Page 6 of 7
Re: Labour/ Tory Party Comparison
Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2022 12:30 am
by jdc
So your new argument to support the claim that Blair & Brown were Tories is that they failed to convince people that Labour's good policies were good ideas?
OK...
Re: Labour/ Tory Party Comparison
Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2022 7:41 am
by tom p
Little waster wrote: ↑Tue May 31, 2022 3:16 pm
jdc wrote: ↑Tue May 31, 2022 1:44 pm
tom p wrote: ↑Tue May 31, 2022 8:46 am
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.
Mine was faster, yours was better
Re: Labour/ Tory Party Comparison
Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2022 7:42 am
by tom p
jdc wrote: ↑Tue May 31, 2022 3:46 pm
So their good policies were reversible and Labour also had some policies we didn't like therefore they were Tories?
Nah.
They were easily reversible 'cos they talked tory while doing some good & some very good mixed in with some bad & some very bad
Re: 2020 No. 10 Christmas Party!
Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2022 7:43 am
by tom p
jdc wrote: ↑Wed Jun 01, 2022 12:30 am
So your new argument to support the claim that Blair & Brown were Tories is that they failed to convince people that Labour's good policies were good ideas?
OK...
"As much a closet tory as the war criminal" (the actual phrase used by some gobshite tw.t) doesn't mean being actual tories, just means the same degree of closet toriness
Re: Labour/ Tory Party Comparison
Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2022 8:29 am
by El Pollo Diablo
Several posts moved here from the Christmas Party thread.
Re: Labour/ Tory Party Comparison
Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2022 8:56 am
by Little waster
jdc wrote: ↑Wed Jun 01, 2022 12:30 am
So your new argument to support the claim that Blair & Brown were Tories is that they failed to convince people that Labour's good policies were good ideas?
OK...
No my argument is (and always has been) that Blair chose to expend his considerable political talents and capital to convince people that Labour's only "good" policies were the ones they stole off the Tories and that the Labour Party's founding principles were actually fundamentally wrong, their instincts were all wrong and that the Conservatives deserve to be the natural party of government so all Labour can do is present a slightly nicer version of it. And then they wonder why swathes of the Red Wall refuse to vote Labour anymore.
This was all sold on the premise that this approach would be electoral gold.
Instead it has resulted in Labour being in the wilderness for at least 12 years and even after more than a decade of political turmoil, economic stagnation and atrophying public services, presided over back-to-back by the worst three Prime Ministers in modern history and set against a background of double-digit inflation, plague, corruption and Partygate Labour is still barely ahead in the mid-term
opinion polls* looking for snookers at the next General Election.
That is Blair's legacy.
*at the same point in 1990, Kinnock was 20 points clear (and still lost), and in 2009 Cameron was up 15 points and heading towards Coalition.
Re: Labour/ Tory Party Comparison
Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2022 1:12 pm
by IvanV
Little waster wrote: ↑Wed Jun 01, 2022 8:56 am
No my argument is (and always has been) that Blair chose to expend his considerable political talents and capital to convince people that Labour's only "good" policies were the ones they stole off the Tories and that the Labour Party's founding principles were actually fundamentally wrong, their instincts were all wrong and that the Conservatives deserve to be the natural party of government so all Labour can do is present a slightly nicer version of it. And then they wonder why swathes of the Red Wall refuse to vote Labour anymore.
That is Blair's legacy.
I see it rather similarly, as is evident from my earlier posts. I felt exceedingly disappointed that after 13 years of Labour government all they had done was stop inequality growing, and not row back any of the widening from the Thatcher/Major years. I really couldn't believe it when Brown canned the 10% income tax rate. He was supposed to be the actual left wing one.
But I also think this was really Gordon Brown's legacy. It was an explicit part of the Granita pact that Brown had considerable control of domestic policy. So I think the spending and redistribution policies of the Blair government are really Brown's policies, not Blair's.
Labour came into government in '97, after 18 years opposition, with a strong sense of trying to demonstrate they were not the disastrous economic managers of the 70s. So they held onto the "responsible" - as the Mail/Telegraph would call it - Majorite spending policies for a while, before loosening up a little, and then a bit more. And that played its part in winning 2 more elections. The horses had not been frightened.
There were a number of policies (cited in recent posts) which redressed various tendencies (found across the developed world, even in Sweden) for the more prosperous bits of the economy to get further ahead. But they were only just enough to stop inequality growing, and not take us back from being grossly more unequal than most of the EU. And such redistribution as did occur tended to be somewhat under the carpet, to keep it out of sight of the horses. But this involved a lot of damage to the floorboards - ie the architecture of our tax and benefits system - which does actually matter but Brown didn't care about.
Tom Bower's biography of Brown alleges that Brown was mean with how much money he would spend/redistribute to start with, so that he had a well-padded Treasury to support his own bid to succeed Blair as PM. He did increase spending on the public services in the mid 00's. But he seemed to think that redistribution no longer mattered. I know I've reported this claim before, and it got some tough debate. I think eventually it seemed to be a sustainable statement when you clarified it enough, though there are perhaps other ways of looking at it. So let's not go around that again.
Re: Labour/ Tory Party Comparison
Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2022 1:50 pm
by shpalman
Ok sorry I reported those posts thinking we were still in the Christmas Party thread f.ck's sake people change the subject line.
Re: Labour/ Tory Party Comparison
Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2022 3:03 pm
by Woodchopper
shpalman wrote: ↑Wed Jun 01, 2022 1:50 pm
Ok sorry I reported those posts thinking we were still in the Christmas Party thread f.ck's sake people change the subject line.
Done.
Re: Labour/ Tory Party Comparison
Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2022 4:04 pm
by tom p
EACLucifer wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 12:46 am
Iron Magpie wrote: ↑Sun Feb 20, 2022 2:27 pm
Gfamily wrote: ↑Sun Feb 20, 2022 2:11 pm
You seem to imply it's only the Labour Right that are the ones at fault - "they keep asking us to support
their policies, but they didn't support
our policies"
But the Labour Right would say the same thing about Labour Left, how
you're not supporting certain of
their policies.
The issue though is that it's not a case of which policies does Labour Left or Labour Right want, but which policies do the people of UK want?
I would like to see some evidence that the left haven't supported the right even sometimes just by being quiet. There were no ejections of right wingers in the party under Corbyn yet the moment the right gain the upper hand they start slinging people out for having the temerity to be socialists. Corbyn has lost the whip for saying something that was expressly protected in the ECHR report and by interfering in the process Starmer has gone directly against it. Yet it's all the lefts fault according to those on the right.
This is absolute bollocks, as expected.
Corbyn's accusation that antisemitism in the party had been overstated for political reasons itself goes near some uncomfortable antisemitic tropes, and is also entirely untrue.
Did he actually make that claim? I remember someone other than Corbyn making it, but not old Jezza. Also, it's nothing like an antisemitic trope to accuse your political rivals of overstating things for political gain. It's not unusual, in fact you'll find it happens all the time. And, quite a number of people did (intentionally or otherwise) do things like that, e.g. linking the disgusting, despicable abuse and threats that Liverpool area MP (i forget her name) received from actual fascists years before Corbyn was elected labour leader into the catalogue of labour anti-semitism ( I remember reading an article about her quitting labour supposedly 'cos of abuse from the left (either you to EPD linked to it), I think on the BBC website, which included the full litany of abuse she experienced trying the old guilt by association trick.
EACLucifer wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 12:46 am
He hung around online in groups absolutely filled with conspiratorial antisemitism, and never spoke out against it.
Jeremy Corbyn was hanging around online. Like us here? Really? That seems rather surprising (I'm not calling you a liar, just genuinely surprised). Any links?
EACLucifer wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 12:46 am
He engaged in conspiratorialism blaming Israel for a terrorist attack perpetrated by jihadists.
And when was this? Specifically when, in the context of when the attack happened and when it was definitely known that it was done by jihadists? We do know that Mossad are very much prepared to engage in acts which would be called terrorism if they weren't done by a state actor (they are not alone in this by any means, and suggesting that an act may have been done by group A when it was actually group B, BEFORE it's actually known who did it is.
EACLucifer wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 12:46 am
His allies initially refused to take action against a council candidate that posted neo-nazi holocaust denial. This is also far from a complete list.
So people who like him were slow to take action which they very much should have. Against a local council candidate. Are you sure you want to go down the whole 'people who like X were sh.t on some occasions' route? 'cos there's a whole world of examples of the actual Israeli government which you so adore failing to take action against its soldiers for murder and suchlike.
And, as for your whole 'he liked x and x is a c.nt' shtick, don't forget that your hero Bib Netanyahu praised and went out of his way to hang out with the anti-semitic fascist Viktor Orban. I don't think Netanyahu is an anti-semite. Damning people by association is a stupid game.
Re: Labour/ Tory Party Comparison
Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2022 5:07 pm
by Stranger Mouse
Corbyn stated that the EHRC report was overstated for political reasons
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... -in-labour
Re: Labour/ Tory Party Comparison
Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2022 7:11 pm
by Bird on a Fire
shpalman wrote: ↑Wed Jun 01, 2022 1:50 pm
Ok sorry I reported those posts thinking we were still in the Christmas Party thread f.ck's sake people change the subject line.
Re: Labour/ Tory Party Comparison
Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2022 10:23 pm
by El Pollo Diablo
I doubt someone would've read a link I posted, must've been someone else
Re: Labour/ Tory Party Comparison
Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2022 7:08 am
by tenchboy
El Pollo Diablo wrote: ↑Wed Jun 01, 2022 10:23 pm
I doubt someone would've read a link I posted, must've been someone else
<hug>
Re: Labour/ Tory Party Comparison
Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2022 1:47 pm
by Stephanie
shpalman wrote: ↑Wed Jun 01, 2022 1:50 pm
Ok sorry I reported those posts thinking we were still in the Christmas Party thread f.ck's sake people change the subject line.
Sometimes folk are modding on their phone, and it can be tricky to go through and edit all the subject lines - sometimes it's done later on. If it hasn't, then feel free to report ones that haven't been changed.
Re: Labour/ Tory Party Comparison
Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2022 2:17 pm
by tom p
Cheers.
Of course, him saying it doesn't mean that he was wrong. It's possible for there to be a problem (which his statement doesn't deny), whilst it also being overstated by the press & political opponents.
If it wasn't overstated by the press, then it would be the first thing ever that the rightwing press hadn't overstated about a left-wing party leader.
Re: Labour/ Tory Party Comparison
Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2022 2:29 pm
by monkey
tom p wrote: ↑Thu Jun 02, 2022 2:17 pm
Cheers.
Of course, him saying it doesn't mean that he was wrong. It's possible for there to be a problem (which his statement doesn't deny), whilst it also being overstated by the press & political opponents.
If it wasn't overstated by the press, then it would be the first thing ever that the rightwing press hadn't overstated about a left-wing party leader.
It was still a stupid thing to say in response to the report.
Re: Labour/ Tory Party Comparison
Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2022 3:19 pm
by shpalman
Stephanie wrote: ↑Thu Jun 02, 2022 1:47 pm
shpalman wrote: ↑Wed Jun 01, 2022 1:50 pm
Ok sorry I reported those posts thinking we were still in the Christmas Party thread f.ck's sake people change the subject line.
Sometimes folk are modding on their phone, and it can be tricky to go through and edit all the subject lines - sometimes it's done later on. If it hasn't, then feel free to report ones that haven't been changed.
Yeah sorry I just thought people were still replying in the wrong thread and got annoyed, wrongly as it turned out.
Re: Labour/ Tory Party Comparison
Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2022 4:10 pm
by Stranger Mouse
monkey wrote: ↑Thu Jun 02, 2022 2:29 pm
tom p wrote: ↑Thu Jun 02, 2022 2:17 pm
Cheers.
Of course, him saying it doesn't mean that he was wrong. It's possible for there to be a problem (which his statement doesn't deny), whilst it also being overstated by the press & political opponents.
If it wasn't overstated by the press, then it would be the first thing ever that the rightwing press hadn't overstated about a left-wing party leader.
It was still a stupid thing to say in response to the report.
Especially as Starmer had spoken to him the night before on how he was going to respond to the report
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ism-report
To be fair to Corbyn though it wasn’t as bad as this
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/vi ... rony-video
Re: Labour/ Tory Party Comparison
Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2022 9:55 am
by El Pollo Diablo
Little Waster wrote: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.
Amazing really, given how horrifying and awful Blair and Brown were, that you're also so angry at the Guardian newspaper, even twelve years later, for failing to back Labour in the 2010 General Election that you went on an extended rant about that decision. Sort of feels a bit conflicty.
Still, no true Labourite and all that.
Re: Labour/ Tory Party Comparison
Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2022 10:24 am
by Stranger Mouse
I’m reading Left Out.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Left-Out-Insid ... 350&sr=8-1
Finding it a bit difficult to follow all the various players but it’s an interesting read. There’s a whole load of stuff about Irma Chamberlain which I wasn’t even aware of which is quite shocking. I’m no fan of Peter Mandelson but he gives a pretty good summary here.
https://www.politicshome.com/thehouse/a ... emy-corbyn
Take the small issue of a new private secretary for the leader, selected on the basis that she could manage his erratic behaviour. The ensuing standoff between Corbyn and his chief of staff, Karie Murphy, over the appointment of his close friend Iram Awan Chamberlain, the wrangling and shouting matches inside his office that disrupted everyone’s work and the uproar over her parliamentary security vetting went on for months. It ended only when the defiant Awan Chamberlain, who took her job literally to mean being by Corbyn’s side, was despatched by Murphy after her unauthorised attendance at a classified briefing of Corbyn by ‘C’, the head of MI6, at the intelligence service’s offices in Vauxhall Cross. This lit the fuse for the eventual removal of Murphy herself shortly before the 2019 election following an office uprising and coup engineered by Corbyn’s comrade in arms, John McDonnell, who finally got sick and tired of the whole giddy bunch of them (ideally he would have liked to defenestrate ‘strategy’ director, Seumas Milne, as well).
I was in two minds whether to put this on the Corbyn thread but flipped a coin and decided to put it here.
Re: Labour/ Tory Party Comparison
Posted: Sun Jun 05, 2022 12:23 pm
by Little waster
El Pollo Diablo wrote: ↑Sun Jun 05, 2022 9:55 am
Little Waster wrote: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.
Amazing really, given how horrifying and awful Blair and Brown were, that you're also so angry at the Guardian newspaper, even twelve years later, for failing to back Labour in the 2010 General Election that you went on an extended rant about that decision. Sort of feels a bit conflicty.
Still, no true Labourite and all that.
And what was the basis of the Guardian’s decision?
That the new Consensus meant there was no longer any real difference between New Labour, the Orange Bookers and the Cameroons so they might as well back Clegg, and then Clegg/Cameron, as they were superficially more appealing than Brown.
They then spent the rest of the parliament desperately trying to spin every new Coalition obscenity as actually some sort of victory for liberalism ... well until Rusbridger resigned in 2014 with the Guardian in crisis and Julian Glover left to become Cameron’s speechwriter FFS.
ETA: here’s one that aged well
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... th-welfare
I’m not sure how you can frame the Guardian’s inability to adequately distinguish between New Labour and the Conservatives in 2010 and their ultimate choice to support the Conservatives over Labour as anything other than strong evidence that a) New Labour had failed to make a compelling case for being allowed to continue in power instead of some other centre-right party b) the Labour Party had now swung too far to the right and c) this was electorally disastrous to Labour.
It is only cold comfort that this didn’t work out any better for the Guardian than it did for the Labour Party.
Re: Labour/ Tory Party Comparison
Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2022 1:12 pm
by Stranger Mouse
EACLucifer wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 1:03 am
JQH wrote: ↑Sun Feb 20, 2022 4:49 pm
The Left are expected to hold their noses and support Starmer which would be fair enough as he won the leadership election - if they had been prepared to hold their noses and support Corbyn when
he was the elected leader.
They did, in 2017.
Unfortunately for Corybn, you can only ask people to hold their noses and vote for someone who constantly promotes racists and sides with anyone against his own country, including being effectively pro-Assad along with his sh.tty StWC mates for so long.
You might not like Starmer, but asking people to vote for him does not mean any comparable request to excuse and tolerate bigotry.
And it wasn't just Corbyn, it was his allies. It was people like Diane Abbott, who was happy to chair meetings on Syria where the Assadist line was followed, and Syrians were not only not invited to be speakers, but not allowed to speak from the floor. It includes people like Chris Williamson, who is currently blaming the situation in Ukraine on Zelenskyy being a "zionist".
Speaking of Chris Williamson he isn’t happy at the moment. Lol.
https://twitter.com/derbychrisw/status/ ... u3e2oXTIqw
Re: Labour/ Tory Party Comparison
Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2022 1:23 pm
by Woodchopper
Stranger Mouse wrote: ↑Sat Jun 25, 2022 1:12 pm
EACLucifer wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 1:03 am
JQH wrote: ↑Sun Feb 20, 2022 4:49 pm
The Left are expected to hold their noses and support Starmer which would be fair enough as he won the leadership election - if they had been prepared to hold their noses and support Corbyn when
he was the elected leader.
They did, in 2017.
Unfortunately for Corybn, you can only ask people to hold their noses and vote for someone who constantly promotes racists and sides with anyone against his own country, including being effectively pro-Assad along with his sh.tty StWC mates for so long.
You might not like Starmer, but asking people to vote for him does not mean any comparable request to excuse and tolerate bigotry.
And it wasn't just Corbyn, it was his allies. It was people like Diane Abbott, who was happy to chair meetings on Syria where the Assadist line was followed, and Syrians were not only not invited to be speakers, but not allowed to speak from the floor. It includes people like Chris Williamson, who is currently blaming the situation in Ukraine on Zelenskyy being a "zionist".
Speaking of Chris Williamson he isn’t happy at the moment. Lol.
https://twitter.com/derbychrisw/status/ ... u3e2oXTIqw
That is funny.
Re: Labour/ Tory Party Comparison
Posted: Sat Jun 25, 2022 3:30 pm
by jimbob
Stranger Mouse wrote: ↑Sat Jun 25, 2022 1:12 pm
EACLucifer wrote: ↑Mon Apr 04, 2022 1:03 am
JQH wrote: ↑Sun Feb 20, 2022 4:49 pm
The Left are expected to hold their noses and support Starmer which would be fair enough as he won the leadership election - if they had been prepared to hold their noses and support Corbyn when
he was the elected leader.
They did, in 2017.
Unfortunately for Corybn, you can only ask people to hold their noses and vote for someone who constantly promotes racists and sides with anyone against his own country, including being effectively pro-Assad along with his sh.tty StWC mates for so long.
You might not like Starmer, but asking people to vote for him does not mean any comparable request to excuse and tolerate bigotry.
And it wasn't just Corbyn, it was his allies. It was people like Diane Abbott, who was happy to chair meetings on Syria where the Assadist line was followed, and Syrians were not only not invited to be speakers, but not allowed to speak from the floor. It includes people like Chris Williamson, who is currently blaming the situation in Ukraine on Zelenskyy being a "zionist".
Speaking of Chris Williamson he isn’t happy at the moment. Lol.
https://twitter.com/derbychrisw/status/ ... u3e2oXTIqw
LOL