled.

And of course no actually attempt to involve and empower w/c people themselves - just do-gooders trying their best form on high. Aaaargh!

I was invited actually but couldn't go because I had somthing more interesting on (no, not washing my hair).

Glad I didn't now sounds even more shite than I would have expected.

Mind you I would have spotted you, sidled up and whispered somthing disconcerting...

 

[love detective]

sidled

 

[articul8]

Mind you I would have spotted you, sidled up and whispered somthing disconcerting...

Would I know you? This happens quite frequently - I'm easily disconcerted

To be fair, by the standard of these things it was ok. Owen made some decent points about housing benefit lining the pockets of buy-to-let landlords. But nothing really that couldn't ahve been said from a Fabian platform. I was hoping for better.

 

[butchersapron]

Would I know you? This happens quite frequently - I'm easily disconcerted

To be fair, by the standard of these things it was ok. Owen made some decent points about housing benefit lining the pockets of buy-to-let landlords. But nothing really that couldn't ahve been said from a Fabian platform. I was hoping for better.

Yet this is the very best your party has to offer. Have you told your boss what you think of her fabianism?

 

[articul8]

a) for the 1000th time she isn't my boss, b) I think she is there to influence it in a positive direction (without much success it appears). I think if she had been running it, it would look and feel really quite different.

 

[butchersapron]

Why? That stuff just looks like red pepper on a day trip to parliament.

 

[cesare]

but even so - this is meant to be the unions creating a new think tank grounded in the real experience of working class people. Bollocks. From what I've seen it's barely distinguishable from the Fabians.

What level of union leaders?

 

[articul8]

Why? That stuff just looks like red pepper on a day trip to parliament.

You can't have seen red pepper if that's what you think.

 

[articul8]

What level of union leaders?

Union tops obviously

 

[cesare]

Union tops obviously

Yes, I suppose it was obvious.

 

[butchersapron]

You can't have seen red pepper if that's what you think.

I have seen it and that's why i think that.

Fir example, here's at least 10 pages of results with red pepper on inequality saying almost exactly the same as the Class Parliamentary Launch - Why Inequality Matters - including positive reviews of the book by lansley ( CLASS big wig) that says pretty much the same as this new CLASS publication:

Despite this, nothing much has changed since the crisis, and Lansley’s got the facts – productivity up, profits up, wages down, inequality on the rise. Governments might have saved us from a second depression but they have done nothing to solve the underlying problems of current-day capitalism.

Lansley’s solution is to increase taxes (including an international crackdown on tax avoidance), weaken shareholder power through a ‘new contract’ with labour that introduces ‘flexicurity’ to the labour market, and rebalance the economy from finance to productive industries through taxation, regulation and the establishment of a national investment bank committed to social entrepreneurship and building a green infrastructure.

There is not much to disagree with in this programme.

 

[articul8]

That's one book review? And it is not that there is anything inherently objectionable about this kind of programme it's just far too limited

 

[butchersapron]

That's one book review amongst many other examples - you went mental for Richard Wilkinson for example, and the baroness seems to have been particularly keen on this stuff.

 

[cesare]

What do you think of the people you've met so far from Hansard, Arty? (Commons and Lords)

 

[articul8]

How do you mean met from Hansard? Like, reporters?

 

[cesare]

How do you mean met from Hansard? Like, reporters?

Yep, the people that actually work in the depts.

 

[articul8]

That's one book review amongst many other examples - you went mental for Richard Wilkinson for example, and the baroness seems to have been particularly keen on this stuff.

We have carried some material on the book, but don't think "going mental" over it is fair. Personally I am deeply skeptical about the implicit one nationism of its analysisj

 

[ViolentPanda]

...Westminster launch...

A phrase I one day hope to hear in concert with "terrorists targeting the Palace of...a barrage of Stinger missiles from Parliament Square".

 

[ViolentPanda]

but even so - this is meant to be the unions creating a new think tank grounded in the real experience of working class people. Bollocks. From what I've seen it's barely distinguishable from the Fabians.

You should know!

 

[articul8]

Yep, the people that actually work in the depts.

I'm not aware of having met them, not sure if they are in unite or nuj.

 

[cesare]

I'm not aware of having met them, not sure if they are in unite or nuj.

Ah, ok. It wasn't a union question though, btw.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I was invited actually but couldn't go because I had somthing more interesting on (no, not washing my hair).

Glad I didn't now sounds even more shite than I would have expected.

Mind you I would have spotted you, sidled up and whispered somthing disconcerting...

Such as...
"I know that you masturbate over a picture of Beatrice Webb"?

 

[DaveCinzano]

Such as...
"I know that you masturbate over a picture of Beatrice Webb"?

So that's where 'beating off' comes from

 

[articul8]

Ah, ok. It wasn't a union question though, btw.

No, but it's hard to see in what capacity I'd meet them other than if a) they were part of my union branch, and b) they were representedby the NUJ which I do quite a bit of work with - and had some kind of dispute.

 

[articul8]

Such as...
"I know that you masturbate over a picture of Beatrice Webb"?

what a warped mind you have

 

[cesare]

No, but it's hard to see in what capacity I'd meet them other than if a) they were part of my union branch, and b) they were representedby the NUJ which I do quite a bit of work with - and had some kind of dispute.

Oh, I just thought you were hobnobbing at Westminster quite often from what you've been saying, so was curious.

 

[butchersapron]

Changing the bubble from within via hot air.

 

[ViolentPanda]

what a warped mind you have

No denial though, I notice.