The biggest mistakes the British left made....

[kyser_soze]

I would imagine that Mr Whistle would be fuming about where my missus works and how much she gets paid, quite honestly.

 

[Oswaldtwistle]

So your problems are immigrants, criminals and fuel prices? They are problems for right wing people.

They are problems for working class people. Therefore, why isn't the left speaking out on them (with a few exceptions who are- Dennis Skinner on fuel prices for example)

 

[TruXta]

Global warming is used as the justification for these high taxes. Why not tax other things? Because it wouldn't wash.

And who started using CC/GW as a justification for upping fuel duty? The Tories in 93, with the introduction of the Fuel Price Escalator.

 

[Dillinger4]

They are problems for working class people. Therefore, why isn't the left speaking out on them (with a few exceptions who are- Dennis Skinner on fuel prices for example)

I am going to bow out of this thread and just read it. Disregard what I have said.

 

[IMR]

Just to be clear- I *am* advocating the reinstatement of corporal punishment.

I'm with you on that one for the stocks and pillory at least, or some updated version of them.

 

[smokedout]

You are going where? Australia? Good luck, that is a damn difficult country to get into. If the rules here were as strict, we wouldn't be having this debate.

but easy to get into poland or spain

so perhaps the mistake might be supporting the EU, because thats where the vast amount of economic migration comes from

 

[weltweit]

Kinnock's speech just before the election, that and falling into the sea cost him that election. imho.

 

[Oswaldtwistle]

Chop their hands off or a good old fashioned flogging?

A good old fashioned flogging. But just to be clear, imposed by courts for youth criminals for a second or subsequent offence. Not eg in schools for giving a teacher a bit of lip.

 

[Balbi]

You're presupposing that there was some kind of local labour shortage to start with. There wasn't.

Which gets us close to the IDSeology of the deserving and undeserving poor, and that utter cunt who said 'no, i'm happy to spend my life on benny - I don't want to work' on BBC News a few weeks ago.

 

[Blagsta]

It helps deter people.

Evidence?

 

[killer b]

If the rules here were as strict, we wouldn't be having this debate.

whatever makes you think that?

 

[Dan U]

You are going where? Australia? Good luck, that is a damn difficult country to get into. If the rules here were as strict, we wouldn't be having this debate.

If you are non EU, they are every bit as hard

 

[Blagsta]

So your problems are immigrants, criminals and fuel prices? They are problems for right wing people. They are not our 'mistakes'. If you are bothered about those things, its simple, just vote tory, because you are a tory.

And then you can happily hate foreigners, immigrants and the poor without ever really having to think why they exist.

They're problems for left wing people too, but analysis of solution is substantially different.

 

[mancboy]

So basically, close the borders to anyone wishing to move here and work - whether skilled or unskilled.

Send more people to prison.

Don't engage with anything that might fuck the planet less, for reasons of short-term economic comfort.

I applaud your notions - I will be standing beside you when the final sections of the airtight enormodome are sealed and planet UK secedes from the Earth to take up its new solar orbit.

 

[Blagsta]

A good old fashioned flogging. But just to be clear, imposed by courts for youth criminals for a second or subsequent offence. Not eg in schools for giving a teacher a bit of lip.

Can you refer to any research to show that violence helps people behave more socially?

Ta

 

[Dillinger4]

They're problems for left wing people too, but analysis of solution is substantially different.

I know yeh, I just said it without really thinking. Which is why I am not going to post on this thread. I think I need to go and do something else for a bit.

 

[ViolentPanda]

IMHO, getting into bed with the full-on Green lobby, and political correctness.

1) Crime plagues working class neighbourhoods, but again the Left daren't call for tougher punishments for criminals, for fear of upsetting the liberal middle class.

This is plain bollocks, Oswald. You only need look at the plethora of resources that have gone into "Community safety" partnerships, and the ever-hardening sentencing guidelines, even as far back as Major to realise that the problem resides not in the lack of tough sentences (because there's plenty in the armoury), but in the fact that working class neighbourhoods have progressively (hah!) had resources withdrawn from them, which has made them amenable to criminality.

Dont take my word for it. There's loads of interesting research by the political right into the issue of "broken windows" that bears out the fact that if a neighbourhood is allowed to go down-hill, criminal behaviour follows closely behind.

2) The price of petrol is at an all time high, a huge burden on low income families but the Left is so far in bed with the global warming lobby, they won't speak out over it.

No politician, left or right, will speak out about it, because "left" or "right", they're all in the pockets of "big business".
FFS, man. Develop your politics to a rudimentary level of accuracy!

3) *Economic migration is denying British unemployed people the chance to get back into work but the Left has nothing to say about it, for fear of being branded racist

Again, bollocks (unless you buy into MigrationWatch's ever-so-slightly skewed reading of the figures) Economic migration has fallen, and yet no more jobs are available. Care to ask yourself why? Could it be that many of those positions were only available in the first place to people who could afford to accept a sub-minimum wage?

In short they are too busy fighting the battles of middle class liberals and not fighting for the disadvantaged.

None of the major political parties fight for the disadvantaged. That's why they're all foursquare behind policies to make our lives even more miserable.

What are your 'top 3' mistakes the left has made?

If by "the left" you mean (as you appear to) the parliamentary left, then.

1) Accepting Fabian reformism as a valid mode of political operation.

2) Defaulting to the most rightist representation of labour-based politics, and foregoing any meaningful attempt at socialism.

3) Neil fucking Kinnock.

 

[Proper Tidy]

They are problems for working class people. Therefore, why isn't the left speaking out on them (with a few exceptions who are- Dennis Skinner on fuel prices for example)

I dunno why everybody is jumping on Oswald for this btw. For voting tory, fair enough. But these concerns are mainstream, you'll hear them all the time from ordinary working class people - and 'the left', broadly speaking, hasn't addressed them, just dismissed them, like is happening here. It doesn't necessarily mean agreeing with people's conclusions but the concerns should be taken seriously.

Labour purposefully moved to a liberal position from an at least partially class-based position, and unfortunately other sections of the left, for fear of being labelled workerist, or old-fashioned, or god forbid racist, or just because of sheer opportunism or a lack of a base in the working class, followed suit - this is part and parcel of the crisis in working class political representation. It should be taken seriously.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I'm interested in these "crime plagues". Tell me more.

They're like STDs. You can become a criminal just by having sex with the "wrong" class of woman, I tells you!

 

[Plumdaff]

If any of the major parties were genuinely green they'd be looking at long term investment in public transport and alternative energies so that people don't have to spend a fortune getting around. They'd also be looking at local food growing (transport costs forming much of the costs) genuinely flexible (not flexible as in insecure) and local working.

But all of them value oil company profits over genuine environmentalism, and fuck the poor.

 

[phildwyer]

Labour purposefully moved to a liberal position from an at least partially class-based position

What's a "class-based position" on such issues as crime?

 

[Blagsta]

What's a "class-based position" on such issues as crime?

An analysis of how class inequalities can fuel crime and influence responses to crime.

 

[phildwyer]

An analysis of how class inequalities can fuel crime

This part at least would seem to imply more lenient sentencing.

 

[Streathamite]

"the left" losing touch with the working classes

 

[Oswaldtwistle]

Can you refer to any research to show that violence helps people behave more socially?

Ta

Singapore.

 

[kyser_soze]

Everyone, of every political hue, social class & background, has ignored the elephant in the room that is oil prices because actually discussing it (beyond grumbling about how expensive petrol is), and the implications of peak oil on wider society are scary.

The reason no-one wants to discuss it properly is because it's terrifying at an existential level and, like pensions, no-one (and no, not even the greens) has a fucking scooby about what to do about it. In some ways it reminds me of those threads where someone tries to bring some new light to w/c politics, to breathe life into the shattered carcass of the w/c - there are stock phrases like 'Re-engage at a grass roots level' that appear in them, just as the phrase 'We need to realise we can't live the life we're living. It's unsustainable, we have to make up plans for peak oil that involve us using less of it.', and it's just as empty.

Oil - and the soon to be with us lack of it - are an issue for everyone on the planet.

 

[phildwyer]

"the left" losing touch with the working classes

If you're trying to suggest that the working class favors harsher sentences for criminals, that is complete bollocks.

 

[Blagsta]

Singapore.

I said can you refer to any research. Well?

 

[UnderOpenSky]

Everyone, of every political hue, social class & background, has ignored the elephant in the room that is oil prices because actually discussing it (beyond grumbling about how expensive petrol is), and the implications of peak oil on wider society are scary.

The reason no-one wants to discuss it properly is because it's terrifying at an existential level and, like pensions, no-one (and no, not even the greens) has a fucking scooby about what to do about it. In some ways it reminds me of those threads where someone tries to bring some new light to w/c politics, to breathe life into the shattered carcass of the w/c - there are stock phrases like 'Re-engage at a grass roots level' that appear in them, just as the phrase 'We need to realise we can't live the life we're living. It's unsustainable, we have to make up plans for peak oil that involve us using less of it.', and it's just as empty.

Oil - and the soon to be with us lack of it - are an issue for everyone on the planet.

We could start by making big investments in the alternatives. This could have the a knock on effect of helping create jobs as well.

 

[Proper Tidy]

What's a "class-based position" on such issues as crime?

Treating the actual causes - lack of jobs, opportunities, and consequentially ambition - and imo also taking anti-social crime seriously, because people's lives are made a misery in some working class communities. I do disagree about locking up more people because it doesn't work, or only whilst people are locked up anyway, but I can also understand why, when people are the victims of crime, they support more prisons and harder sentences.