[Politics] Tony Blair doubts Labour can be 'taken back by moderates'

[Blue3]

I get the sentiment but factually that is not true. There are many measures of inefficiency but the classic one is the Gini coefficient and it did show significant increase in inequality in the 1980s then it levelled off and has reduced a little since the financial crisis. So over 30 years it’s broadly flat to marginally more inequal. But every one is better off which is great, people,forget,what it was like in the 70s.

The U.K. though is more inequal than many other capatilist countries so they could be an arguement for more Scandinavian politics here, but for sure not the Trots

The Guardian in an article this week said and I paraphrase here when talking about inequality in Britan in 2018:

This trend is especially pronounced in Britain, where the dramatic rise in inequality has been fuelled by the creation of a super-rich class. The share of the top 1% of income earners increased from 7.1% in 1970 to 14.3% in 2005.

The effect has been a dramatic weakening in the state's ability to spread wealth throughout society. From the mid-70s to mid-80s, the tax-benefit system offset more than 50% of the rise in income inequality. It now manages just 20%.


And also this week in an article inThe New Statesmen we are told:

There are many ways in which inequality can be felt and innumerable ways in which it can be measured. However, it is annual income that trumps all other measures,
Income inequality in the UK is higher than in any other European country, except occasionally one of the Baltic states (during a bad year for them). All other European Union countries enjoy greater income equality.
We live in times of peak inequality. It pervades almost every aspect of our lives in Britain in ways that we now accept as normal. Like goldfish in a bowl of dirty water we have adapted to think that our tank is normal. But it isn’t.
Among all European nations we have become the most inequitably rewarded – we are swimming in the dirtiest of fish tanks. The transition to this state of affairs came slowly. In the 1970s we were living in the second-cleanest large tank of all in Europe; only Sweden’s was cleaner. I say “clean” because as yet there is no evidence of any harm coming from high levels of equality – once a basic level of affluent subsistence has been achieved, there is no downside to being more economically equal.
After a time the statistics begin to turn you numb. You become used to bad news. Year after year the number of children waking up in shabby temporary accommodation rises. It now does so with each passing Christmas Day. A record 130,000 children were living in bed and breakfasts over Christmas 2017.
You become used to hearing that ever greater numbers have recourse to food banks (1.3 million parcels were given out in the year to April 2018), to such an extent that you almost forget that as recently as the 1990s there were no food banks in Britain. There was no need for them, before inequality reached its new peak – just as there was a time when the soup kitchens of the 1930s all disappeared once equality rose high enough. When the income share of the bottom 90 per cent is used as the comparator, today our levels of inequality are the same as in 1930. That is why the soup kitchens and feelings of hopelessness have returned.
****
How did we get here? What went wrong? Equality for the bottom 90 per cent peaked in 1978 when they took home 72.2 per cent of all the income there was to take that year. This high point had followed us reaching a slightly smaller (and almost always ignored) peak of 71.5 per cent in 1968. Between those two dates we stumbled along a ridge of high equality and we could have chosen to go even higher. In hindsight, it is far easier to see. At the time, no one in Britain had a clear idea of just what a momentous period the late 1960s and early 1970s were.

While the Establishment peddles a different story

Finally the Gini coefficient you are referring to I assume relates to the recent IFS report on the subject which states that inequality was at its lowest in the 1970s The figure shows that between 1961 and around 1980, inequality as measured by the Gini was roughly unchanged. It then sharply increased across the course of the 1980s and modestly increased between 1990 and the financial crisis. Since then, it has fallen back to and remained at around the level it was at in the early 1990s. Thus, inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient is essentially the same as it was 25 years ago – but still substantially higher than in the late 1970s.

 

[Machiavelli]

The best, and most accessible, book written on economics of late is Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, which analyses the evolution of inequality over more than two centuries. It's growing, and has been for the past four decades; it decreased substantially from about the start of WW1 until the 1970s/80s.

 

[Wardy's twin]

The Guardian in an article this week said and I paraphrase here when talking about inequality in Britan in 2018:

This trend is especially pronounced in Britain, where the dramatic rise in inequality has been fuelled by the creation of a super-rich class. The share of the top 1% of income earners increased from 7.1% in 1970 to 14.3% in 2005.

The effect has been a dramatic weakening in the state's ability to spread wealth throughout society. From the mid-70s to mid-80s, the tax-benefit system offset more than 50% of the rise in income inequality. It now manages just 20%.


And also this week in an article inThe New Statesmen we are told:

There are many ways in which inequality can be felt and innumerable ways in which it can be measured. However, it is annual income that trumps all other measures,
Income inequality in the UK is higher than in any other European country, except occasionally one of the Baltic states (during a bad year for them). All other European Union countries enjoy greater income equality.
We live in times of peak inequality. It pervades almost every aspect of our lives in Britain in ways that we now accept as normal. Like goldfish in a bowl of dirty water we have adapted to think that our tank is normal. But it isn’t.
Among all European nations we have become the most inequitably rewarded – we are swimming in the dirtiest of fish tanks. The transition to this state of affairs came slowly. In the 1970s we were living in the second-cleanest large tank of all in Europe; only Sweden’s was cleaner. I say “clean” because as yet there is no evidence of any harm coming from high levels of equality – once a basic level of affluent subsistence has been achieved, there is no downside to being more economically equal.
After a time the statistics begin to turn you numb. You become used to bad news. Year after year the number of children waking up in shabby temporary accommodation rises. It now does so with each passing Christmas Day. A record 130,000 children were living in bed and breakfasts over Christmas 2017.
You become used to hearing that ever greater numbers have recourse to food banks (1.3 million parcels were given out in the year to April 2018), to such an extent that you almost forget that as recently as the 1990s there were no food banks in Britain. There was no need for them, before inequality reached its new peak – just as there was a time when the soup kitchens of the 1930s all disappeared once equality rose high enough. When the income share of the bottom 90 per cent is used as the comparator, today our levels of inequality are the same as in 1930. That is why the soup kitchens and feelings of hopelessness have returned.
****
How did we get here? What went wrong? Equality for the bottom 90 per cent peaked in 1978 when they took home 72.2 per cent of all the income there was to take that year. This high point had followed us reaching a slightly smaller (and almost always ignored) peak of 71.5 per cent in 1968. Between those two dates we stumbled along a ridge of high equality and we could have chosen to go even higher. In hindsight, it is far easier to see. At the time, no one in Britain had a clear idea of just what a momentous period the late 1960s and early 1970s were.

While the Establishment peddles a different story

Finally the Gini coefficient you are referring to I assume relates to the recent IFS report on the subject which states that inequality was at its lowest in the 1970s The figure shows that between 1961 and around 1980, inequality as measured by the Gini was roughly unchanged. It then sharply increased across the course of the 1980s and modestly increased between 1990 and the financial crisis. Since then, it has fallen back to and remained at around the level it was at in the early 1990s. Thus, inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient is essentially the same as it was 25 years ago – but still substantially higher than in the late 1970s.

Someone from the 1960s looking at the conditions in the 2000's would be jealous of what we have and anyone saying it is worse now really must be missing something.

 

[larus]

The gap between the rich and poor has widened. People want to blame their own situation on others, hence immigration being such an issue, and Brexit would unlikely happen in the backdrop of a more stable period of the economy.

Why do you say too many people have a sense of entitlement? Seems a strange statement from someone annoyed by constant let/right arguments to state something that is in itself confrontational.

Not sure your synopsis of the NHS is what people are worried about either. More like a reactionary comment to a real minority of cases rather than an overall feeling of being seen in A&E within a reasonable period, and reduced waiting lists for routine treatments. Our spend of GDP on healthcare is below that of other countries in the G7 and the wider world, although it isn't an unhealthy figure either. Does't matter what the NHS was designed for originally, it is what we want for it in the future – why is universal healthcare something to shrink from rather than encourage and embrace?

I also think taxation could be more progressive than simply saying the top rate shouldn't be more than 40%. Our tax take from our GDP is low, some 34% in comparison to similar size economies. We could expect more with a fairer input into our state from our GDP.

Politics has to be about how you go about making all our lives better. There is a fundamental difference if you feel this is a reduction of and privatisation of the state, than if you believe in an accountable state delivering services and infrastructure.

Yes, the gap between rich and poor has widened as a result of globalisation. This reduces the ability of workers to benefit from the upturn in the economy, as cheaper workers can be brought into a country or the production can be outsourced to cheaper countries. That's why companies love globalisation (and I'm usually a Tory voter who believes in free markets, but I can see that things aren't fair with globalisation). Look across the western world now in countries where there is a low level of unemployment, wages aren't going up. Here, the US - it's the same story. In the past it was said that wages increase as labour becomes scarcer, but that's not happening now.

Er, there's no similarity to state an opinion on something like people having a sense of entitlement and being annoyed by left/right 'pretend' politics. Disagree with you on that.

The NHS has an annual budget. If a portion of that budget is spent caring for old people who cannot be looked after at home but not need hospital care then that impacts its ability to provide the front-line services which we all want it to do. It is accepted that bed blocking is a serious issue as the local councils can't fund the care and the relatives don't want to in many cases. Again, I'm not saying what should be done, I'm pointing out that the HNS has moved from what it was designed to be to what people now think they are entitled to.

Regarding tax take, penal tax rates don't work and have been proven continually not to work. The problem is not with how much you takes from a person earning £100k p.a., it's with how much we're not getting from the large corporations and elite (the billionaires etc.) If they were paying their 40% on personal and 20% on corporate profits, the revenue take would be much higher. The easy target is those on PAYE but that doesn't address the real issue.

Also, people need to take more responsibility for their own lives. Too many drink too much, smoke, don't exercise and eat too much shit, then expect the NHS to come along and 'make them well'. They get sorted out, then go back to the same lifestyle. People want to go to a doctor, get given a pill and made well again. Why should I pay lots more taxes because so many in society are lazy slobs who are ruining their own health? Fairness in society works in a variety of ways. I have no problem paying taxes, I have no problem with those in hardship being supported by the state, however, if people choose to not take responsibility for themselves, why should that impact me?

 

[Blue3]

Someone from the 1960s looking at the conditions in the 2000's would be jealous of what we have and anyone saying it is worse now really must be missing something.

From a materialistic point of view I would agree, if you have not already done so I recommend a short book written by "Harry Leslie Smith a survivor of the Great Depression, a World War Two RAF veteran and now, aged 92, he is a social activist for the poor and preservation of social democracy. His book "Don't let my past become your future"

 

[Bold Seagull]

Yes, the gap between rich and poor has widened as a result of globalisation. This reduces the ability of workers to benefit from the upturn in the economy, as cheaper workers can be brought into a country or the production can be outsourced to cheaper countries. That's why companies love globalisation (and I'm usually a Tory voter who believes in free markets, but I can see that things aren't fair with globalisation). Look across the western world now in countries where there is a low level of unemployment, wages aren't going up. Here, the US - it's the same story. In the past it was said that wages increase as labour becomes scarcer, but that's not happening now.

Er, there's no similarity to state an opinion on something like people having a sense of entitlement and being annoyed by left/right 'pretend' politics. Disagree with you on that.

The NHS has an annual budget. If a portion of that budget is spent caring for old people who cannot be looked after at home but not need hospital care then that impacts its ability to provide the front-line services which we all want it to do. It is accepted that bed blocking is a serious issue as the local councils can't fund the care and the relatives don't want to in many cases. Again, I'm not saying what should be done, I'm pointing out that the HNS has moved from what it was designed to be to what people now think they are entitled to.

Regarding tax take, penal tax rates don't work and have been proven continually not to work. The problem is not with how much you takes from a person earning £100k p.a., it's with how much we're not getting from the large corporations and elite (the billionaires etc.) If they were paying their 40% on personal and 20% on corporate profits, the revenue take would be much higher. The easy target is those on PAYE but that doesn't address the real issue.

Also, people need to take more responsibility for their own lives. Too many drink too much, smoke, don't exercise and eat too much shit, then expect the NHS to come along and 'make them well'. They get sorted out, then go back to the same lifestyle. People want to go to a doctor, get given a pill and made well again. Why should I pay lots more taxes because so many in society are lazy slobs who are ruining their own health? Fairness in society works in a variety of ways. I have no problem paying taxes, I have no problem with those in hardship being supported by the state, however, if people choose to not take responsibility for themselves, why should that impact me?

Didn’t I say progressive taxation and consideration of the whole tax take? Not sure what you’ve picked up on there. Why are people ruining their health lazy slobs - plenty of hardworking far from lazy successful people ruining their health too. The biggest issue with you last statement is perpetuating poverty. Unfortunate those people may have children and it’s not their fault who they are born too - how do they escape the cycle in order to contribute to wider society unless they are helped? Having bad parents shouldn’t determine you’re own future. One generations lazy slobs could produce the next generations entrepreneurs and customers. How can you say that doesn’t impact you if generation after generation remains a burden or poor contributor to the state?

 

[larus]

Didn’t I say progressive taxation and consideration of the whole tax take? Not sure what you’ve picked up on there. Why are people ruining their health lazy slobs - plenty of hardworking far from lazy successful people ruining their health too. The biggest issue with you last statement is perpetuating poverty. Unfortunate those people may have children and it’s not their fault who they are born too - how do they escape the cycle in order to contribute to wider society unless they are helped? Having bad parents shouldn’t determine you’re own future. One generations lazy slobs could produce the next generations entrepreneurs and customers. How can you say that doesn’t impact you if generation after generation remains a burden or poor contributor to the state?

Why have you assumed lazy was meant about work ethic? I mean lazy as in exercise. Don’t want to get their fat lard asses out from the sofa and that all important reality TV. Yes, lots of successful people are lazy too and (proportionally) will end up with health issues than those who look after themself.

There is no excuse for a bad diet really. Fresh fruit, veg, salad are not expensive and there are cheaper meats for those who can’t afford free-range/organic. Yes, they won’t be as healthy, but still healthier than the garbage you’ll be getting from fast-food.

Anyway, we’ve digressed. Tony Bliar is still a c***.

 

[Triggaaar]

Whatever you think of the man personally

C*nt.

Blair was a proper leader and the Labour Party were electable under his tenure.

Well they were elected, so yeah, they were electable.

He made some stupid comment about Labour not being retrievable though - what nonsense. He took them to the right, and that didn't stop another leader coming along and taking them to the left. And likewise, they could be taken to the right again.

 

[Wardy's twin]

C*nt.
Well they were elected, so yeah, they were electable.

He made some stupid comment about Labour not being retrievable though - what nonsense. He took them to the right, and that didn't stop another leader coming along and taking them to the left. And likewise, they could be taken to the right again.

Your right nothing is impossible but we had many years of Tory misrule because of the positioning of the party in the 70s and 80s and we will have the same with an unelectable Corbyn. All Blair is doing is trying to defend the party he rebuilt and the people who are now much derided - the blairites or as the new left would call them closet Tories...

 

[larus]

Your right nothing is impossible but we had many years of Tory misrule because of the positioning of the party in the 70s and 80s and we will have the same with an unelectable Corbyn. All Blair is doing is trying to defend the party he rebuilt and the people who are now much derided - the blairites or as the new left would call them closet Tories...

It's all about opinions. The word 'misrule' is very subjective. Thatcher was a strong leader which the country needed then. The unions were ruining us (the sick man of Europe, decimating the industries for strikes over sometimes petty things). And yes, some of the management at that time in companies left a lot to be desired. Thatcher made mistakes (the poll tax), but rates/council tax are not exactly popular, but then again, taxation rarely is.

Since Thatcher, we've had a procession of crap PMs. Major, Bliar, Brown, Cameron and now May.

Another thing that left-wing voters don't want to accept is the country has not voted for a true left-wing party since 1974. Bliar was business supporting and never repealed any (that i can think of) Thatcher policies in relation to trade unions. So, we now have Labour drifting further to the left, and IMO, they stand no chance of being elected. Even with TM and the complete clusterfvck of Brexit they are still roughly level pegging. Labour should be streets ahead but they're not. They're going to drift back to a protest party unless something dramatic changes, which, with the revised voting structure within the party, I can't see happening.

This is bad news for the country.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Why have you assumed lazy was meant about work ethic? I mean lazy as in exercise. Don’t want to get their fat lard asses out from the sofa and that all important reality TV. Yes, lots of successful people are lazy too and (proportionally) will end up with health issues than those who look after themself.

There is no excuse for a bad diet really. Fresh fruit, veg, salad are not expensive and there are cheaper meats for those who can’t afford free-range/organic. Yes, they won’t be as healthy, but still healthier than the garbage you’ll be getting from fast-food.

Anyway, we’ve digressed. Tony Bliar is still a c***.

Does a healthy lifestyle mean a longer life expectancy which means more of a drain on the country’s finances? Maybe you’d be better off with people dying well before their pensionable age? What is sure is we’d all certainly benefit from the middle-classes droning on about their healthy organic lifestyle. Fags and booze for all! In fact I’m going to go on the vaping thread and tell them to stop being soft and have a proper cig.

 

[larus]

Does a healthy lifestyle mean a longer life expectancy which means more of a drain on the country’s finances? Maybe you’d be better off with people dying well before their pensionable age? What is sure is we’d all certainly benefit from the middle-classes droning on about their healthy organic lifestyle. Fags and booze for all! In fact I’m going to go on the vaping thread and tell them to stop being soft and have a proper cig.

It's not the age of people, it's the health of people - the level of obesity and the associated problems with that. I presume then that you think fat, unfit, unhealthy people will be less of a drain on country than those who lead healthy, active lives. I'm sure you realise that but confrontations seem to be your favourite style.

 

[drew]

What? Have I got this wrong? I looked it up and I am not wrong.

So I assume you think I'm an idiot for objecting to it.

Why?

A flat rate of tax means:

1.The more you earn the more you pay, in exact proportion to what you earn
2. There is no disincentive to earn more
3. If there can be no loopholes (and why not?), everyone must pay it
4. It is inexpensive to opperate

Today the rich pay little or no tax. This is because progressive taxation is inherently unfair so all governments, including lefty ones, allow schemes that let people minimise tax by charity donation, certain types of investments and various other complex weirdness in the business and investment sector. Progressive taxation therefore allows the rich to avoid paying tax

Progressive taxation must also be monitored, checked and managed. Governments invest far too little into this which is why so many people dodge tax. On the other hand we have a massive tax law industry, whereby people are paid to 'do' peoples' tax returns.

This is all feeble needless bollocks. A flat rate of tax with no exceptions would be an absolute wonder in my view, and arguments about fairness are false.

Let me say it again. Ten percent of ten is one. Ten percent of a hundred is ten. The more you earn, the more you pay. Twenty percent of a hundred is twenty, twice as much in percentage terms than ten percent. But ten is more than one. To argue as my brother does that ten per cent of 100 is not more than ten percent of 10 and is therefore 'unfair'and not 'progressive' is absurd. Whenever was ten not more than one? Whenever was penalising people for earning more 'fair'.

'Progressive' taxation, I suspect, is one of those deliberately counterintuitive jargon terms so beloved of political twisters. Ministry of truth. Orwellian.

Apologies. I am refering to your second example, ie the more you earn the higher the 'rate' of tax you pay. So in this country we have a tax free allowance, a base rate then the another rate and finally a rate for those over £150k. If we had a better tax collection regime then maybe there would be more money to spend on public services and bring them up to scratch.

 

[Hampster Gull]

The Guardian in an article this week said and I paraphrase here when talking about inequality in Britan in 2018:

This trend is especially pronounced in Britain, where the dramatic rise in inequality has been fuelled by the creation of a super-rich class. The share of the top 1% of income earners increased from 7.1% in 1970 to 14.3% in 2005.

The effect has been a dramatic weakening in the state's ability to spread wealth throughout society. From the mid-70s to mid-80s, the tax-benefit system offset more than 50% of the rise in income inequality. It now manages just 20%.


And also this week in an article inThe New Statesmen we are told:

There are many ways in which inequality can be felt and innumerable ways in which it can be measured. However, it is annual income that trumps all other measures,
Income inequality in the UK is higher than in any other European country, except occasionally one of the Baltic states (during a bad year for them). All other European Union countries enjoy greater income equality.
We live in times of peak inequality. It pervades almost every aspect of our lives in Britain in ways that we now accept as normal. Like goldfish in a bowl of dirty water we have adapted to think that our tank is normal. But it isn’t.
Among all European nations we have become the most inequitably rewarded – we are swimming in the dirtiest of fish tanks. The transition to this state of affairs came slowly. In the 1970s we were living in the second-cleanest large tank of all in Europe; only Sweden’s was cleaner. I say “clean” because as yet there is no evidence of any harm coming from high levels of equality – once a basic level of affluent subsistence has been achieved, there is no downside to being more economically equal.
After a time the statistics begin to turn you numb. You become used to bad news. Year after year the number of children waking up in shabby temporary accommodation rises. It now does so with each passing Christmas Day. A record 130,000 children were living in bed and breakfasts over Christmas 2017.
You become used to hearing that ever greater numbers have recourse to food banks (1.3 million parcels were given out in the year to April 2018), to such an extent that you almost forget that as recently as the 1990s there were no food banks in Britain. There was no need for them, before inequality reached its new peak – just as there was a time when the soup kitchens of the 1930s all disappeared once equality rose high enough. When the income share of the bottom 90 per cent is used as the comparator, today our levels of inequality are the same as in 1930. That is why the soup kitchens and feelings of hopelessness have returned.
****
How did we get here? What went wrong? Equality for the bottom 90 per cent peaked in 1978 when they took home 72.2 per cent of all the income there was to take that year. This high point had followed us reaching a slightly smaller (and almost always ignored) peak of 71.5 per cent in 1968. Between those two dates we stumbled along a ridge of high equality and we could have chosen to go even higher. In hindsight, it is far easier to see. At the time, no one in Britain had a clear idea of just what a momentous period the late 1960s and early 1970s were.

While the Establishment peddles a different story

Finally the Gini coefficient you are referring to I assume relates to the recent IFS report on the subject which states that inequality was at its lowest in the 1970s The figure shows that between 1961 and around 1980, inequality as measured by the Gini was roughly unchanged. It then sharply increased across the course of the 1980s and modestly increased between 1990 and the financial crisis. Since then, it has fallen back to and remained at around the level it was at in the early 1990s. Thus, inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient is essentially the same as it was 25 years ago – but still substantially higher than in the late 1970s.

New Statesman, Guardian, peddling their line, as do others. On Gini, exactly, inequality is broadly the same now as it was 3 decades ago. It isn’t 100% worse. Fro some individuals it might of course, but we are looking at society as a whole. We are far better off now as a society than we in the 1970s whenthere was less inequality.

 

[Blue3]

New Statesman, Guardian, peddling their line, as do others. On Gini, exactly, inequality is broadly the same now as it was 3 decades ago. It isn’t 100% worse. Fro some individuals it might of course, but we are looking at society as a whole. We are far better off now as a society than we in the 1970s whenthere was less inequality.

That's the ting with inequality it's very much unequal

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

It's not the age of people, it's the health of people - the level of obesity and the associated problems with that. I presume then that you think fat, unfit, unhealthy people will be less of a drain on country than those who lead healthy, active lives. I'm sure you realise that but confrontations seem to be your favourite style.

I was just raising the point about longer lives costing the state more money than shorter ones. This was a big discussion around the time of the fatty foods tax proposal. Some people, backed by research, did believe healthy longer living people cost the state more than unhealthy shorter lives. There was nothing confrontational about my post, unlike the last sentence of yours.

 

[Hampster Gull]

That's the ting with inequality it's very much unequal

Indeed, which is why the Gini coefficient and the signs are we are not more inequal (100%) as you claim. Anyway the poorest now are far better off than the poorest during the 1970s, thankfully

 

[Triggaaar]

but we had many years of Tory misrule because of the positioning of the party in the 70s and 80s and we will have the same with an unelectable Corbyn.

I know.

All Blair is doing is trying to defend the party he rebuilt and the people who are now much derided - the blairites or as the new left would call them closet Tories...

Sure, but he's incorrect to pretend that the party can't come back to the right. And yes, he's presumably just saying it to be dramatic, but it seems a bit silly to me to say something so obviously incorrect. Why not just be honest and say as you have, that the current leadership can't prevent Tory misrule, and we need a viable alternative?

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Apologies. I am refering to your second example, ie the more you earn the higher the 'rate' of tax you pay. So in this country we have a tax free allowance, a base rate then the another rate and finally a rate for those over £150k. If we had a better tax collection regime then maybe there would be more money to spend on public services and bring them up to scratch.

Cheers matey

Agree.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I know.
Sure, but he's incorrect to pretend that the party can't come back to the right. And yes, he's presumably just saying it to be dramatic, but it seems a bit silly to me to say something so obviously incorrect. Why not just be honest and say as you have, that the current leadership can't prevent Tory misrule, and we need a viable alternative?