[Politics] *** Labour Party Annual Conference, 23-25 September 2018, ACC Liverpool ***

[Moshe Gariani]

Main business gets underway this morning.

Debate on "Public Investment & Ownership" with speeches by John Healey and John McDonnell.

Heard McDonnell on the radio this morning and am looking forward to understanding more about his proposals for a stakeholder economy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfpZRff_I3Q

 

[Tony Towner's Fridge]

McDonnell ! Jeez..Trotskyite IRA supporting Communist....God help us if he ever has a prominent position of power in a government.....

Let's hope they self combust and fight their way to oblivion.....


TNBA

TTF

 

[Baker lite]

Main business gets underway this morning.

Debate on "Public Investment & Ownership" with speeches by John Healey and John McDonnell.

Heard McDonnell on the radio this morning and am looking forward to understanding more about his proposals for a stakeholder economy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfpZRff_I3Q

Yes I heard the Quartermaster on the radio this morning.A nasty little man.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Moshe Gariani]

McDonnell ! Jeez..Trotskyite IRA supporting Communist....God help us if he ever has a prominent position of power in a government.....

Let's hope they self combust and fight their way to oblivion....

Hopefully this thread might allow some reasoned discussion of Labour's policy proposals "for the many not the few".

McDonnell's "stakeholder economy" ideas seem to be a very appealing combination of ideas about widening share ownership and ideas about workers sharing in decision making that have been very successful in the democratic economic powerhouse of Germany.

 

[Horton's halftime iceberg]

It's good to get a conference again where debates and votes actually count for something.

 

[beorhthelm]

Hopefully this thread might allow some reasoned discussion of Labour's policy proposals "for the many not the few".

McDonnell's "stakeholder economy" ideas seem to be a very appealing combination of ideas about widening share ownership and ideas about workers sharing in decision making that have been very successful in the democratic economic powerhouse of Germany.

in which they will fail. he is attempting to take ownership - government mandated share dilution and give away - with out apparently actual changes to corporate governance. he could possibly achieve the later without the theft of capital, but he doesnt really want that, its all about the redistribution of capital. quite clever really, shared ownership without shared responsibility.

 

[Moshe Gariani]

John Healey (Housing shadow) on now.

120,000 children in the UK without somewhere to call home tonight.

The next Labour government will be the most radical on housing since the great Labour government post-war.

Commitment to "end rough sleeping in a parliament" - presumably is undeliverable as an absolute but has to be the aim for Labour (Tories are allowed not to aim for it...).

"Councils building Council Housing again..." - sounds like an old school left wing policy but presumably will be updated for the 21st Century and why not?

Tax levy on second homes seems fair enough.

 

[Moshe Gariani]

Powerful contribution from Len McCluskey.

Excellent line describing Jeremy Corbyn as ready to become "The People's Prime Minister".

 

[Baker lite]

Powerful contribution from Len McCluskey.

Excellent line describing Jeremy Corbyn as ready to become "The People's Prime Minister".

Not Jewish people though...

 

[Gritt23]

Excellent line describing Jeremy Corbyn as ready to become "The People's Prime Minister".

Speaking personally, I'm sick of soundbites from all parties. "The People's Prime Minister" - what tosh. What matters is what the party are doing on key matters. They seem to be committed to sticking to the democratic outcome of Brexit, but are also in favour of a "People's Vote", so please explain what is on the ballot paper for that vote, and how the timing could work.

Keep sticking "People's ...." in there everywhere is lovely work from the marketing guys, but it's the substance that matters. And not trying to appease everyone with nonsense like a commitment to £100bn to renew our Nuclear weapons, but coming with a personal committment from Jezza that we'll never use them. Have the balls to decide where you stand and follow it through.

 

[Gritt23]

McDonnell's "stakeholder economy" ideas seem to be a very appealing combination of ideas about widening share ownership and ideas about workers sharing in decision making that have been very successful in the democratic economic powerhouse of Germany.

How does it work in Germany Moshe?

I'm sceptical about this sort of thing, as I think it ends up either not coming in, or does so in such a diluted way (separate class of share that has greatly reduced rights, and no saleable value) as to be no more than lip-service to the original idea. What is this trying to achieve, re-distribution of wealth, or worker engagement?

 

[beorhthelm]

John Healey (Housing shadow) on now.

where did you see this, interested what the detail is, BBC and Guardian have only focused on company change and Brexit.

 

[Moshe Gariani]

Speaking personally, I'm sick of soundbites from all parties. "The People's Prime Minister" - what tosh. What matters is what the party are doing on key matters. They seem to be committed to sticking to the democratic outcome of Brexit, but are also in favour of a "People's Vote", so please explain what is on the ballot paper for that vote, and how the timing could work.

Keep sticking "People's ...." in there everywhere is lovely work from the marketing guys, but it's the substance that matters. And not trying to appease everyone with nonsense like a commitment to £100bn to renew our Nuclear weapons, but coming with a personal committment from Jezza that we'll never use them. Have the balls to decide where you stand and follow it through.

No problem with Corbyn's Labour seeking to influence public opinion not only by policy making but also by effective marketing. Are we meant to be happy as a protest party of opposition or are we allowed to do what is necessary to win an election?

Yes, it must be all about principles and policy as much as possible, but it would be very stupid to ignore the role of the media and the importance of positioning JC as prime minister in waiting.

Happy though to refocus this thread on the policies that are being proposed by Labour.

 

[Moshe Gariani]

where did you see this, interested what the detail is, BBC and Guardian have only focused on company change and Brexit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfpZRff_I3Q

You should be able to rewind to his bit. -1.15 at the moment to find it.

Edit: if you are only seeing a black box then search Labour Conference Live on youtube...

 

[Moshe Gariani]

How does it work in Germany Moshe?

I'm sceptical about this sort of thing, as I think it ends up either not coming in, or does so in such a diluted way (separate class of share that has greatly reduced rights, and no saleable value) as to be no more than lip-service to the original idea. What is this trying to achieve, re-distribution of wealth, or worker engagement?

Good questions. I am no expert but I know that in Germany workers generally have rights and engagement far in excess of what has become commonplace in this country.

The share ownership thing seems to work OK for John Lewis. I assume the proposed model might have some elements in common with how that scheme operates.

 

[BLOCK F]

Powerful contribution from Len McCluskey.

Excellent line describing Jeremy Corbyn as ready to become "The People's Prime Minister".

McCluskey, McDonnell. and Corbyn, what a dream team for the UK.
People's Prime Minister, my arse.
More like an incompetent student politician and friend to any number of useless and or nasty organisations and political nutters.
The man is not fit to run the Labour Party, let alone the country.

 

[Gritt23]

Good questions. I am no expert but I know that in Germany workers generally have rights and engagement far in excess of what has become commonplace in this country.

The share ownership thing seems to work OK for John Lewis. I assume the proposed model might have some elements in common with how that scheme operates.

Where I struggle, is with this being imposed on companies. I can see the benefits of "worker engagement" and if a Board of Directors, or the Shareholders at the AGM decide that they should introduce share options as a benefit, or to do a share issue to employees (free of charge, additional shares, diluting the existing ownership) then they are perfectly free to do so - but they are now, so what is changing unless you are imposing it on companies. Perhaps a tax incentive? Maybe a company pays 15% CT (instead of 19%) if they have an employee share ownership scheme which does as above.

Interested to find out more on this one, but I'm fearful it will be very vague and just concentrate on "employees getting given shares for FREE" as that is the soundbite, but with very little substance of how or why a company would ever do it. It can't be Zimbabwe taking over the farms to give to the workers, it has to be a more robust economic plan. Also, Corporate Responsibility is important. Does this come with a seat on the Board for an elected staff member to represent this group? If so, then presumable in the Construction Industry, that person is putting their own freedom on the line if there is an accident on site, as the rest of us do currently. It would reduce how many people want to do it, but a FREE PASS on Corporate Responsibility wouldn't be right either.

Lots of questions, let's see how many get answered, and how much it's just a happy clappy, power to workers announcement, without any substance.

 

[Horton's halftime iceberg]

The man is not fit to run the Labour Party, let alone the country.

Nor is Teresa May, but somehow she is in control of a country and a party (albeit it with a membership a fraction of Labour's membership).

 

[DerekZoolander]

Hopefully this thread might allow some reasoned discussion of Labour's policy proposals "for the many not the few".

After recent Anti-Semitism stuff, shouldn't it be 'For the many, but not the Jew?'

 

[beorhthelm]

Interested to find out more on this one, but I'm fearful it will be very vague and just concentrate on "employees getting given shares for FREE" as that is the soundbite, but with very little substance of how or why a company would ever do it. It can't be Zimbabwe taking over the farms to give to the workers, it has to be a more robust economic plan.

there was some more detail on one of the news websites: companies with more than 250 employees would have to pass 1-10% of thier equity to a holding account for the benefit of employees, i.e. they get any dividends. nothing mentioned about directors, just the redistribution of company capital to employees. the point you make about directors is very interesting one as i recall May attempted to steal the "employee on the board" idea and shelved it because of the legal implications of responsibility this would impose on the nominated employee. im sure Labour will push for a special form of director with a vote but no responsibility, maybe as nominal head of the aforementioned employee capital trust. but policy is light on such detail. because they only think through the initial populist angle.