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What's wrong with Labour

Tbf you've kinda got a point there. The left has for a long time been controlled by wealthy middle class and rich people. And it's a similar thing with those in charge of the formal 'anarchist' scene, which is a type of left politics really (left 'anarchism') despite what some of them would claim. The scene is controlled by comfortable people with well paid careers, houses, vehicles, regular jaunts abroad, generous pensions etc. They're definitely not of the dispossessed and downtrodden. More like of the privileged middle classes.
We were discussing unions. Surely their entire purpose is to increase wages, living standards and conditions of their members?
 
Tip of the iceberg probably

 
Thanks to GroovySunday for appraising us with the holiday arrangements of the formal anarchist leadership. However, I am now intrigued as to what the informal anarchist leadership does for its holidays
I do know someone who went to Libya back in the day (80s?) on some friendship trip or something. And was horrified to discover it was a dry country.

(Militant I think though and obvs not leadership material.)
 
Tbf you've kinda got a point there. The left has for a long time been controlled by wealthy middle class and rich people. And it's a similar thing with those in charge of the formal 'anarchist' scene, which is a type of left politics really (left 'anarchism') despite what some of them would claim. The scene is controlled by comfortable people with well paid careers, houses, vehicles, regular jaunts abroad, generous pensions etc. They're definitely not of the dispossessed and downtrodden. More like of the privileged middle classes.
Having spent more than 30 years in and around the anarchist milieu I have yet to meet these secret chiefs who enjoy well paid careers, have houses etc. As anyone who's followed the spycops enquiry will know, one way the undercover cops got in was by being able to drive and having access to a vehicle. Ime there are very few anarchists who can drive, or at least very few in London over the last 30 years. I can't think of any anarchists with well-paid careers, and the number I know of with their own houses can be counted on the thumbs of my feet. I know a few anarchists who regularly go abroad, I'll admit, generally for some busman's holiday to see comrades. But your vision of some controlling clique is a load of auld bollocks, I should have come across them by now otherwise
 
When I were a lad, we could not afford to take a holiday abroad. These days, we would not have been able to afford a holiday in the UK.
Tha'ts true I remember me and the missus and three kids spending four days in Scarborough in order to go to a big family do and we could have gone to Spain for a week for the same price
 
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I must admit that I once bumped into John Reece on a holiday in Greece many years ago when I was waiting for a ferry.
He's often mistaken for John Rees due to the similar sound of their names but as you know they're very different people. Reece is a bluff Yorkshire man with a broad Barnsley accent. John Rees on the otherhand...
 
I don’t know much about how trade unions work in the Nordic states that historically presented good working examples of social democracy.

The broader question of whether any UK government could replicate their model is more interesting. And, as you’ve noticed, I don’t think that trade unions dedicated to aggressively preserving the interests of cosseted public sector professionals, from the BMA to the RMT, are in any way likely to be helpful in achieving that.
You do know what unions are for, right?
 
I'm a consultant, so I'm fully aware of the differential offers that have been made (rejected by the way).

Out of interest, how much do you think, in percentage terms, a group should lose in wages before they strike? Given that 30% is not enough of a loss to justify this for you


....

Edit: sorry, actually 20-25%. Apologies.
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Yes, I think you should be paid almost nothing at all. xxx

Not really, obv, got 3 pretty big surgeries coming up that I couldn’t pay for myself and v glad of both the NHS and the people who work for it.

If I’m alive in six months time there’s a hefty round on me (not that hefty cos also got made redundant - do not connect the dote
- there is no connection between the dots).

But thanks for everything anyway.

My only question is why do you keep buying Teslas - I’m sure there are better EV’s knocking about at this point and between you and me, I’m not sure Elon Musk is the droid we’ve been looking for.

❤️
 
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re the Corbyn / Starmer Brexit stance and negotiations, I've long found Gavin Barwell, Mays Chief of Staff instructive on this.
He puts the blame firmly on Starmer for a non soft Brexit without a confirmatory vote, 2nd ref.
I remember from another source which quoted in more detail Starmer's actions. The Tories were incre4asingly suspicious of Starmer's stance in that he wasn't going to accept a nearly agreed soft Brexit so decided to present him with a policy wording at the next meeting.
Starmer said ' we couldn't possibly accept this'
Barwell then described the look on his face when they told Starmer that this wording was in fact his own, from the last meeting.

Quotes I can find at the minute below

May was so desperate to get any form of Brexit deal through parliament in the dying days of her premiership that she opened negotiations to Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party.

“Jeremy Corbyn wanted to do it, but Keir Starmer stopped it,” Barwell says in his book.

“Starmer was not prepared to settle for anything that didn’t include a confirmatory vote.”

“The Prime Minister met with Jeremy Corbyn and Sir Keir Starmer, then the shadow Brexit minister, and asked them whether Labour might be prepared to support the withdrawal agreement only,” Barwell writes. “Keir replied that they could only do that if there was agreement on the future relationship and a second referendum.

https://i0.wp.com/insidecroydon.com...020/04/sir-keir-starmer-going-right.jpg?ssl=1
“’Couldn’t those issues be sorted out during the passage of the Withdrawal Agreement Bill?’ I asked.

“No, he said, because we would have left by then.

“I was stunned that he did not understand the basic fact that we would not have left until the Withdrawal Agreement Bill had been passed.”

Barwell goes on to describe a meeting with the Labour leadership held on May 6, where he claims that Starmer “objected to the language on customs” used in one of the bilateral documents. “I pointed out that we had lifted it from his letter of April 22 — he was objecting to his own policy,” Barwell writes.

Once the talks broke down, Barwell writes, “Labour didn’t have any confidence that whoever succeeded her would abide by any deal, and it was pretty clear Keir was not prepared to settle for anything that didn’t include a commitment to a confirmatory vote.

“I’m not sure whether the Shadow Cabinet realised at the time, but they had killed off the last chance for a compromise Brexit…

“Jeremy Corbyn wanted to do it, but Keir Starmer stopped it. It seems fitting he’s now dealing with the consequences.”


Starmer had his leadership team sorted 6 months before the 2019 election. It's not conspiraloon stuff to guess that his nobbling a soft Brexit, with the obvious massive loss of post industrial Labour seats, was a way of preparing the ground for the rubbishing of any Leftish Labour government for a generation.
 
Anyone know much about Paula Barker? She spoke at a Unison event yesterday, was interesting to see how Labour MPs addressing union events basically have to be apologetic about it, a sort of "we know you're not going to be enthusiastic about us and we're a bit shit, but we're not quite as bad as the tories so please do help campaign for us" type of vibe.
 
Anyone know much about Paula Barker? She spoke at a Unison event yesterday, was interesting to see how Labour MPs addressing union events basically have to be apologetic about it, a sort of "we know you're not going to be enthusiastic about us and we're a bit shit, but we're not quite as bad as the tories so please do help campaign for us" type of vibe.
She resigned from the front bench to vote in favour of the SNP ceasefire motion last November, and is a member of the Socialist Campaign Group.
 
Yeah, I had been under the impression that she was a current frontbencher but good for her if she has some actual principles. Interesting that she chose not to explicitly mention that in a speech to a crowd of people who would've been keen to hear it.
 
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