Too Socialist or too Centre Left?

[Buzzer]

Pretty well IMO - significant increases in the well being of ordinary people and sufficient solidarity to have survived an attempted fascist coup by the usual suspects.

Hahaha! Economy in terminal decline, daily queues for food so bad that standing in line is now a full-time job, rampant inflation, patronage by the ruling socialist party that would make Mugabe blush, crack downs on legitimate demonstrations, manipulation of the voting system to ensure that the ruling elite remains in power, opposition leaders jailed.. Oh yeah. Things are great.

You know things are bad when the Brazilian government start lecturing you on following due process of democracy....by actually having elections.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/05/08/uk-venezuela-brazil-idUKKBN0NT01Y20150508

Now, what possible reason could the socialist government have for not wanting an election if things are going 'pretty well'?

 

[Hampster Gull]

Yeah, but there is nothing like a bit of spin, the same spin that the voter did not vote for.

Yep, and the labour party made spin an artform during their last spell in power. At one point weren't they rehashing spedning plans and saying it was new investment.

 

[Higham Seagull Army]

Labour will never win back the Scottish vote en masse now the SNP have a stranglehold , that's 40-50 safe seats lost.
Even a "nice" centre left good communicator who could turn swing voters won't ever turn that around now.
As for a change in UK parliamentary procedures ( PR et al ) .

Turkeys don't vote for Christmas .

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

I think Labour lost because of the Blair/Brown legacy, a perceived London Centric leader, the fall out from the Scottish Referendum, losing more voted to UKIP than they gained from the LD ex voters and a lack of clear idea on the economy. In general you need to win the centre ground but you can compensate for being too right wing e.g. by being popular regardless. An example, albeit from the other wing, is Boris Johnson comfortably winning the Mayor gig twice in a comparatively left leaning London.

This is not strictly true as Boris Johnson got in by successfully targeting and canvassing the outer areas which are typically Tory. He nicknamed Livingstone as Zone 1 Ken suggesting he didn't care about the outer-London.

 

[Dandyman]

Hahaha! Economy in terminal decline, daily queues for food so bad that standing in line is now a full-time job, rampant inflation, patronage by the ruling socialist party that would make Mugabe blush, crack downs on legitimate demonstrations, manipulation of the voting system to ensure that the ruling elite remains in power, opposition leaders jailed.. Oh yeah. Things are great.

You know things are bad when the Brazilian government start lecturing you on following due process of democracy....by actually having elections.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/05/08/uk-venezuela-brazil-idUKKBN0NT01Y20150508

Now, what possible reason could the socialist government have for not wanting an election if things are going 'pretty well'?

According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean from 1999 to 2012 Venezuela reduced poverty from 49.4% to 25.6%, the state also provided health clinics and housing subsidies and significantly improved the well being of ordinary citizens. I am not pretending they don't have problems but as always international capitalism does not hate Venezuela because of it's failings but because of it's successes.

 

[seagullsovergrimsby]

Bit late. I think they may find that ship sailed between 7am and 10pm on Thursday last.

This lot look like they're extreme left wing looneys who believe Labour is too cosy with the Tories.

 

[jimbob5]

This is not strictly true as Boris Johnson got in by successfully targeting and canvassing the outer areas which are typically Tory. He nicknamed Livingstone as Zone 1 Ken suggesting he didn't care about the outer-London.

I was only using him as an example on the 'too far right', 'too far left' principle.

 

[Hampster Gull]

The responses on this thread are so diverse..For all the lefties on here i can only hope that your party spends lots of time on thinking about which direction it eants to goon before it sppoints a new leader. If not yo will flounder

 

[Blue3]

Far more left but I know my views are a minority

 

[BLOCK F]

Tolerance and compassion doesn't have to be universal - some things for some people will be intolerable. So, just to see how tolerant and compassionate you are, how tolerant and compassionate are about the following?
* IS
* Fox hunting
* UKIP
* The BNP
* The Nazis
* Travellers
* Ed Milliband
* The Labour Party
* Homophobes.

Well, anything there that strikes an intolerant and uncompassionate nerve?

Yes, IS and Nazis; both of which,I can say I am intolerant and not compassionate about.Rather like themselves,I would suggest.
The rest, I can tolerate ,without necessarily agreeing with their views, especially in the case of BNP and homophobes.
The original post was about always despising the Tories.Rather an intolerant view,I would say.I certainly don't despise Ed Miliband and the Labour Party.
OK? or are you comparing the Tory Party to IS and the Nazis?

 

[Brighton Mod]

O would say that Labour were irrelevant to many of the population:

1. Too much focus n zero hours contracts, most probably didn't know what they were talking about, whilst many were completely unaffected by them.
2. Continually telling us how the NHS is, when in truth we all know that it is a fantastic facility which although has its failings is outstanding on the world stage.
3. Immigration, i'm not sure what they were saying about this
4. Denial of any responsibility for the debt crisis two days before the vote was just wrong
5. No plausible plan for dealing with the debt, saying your going t clear it without cuts or tax increases is just insane.
6. Ed Balls
7. Telling us how bad things are, when quite clearly they are not as bad as was being made out.
8. Denying tat they would rely on the SNP when it would have been a necessity t govern had they win more seats
9. The public bloodletting on the leadership election, beating your own brother and being sponsored by the unions, this was not forgotten by the electorate
10. A poor team around the leader

It had nothing to do with being left or centre, the got it wrong on many levels

 

[London Irish]

Very good article by straight-talking Tory Peter Oborne about how a return to Blairism/New Labour would be a disaster for Labour. In a nutshell, it argues that this political space no longer exists, another centre ground middleman would attract no support.

The key bit of the article is this:

"Apart from the Iraq war, Blair and his New Labour successor presided over the banking collapse, economic recession, failure to reform welfare or taxation, horror stories in the NHS, and billions wasted on ill-judged initiatives, especially in IT. Worse still, New Labour never accepted responsibility for error and failure. This quality, allied to their indifference to truth, led to a general collapse of trust in our public life.

This is why today’s calls for a return to the so called centre-ground policies of the Blairs are certain to fail. No one, except for a small coterie of politicians and their influential and well-placed media supporters, regards the Blair era as a Golden Age in British life. Even if it were, Labour has no way of getting back there. The conditions which allowed Tony Blair his success have disappeared."

http://www.politico.eu/article/labour-recovery-uk-election-blair/

Obviously, as it's a Tory I don't agree with all his points but I think on Blair he is spot on

 

[Hampster Gull]

I

O would say that Labour were irrelevant to many of the population:

1. Too much focus n zero hours contracts, most probably didn't know what they were talking about, whilst many were completely unaffected by them.
2. Continually telling us how the NHS is, when in truth we all know that it is a fantastic facility which although has its failings is outstanding on the world stage.
3. Immigration, i'm not sure what they were saying about this
4. Denial of any responsibility for the debt crisis two days before the vote was just wrong
5. No plausible plan for dealing with the debt, saying your going t clear it without cuts or tax increases is just insane.
6. Ed Balls
7. Telling us how bad things are, when quite clearly they are not as bad as was being made out.
8. Denying tat they would rely on the SNP when it would have been a necessity t govern had they win more seats
9. The public bloodletting on the leadership election, beating your own brother and being sponsored by the unions, this was not forgotten by the electorate
10. A poor team around the leader

It had nothing to do with being left or centre, the got it wrong on many levels

Good post.cfromyour lost i would say 7 was perhaps the most damaging. Yo can kid some of the people...

 

[Hampster Gull]

Very good article by straight-talking Tory Peter Oborne about how a return to Blairism/New Labour would be a disaster for Labour. In a nutshell, it argues that this political space no longer exists, another centre ground middleman would attract no support.

The key bit of the article is this:

"Apart from the Iraq war, Blair and his New Labour successor presided over the banking collapse, economic recession, failure to reform welfare or taxation, horror stories in the NHS, and billions wasted on ill-judged initiatives, especially in IT. Worse still, New Labour never accepted responsibility for error and failure. This quality, allied to their indifference to truth, led to a general collapse of trust in our public life.

This is why today’s calls for a return to the so called centre-ground policies of the Blairs are certain to fail. No one, except for a small coterie of politicians and their influential and well-placed media supporters, regards the Blair era as a Golden Age in British life. Even if it were, Labour has no way of getting back there. The conditions which allowed Tony Blair his success have disappeared."

http://www.politico.eu/article/labour-recovery-uk-election-blair/

Obviously, as it's a Tory I don't agree with all his points but I think on Blair he is spot on

They need to move back to centre left politics to have credibility, to believe wealth creation not punative taxation is good for public services, that public services should be run for the users not for the providers, that policy should be based on what is sensible not ideology and that class warfare is a thing of the past.

 

[London Irish]

They need to move back to centre left politics to have credibility, to believe wealth creation not punative taxation is good for public services, that public services should be run for the users not for the providers, that policy should be based on what is sensible not ideology and that class warfare is a thing of the past.

You already have a number of parties who spout that kind of stuff. Why do you want to live in a one-party state and have every choice on the ballot that guff?

 

[London Irish]

They need to move back to centre left politics to have credibility, to believe wealth creation not punative taxation is good for public services, that public services should be run for the users not for the providers, that policy should be based on what is sensible not ideology and that class warfare is a thing of the past.

And let's take a second to decode what that means:

1) to believe wealth creation not punative taxation is good for public services = let companies and non-doms carry on tax dodging even more than the last few years

2) that public services should be run for the users not for the providers = crush the unions and forget about ever having a pay rise again

3) that policy should be based on what is sensible not ideology = that policy should be based on what Murdoch and the Telegraph put on their front pages

4) that class warfare is a thing of the pass = anyone who fights back against the Bullingdon Boys' class war against the working poor will be villified

I think that about covers it

 

[Hampster Gull]

And let's take a second to decode what that means:

1) to believe wealth creation not punative taxation is good for public services = let companies and non-doms carry on tax dodging even more than the last few years

2) that public services should be run for the users not for the providers = crush the unions and forget about ever having a pay rise again

3) that policy should be based on what is sensible not ideology = that policy should be based on what Murdoch and the Telegraph put on their front pages

4) that class warfare is a thing of the pass = anyone who fights back against the Bullingdon Boys' class war against the working poor will be villified

I think that about covers it

Sure, that is an interpretation, a very negative one in my view . The points i listed were a core part of Labours policy when it had 13 years in power. But this divergence in views is what Labour needs to solve on their long journey to becoming more relevant to the UK population. Assuming they want something different, more left, more socialist, is likely tomake the journey longer

 

[Hampster Gull]

You already have a number of parties who spout that kind of stuff. Why do you want to live in a one-party state and have every choice on the ballot that guff?

Because there are flavours around that mindset that take the country down different paths but towards a more prosperous end point and one based on aspiration

 

[London Irish]

The points i listed were a core part of Labours policy when it had 13 years in power

Indeed they were, and that's why everyone hates Blair?

 

[Trevor]

Yes, agree with a few of the other posters about the problems not solely being about political positioning

1) There was the Red Ed talk from the Tory press - I don't think this was particularly supported by evidence

2) Ed Miliband is a bit weird

3) The tablet of stone was madness

4) They didn't drive the agenda enough - not enough obvious reasons to vote for them


There is a proper debate needed now about where the Labour Party should be. They have lost a beauty contest just to the right of centre. If they are going to be there, then they need to be more credible than the alternative.