Christmas Tree 3997 Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Absolutely no chance of any future leader trying to sell the "we didn't spend too much line". It's done and gone. Sensibly most of the candidates seem to be acknowledging they did and trying to move on. At the end of the day Labour are seriously fucked and it would take a fuck up off epic proportions by the Conservatives to give them a sniff of a way back in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monkeys Fist 38542 Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Post bong-party post? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChezGiven 0 Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 There is a strong chance that the next labour leader will do this and a strong chance they attempt to expose the lie because austerity and massive welfare cuts are set to be major feature of the next government. The deficits and its causes will therefore remain on the table. You can do it in three sentences. The size of the deficit spending in total (adjusted for surplus years) was less than £200bn. The size of the UK banking bail out was over £500bn in one year alone. The subsequent recession caused by the financial crisis cost the economy nearly a trillion dollars. Of course some people might want to argue that the money spent in 2002 to 2007 period could have been used to help the economy but that's a redundant point as the age of austerity buried that policy option. It would be a very stupid Tory voter who argues for Keynesian spending policies to get us out of a recession. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob W 0 Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Unless they move to the centre they're doomed - thye need to get rid of the union connection - its looking increasingly out of date Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ewerk 26149 Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 And lose half their party donations? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renton 17580 Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 We need unions more than ever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChezGiven 0 Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Just to continue on my theme, people are still unpicking the Tory narrative, the governor of the Bank of England is making speeches referring to it and the spending plans of Osborne will ensure that these questions remain pertinent. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/17/one-nation-conservatism-not-under-george-osborne Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christmas Tree 3997 Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Just to continue on my theme, people are still unpicking the Tory narrative, the governor of the Bank of England is making speeches referring to it and the spending plans of Osborne will ensure that these questions remain pertinent. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/17/one-nation-conservatism-not-under-george-osborne The point you are missing is that Mr and Mrs England swing voter pay no attention to what the governor of the Bank of England says. They will basically vote on how they feel in 5 years time. How well they have done and how confident they feel about the future. No politician is going to bang on about something that happened nearly 20 years previously. From all the information I pick up (from the various TV programmes and podcasts, not the Sun), most commentators reckon austerity and welfare cuts will be reigned right back. Life will be even rosier in 5 years time for the vast majority and the same "vote Labour get the SNP message" will be available. Labours best bet would be to plan for 2025. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gemmill 34163 Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Hey everybody, save your fucking breath. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rayvin 4949 Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Does CT actually come on here to talk about football at all any more, or are we just a political discussion medium for him now? I don't think he's even posting in the food thread these days, not that I really keep up with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gemmill 34163 Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 He's doing the "6 Weeks To OMG" diet at the minute, so he'll be absent from the food thread for a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChezGiven 0 Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 I think the idea of bringing the budget forward is because some deep and unpleasant cuts are coming. The IFS are saying that the £12bn planned will mean cuts to child and disability welfare. The 'austerity' narrative is going nowhere and as the corrolary of that narrative is profligate Labour (itself a perversion of prudent Gordon Brown) then the events of the 2000s, the Great Recession and the Tory response will continue to dominate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJS 3956 Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Labour should have one of those counter displays ticking over with the suicides of the disabled people sanctioned. No fucking prisoners approach. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christmas Tree 3997 Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Maybe if the UK could man up and agree on what the state should and should not pay for then the welfare system would be much more fairer and pin pointed at those who genuinely need it. (As was originally intended). Is it standard practice in France that people on £20,000 plus get state benefits? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tooj 17 Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 We need unions more than ever. Absolutely this. Imagine the shit they will try and pull on your average worker if we step out of the EU? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NJS 3956 Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Maybe if the UK could man up and agree on what the state should and should not pay for then the welfare system would be much more fairer and pin pointed at those who genuinely need it. (As was originally intended). Is it standard practice in France that people on £20,000 plus get state benefits? Maybe if companies who in total have 750bn in cash reserves paid decent fucking wages people wouldn't need tax credits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Makom 0 Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 People can bang on about left wing ideology and try and unpick the narrative in a way that favours Labour all they want, they're dreaming if they think that is a realistic path top power for the party. CT is a clueless idiot most of the time, but he's bang on about just how little notice Mr & Mrs Swing voter take of macroeconomic arguments. As I said many pages ago, they need to win first, then worry about how to help the poor and disadvantaged. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJ 0 Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Labour are too busy babbling on about wealth creators and aspiration and stuff like that that we know what direction they're about to go in, and it's not a direction that is going to fly with the trade unions. We need the trade unions, but they must give serious consideration to severing the links. I read somewhere Unite will debate doing so with Labour at their conference. Good on them. Jim Murphy launched a scathing attack on Len McCluskey yesterday when he stepped down as leader of Scottish Labour, and I couldn't blame Unite for smelling where this is all going and just giving up. The UK is 27th our of 28 in the EU when it comes to workers rights. Only Lithuania is worse. We need the unions more the ever. My worry of course is that if the unions do disaffiliate that we'll see similar demonisation of the unions from Labour as we get from the Tories, but it's a relationship that isn't working anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Makom 0 Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Burnham now supports an EU referendum, this is apparently why he's the 'change' candidate. I don't think he's quite understood the fact this contest is going to be about what he would be supporting in 2020..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christmas Tree 3997 Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Labour are too busy babbling on about wealth creators and aspiration and stuff like that that we know what direction they're about to go in, and it's not a direction that is going to fly with the trade unions. We need the trade unions, but they must give serious consideration to severing the links. I read somewhere Unite will debate doing so with Labour at their conference. Good on them. Jim Murphy launched a scathing attack on Len McCluskey yesterday when he stepped down as leader of Scottish Labour, and I couldn't blame Unite for smelling where this is all going and just giving up. The UK is 27th our of 28 in the EU when it comes to workers rights. Only Lithuania is worse. We need the unions more the ever. My worry of course is that if the unions do disaffiliate that we'll see similar demonisation of the unions from Labour as we get from the Tories, but it's a relationship that isn't working anymore. Do you have a link for those stats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJ 0 Posted May 17, 2015 Share Posted May 17, 2015 Do you have a link for those stats. I can't find it, but it was research that was done last year during the referendum campaign by the Jimmy Reid Foundation about how Britain's economy will continue to stagnate in terms of helping normal people even if it became one of the fastest growing economies in the advanced world (which we did predict would happen, and we also predicted it would stagnate either at the end of 2015 or the start of 2016, so we'll see) and why we need to do something about the minimum wage. It's a massive policy research piece but here's what I remember. In the advanced world we have the 2nd lowest paid economy and the 4th most unequal society (it was 3rd most at the time, so yay for progress) with poor employment rights that went from above average 10 years ago to some of the worst. There was more research done that calculated if you took two businesses that were absolutely identical except for one being unionised, the likelihood was that the unionised work force would be 20% more productive, because if you're treated properly at work, you're more likely to care. Which in itself might explain why Britain's overall attack on the unions has played a part in us running a low productivity economy. Obviously not the only reason, but a factor. I've forgot more than I remember about the overall research on this as it was massive and covered a lot of different bases. It was basically part of the blueprint that some of us wanted to build in Scotland if it had voted Yes. Much more useful than the White Paper ever was. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toonotl 2406 Posted May 18, 2015 Share Posted May 18, 2015 (edited) Does CT actually come on here to talk about football at all any more? He's trying his hand at talking about some other things he also knows fuck all about. Edited May 18, 2015 by toonotl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob W 0 Posted May 18, 2015 Share Posted May 18, 2015 Most people in the UK don't belong to a union - Unions are really part of the past for most people Labour will never win in England unless they move to the middle - when they run from the left they crash and burn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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