presta
Member
Before people join in with those who peddle the same old anecdotes and hackneyed tropes about NHS productivity, I'd recommend they try reading some of Steve Black's work.
Bye Bye NHS
- Thread starter cookiemonster
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farfromtheland
Regular AND Goofy
Dammit, Steve Black looks interesting but you gotta register to read - I know it's 'free' but even so I rather baulk.
presta
Member
Yep, he comes across as someone who really knows his stuff. I haven't read all he publishes in HSJ, but I follow him on Twitter, and I've not seen any of those who take him on get the better of him. The arguments he makes are clearly more thoroughly thought through than "The wicked government won't give our heroes more money" that you get from everyone else, so needless to say, virtually nobody likes or re-tweets his posts.
PedallingNowhereSlowly
New Member
The Labour Party could have relied on membership subscriptions and donations had Starmer's faction not waged a war of attrition on the membership.
Every penny spent on private health care, whether it's by individuals or the state, is detrimental to publicly funded and publicly provided healthcare free at point of use.
The two are literally competing for the same resources - funding and staffing.
We have the last neoliberal Labour Government to thank for PFI. I'm not sure I'd want Mandelson-shaped nu-nu-Labour anywhere near our NHS anymore than I want the Tories to continue.
multitool
Shaman
The Labour party is no longer a populist party, thank God, and the massive swelling of its membership was down to, initially, £3 membership and the nonsense populist tactics of Corbyn.
Wonder where that got us?
Lansmann's cult had to go. Corbyn went by his own hand, in typical idiotically dim Corbyn fashion.
I'm not going to be lectured by the people whose political naivety delivered Brexit, Johnson, Truss and an extra 9 years of Tory misrule. By the way, "Mandelson-shaped" has an anti-semitic conspiracy ring to it.
Wonder where that got us?
Lansmann's cult had to go. Corbyn went by his own hand, in typical idiotically dim Corbyn fashion.
I'm not going to be lectured by the people whose political naivety delivered Brexit, Johnson, Truss and an extra 9 years of Tory misrule. By the way, "Mandelson-shaped" has an anti-semitic conspiracy ring to it.
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farfromtheland
Regular AND Goofy
That's bordering on the absurd. A bit like saying you can't criticise the policies of the Israeli government, which is a bit like what got so many Labour party members damned for alleged anti-semitism.
Hell's bells.
Whose party is it then? The party of middle class opportunists who bought their council houses but felt a teensy bit guilty for it?
multitool
Shaman
You said "a bit like" twice, which essentially means you final clause is very distant from the one to which you were linking it.
If you want to try and argue that anti-semitic tropes about evil Jews in the background secretly controlling events don't exist then be my guest.
I said it is no longer a populist party. Populism is a political strategy, not a constituency.
farfromtheland
Regular AND Goofy
Ok. But not the strategy of Jeremy Corbyn, who found himself at the front of both the principled left of the Labour party, the activist element who tried to make him a folk-hero and the formerly disillusioned who rejoined Labour to try to work for genuine socialism, in their naivety.
I know I said it twice. There is a lot of equating things falsely about, sorry.
The poster mentioned Peter Mandelson as the shaper of New Labour though, which seems reasonable enough.
farfromtheland
Regular AND Goofy
On the contrary. So far from populism that he declined to admit that, on balance, he supported Brexit - rather believing in following the party policy.
What should he have to show apart from being a person of integrity?
multitool
Shaman
That was just incompetence on his part. Failing to advocate for Brexit does not absolve one from being a populist
Some sort of achievement? Even just a junior ministerial position rather than just a back bencher who goes on marches and tells the marchers what they want to hear. That isn't integrity, it's cowardice.
Anyone can spout an idealised position that takes no account of the constraints of office, balancing conflicting interests etc.
Taking the moral high-ground when nobody is holding you to account and you aren't responsible for anything is the easiest thing in the world.
farfromtheland
Regular AND Goofy
I would argue that anyone who sought that kind of power within the Labour party as it was and is would have to build their position by wheeler-dealing. Jeremy Corbyn stood on a platform for grass roots democracy, and couldn't use such tactics. The Labour right wing used them, fought him and won.
The constraints of office, in the status quo, are the problem.
There can be no meaningful balance of conflicting interests where corporate lobbyists, and media barons, with the collusion of self-seeking politicians, manipulate the agenda.
icowden
Legendary Member
But there was the problem. You see most people are not left wing or right wing, they are centrist. This chart is from 2020 and shows 24% left wing and 25% right wing. That leaves 34% in the middle plus the 17% who didn't know (if you don't know whether you are right or left wing, I'd argue you are centrist). The last 4 elections have had a 66% turnout on average. It's the centrist / floating vote which is the most important. So Rabid right wing parties such as the Tories now are, and frothing lefties like Jeremy Corbyn are just not electable.
Blair got elected through moving Labour to the right. Older people are still terrified of going back to a 70s style labour government (based on a poll of my elderly mother) but don't grasp that the current Tory government is absolutely shafting them.
Very few people want everything renationalised, 95% taxes and unions running everything. Equally no-one wants the utter rowlocks that the current government offers. I'd say that most people would like to keep taxes low but wouldn't mind paying a bit more, would like people who should be paying lots of tax (see Lord Ashcroft and his money that lives in the Cayman islands) actually paying it, seeing multinationals pay their fair share of tax so that the NHS can be properly funded, potholes fixed, the courts backlog to be dealt with, some basic community policing, improvements in energy supply to make it more renewable and less costly etc etc.
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farfromtheland
Regular AND Goofy
Statistics first...
https://www.theguardian.com › world › 2024 › apr › 26 › first-edition-labour-renationalise-rail
Friday briefing: Why Labour just pledged to renationalise the railways ...
Apr 26, 2024An Ipsos poll found that 65% of Britons believe that trains should be publicly owned and a YouGov poll found that the number rose to 77% of Labour voters.https://theconversation.com › why-labours-plans-to-renationalise-certain-public-services-make-economic-sense-126814
Why Labour's plans to renationalise certain public services make ...
Politically, this nationalisation strategy is in line with public opinion. Polls suggest 65%, 60%, 59% and 53% support public ownership of Royal Mail, railways, water and energy companies ...Perhaps most people are not right wing or left wing. The Labour party now isn't left wing either, though the Tories are right wing.
Blair got elected after the Thatcher (and Major) years, and after the poll tax debacle any Labour campaign would have won. I don't know if, at nearly 60, I am 'older' but I would take Wilson, Callaghan or Kinnoch over Starmer any day but Mayday.
It is the public relations minded argument of the Labour party leadership that angles for the centrist vote, but in doing that it puts perceived political expediency before any vestige of principle, and loses the loyalty of the left wing. But Jeremy Corbyn is not 'frothing' left wing at all. He is essentially a nice socially democratic chap. By leaving the frothing to the Galloway types the property owning Labourites are very clever. They can continue to make promises they don't intend to honour - witness the platform Starmer won the leadership with - and drive working class voters who want a bit of honesty beyond the electoral frame.
Labour's problem, as I see it, is that the publicity machine subdues debate. Simplistic electioneering is a very nasty thing, much more like Populism than Corbyn's approach was. I think we need honesty and diversity in politics - and even if this means the Tories win for a bit it's the only way to get meaningful betterment - things like public housing and welfare decency and a green economy - for the long term. But i don't think Corbyn would have lost - he came so close! - if the Labour right hadn't been fixing the odds, and by all accounts from Labour members I know and from Jewish Voice for Labour that is what was going on.
