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Why Labour are Scum

well, the party of (temporary, low-paid, compulsory) work strikes again. Overdue if hopelessly vague promise to do stuff on rent, but then a whole shitheap of stuff about giving young or long-term unemployed lower benefits than people who have "paid in"
 
No mention in Ed's speech of people committing suicide because of the welfare reforms, no mentions of people under threat of eviction from the bedroom tax, no mentions the 'public largely have a downer on benefits because Nl helped create the public mood in the first place with its tabloid leaks, poster campaigns, etc.
 
Its a real shift to the right, ex minister Kitty Ussher was just on Newsnight trumpeting the cap, no discussion of what it would mean for millions of people, it was debated basically as political strategy to beat the Comdems.

I've come to the conclusion, Millipede is a weak leader

Whoever had won the "battle" for the Labour leadership would be pulling exactly the same shit. This isn't about weak leadership, it's about not wishing to step beyond the bounds of neoliberal economics, so while we get all this faux-socialist rhetoric from Ed Miliband, all we'd have got from his brother, or Cruddas or any of the other creeping zombies of neoliberal Labour would have been the same shit, just served up in a slightly different arrangement.
 
The assault on housing benefit is good if they genuinely can get stuck into private rent levels and build large amounts of housing. I don't like the contributory benefits idea, as it favours the rich and the South. The benefits cap is the worst part of all.

It's highly (going on vanishingly) unlikely that Labour in power will do anything meaningful about high rental prices, and as for large amounts of housing being built, supply will continue to lag behind demand while that benefits the large construction companies.
Basically, of everything Labour have trumpeted, the only stuff that will be acted on is what penalises the poor. To believe any different is to play right into their greasy neoliberal paws.
 
More supply, same amount of demand, price falls.

The fly in the ointment being that demand proceeds apace through most of the south and parts of the north. The population continues to expand, and the development of new housing does not even keep up with the annual volume rise in households.
 
well, the party of (temporary, low-paid, compulsory) work strikes again. Overdue if hopelessly vague promise to do stuff on rent, but then a whole shitheap of stuff about giving young or long-term unemployed lower benefits than people who have "paid in"
and once again you identify yourself, indeed you pay to identify yourself, with politicks you affect to despise.
 
This is all starting to look a bit like 1920's Russia with all the different factions fighting over the same tiny scrap of political ground. Except somehow this level of homogeneity has been achieved without the threat of dissenters being murdered in their beds or exiled to Siberia.

Anyone would think that standing up in the HoC and saying, 'the benefits bill is too high because wages are too low and rents are uncontrolled' was a capital offence. And as for ending the 'something for nothing' culture by giving employers full time staff for...nothing, is there really nobody in politics who sees the hole in that logic, and is willing to publically say so?
 
This is all starting to look a bit like 1920's Russia with all the different factions fighting over the same tiny scrap of political ground. Except somehow this level of homogeneity has been achieved without the threat of dissenters being murdered in their beds or exiled to Siberia.

Anyone would think that standing up in the HoC and saying, 'the benefits bill is too high because wages are too low and rents are uncontrolled' was a capital offence. And as for ending the 'something for nothing' culture by giving employers full time staff for...nothing, is there really nobody in politics who sees the hole in that logic, and is willing to publically say so?
by 'in politicks' you presumably mean a paid politician.
 
It's highly (going on vanishingly) unlikely that Labour in power will do anything meaningful about high rental prices, and as for large amounts of housing being built, supply will continue to lag behind demand while that benefits the large construction companies.
Basically, of everything Labour have trumpeted, the only stuff that will be acted on is what penalises the poor. To believe any different is to play right into their greasy neoliberal paws.

It's true isn't it? The amount of political willpower required to make a change so great that private rents tumble across the board just won't be there when it comes to the crunch. You can already foresee the gradual scaling back of a grand concept into a handful of schemes that will touch a couple of hundred thousand people at best. The persistent chipping away at a good intention.
 
It's true isn't it? The amount of political willpower required to make a change so great that private rents tumble across the board just won't be there when it comes to the crunch. You can already foresee the gradual scaling back of a grand concept into a handful of schemes that will touch a couple of hundred thousand people at best. The persistent chipping away at a good intention.

I don't think there's any good intention invlolved, only a desire to appear to have good intentions. If they really had good intentions, they'd follow through with them every once in a while.

People with good intentions don't support workfare.
 
070613-Steve-Bell-on-hous-004.jpg
 
Sounds like people should vote UKIP: halt immigration, expel those pesky foreigners who are stealing our jobs. The population goes down easing the property rental sector, and there are more jobs available, thereby reducing unemployment. Job done! :D :D :D

Ducks rapidly.

 
Sounds like people should vote UKIP: halt immigration, expel those pesky foreigners who are stealing our jobs. The population goes down easing the property rental sector, and there are more jobs available, thereby reducing unemployment. Job done! :D :D :D

Ducks rapidly.
Well it would certainly cut NHS expenditure as there would be hardly any staff left to pay. I fancy having a go at a bit of amateur surgery myself, it can't be that difficult. I dissected a frog once. If everyone rallied round we could plug the enormous gaps it would leave in the heath service. The unemployed could be put on courses lasting a month to get them up to speed with being anaesthetists and radiographers and the other existing shortage skills.
 
He added: “There are many people within the trade union movement who feel ‘Listen, if we pay the piper we’re going to try and call the tune.’ And it’s the politics of Labour – it’s always been there.”
“That’s absolutely crazy. He (Miliband) has got to face up to it, because this threatens the whole reputation of the Labour Party. The Labour Party has got be seen to be above special interest politics.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...e-by-former-minister-kim-howells-8680517.html

Former radical Hornsey School Of Art occupier in 68 and NUM official Kim Howells warns Miiliband that he must tackle union influence...
 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jul/09/tony-blair-ed-miliband-labour-union-reform

Ed Miliband's plans to reform the union-Labour link have been embraced by Tony Blair, who described them as a "bold and strong" move.

Speaking on Sky News, the former prime minister said: "I think this is a defining moment. It's bold and it's strong. It's real leadership, this. I think it's important not only in its own terms, because he's carrying through a process of reform in the Labour party that is long overdue and, frankly, probably I should have done it when I was leader.

As union leaders lined up to criticise Miliband for embracing "dog whistle politics" that were not the concern of the ordinary voter, Blair said it was a real act of leadership.

"What he's doing, and I think this is also very important for the country, is that he's sending a very strong message to the country that in the end he will do what's right, he'll govern for all the country and not simply for one section of it. This is big stuff and it takes a real act of leadership to do it."
 
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