New Labour Leader???

[cochcaer]

Thirteen years they've had to fix things Section, thirteen years. Yet still parts of this country represent Beirut circa 1982. How long do they need?

 

The biggest joke is that people in these areas still vote Labour! It's tragic. Not only is it financial poverty, it's poverty of ambition.

 

Apart from you does anybody else think the coalition wont let them down too? It's fuck all to do with ambition or benefits but decent white collar employment to assist people in bettering it for them and their family.

[L19red]

If you could, yes. I'd like to know why returning to 2006 levels of spending would be disastrous for the country.

 

It was a tangential point. Public spending in absolute terms will increase over the term of this government, although in terms of percentage of GDP, it will fall to 2006 levels. Is that "savage cuts" or is it just common sense?

 

Providing the government can get all their suppliers to cut their rates to 2006 levels and all their staff to accept a freeze in salary for 9 years then it shouldn't be a problem. In reality those things aren't going to happen so if we assume current inflation rates then keeping the same spending levels from 2006 to 2015 means a 30% reduction.

[Strontium]

Far from wishful thinking - Cameron clearly laid out the scale of the cuts - 30% and upwards in many departments. Abolition of the Audit Commission is forecast to save £50M per year, not a 'quarter of a billion' - BBC News - Eric Pickles announces plans to scrap Audit Commission your grasp of the figures is clearly very poor.

 

 

£50m a year is the cost to central government, £200m to local government. It's all our money regardless of which pot it comes out of. Approximate figures, but it was just a handy example.

 

Of course the work of the Audit Commission (set up by the Tories and one of the main tools in bringing in managerialism to the detriment of public services) will simply be passed to private accountancy firms.

 

 

Good, competition will bring the costs down.

 

The cuts have involved stopping building social housing and new schools - to you these may be 'the sort of things that serve no purpose' but to most people these aren't, even your own party in case you need reminding. Senior Liberal Democrat councillor rages at Clegg over schools | Politics | guardian.co.uk

 

 

I don't have a particularly high opinion of Warren Bradley, and his recent Chicken Licken act hasn't changed that.

 

Your response betrays your lack of knowledge on the subject and suggests the point about knowing tories and lib dems who had a vote in the Labour leadership election is invented. You have to actively opt in to a political fund when you join a union by ticking a box on the application.

 

 

I must have been reading the wrong union literature:

 

Unite

 

New members will receive an opt-out form in their new joiners pack to allow them not to contribute.

 

This looks like an "opt out" to me rather than an opt in.

 

I looked on the GMB website, but couldn't find any way of opting out. The political fund is mentioned here, but nothing about opting out of it. Are people aware they even have the choice?

 

Can't find anything on the UCATT website about how to opt out either, although their Gen Sec is moaning about having to ballot members every 10 years about the political fund:

 

I am still deeply concerned that the Labour Government has yet to abolish the punitive legislation that requires a ballot of this kind. Trade Unions such as UCATT are the most democratic organisations in the UK yet we have to undergo an unnecessary lengthy and expensive ballot despite the fact that all our members have the democratic right to opt out of the political levy.

 

But at least it confirms that UCATT operates an "opt out" system on the political levy.

 

It's all a bit murky. Only about 1% of people actually opt out, I wonder how many of that 99% would actively opt in if the government changed the law?

[Strontium]

That surely has to be a joke? Labour invested massively in schools - both the schools my kids go to have dramatically improved (so much so that loads of kids that used to go private now use the local state school) The Tories didn't build a single school in 18 years - my school in the 1980s resembled a third world building site with portacabins and leaking roofs.

 

Yet more bullshit.

 

 

How is it bullshit? Nice new buildings, I'm sure Labour's pals in UCATT did very well out of it, and the PFI bill will be astronomical, but where are the results? Almost a fifth of people in this country live in households where nobody works. Oh, but at least we're turning out drama graduates by the cuntload. That's the fucking bullshit right there.

 

I wasn't in beruit in 1982 but if it was anything like it was in the mid seventies before Francis Meloy was murdered then I can confidently assure you you it was absolutely nothing like any part of this country I've ever seen. As a matter of interest how much time have you spent in Lebanon?

 

 

Yes, it was hyperbole, well done, have a red and gold star. The point is that despite a decade and a half of throwing money at the problems, the problems remain in many, many areas.

[Section_31]

How is it bullshit? Nice new buildings, I'm sure Labour's pals in UCATT did very well out of it, and the PFI bill will be astronomical, but where are the results? Almost a fifth of people in this country live in households where nobody works. Oh, but at least we're turning out drama graduates by the cuntload. That's the fucking bullshit right there.

 

 

I agree in part, but I think that was because New Labour were dealing with - and continuing to embrace - the fallout of Thatcher's legacy. The Tories in the 80s quite simply set out to destroy mass labour as a means of employment, so you were left with a generation of people, many of whom who were not suited to further education, but who quite simply had nothing else to do.

 

It was either case of keep them in a holding patern until - the cynics might say - they were old enough to no longer be a threat (what's the average criminal age? 18-24?) and get them into debt so they'd be ensnared in shit jobsville, or let them fester on street corners.

 

The difference between Labour and the Tories is that Labour saw the damage being done to these young people's lives but at least tried to apply the sticking plaster of expanding college and university education, the Tories - IMO - won't. They'll be left to flounder, and then they'll be blamed for being the architects of their own failiure, and for not having the get up and go of some Tory peer's dad.

[JER]

I would suggest that after five years of George Osborne's magical no growth economics more than a fifth of the population will live in houses where nobody works. All the austerity worked so well for Ireland (who were being praised by the IMF this time last year for their cutting program)

 

New opinion polls out

 

Latest YouGov/*** voting intention CON 39%, LAB 40%, LDEM 12%.

 

Latest government approval - minus 5 (Approve 38%, Disapprove 43%)

 

And yet the press are trying to claim we're all in love with the coalition? Apparently Labour are finished (as soon as the Libs can make up the 28 point difference I guess.)

[L19red]

Yes, it was hyperbole, well done, have a red and gold star. The point is that despite a decade and a half of throwing money at the problems, the problems remain in many, many areas.

 

you just cant help it can you? In one scentence you admit exagerating to make a point and in the next scentence you exagerate to make a point.

Life in Britain today isn't perfect but its a damn sight better than it was 15 or 20 years ago.

[hamstrung]

My cousin was over at the weekend and had cause to go to A&E (in the hospital built about 10 years ago).

 

She was waiting a grand total of 30 minutes.

 

I remember the times when you hadn't a hope of getting out of casualty within 4 hours.

 

Only a matter of time.

[Guest Pistonbroke]

SD should be banned from this thread the tory wannabe Bastard.

[Stu Monty]

Yes, I did do a natural science, which is why I came out of university knowing precious little about economics and (ironically) articulating many of the positions you yourself currently take, and finding myself regularly smacked down by people who knew what they were talking about.

 

Even as recently as last year, I was making the same point that you've just made. The Lib Youth forum is temporarily down at the moment, but my thread entitled "the myth of private sector efficiency" is still in Google's cache. Pages one, two and three here.

 

I post that thread to demonstrate that I actually have thought about the subject, that I've asked questions about it, and that I've come to the conclusion that my initial belief was wrong. I really resent the idea that I haven't thought these things through, that I just accept them as received wisdom.

 

 

I don't agree that you can take Halliburton in Iraq and use that to generalise about every private sector provider, sorry.

 

And yet you'll hit me with a charge of ignorance? Neither of us is an economist but we're both bright enough to read economic theory and make a judgement on it, shall we avoid falling into the lazy trap of that form of debate in future, eh? Even your response here leads with an opening blow of "People who know what they are talking about".

 

I think Halliburton is a very good example of what the private sector will do in the public sphere if given the slightest opportunity and it can be seen in many other sectors too. Blackwater's private provision of military services/training on US soil (not in a warzone) is another good example of a big political backer not providing value to the public. There are plenty of examples of this loot and plunder of the public purse from prisons to the military to infrastructure construction. Competition providing better service is a nice idea in a text book but it doesn't pan out like that in real life.

 

As an aside, I know it can't be easy posting reasonably when it seems, at times, to be a wall of anti-SD sentiment, but I think it pushes the lengths you're willing to go to form a defence of something and is giving you a little of a bunker mentality. Life in partnership with the tories would be expected to be one where you're forced to concede more points about governing, not less.

[Guest Pistonbroke]

My cousin was over at the weekend and had cause to go to A&E (in the hospital built about 10 years ago).

 

She was waiting a grand total of 30 minutes.

 

I remember the times when you hadn't a hope of getting out of casualty within 4 hours.

 

Only a matter of time.

 

A good friend of mine moved back to the Uk last year and left Germany with an ongoing heart problem. Within the time scale of a few months he had seen all the necessary specialists and had his bypass. Pretty impressive considering the state of the national health whilst the Tories were last in power. As you have said though, it will soon be back to the good old days apart from the private health sector.

[Cardie]

I almost hope that labour don't get the seats needed outright next election and clegg (assuming he and his party haven't gone full time Tory by then) is told to do one when he goes begging to labour. Either that or thy take him in an give him even less than he got from this deal.

[Major Tom]

Oh? But Red Mist's assessment of Labour's election chances under Ed Miliband seems to be indicative of the general Labour Party feeling too. YouGov polling of Labour members for the Sunday Times two weeks ago showed that:

 

• 44% think David Miliband "would be most effective, as leader of the opposition, at holding the present government to account" versus 21% for Ed Miliband
  
• 55% think David M "Is most likely to lead Labour to victory at the next General Election", versus 25% for Ed M
  
• 45% think David "Would make the best Prime Minister" versus 28% for Ed.
  

 

Given that Labour members believe David to be twice the leader his brother is, it's somewhat odd that they plumped for Ed (well, they didn't, the unions did, but you know what I mean). It does seem that they have deliberately chosen to lose the next general election, for reasons I can only guess at.

 

Why, as a Tory, do you care that David Miliband isn't the Labour leader?

[Cardie]

 

Why, as a Tory, do you care that David Miliband isn't the Labour leader?

 

Because in 5 years he might have to go grovelling to labour and pretend their policies were right afterall.

 

The lib dems have consigned themselves to becoming the parasitic party living off others to survive

[Strontium]

I think Halliburton is a very good example of what the private sector will do in the public sphere if given the slightest opportunity...

 

 

Well of course you do, because what you've picked is a horribly extreme example of corruption that is completely atypical.

 

Why, as a Tory, do you care that David Miliband isn't the Labour leader?

 

 

I'm not a Tory you whopper, and I don't care who the Labour leader is, but am I not entitled to make observations?

[Major Tom]

I'm not a Tory you whopper, and I don't care who the Labour leader is, but am I not entitled to make observations?

 

How the fuck do I know what you are? You clearly aren't Labour and you're prancing about on this thread like a fucking Tory.

 

As an aside and as a Liberal, what do you make of the coalition? Maybe for another thread of course.

[Creator Supreme]

Thank goodness this undemocratic farce will be over soon.

 

Quote of the campaign: "Ralph Miliband always said that the Labour Party would betray the working class - so he produced two sons to prove it" :D

 

Cunt of the Campaign: Strontium Dog - By a Fucking Landslide!

[TheBitch]

That surely has to be a joke? Labour invested massively in schools - both the schools my kids go to have dramatically improved (so much so that loads of kids that used to go private now use the local state school) The Tories didn't build a single school in 18 years - my school in the 1980s resembled a third world building site with portacabins and leaking roofs.

 

Yet more bullshit.

 

For the 18 years that lot were in charge, they never fixed the leaking roofs while the sun shone

.

[vanishingpoint]

The people of the country would prefer the Tory policy of cutting services and jobs as opposed to raising tax.

 

Yeah well, not entirely sure that's going to play too well.

Edited September 28, 2010 by vanishingpoint

[Liverpool lad]

Miliband looks too much like Aquilani for my liking

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

Kings of fucking Leon? Pur-lease!

[lifetime fan]

Because in 5 years he might have to go grovelling to labour and pretend their policies were right afterall.

 

The lib dems have consigned themselves to becoming the parasitic party living off others to survive

 

Chris Huhne

 

"I think Ed has a lot to offer. He's not the instinctive kind of tribal politician who will try and pull up the drawbridge - and thats a good thing.

 

My experience of Ed is that we share a lot in common, specially on the green agenda.

 

Three party politics is here to stay. Sometimes that will be the Liberal Democrats with the Conservatives. Sometimes it will be the Liberal Democrats with Labour"

 

 

 

Whoring themselves around already.

[Major Tom]

Chris Huhne

 

Three party politics is here to stay. Sometimes that will be the Liberal Democrats with the Conservatives. Sometimes it will be the Liberal Democrats with Labour"

 

 

Three-party politics was consigned to the toilet the minute Clegg whored himself and his party to Dave the Rave.

 

Their ratings stand at 12% according to a Yougov poll over the weekend.

[lifetime fan]

Three-party politics was consigned to the toilet the minute Clegg whored himself and his party to Dave the Rave.

 

Their ratings stand at 12% according to a Yougov poll over the weekend.

 

They played their hand like a poker player. They had fuck all and went all in hoping to bluff their way through.

 

As fucked off as I was after voting for them I would have been able to at least understand why they did it if they had gotten PR or AV+.

 

They got neither and will got fuck all in the referundum too.

 

Clegg will be gone within 6 months of the next general election.

[Strontium]

LibDemVoice sez:

 

The interesting question, though, is where he positions the Labour party in politics. Today’s speech seemed a conscious pitch for the liberal-left vote which the Lib Dems have sometimes successfully attracted, and which appears at risk in the new Coalition politics.

 

Yet the policies he praised — with the exception of cutting the deficit — were almost all already Coalition policy, mostly as a result of the Lib Dems being in government: electoral reform, an elected House of Lords, devolving power to local government, shorter prison sentences to reduce re-offending, a review of stop-and-search powers, welfare reform… all were name-checked in the speech, all are now happening only because Labour is no longer in government blocking them.

 

Not that I think there’s much mileage in attacking the new Labour leader simply because much of what he says contradicts what he was saying up until a few months ago. Yes, the freedom-loving Ed Miliband of today was the same Ed Miliband who voted for 90-days detention without trial, and ID cards, and control orders. Yes this Iraq war-opposing Ed Miliband was the same Ed Miliband who voted against an independent investigation into it. And yes, this was the same climate change-combating Ed Miliband who green-lighted the third runway at Heathrow and failed to vote for measures which would, for example, ensure climate change was considered as part of major planning applications. And yes, this was the same political reforming Ed Miliband who failed to vote in 2008 to open up MPs’ expenses to external audit. And yes, this was the same Ed Miliband who wrote the party’s 2010 general election manifesto but now appears to repudiate much of what it contained. But, still, we’re a party which believes in second chances, that welcomes the repenting sinner.

 

If Ed Miliband wants the Labour party now to compete on the same territory as the Lib Dems, liberals across the political spectrum will welcome this. Sure, it might make our campaigning tougher. But, believe me, after the last 13 years of a fundamentally illiberal government, one which trampled on individual liberty at home while mounting a catastrophic foreign policy, I will cheer if — and I stress if — there is now a Labour leader ready to back pluralist, liberal policies in the years ahead.