Labour/ Tory Party Comparison

[Opti]

Can you really feed 30 (or even 20 per MadNad) from the menu at The Spice Lounge, Durham?

Is there some inflation going on?

[Gfamily]

Can you really feed 30 (or even 20 per MadNad) from the menu at The Spice Lounge, Durham?

Is there some inflation going on?

The first DM story I read about this said that the original claim of "an order for 30 people" came from the delivery guy.
However, later in the same story, it was said that he couldn't be sure of that.
It is possible that I wasn't reading one of the first reports, but was reading a follow up story, allowing the the 'original claim' to be high up in the article, and the subsequent roll back on the claim was further down, probably below some pictures or maybe adverts.

[Bird on a Fire]

Can you really feed 30 (or even 20 per MadNad) from the menu at The Spice Lounge, Durham?

Is there some inflation going on?

What do you mean? Their main menu has like 5 pages of different main courses. You could easily feed 30 people without ordering the same dish twice.

[Stranger Mouse]

They ended up using a different takeaway anyway because Spice Lounge was closed. And I think the current estimate is 15 people.

[Opti]

Can you really feed 30 (or even 20 per MadNad) from the menu at The Spice Lounge, Durham?

Is there some inflation going on?

What do you mean? Their main menu has like 5 pages of different main courses. You could easily feed 30 people without ordering the same dish twice.

Aaaaaah bollocks ... what I missed out was 'for £200. Idiot.

[Bird on a Fire]

Can you really feed 30 (or even 20 per MadNad) from the menu at The Spice Lounge, Durham?

Is there some inflation going on?

What do you mean? Their main menu has like 5 pages of different main courses. You could easily feed 30 people without ordering the same dish twice.

Aaaaaah bollocks ... what I missed out was 'for £200. Idiot.

Haha yeah, if you assume I'm already familiar with the important numerical details of the story then you are indeed a big bobo.

I might be heading to Málaga in mid June btw if you're about etc.

[Grumble]

Lol our local ward just had a by election, to my knowledge this part of town has never been anything but Tory. The Green candidate won.

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/ar ... abour-swee

Patrick English
Associate Director
May 28, 2022, 12:01 AM GMT+1





Latest YouGov MRP model suggests that if an election were held tomorrow, the Conservatives would hold on to just three of 88 battleground seats

Including Johnson's seat

But then you read:-

Other constituencies sit on an absolute knife edge, with Labour’s predicted winning margin in each of Bishop Auckland, Scunthorpe, and Great Grimsby all less than two points.

And you think what the f.ck else do the Conservatives need to do to lose the backing of these voters?

You put yourself in the shoes of some ex-miner in Bishop Auckland and consider them watching the telly thinking:-

"Well my family all voted Labour since the dawn of the Universal Franchise, and the Tories turfed me out of work and ripped the heart out of my community in the 80s and 90s.

And then things got better for a bit but then the last 12 years of Tory misrule undid all that and instead we have had an unrelenting shitshow of austerity, political turmoil and economic stagnation culminating in today's double-digit inflation, shrinking salaries and rising taxes.

Brexit still drags on despite being supposedly oven-ready two years ago and while Project Fear's predicted downsides have turned up in spades, I'm still waiting on a single one of the promised benefits to materialise.

And now this, Tory MPs stuffing their boots with as much tax-payers money as they can, only pausing long enough to party with KGB agents, rape children or look at tractor p.rn, all presided over by that prize lying wazzock who now turns out spent the entirety of lockdown getting shitfaced and throwing up the walls of Downing Street, no wonder their response to the pandemic was so shite. I didn't even get to say goodbye to my brother.

So on that basis you can put me down as an "Undecided/Leaning Tory"."

I think some people see Labour = political correctness = inclusivity = discriminating against me.

[headshot]

I think some people see Labour = political correctness = inclusivity = discriminating against me.

Ah yes. The racists.

[IvanV]

I think some people see Labour = political correctness = inclusivity = discriminating against me.

Ah yes. The racists.

Many people vote with the idea that the party they vote for should advantage their own subgroup of the population. It's kind of the point of voting. I think a large part of the traditional Labour vote base came out of the Blair/Brown years asking "what did they do for us?" The Gordon Brown/Gillian Duffy incident, where Brown was caught on microphone characterising her as a bigot, played its part in that. Because a lot of a voter base did identify with Ms Duffy.

Every party that aspires to represent enough people to be voted into office has to reconcile the different interests and views of its supporters. Some of them will be bound to have views on some things that the party despises. But if you abandon everyone like that to be picked up by clever and disreputable politicians, then you'll never be in office. In due course, such attitudes can be reduced by showing a better way, but not by lecturing people.

It is a practical reality that a lot of lower income groups include a lot of rather socially conservative attitudes among their members. Conservative parties have been successful in appealing to their social conservatism, and making that matter to their vote choice over other stuff, like being poor, decently funded education and health services. The Labour Party has to somehow take the conversation to another place, to bring its voters together, and make being poor, ie economic fairness, reducing inequality, be the thing that matters, along with decently funded education and health. And show that they will deliver on that by actually doing it. Then there is a large core of voters who can emotionally feel, "Yes, they do that and they do that for me," then the other stuff, like worrying about migrants and inclusivity, no longer drives their vote.

Lower income people are socially excluded too and also need the inclusivity measures. But a message to voters that social inclusivity is for them as well as ethnic and gender minorities and the less able and bicycle-users, is unfortunately unlikely to be something that most of them will emotionally sign up for.

[headshot]

Hmmm. Gillian Duffy was a bigot though.

[Grumble]

Hmmm. Gillian Duffy was a bigot though.

A lot of people are. They vote.

I’ve had people tell me they think the Labour Party is right about a lot of things, but not race.

[Bird on a Fire]

Of course there are poor/vulnerable racists and bigots, just like there are wealthy/privileged ones. I'm not convinced that bigots are disproportionately part of the traditional Labour base (and I know that Ivan didn't quite say as much).

Given Labour's current base, of younger, more educated, urban-dwelling people, they seem less likely to be racists and bigots than the Tories' base of rural old folk. So I don't think chasing the bigot vote is an important potential strategy for the party, really.

What's actually happened is the billionaire-run UK media using divide-and-conquer tactics to trick large numbers of less wealthy people to vote against their interests, repeatedly, for rapacious plutocrats. And Labour have historically been crap at countering that narrative.

The Gillian Duffy case is illustrative, seeing as it's been mentioned:

Duffy: We had it drummed in when I was a child with mine … it was education, health service and looking after the people who are vulnerable. But there's too many people now who are vulnerable but they can claim and people who are vulnerable can't get claim, can't get it.

Brown: But they shouldn't be doing that, there is no life on the dole for people any more. If you are unemployed you've got to go back to work. It's six months.

Duffy: You can't say anything about the immigrants because you're saying that you're … but all these eastern European what are coming in, where are they flocking from?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... transcript

No attempt made by Brown to counter her concerns about immigrants overwhelming public services, which should have been easy as it's b.llsh.t. Instead he just tries to shuffle off, then asks her some pointless patronising questions about her grandchildren when an aide brings her back, before calling her a bigot behind her back. (And while I'm sure she didn't vote for Brown after all that, she was back voting Labour by the next election).

[IvanV]

Given Labour's current base, of younger, more educated, urban-dwelling people, they seem less likely to be racists and bigots than the Tories' base of rural old folk. So I don't think chasing the bigot vote is an important potential strategy for the party, really.

I really liked your post, thank you. Just one follow-up point.

The younger, more educated, urban-dwelling aren't enough to win an election. Labour also have to reach the disadvantaged. That means appealing to the disadvantaged, not appealing to bigots.

[Fishnut]

Of course there are poor/vulnerable racists and bigots, just like there are wealthy/privileged ones. I'm not convinced that bigots are disproportionately part of the traditional Labour base (and I know that Ivan didn't quite say as much).

Given Labour's current base, of younger, more educated, urban-dwelling people, they seem less likely to be racists and bigots than the Tories' base of rural old folk. So I don't think chasing the bigot vote is an important potential strategy for the party, really.

What's actually happened is the billionaire-run UK media using divide-and-conquer tactics to trick large numbers of less wealthy people to vote against their interests, repeatedly, for rapacious plutocrats. And Labour have historically been crap at countering that narrative.

The Gillian Duffy case is illustrative, seeing as it's been mentioned:

Duffy: We had it drummed in when I was a child with mine … it was education, health service and looking after the people who are vulnerable. But there's too many people now who are vulnerable but they can claim and people who are vulnerable can't get claim, can't get it.

Brown: But they shouldn't be doing that, there is no life on the dole for people any more. If you are unemployed you've got to go back to work. It's six months.

Duffy: You can't say anything about the immigrants because you're saying that you're … but all these eastern European what are coming in, where are they flocking from?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... transcript

No attempt made by Brown to counter her concerns about immigrants overwhelming public services, which should have been easy as it's b.llsh.t. Instead he just tries to shuffle off, then asks her some pointless patronising questions about her grandchildren when an aide brings her back, before calling her a bigot behind her back. (And while I'm sure she didn't vote for Brown after all that, she was back voting Labour by the next election).

There was an interview with Brown I remember listening to a few years ago - I think it was with James O'Brien and he talked about his stance on immigration. I was really hoping that he'd say he got it wrong and should have pushed back on the narrative that immigration to the UK is inherently bad but he said he wished he'd been stronger in his opposition to it. It really frustrated me because I thought he was a decent PM and seemed like someone who honestly wanted to do what he could for people but he, like so many others, had bought so completely into the Tories immigration rhetoric that there was no sense that it was even a political stance, let alone one that could be challenged.

[jdc]

I'm not convinced that bigots are disproportionately part of the traditional Labour base

I found this: https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/fil ... tables.pdf which has results for "would be happy for their child to marry someone from another ethnic group" by social class, age, qualifications etc.

Another question was whether respondents believe that "to be truly British one must be white". [Just as an aside: by ethnicity 3% of white respondents and 7% of BAME respondents agree with this statement, perhaps because the 3% have made them feel unwelcome?]

It also breaks down by Con/Lab/LD and shows that the Tories are clearly the party for racists, but I'm afraid they used the 2019 election for their question and the responses will be biased by the Tories electing an obvious racist as their leader (didn't Britain First sign up as Conservative members en-masse around this time?) so I might see if I can find older versions of this survey.

[Woodchopper]

Of course there are poor/vulnerable racists and bigots, just like there are wealthy/privileged ones. I'm not convinced that bigots are disproportionately part of the traditional Labour base (and I know that Ivan didn't quite say as much).

Given Labour's current base, of younger, more educated, urban-dwelling people, they seem less likely to be racists and bigots than the Tories' base of rural old folk. So I don't think chasing the bigot vote is an important potential strategy for the party, really.

What's actually happened is the billionaire-run UK media using divide-and-conquer tactics to trick large numbers of less wealthy people to vote against their interests, repeatedly, for rapacious plutocrats. And Labour have historically been crap at countering that narrative.

The Gillian Duffy case is illustrative, seeing as it's been mentioned:

Duffy: We had it drummed in when I was a child with mine … it was education, health service and looking after the people who are vulnerable. But there's too many people now who are vulnerable but they can claim and people who are vulnerable can't get claim, can't get it.

Brown: But they shouldn't be doing that, there is no life on the dole for people any more. If you are unemployed you've got to go back to work. It's six months.

Duffy: You can't say anything about the immigrants because you're saying that you're … but all these eastern European what are coming in, where are they flocking from?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... transcript

No attempt made by Brown to counter her concerns about immigrants overwhelming public services, which should have been easy as it's b.llsh.t. Instead he just tries to shuffle off, then asks her some pointless patronising questions about her grandchildren when an aide brings her back, before calling her a bigot behind her back. (And while I'm sure she didn't vote for Brown after all that, she was back voting Labour by the next election).

There was an interview with Brown I remember listening to a few years ago - I think it was with James O'Brien and he talked about his stance on immigration. I was really hoping that he'd say he got it wrong and should have pushed back on the narrative that immigration to the UK is inherently bad but he said he wished he'd been stronger in his opposition to it. It really frustrated me because I thought he was a decent PM and seemed like someone who honestly wanted to do what he could for people but he, like so many others, had bought so completely into the Tories immigration rhetoric that there was no sense that it was even a political stance, let alone one that could be challenged.

Seems to be going a bit far to assume that Brown had bought completely into the Tory rhetoric. He might just have come to that conclusion on his own.

[Millennie Al]

The Gillian Duffy case is illustrative, seeing as it's been mentioned:

Duffy: You can't say anything about the immigrants because you're saying that you're … but all these eastern European what are coming in, where are they flocking from?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... transcript

No attempt made by Brown to counter her concerns about immigrants overwhelming public services, which should have been easy as it's b.llsh.t.

A more complete transcript is at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/ ... 649448.stm which shows Brown countering her point with:

A million people come from Europe but a million people, British people, have gone into Europe. You do know that there's a lot of British people staying in Europe as well?

[Bird on a Fire]

Hmm, seems neither article offers a complete transcript. Nevertheless, it doesn't address the concern about public services. "Immigration is a net positive to the economy, and immigrants are less likely to use benefits than citizens."

[tom p]

Of course there are poor/vulnerable racists and bigots, just like there are wealthy/privileged ones. I'm not convinced that bigots are disproportionately part of the traditional Labour base (and I know that Ivan didn't quite say as much).

Given Labour's current base, of younger, more educated, urban-dwelling people, they seem less likely to be racists and bigots than the Tories' base of rural old folk. So I don't think chasing the bigot vote is an important potential strategy for the party, really.

What's actually happened is the billionaire-run UK media using divide-and-conquer tactics to trick large numbers of less wealthy people to vote against their interests, repeatedly, for rapacious plutocrats. And Labour have historically been crap at countering that narrative.

The Gillian Duffy case is illustrative, seeing as it's been mentioned:


https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... transcript

No attempt made by Brown to counter her concerns about immigrants overwhelming public services, which should have been easy as it's b.llsh.t. Instead he just tries to shuffle off, then asks her some pointless patronising questions about her grandchildren when an aide brings her back, before calling her a bigot behind her back. (And while I'm sure she didn't vote for Brown after all that, she was back voting Labour by the next election).

There was an interview with Brown I remember listening to a few years ago - I think it was with James O'Brien and he talked about his stance on immigration. I was really hoping that he'd say he got it wrong and should have pushed back on the narrative that immigration to the UK is inherently bad but he said he wished he'd been stronger in his opposition to it. It really frustrated me because I thought he was a decent PM and seemed like someone who honestly wanted to do what he could for people but he, like so many others, had bought so completely into the Tories immigration rhetoric that there was no sense that it was even a political stance, let alone one that could be challenged.

Seems to be going a bit far to assume that Brown had bought completely into the Tory rhetoric. He might just have come to that conclusion on his own.

He had clearly completely bought into other tory rhetoric about free markets being gods & whatnot, so why not that too?
He abandoned all principles in naked pursuit of power about 1994. We thought he was the good guy in the blair/brown axis, sneakily redistributing money, but in reality he was as much a closet tory as the war criminal

[jdc]

We thought he was the good guy in the blair/brown axis, sneakily redistributing money, but in reality he was as much a closet tory as the war criminal

tbf, they did at least give us the winter fuel allowance.

Sure Start.

Minimum wage.

Paid paternity leave.

Extended maternity leave and an increase in the level of statutory maternity pay.

Increased child benefit.

Child tax credit.

Free TV licenses for over-75s.

Free off-peak bus travel for over-60s.

Increased funding for schools.

Free nursery places for every three and four-year-old.

[tom p]

We thought he was the good guy in the blair/brown axis, sneakily redistributing money, but in reality he was as much a closet tory as the war criminal

tbf, they did at least give us the winter fuel allowance.

Sure Start.

Minimum wage.

Paid paternity leave.

Extended maternity leave and an increase in the level of statutory maternity pay.

Increased child benefit.

Child tax credit.

Free TV licenses for over-75s.

Free off-peak bus travel for over-60s.

Increased funding for schools.

Free nursery places for every three and four-year-old.

True, over the course of 13 years, there were some good things (and a few bribes to old people in a way that is indistinguishable from tory tactics or those of any electorally successful government - the emboldened parts).
He also massively increased private involvement in running public services to the significant long-term detriment of the public in general & the staff working in those services.
ETA: and essentially he thought that he could allow very little regulation of the financial services sector & ride the tiger, collecting mixed metaphorical crumbs off its table to pay for the good things while inequality increased massively & house prices continued to balloon.

[Little waster]

We thought he was the good guy in the blair/brown axis, sneakily redistributing money, but in reality he was as much a closet tory as the war criminal

tbf, they did at least give us the winter fuel allowance.

Sure Start.

Minimum wage.

Paid paternity leave.

Extended maternity leave and an increase in the level of statutory maternity pay.

Increased child benefit.

Child tax credit.

Free TV licenses for over-75s.

Free off-peak bus travel for over-60s.

Increased funding for schools.

Free nursery places for every three and four-year-old.

The issue is those achievements were often built on sand

All those could (and often were) be simply rolled back by the next Tory administration, what New Labour manifestly failed to do is shift the Overton Window significantly back towards the centre, if anything they even spun the ratchet a few more times rightwards.

By failing to challenge the dominant Conservative narrative that "Private is best", "Benefits are for scroungers", "Europe is bad", "Immigrants are the problem" we've ended up where we are; over a decade of needless Tory austerity, the gutting of the public sector and the insanity of a Hard Brexit.

The drumbeat from the Coalition years was constantly that Lansley's NHS Deforms were just a continuation of Labour's NHS reforms, that Free Schools were just an extension of Academies, that the Bedroom Tax was originally a Labour tax, that Tuition Fees were a Labour policy, that if Labour was in power they'd have exactly the same austerity policies as the Tories and their shrink-the-state Orange Booker meat-shields. Labour had so badly failed to turn their short-term electoral dominance into long-term societal changes that Cameron had no problem framing his rigidly-dogmatic rightwing Coalition as "Continuity New Labour" in contrast to Red Ed with his "Marxist" Energy Price Cap and House Building plans. And the public looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which

This political cross-dressing was sold to the Labour party on the basis that Invading Iraq, PFI and privatising schools and hospitals were going to be vote-winners and we should put aside our misgivings as once the public sees the benefit of Formula 1 tobacco advertising, sub-inflation pension rises and hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis they would reward Labour for this at the ballot box. And they were right in a way.

The irony is long after the 2nd Gulf War, Foundation Hospitals and the abolition of the 10p tax band have fell out of public consciousness (along with the record public spending, the NI peace process or the decade of strong economic growth) all the public remembers of that time is that "Labour spent all the money", a reference to the GLOBAL Financial Crash worsened by the embrace of "Financial Deregulation" by both Blairite and Clintonite "Third Wayers" on both sides of the pond. A policy which was (and still is) a central plank of right-wing dogma and one which was forced on us over the objections of the Left on the basis "Middle England" would reward us for it and those silly leftie dinosaurs should stop putting principles over power.

12 years of Tory economic stagnation hasn't shifted this misconception; that the near-death experience of the entire World banking system was due to Brown giving disabled people £9 extra a week so they could rent a room to put their oxygen tanks in and the Reluctant Tough Love of the Tories was needed to fix the deficit and pay off the National Debt (incidentally UK Deficit: in 2010 = 9% GDP in 2021 =15% GDP UK National Debt in 2009 = 40% GDP in 2020 = 104% GDP).

Ultimately it was the Blairites who were shown to put principles over power as a decade+ in the wilderness has demonstrated, without even the satisfaction of having the right principles and some still haven't learnt. It reached its nadir when Liz Kendall decided to fight the Labour leadership election on the "interesting" platform of enthusiastic support for Gove's disastrous education reforms, which even at the time made about as much sense as advocating reintroducing Section 28, the Poll Tax and the Cones Hotline.

ETA Ninja'ed by Tom.

[jdc]

So their good policies were reversible and Labour also had some policies we didn't like therefore they were Tories?

Nah.

[lpm]

So Labour's policies to reduce OAP poverty, even though to this day UK pensions are lower than civilised European countries, were bad because they helped Tory voters?

Nah.

[Little waster]

So their good policies were reversible and Labour also had some policies we didn't like therefore they were Tories?

Nah.

No but if you fail to win (or even make) the argument that the good policies are good ideas why should people fight for them and why should the public care? If you fail to shift the dial when you hold the radio you can't act surprised when it doesn't play the tunes you would like.

The post-war consensus was built on the intellectual foundation that the War had proven the benefit of a more equitable society and a planned economy; the Thatcherite consensus was built on the premise that the entrepreneurial dynamism of the private sector and consumers pursuing their own selfish desires produces a better and freer country than the dead hand of sclerotic state monopolies and obsolete notions of communal solidarity. As such even once Atlee and Thatcher were gone their legacies continued.

What was the equivalent underpinning of Blairism? Where's his legacy, beyond the graveyards of Iraq?

Take Sure Start, it's continuing success was predicated on convincing the public that the State investing in Early Years interventions for the poorest children would pay wider dividends in terms of educational attainment, health outcomes and societal improvements sufficient to justify the expenditure. To turn the Reaganite punchline on its head "Hi, I'm from the government and I'm here to help".

How do you square that with the simultaneous introduction of Foundation Hospitals, School Academies, PFI, the "Choice Agenda" even privatisation of the bl..dy Air Traffic Control ?

Each of those was justified using the same arguments lifted straight from the Tory Privatisation playbook "The State has no business delivering this vital public service; the public sector is inefficient and hidebound, all public servants care about is feather-bedding themselves at the expense of quality of service, the only thing that can save it is the shoe-horning of for-profit organisations into the running of these organisations and the Cargo Cult creation of artificial and vastly bureaucratic internal markets to ape the workings of the Free Market.

Blair relished his run-ins with the teachers, nurses, scientists etc. when they dared point out the flaws in this approach.

It didn't matter that millions of pounds of tax-payers money were being handed over to a dodgy Creationist businessman to indoctrinate kids that the Earth was 6000 years old and the dinosaurs all died in the Great Flood, who needs a scientifically literate population anyway? Just look at this favourable headline in the Mail about Tony standing up to the child-hating Marxist blob of the Teaching Unions, I tell you what a good round of austerity would clear out the deadwood mark my words!

Blair never challenged the assumptions of Thatcherism, in fact he actively embraced them; her State Funeral being an exemplar of his ridiculous unforced errors in prioritising being seen to needlessly piss-off the Left over any rational policy decision. As such there was nothing to stop the Tories turbo-charging it once they got back in power.

With an unchallenged mind-set that "Public is bad" what chance did something like Sure Start ever stand under a future Tory administration? If even the Labour Party are saying the State has no business delivering education and those on benefits should be starved into work, why should hard-working tax-payers be forking out cash just so scrounging single-mums can smoke tabs with their mates while their brood run riot?

How do you make the argument that immigration is an economic and social positive and that any attempts to blame them for all a country's ills is the worst-form of racist scapegoating ... while standing under a "British Jobs for British Workers" banner?

How do you make a positive case for continuing membership for the EU if you've spent the last four decades blaming Brussels for all your cock-ups and boasting about how plucky little Britain is standing up to over-reaching, unelected Eurocrats and their mad attempts to create a bloated European Superstate?

How do you make the case for any sort of economic redistribution when you think it a cunning wheeze to abolish the 10p tax-band in order to fund a penny off middle-class income tax?

How do you make the case that capitalism is flawed and its worst excesses need managing when you've let the deregulated banks burn the global economy to the ground and then force the poorest among us to pick up the bill?