[Politics] Next leader of the Labour party

[Papa Lazarou]

Indeed a dinosaur who needs to be ousted more than Corbyn.

I should know, but how often are Union leaders elected?

 

[Hastings gull]

This really isn't true. You perceive it as a load of young militants, but Labour's membership is 70% over 45 year olds, mainly from ABC1 groups. This is the kind of misdirection the new Labour leader will need to address. The perception is very different from the reality.

Ok. Fair enough if you say so. then what I said still stands only that older militants will carve it all up . .

 

[Guinness Boy]

Will we ever see such a successful period of prime ministership and government again? I am astonished how he is reviled by some in the Labour Party. Glad I left it when they left their common sense. Sadly I think there is no way back now - Momentum has a nasty grip and there is no one with strength like Kinnock waiting in the wings to put them back in their box.

Spot on


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Iggle Piggle]

I thought it was just McCluskey who screwed David Miliband rather than the whole trade union movement. He certainly was main architect of his downfall and with it any hopes of maintaining a competitive Labour Party.

I was a member of Unite and received a voting form and a union leaflet which may as well have said 'Vote Ed Miliband or else' I resigned from the union as my personal protest.

If memory serves it was what caused me to log onto here again (password forgetfulness on the old account) to have an argument about it. Whether that was Len or the movement itself I don't know. Be interesting to bounce that if i could find it.

 

[London Irish]

I thought you were brighter than that.......but ok, here goes:

Coup - definition: "An instance of successfully achieving something difficult" .... in this case, the Corbynistas and hard left, having been roundly defeated in the general election now face the difficult challenge of retaining power within the Labour Party and of getting their own left wing candidate elected as leader. Under the circumstances I think, if they achieve that and Long-Bailey gets the gig, that could reasonably be described as a coup, don't you?

What clown circus dictionary are you reading. A coup is seizing power by undemocratic or illegitimate means FFS

Explain how the forthcoming leadership contest is going to be undemocratic please. Words actually mean something you know, even tho lying is very much in fashion these days to get somewhere

 

[Weststander]

Looks like you're right, Long Bailey odds on now, looks like the Labour hardcord are being persuaded by the Long-Bailey/Burgon dream ticket.

Astonishing if that pans out. Burgon is awful in interviews, a charmless expert at whataboutism, he never answers a searching question, spitting bitterness, and he comes across as thick.

Shirley the party can do better than him. He’ll hand 5 more years to the Tories.

You couldn’t make up this series of own goals. Is Dominic Cummings secretly pulling the strings?

 

[portslade seagull]

Currently ensuring they will stay in obscurity for a long long time. But hey ho let's look after the London liberalists in their small bubble.

 

[Surf's Up]

What clown circus dictionary are you reading. A coup is seizing power by undemocratic or illegitimate means FFS

Explain how the forthcoming leadership contest is going to be undemocratic please. Words actually mean something you know, even tho lying is very much in fashion these days to get somewhere

Confronting the obvious is clearly as painful and difficult for you as it is for the Corbynistas ..... I understand why you are so angry, your boys took a hell of a hammering, but try to retain a semblance of sense!

 

[London Irish]

Will we ever see such a successful period of prime ministership and government again? I am astonished how he is reviled by some in the Labour Party. Glad I left it when they left their common sense. Sadly I think there is no way back now - Momentum has a nasty grip and there is no one with strength like Kinnock waiting in the wings to put them back in their box.

How many elections did Kinnock lose to the Tories again?

 

[Wardy's twin]

I should know, but how often are Union leaders elected?

Looks like every couple of years.... turnout was 12% last time and he got just over half... so people complaining that Boris was elected by 160k a few months ago perhaps need to look inward. He is the power broker for the left.

He earns 140k....

 

[London Irish]

Confronting the obvious is clearly as painful and difficult for you as it is for the Corbynistas ..... I understand why you are so angry, your boys took a hell of a hammering, but try to retain a semblance of sense!

So no answer then, just going for the "brazen it out" lying option about what a word means, fair enough, Johnson taught you well

 

[Jolly Red Giant]

aside from the switch from wealthy people to companies, you need to understand that companies pay taxes in the countries they fall due, so multinational companies pay taxes in other countries. im not in the least surprised household names like Antofagasta (Chilean mining) or NMC Health (UAE healthcare) pay no tax here. i'd have thought coming from Ireland that takes advantage of moving tax domicile, you'd have know that.

Switching is irrelevant - the individuals own or have large shareholdings in the companies - and yes - Ireland is a tax haven and I have been involved in a campaign against the nature of the Irish tax system for over two decades.

The problem is that these companies pay little of no tax anywhere -

Take NMC Healthcare for example - in 2018 it registered over £256million in pre-tax profit - and paid less than £5million in tax. The largest shareholder in NMC is Saeed Bin Butti who owns 17.5% of the company. He is also chairman of Centurion Investments as well as large shareholdings in Travelex and UAE Exchange and has a peresonal wealth of $2.7billion. He is closely aligned with Khalifa Bin Butti Al Muhairi who owns 15% of the shares in NMC, is also KBBO Group, also has large shareholdings in Travelex and UAE Exchange and is a leading stakeholder in Infinite Investment and Centurion Partners. Khalifa Bin Butti Al Muhairi has a personal wealth of $870million. Both of these individuals are associated with B.R. Shetty, an Indian businessman who founded NMC in 1975 - Shetty has a personal wealth of $3.3billion.

You're a tad confused - you start talking about 'wealthy people' and accuse them of not paying more tax .... which in fact they do.

The tax system is skewed to facilitate high wealth individuals in avoiding tax - for example - a workers in Britain paid between £12.5K-£50K a year pays 20% in income tax. Wealthy individuals use 'carried interest' instead of a salary as income, resulting in these individuals paying CGT rather than income tax. In 2018 over 9,000 of these high-wealth individuals made almost £34billion in 'capital gains' income (averaging over £3.75million each - with a minimum of £1million in income). Out of this £34billion they paid just over £5billion in CGT. A worker on £12.5K a year had a tax burden of 20% - a wealthy individual earning an average of £3.75m had a tax burden of 14.8%.

Then you blend it with 'rich' companies such as BP. Let's take BP for a second as you've mentioned them. The reason they got a tax rebate was because of massive, and I mean massive, losses in previous years - something you conveniently forget to mention. Bit like you ignoring the posts from myself and others previously showing you lied.

I didn't lie - I stated facts - and let's take BP that you tout about having 'massive' and you really mean 'massive losses' - well these massive losses came from the Deepwater Horizon disaster - a disaster that caused massive environmental damage on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico - a disaster that still has not been cleaned up - and at a cost of more than £200billion. Why should any company be allowed to cause a 'massive' environmental disaster because of cutting costs to boost profits - do a ham-fisted job of the clean-up and then be allowed to avoid paying tax because it was obliged to (partially) pay for the clean up?

As my pension pot probably contains BP shares I'm rather happy they have more to pay 'shareholders' than tax.

Two issues here -
1. There are massive tax breaks for private pension pots in the UK - tax breaks that inordinately benefit the wealthy - it is just another one of the tax avoidance schemes that the wealthy use to hive off as much wealth as possible.
2. Isn't it a disgrace that a worker (in an effort to have a decent amount to live on in retirement) is forced to pay into a private pension fund, pay massive fees for being part of the fund, seeing this money gambled on stocks, shares and exotic products invented by vulture funds, and at the end of the day the could well see their pension disappear in a puff of smoke it their fund goes belly up.

 

[Jolly Red Giant]

This is an important - and relevant graph -

 

[Weststander]

How many elections did Kinnock lose to the Tories again?

Kinnock paved the way for John Smith, Brian Gould, Dewar, Blair, Brown and co, in making Labour electable again.

Let’s carry on with the losing Momentum formula forever. McDonnell, Lansman and Long-Bailey feeling rather smug with themselves that they have the reins, rather than those awful centre-left dissidents Harman, Kinnock jnr, Benn, Hodge, Alan Johnson.

 

[Jolly Red Giant]

Kinnock paved the way for John Smith, Brian Gould, Dewar, Blair, Brown and co, in making Labour electable again.

Kinnock lost three elections - all of them because he tried to out-tory the Tories and he spent most of his time attacking socialists in his own party.

Labour was made 'electable' - Blair benefited from the fact that people were ready to vote for anyone but the Tories by 1995 - people may not remember the level of corruption that they Tories were involved in - but it was massive and it was in your face.

Let’s carry on with the losing Momentum formula forever. McDonnell, Lansman and Long-Bailey feeling rather smug with themselves that they have the reins, rather than those awful centre-left dissidents Harman, Kinnock jnr, Benn, Hodge, Alan Johnson.

The likes of Harman, baby Kinnock, Benn and Hodge etc. are not 'centre-left' - they are down the line Tories and have proven it by implementing neo-liberal policies in government.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Didn't Long-Bailey believe that tax was based on turnover rather than profit?
IMHO, she is far too left wing to lead the Labour party into recovery mode; indeed, the fact that she is a protege of McDonnell should really rule her out amongst those who want a shift in direction. I suppose it will depend on what shenanigans go on behind the scenes as to who gets put forward. Personally, I should like to hear a lot of noise from all Labourite moderates, regardless of how much influence they may have. Someone has to shake up the delusionists and rattle their cages pretty damn' hard if the party is to sort itself out anytime soon.

Agree.

But...if someone like Starmer actually says it how it is, he'll be accused of bending 'fact' to suit his own ambitions.

If Mr Tony, who has no ambition to become leader again, were to back Starmer, for example, he'd be accused of being the ghost of Christmas Past.

Sadly the momentum folk will manipulate this so that one of their slate wins.

I asked yesterday if someone would post a clear lowdown on Long Bailey given the blandness of her biogs on Wiki and even in the Sun. Is she a woke independent thinker, or just another chippy polytechnic trot?

Edit: just looked her up again - sociology and politics at Manchester Metropolitan (formerly Manchester Poly). It says she has worked for solicitors, but it does not say she is a graduate of laws. I presume not. I know someone else who works for solicitors. He dropped out of sixth form, and has an HND in music technology She is listed in 'find a solicitor' as non practicing. OK, so that one remains a mystery - like Geoffrey Archer's degree from Oxford (polytechnic) perhaps. I am not being snobby here - this is about (mis)representation.

What else? She is a Roman Catholic. Understands the concept of belief, then. Belief in the face of evidence to the contrary? Not good, as far as I am concerned.

On her own site http://www.rebeccalongbailey.com/about/ it says little. She supports Corbyn and Manchester United. And she is a qualified solictor. Absolutely no sign whasoever of any leadership qualities there.....

Edit again: sorry to bang on about 'solicitor'. I always assumed you need to have a law degree (tough) but not the skills to be called to the bar (barrister).

Apparently it is a lot easier than that. From UCAS:


What do I need to do to become a solicitor?

complete a qualifying law degree, followed by the Legal Practice Course (LPC)
or complete a non-law degree then take the Common Professional Examination (CPE) or Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) conversion course, followed by the LPC
or complete the membership or fellowship route of the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEx) while working in the legal profession – this route can be taken if you do not have a degree

FFS! No wonder some of the solicitors who have acted for me over the years have been so shit.

 

[Neville's Breakfast]

This is an important - and relevant graph -

It would be a mistake to hold on to that statistic. People change their voting as they get older. The current crop of 18-25s will settle down, get a mortgage etc etc. I was once in the Young Socialists ! and am now moderate left (I have no problem with Nationalization although think it should happen very slowly). A lot of people have made similar points to yourself and Grizzling ******. You need to actually face the reasons you lost working class votes and a failure to do so would be unbelievably irresponsible. Stop searching for ideological purity.

 

[Weststander]

Kinnock lost three elections - all of them because he tried to out-tory the Tories and he spent most of his time attacking socialists in his own party.

Labour was made 'electable' - Blair benefited from the fact that people were ready to vote for anyone but the Tories by 1995 - people may not remember the level of corruption that they Tories were involved in - but it was massive and it was in your face.



The likes of Harman, baby Kinnock, Benn and Hodge etc. are not 'centre-left' - they are down the line Tories and have proven it by implementing neo-liberal policies in government.

If you and your Momentum mates get your own way, you’ll grow old never seeing a Labour overall majority in the Commons again. The Lansman experiment may be exciting for some, but it will remain hypothetical, consigned to paper.

Well done, great work. You/they have made Tories very, very happy.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Kinnock lost three elections - all of them because he tried to out-tory the Tories and he spent most of his time attacking socialists in his own party.

Labour was made 'electable' - Blair benefited from the fact that people were ready to vote for anyone but the Tories by 1995 - people may not remember the level of corruption that they Tories were involved in - but it was massive and it was in your face.



The likes of Harman, baby Kinnock, Benn and Hodge etc. are not 'centre-left' - they are down the line Tories and have proven it by implementing neo-liberal policies in government.

Deluded.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

This is an important - and relevant graph -

Only if you plan to exterminate the over 50s.