Nicely put Northwind. this is why I block THMs posts

teamhurtmore – Member

Since you are on a roll, have a crack at the 1:10 point now

That one was bollocks obviously, and he admitted his mistake, sooooo

which is an improvement, your turn now…

Northwind – really – its much less frustrating to simply ignore him.

Yes just ignore me and pretend that a 30% mebership increase didn’t happen and that the so-called Sedgefield model never existed. Much easier….

if you are actually interested in what happened

For 1991-93, these figures reveal the staggering extent of the membership crisis that confronted Labour by the time Blair became leader. Nearly 80,000 people left the party in 1991 alone. In the following two years a further 70,000 departed. In both years the net effect was limited by a considerable number joining. In all, departures between those three years alone represented nearly 50 per cent of the 1990 total.

But better to blame the perma-tanned one – surely a coincidence that his predecessor and successor were of a certain nationality ? 😉

Over 14.0 per cent of members left the party in 2008, the first full year of Gordon Brown’s premiership.

You talking to me? I doesn’t get thru the blocker you know. Its much more fun this way.

No, just making sure that people arent being misled.

teamhurtmore – Member

Yes just ignore me and pretend that a 30% mebership increase didn’t happen

Nobody is doing that, of course. Why would we? TJ’s post was about Blair’s time in office, not just the 4 years of it when membership rose but the years which followed where it collapsed to the lowest point in a century.

You claimed TJ was “re-writing history” but you keep quoting from “Labour’s Lost Grassroots” which makes it perfectly clear that TJ is correct and that membership crashed under Blair.

Seriously northwind – do not engage with him. It only encourages his nonsense and misrepresentation. Best ignored like all trolls. You won’t change his arrogant views in anty way nor will the truth shine thru to him. So best ignored.

QED^2

Why would we?

A good question

Has Binners seen this yet? 😀

Save reading the article, it can be summed up with an old song:

One trot faction sitting in a hall
One trot faction sitting in a hall
And if one trot faction stands up to speak
There’ll be two trot factions sitting in a hall

Two trot factions sitting in a Hall…

( repeat until bored with their childish nonsense )

Momentum really are the most un-electable far left wing jerk fest. Labour will never get back in power with these lot having any say. Blair really was the best they ever had.

There was always a certain inevitability to that Daz

😀

A mate of mine got involved with momentum down in Oxford. He told me that at the start it was all young idealistic activists, then the old lefties got involved, and strangled it with procedure, rules and committees, so all the young enthusiastic kids left, At least we know that no one has to do anything to fight them, as they’ll quickly destroy themselves with their bickering.

This summed it up for me…

Murray’s blog claimed that a row over the form of internal voting structure the group should use at a meeting of its national committee on Saturday ended in bullying and intimidation. Murray, who advises Labour’s town hall spokesman, Grahame Morris, accused AWL members of bullying those they suspect of being “rightwing” or “alt-Stalinist” members.

I don’t even know what alt-Stalinism is. Nor do I want too. I suspect that only about 23 other people in the country actually do, and yes this is one of the less obscure Momentum factions 😆

Which links back to the diverted discussion yesterday dazh. Labour have a track record – Blair and Corbyn – of attracting new members and an even better record at losing them. Is history merely repeating itself? We have Militant and the cuckoos back, will we now have a collapse in membership and electoral irrelevance too?

Wonder what our leader is up to in the middle of all this?

This weekend I was meeting with other socialist & progressive leaders from Europe to discuss how we’ll combat the rise of the populist right pic.twitter.com/iuj7kWi5yw

Which reminds me of the child’s poen

Tis a strange bird, the cuckoo, sitting in the grass
It’s wings neatly folded, it’s beak up its ****
In this strange position it mutters , “twit, twit”
‘cos it’s hard to sing cuckoo with a beak full of ****

More on the internecine tribulations of momentum. Completely fits with what I’ve been told by various people. Tragic really. Whether you like Corbyn or not, the injection of new energy and thinking into the labour party was/is clearly a good thing. Ironic that the blairite PLP and the old 1980s trots seem to be allies in repelling this new movement. And no doubt as a result the labour party will get exactly what it deserves at the ballot box.

video of recent meeting

Whether you like Corbyn or not, the injection of new energy and thinking

Eh ? new thinking ?

” I wish it were 1978 before all our ideas were conclusively shown to be utter shite”

“Me too comrade, Me too”

“Let’s trash the Labour Party”

“Yes, lets, it will be jolly good fun”

There’s zero new thinking in trying to re-fail the failures of the past with a smattering of Twitter.

Corbyns entire ‘manifesto’ was written in the late 70’s, and hasn’t evolved one single bit ever since.

The only reason its getting an airing now is that theres a new generation of gullible idiots who weren’t around to see what a disaster it was first time around

Eh ? new thinking ?

FFS Have you even read that piece? If you had you’d know I’m not talking about Corbyn or the rest of his ilk from the 70s/80s, I’m talking about the under-30s who’ve joined momentum in the hope that they can forge a new way of doing politics.

theres a new generation of gullible idiots who weren’t around to see what a disaster it was first time around

They only have experience of post-thatcher/blair debt, zero hours contracts, sh*tty jobs, unaffordable houses, zero social mobility, a longer working life, and rising taxes to pay for the pensions and healthcare of people who had everything they don’t. Compared to that the 1970s looks like a utopian dream.

They only have experience of post-thatcher/blair debt, zero hours contracts, sh*tty jobs, unaffordable houses, zero social mobility, a longer working life, and rising taxes to pay for the pensions and healthcare of people who had everything they don’t. Compared to that the 1970s looks like a utopian dream.

I do feel sorry for the current young generation, who alongside all the beneficial reforms of the 80’s and increased life expectancy, greater social mobility and better housing, have to suffer from the fact that the country is saddled with high taxes to pay for all the times in the past that money has been spaffed up the wall by governments buying votes – not least the ponzi scheme that is the old age pension.

Cranberry – we are lower taxed than most comparable countries. Remember we get healthcare for our taxes – most others do not.

We are a low tax low wage economy

Indeed – I should have written “higher taxes” a comparison with what previous generations paid for the benefits that they get/got out of the system against my/the younger generation.

My parents generation were very lucky, the bill for final salary pensions, a state pension for them all from 60/65 and free health care is being paid by people who won’t get the same when their time comes.

All successive governments do is tinker with the very edges of the pensions problem then kick it down the road, safe in the knowledge that they will be sat at home with a nice final salary pension when the problems hit the generations working and paying the bill.

TMH 🙂

There are some of us who think Momentum has always had a strong AWL influence. Jill Mountford was adressing / chairing Momentum meetings many months ago.

not least the ponzi scheme that is the old age pension.

Careful @cranbury you’ll have TJ telling you to read a dictionary. You are absolutely correct including about how governments just kick the can down the road so it’s someone else’s problem. NHS is much the same. Neither are topics anyone can have a sensible conversation on.

taxes were higher in previous generations as well – certainly direct taxation

We are a low tax low wage economy

PSA this might not be true

taxes were higher in previous generations as well – certainly direct taxation

They certainly were for some in the one-term, insane Labour governments that were tough on prosperity and tough on the causes of prosperity.

You could IIRC be taxed up to 96% ( income tax of 80% and a surcharge for “unearned” income such as share dividends )

Did it work ?

Look on the bright side, fourth is better than fifth.

. NHS is much the same. Neither are topics anyone can have a sensible conversation on.

Well you cannot with someoen who wants to get rid of it

in much the same way if i said we should have no pensions at all and only private stuff folk can afford i doubt i would get a sensible conversation – I am sure i would get a reply from RW extremists but it would not be sensible
Your views on the NHS are very very at the margins of anyone in the UK

You could IIRC be taxed up to 96% ( income tax of 80% and a surcharge for “unearned” income such as share dividends )

Full employment, university grants, affordable housing stocks, Well funded NHS schools etc , you tell me if it worked?

PS the tories also had high rates of tax it was not just a Labour thing it was the post war consensus thing.

Anyone with even a casual acquaintance with facts will know (1) tax take has been remarkably constant for a long time, albeit with different make up, and (2) that we rank close to average among OECD countries in terms of tax levels ie a middle taxing country.

But let’s not let this get in the way…

Anyone seen Jezzas twitter feed this morning…?

Full employment

Merely full employment? Today we we have to import 300,000 new workers every year to keep up with the number of new jobs.

Somewhat predictably… labour dead last on 10%

Comrade Corbyn better get used to looking at that share of the vote. Under him, thats Labours position in our new political culture. They just had a despairing Labour MP (surely now an endangered species) on radio 4. She (just) stopped short of saying ‘we’re going to lose every seat apart from Islington at the next election with that ****-wit at the helm’, but that was the obvious implication.

Will there be any comment from the beardy one today? Of course not. It’ll be business as usual. Whatever that is. A socialist knitting convention in Warsaw? Whatever it takes to drag the labour party further into the electoral wilderness…..

Even I’ve had enough of him now.
😐

I’m beginning to wonder whether Jezza is on a mission to re-unite the country. It seems only he can get pro and anti-brexiters to agree on something. 🙂

🙂

Labour are doing wonderfully well, to say anything else is just media bias surely ? Labour are where they are at the ballot box and in the polls without being attacked by Tories, UKIP and the Lib Dems. At a General Election they are going to face a withering attack.

Andy Burnham is making the right choice and looking elsewhere for employment

At a General Election they are going to face a withering attack.

…not if no one can find where we’re hiding.

Andy Burnham is making the right choice and looking elsewhere for employment

He’s played a blinder. Deployed his ejector seat, and getting out of the way of the upcoming electoral juggernaut, without looking disloyal to he-who-must-be-obeyed.

My prediction is that freed from the Westminster Labour doom-quagmire, he’ll be a considerably more effective opposition leader in his self-imposed Northern Exile, than the useless beardy bloke floundering hopelessly in his Islington 6th form echo chamber

anybody else’s twitter working today – mine is not refreshing so cant see any comment from Jezza yet?