Jeremy Corbyn

maybe I should have clarified

Ah, maybe I should have clarified - I was referring mainly to the people who don't vote, I'm sure I saw something about them mentioned earlier and they didn't seem to be after particularly socialist stuff

Indeed, which is why the current panic is even more bizarre. Still fail to learn the lessons of history....

Quiet reflection and let the Tories and the SNP be judged on their results first. First road back to redemption is to be an effective opposition, not one in disarray

How about an addiction to debt?

Wage growth without productivity growth?

Weak investment?

Excess consumption?

Etc....

Oh forget that it actually works quite well 😉

First road back to redemption is to be an effective opposition, not one in disarray

Oh I see...bloody globalisation and free market capitalism. Let's go back to protectionism and state planning...

Why is it that when anyone suggests that their should be any constraints on the present market model, all the free-marketeers all just scream in hysterical default that it'll be 1977 all over again.

The world is now a different place.

A lot of people think things have swung too far in one direction for decades, leading to our present grossly unequal society. Corbyn is articulating this. Thus the popularity.

Much as people like yourself like to suggest that he wants to turn Britain into British Leyland circa 1976, thats just not the case. What he's saying, or asking, is what a lot of people are asking... there has to be a better, more balanced, less harsh and brutal, more humane way of doing things than this? The economy should benefit a broader sweep of people, not just those at the top, surely?

Presently he's the only politician in the country asking these questions. Some are pretending too, but they're not really looking for answers. Merely posturing.

Again...

is anyone really still wondering why Jezza is proving so popular?

Binners for PM

[quote=binners ]is anyone really still wondering why Jezza is proving so popular?

You've asked that a few times now 😉 No, I don't think anybody with any sense* is. Personally I am glad somebody is challenging the system - I just wish I was more confident that he had the right answers.

*though that may exclude some on this thread

that may exclude some on this thread

experience shows that whoever wins, they'll have a shower of shit thrown at them. There's no point trying to find a candidate that the press won't throw shit at; it's a fundamental fitness of purpose issue, anyone that the Telegraph, the Mail, Sky etc likes isn't qualified to be Labour leader.

Don't really accept that, take a look at Alan Johnson - pretty much universally respected, the best leader the party never had?

Well we can all agree on one thing that based on the disaster that this Labour election contest has become is that Ed and Harriet can't lead and would have been awful as the Prime Minister and Deputy.

Apparently of the 400 times Corbyn has voted against the party, most of the recent ones have been connected with the Iraq war. (I was told this, haven't checked it).

is anyone really still wondering why Jezza is proving so popular?

Popular with whom?

Sorry. I mean popular in the way Benn was popular - with a subset of the left of the labour party and fellow travellers, and gawd 'elp us, probably some well intentioned and enthusiastic folk who had the good fortune not to be around whilst the 80s were going on.

They're going to have a great time over the next decade or so going on demos against all the things the Tories will be doing effectively unopposed...

[quote=johnx2 ]the Tories will be doing effectively unopposed...

There's always the SNP...

...there's always special brew.

Whatever the SNP are they're not an alternative UK government. In fact the better the SNP do the more it consolidates Conservatives in power.

is anyone really still wondering why Jezza is proving so popular?

With whom?

Controlled/Corporate capitalism has delivered an astonishing level of choice and available goods at all price levels, available to all, where it is in place within "democracies". I don't see any rag-clothed children drinking out of cattle troughs in my locality, anyway.

Capitalism works.

I don't see any rag-clothed children drinking out of cattle troughs in my locality, anyway.

Winners and losers and our country is a winner globally.

some well intentioned and enthusiastic folk who had the good fortune not to be around whilst the 80s were going on.

Low majority govts are always opposed by their own rebellious troops
In the tory case wait till the EU vote/just after if you want to see opposition in action.

opposition in a winner takes all electoral system with few checks and balances [ Dave about to make the lords tory for example* ] is somethign our system does badly in general.

* blair did the same

You probabbly need to go to the places that provide us with all those lovely cheap goods to see that though. Globalsiation has not ended poverrty, or hunger , or need or want.

And how much of this is the responsibility of the governments who allow it in their own countries?

Globalsiation has not ended poverrty, or hunger , or need or want.

Don't make me go and get a graph, junky! You wouldn't like me when I'm graphy!

given the topic it has to be a pie chart

IGM[organically produced and fair traded]C

Don't really accept that, take a look at Alan Johnson - pretty much universally respected, the best leader the party never had?

they just never had a chance to get stuck into him, the press were pretty happy to spare no details about his wife's affair

I have to say that Yvette Coopers lot are seriously overplaying the 'all men are horrid oppressors' schtick. Apparently Andy Burnham's camp are all bullying sexists. While I'm sure that all plays very well to a minority of the more right-on wing of the labour party, using the 'its time for a female leader' line ad bloody nauseum might be a bit more effective if you were actually to flesh it out with some actual policies. It doesn't really matter to most people if the next leader is male or female, it matters far more that they're not utterly useless (like the last male one)

And how much of this is the responsibility of the governments who allow it in their own countries?

Probably Africas fault that we engaged in slavery.

are the left and benn getting the blame for what Thathcer did?

Thatcher split the Labour Party in two?

Probably Africas fault that we engaged in slavery.

You do realise that slavery in Africa somewhat predates European colonisation?

Yes.
Do you wish to argue its their fault we used slavery ?

Ah so that is what they meant re the 80's

Sound of penny dropping 😳

Apparently of the 400 times Corbyn has voted against the party, most of the recent ones have been connected with the Iraq war. (I was told this, haven't checked it).

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/10133/jeremy_corbyn/islington_north

Gives you a flavour.

I must admit, I am warming to the guy quite significantly.

Junkyard - lazarus
given the topic it has to be a pie chart

😀

Grow the pie!

A lot of people think things have swung too far in one direction for decades,

Indeed look at the trend in gov spending as a % of GDP.

So we now have a nasty chancellor gimplementing less aggressive austerity measures that the rest of Europe) addressing the balance of UK spending as percent of GDP. And this radical chopper, privatiser, eater of children will bring gov spending down to a dramatic 36% of GDP by 2020. Can you believe what austerity George is doing???? Really??? The last time we had such low figures was 1999-2000. Oh...really? 🙁

And this is a radical, ideology designed to privatise everything!!!!

In this so-called free market capitalist model that we run, we have seen government spending rise as a percentage of GDP, then fall within pretty steady boundaries. Despite all the BS rhetoric we have a mixed economy in which the state plays a large role in the allocation of scarce resources. Even the private sector, including banking has the heavy hand of state intervention. Of course this doesn't fit well with the blame narrative that protest parties are past masters at tapping into.

Do you ever hear them holding up the mirror to our awful productivity record - much worse that the rest of Europe, but of course it's never anyone's fault. Much easier to blame Fatcher after all.....

Its like asking if you'd like your huge shit sandwich on brown or white bread

Which one Stoner
This one
[img] [/img]

or this one
[img] [/img]

or maybe this one

[img] [/img]

THM most folk are looking at a picture bigger than just economic policy when considering a govt
they look at what it stands for, what it does morally say with benefits or immigration or ID cards, whether it starts needless foreign wars in deciding how to view them.
very few peolpes view is as narrow as yours in just focusing on eonomic matters [ not a dig]

Despite all the BS rhetoric we have a mixed economy in which the state plays a large role in the allocation of scarce resources.

In the private sector, including banking has the heavy hand of state intervention.

THM - its not about the level of public spending. Its about where that money is going. Or more accurately to who. For example.... successive governments like to bang on about how much housing benefit costs. Well thats because you sold off all the public housing stock, didn't build any more, and now housing association stock too.Then piled billions into propping up an inflated housing bubble with bonkers schemes like help-to-buy (a buy to let property) Which has all led to us, as taxpayers, effectively subsidising private buy-to-let landlords to the tune of billions upon billions a year.

Maybe a lot of us have just had enough of that type of nonsense

Even the private sector, including banking has the heavy hand of state intervention.

Erm... yeah... I can see the majority agreeing that the problems we've faced over the last decade would have all been banished if only the pesky government hadn't tied the hands of those saintly, honest, trustworthy wealth creators in the banking sector, with their draconian over-regulation.

Which planet do you actually live on? 😯

oooh are we doing charts?
heres a nice corbyn red pie chart.....

[img] [/img]

Eradicating poverty using an absolute definition is one thing, the redistribution of income and wealth is quite another. It is relative poverty that gets people's goat, and that's becoming more severe.

Zog obviously

Binners, dare I say it, you are misunderstanding the root cause of the financial crisis. But never mind.

On "to who", this is one of Labour's problems. The obsession with income inequality blinds them from having a sensible debate on their track record. Since the mid 1990s income inequality has narrowed (between the top and bottom 10% - inconvenient fact I know - for good reasons including those introduced by Labour. But there is an obsession with the top 1% whose share rose under Labour - 2/3 of which came from financial services bonuses.

Labour failed to defend its own record properly and lost that narrative. (They also lost to the SNPs false narrative which might explain the lure of gesture politics). That was their error not (most of) the policies themselves. But now they are into panic mode and ignoring their genuine successes in favour of gesture politics. Of course, this makes the left feel good about themselves. It also avoids the painful task of re-thinking policies and reconnecting with the voters who matter. But hey, ho.....that's their look out.

Doesn't really bother me as the world goes on despite politicians not because of them.

Google Van Reenen at LSE if you want more on the above (Corbyn and the political economy of nostalgia). He also lives on the planet Zog. We are house mates!

I dunno about heavy handed Government intervention, but it is clearly too complex and just plays into the hands of the big companies, accountants and lawyers who understand it and can game the system.

TBH for me I don't see Corbyn solving that problem.

Binners, dare I say it, you are misunderstanding the root cause of the financial crisis. But never mind.

Could you try that in a slightly more patronising and condescending tone please?

I think even the thickest prole, like me, knows that the one thing that most definitely didn't cause the financial crisis was heavy-handed government over-regulation of the banking sector. Though that was what the present Tory front bench were busy whining about at the time. 🙄

Excuse me, not meant to be. But the root cause if the financial crisis was the fact that states/central bank's flooded markets with liquidity (to cover up past mistakes) at a period of articfically low interest rates. And they wondered why that led to a crisis. But Geordie and other central bankers did a great job at deflecting the blame didn't they - and it stuck. Regulation? Who mentioned that?

But still good that we learn the lessons of history and that no one is doing the same thing again isn't it.

Anyway the van Reenen summary

Voting for Jeremy Corbyn as leader is a gut reaction to Labour’s electoral defeat. Corbyn does point to some real economic problems facing Britain but his policies are based largely on the kind of wishful thinking that is endemic in UK politics and both blights Labour’s past. His popularity lies in Labour’s failure to defend its own record in government. The party needs to learn from its successes as well as its evident recent failures

Nail...head....

It is relative poverty that gets people's goat

Yes but solving them is in words easy it's education, good work ethic and opportunities. Reality is if it was that simple it have been sorted years ago.

Unfortunately Corbyn seems to think a National Education Service and destroying private schools is part of the answer i.e. the typical Left wing answer of dragging everyone down rather than dragging people up.

Which planet do you actually live on?

Banks will always risk too much when they know there's a corporate-minded government in the wings waiting to bail them out with taxpayer's money.

If the risk of failure was absolute, there'd be fewer stupidities.

If a bank fails, let it fail. There'll be another along in a minute. Capitalism, like nature, abhors a vacuum.

That applies to any business. No zombies = a healthy economy.

But still good that we learn the lessons of history and that no one is doing the same thing again isn't it. Bloody free markets...

Frightening innit? A bonkers artificially inflated housing bubble? Artificially reduced interest rates? A 'recovery' built entirely on credit fuelled consumer spending? A completely unbalanced economy? Sounds eerily familiar, doesn't it?

The difference is that the Tories are going to be at the helm when it all goes tits up again - as it surely must. So they can't blame labour this time.

And I doubt very much that the country is going to be in any mood to bail out the banks a second time. A reappraisal of the whole capitalist system in its present form would be on the cards. And that could well be where someone less tainted by their unquestioning promotion of the neo-liberal consensus, at the top, might do well. Maybe someone with a beard...? 😉

Stranger things have happened

when they know there's a corporate-minded government in the wings waiting to bail them

And that's supposedly free market capitalism. They did let dear Old Barings go though!!

Frightening innit? A bonkers artificially inflated housing bubble? Artificially reduced interest rates? A 'recovery' built entirely on credit fuelled consumer spending? Sound familiar, doesn't it?

And which part of this is free market capitalism. Unsurprising that Corbyn is suggesting largely the same structure with PQE as opposed to George's QE. Radical isn't it??

Stranger things have happened

Yep, lizards have taken over the world!

The posts on this thread are positively Johnsonian.
"Excuse me", "I'd be interested to know...", "Dare I say it".
My response to this thread will come in time, depend upon it, Sir.

You, sir, are a noundah of the highest order. I challenge you to a duel!

Good day!

[img] [/img]

[quote=kimbers ]oooh are we doing charts?
heres a nice corbyn red pie chart.....

that chart sir, is, I'm looking for a suitably polite term here, oh dammit can't find one, a load of bollocks, and if that's the best he can come up with then I'm not impressed.

Not because it is inaccurate:

[img] [/img]

Not because there isn't an issue with private landlords and housing benefit. But is he suggesting: we shouldn't provide poor people help with their housing costs; private landlords shouldn't provide housing where there is insufficient public provision; some of the housing benefit should go into the pocket of the tenant to spend on things other than housing; we should use a time machine to go back and stop the council housing sell-off

Since the mid 1990s income inequality has narrowed (between the top and bottom 10% - inconvenient fact I know

It may have when you use such a narrow range [ I did not check] but you are being somewhat misleading with that claim as the gap has not really changed in that timeframe.
The equality trust states that

Inequality in Recent Years

Since the early 1990s, changes in inequality have been less dramatic than the change from 1979 to 1991. After falling slightly over the early to mid-1990s, inequality, as shown by the Gini coefficient, rose again from 1997, reaching a new peak of 0.362 in 2000–01. Despite falling for three years from 2000-01, inequality rose again from 2005-2010. Inequality fell in 2010 and has stayed relatively level since.

Forgive my trolling wont you.

Why corbyn is popular is because the spread of wealth looks like this

[img] ?itok=KvG8N98w[/img]

In 2010, while the top 10% received 31% of all income, the bottom 10% received just 1%7. In terms of wealth, in 2010 (the latest year for which data is available), 45% of all wealth in the UK was held by the richest 10%. The poorest 10% held only 1%.

Many of us are considerable less comfortable with this than mandy was.

aracer, that wasnt a corbynomics produced graph i sourced it myself !

although saint corbyn is proposing a huge council house building scheme, but governments are always pledging to build more housing for the 'priced out', never seems to happen tho

besides I thought all stwers would love him as his wife imports coffee from mexico and he sits on the cross party cycling comittee or wwhatever its called

Ah, in which case I'm not impressed by you 😉

I'm not sure anybody else has proposed mass council house building have they - all sorts of weasel words about getting more houses built, but that usually involves affordable housing schemes as part of private developments.

Ah the old income inequality nonsense again. As I've posted repeatedly we can fix that by asking all the rich people to leave the country and take all their spending and tax payments with them. The definition of poverty used by campaigners is quite ridiculous, you are seen to be in poverty if you cannot afford a holiday or a weekly trip to the swimming pool. Increasing pensions increases "poverty" as the definition is in relation to average earnings. We have a welfare state which will provide you with housing, money to live on, free schooling and free medical care. Despite all this poverty there are 10,000's of people desperate to come to live here, strange eh ? How come they don't want to go for example to Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia ?

Look back 30, 50 or 100 years ago, the poor where much worse off than they are today. More people own their own homes, have access to one or more cars, foreign holidays, superior medical care etc than ever before

Ah the old income inequality nonsense again. As I've posted repeatedly we can fix that by asking all the rich people to leave the country and take all their spending and tax payments with them. The definition of poverty used by campaigners is quite ridiculous, you are seen to be in poverty if you cannot afford a holiday or a weekly trip to the swimming pool. Increasing pensions increases "poverty" as the definition is in relation to average earnings. We have a welfare state which will provide you with housing, money to live on, free schooling and free medical care. Despite all this poverty there are 10,000's of people desperate to come to live here, strange eh ? How come they don't want to go for example to Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia ?

The empathy and compassion is strong in this one.

Wealth inequality is much greater than income inequality and that includes ownership of property which, for most people, is not a tradable commodity but rather a long-term consumer durable. So wealth inequality is much greater than the figures suggest.

You've never had it so good, eh?

Its actually quite moving, isn't it Bravissimo? In its shear heartfelt humanity.

*bursts into tears*

[quote=jambalaya ]Look back 30, 50 or 100 years ago, the poor where much worse off than they are today. More people own their own homes, have access to one or more cars, foreign holidays, superior medical care etc than ever before

I'm interested to see that the poor now own their own homes, have cars, foreign holidays etc. Society really has advanced more than I thought.

@binners I think Jezza is proving so popular for a variety of reasons like

1) Some people want to see what a UK version of Syriza might do
2) union support and encouragement of their members to register and vote
3) Support from non Labour voters from both the left and the right who want to alternatively to infiltrate / destroy the current Labour Party
4) opinion poll companies get paid / hired more if they produce "shocking" results

@dead apologies if you where offended by my past characterisation of Ireland but upon joining the EU they qualified for large amounts of financial support due to their economic weakness. The EU paid for the Dublin City to airport motorway.

Guys you cannot have a welfare state if the country is bust, that's the biggest legacy the Labour Party left. Their economic ineptitude hurt the poorest the most as they are most reliant on a healthy state. BTW JY I think the vast majority of people vote on the economy and their view of how much better/worse off they will be.

If Corbyn is such a big lover of the left and the EU perhaps he should bring in VAT on food like they have in Germany, France, Spain, Italy etc. that will raise plenty to spend.

Anyway I digress, I hope he wins

Corbyn is no lover of the EU, in fact he originally said he wanted out, then moderated that to he wants reform.

you cannot have a welfare state if the country is bust, that's the biggest legacy the Labour Party left.

Ah yes, the financial crisis that was the fault of the Labour government, despite happening pretty much all over the world, regardless of who was in charge, and definitely would of happened here even if the Tories had been running the place.

If Corbyn is such a big lover of the left and the EU perhaps he should bring in VAT on food like they have in Germany, France, Spain, Italy etc. that will raise plenty to spend.

I'm not sure increasing regressive taxes are a particularly left wing trait.

I was about to search for regressive taxes introduced by the last Labour government, but... do your own research 😛

Guys you cannot have a welfare state if the country is bust, that's the biggest legacy the Labour Party left.

*sigh*

[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

Are you just trolling again?

I was about to search for regressive taxes introduced by the last Labour government, but... do your own research

For that to be relevant we would need to have had a left wing government.

For that to be relevant we would need to have had a left wing government.

Whether you like Blair or not the bulk of the original Labour policies definitely sit more within the left wing camp than the right (if we are to use those terms). It's some weird revisionism that the Labour party that gained power in 1997 were some nasty Tory splinter group wearing red.

Yet another straw man. I never claimed they were right wing, but I wouldn't say they were particularly left wing either.

Hi folks

Voting for Jeremy Corbyn as leader is a gut reaction to Labour’s electoral defeat.

No it's not! He's popular for the same reason the SNP are popular in Scotland. People want something different. People want someone who actually wants to improve the lives of the poor and the average; not someone who looks like they are pretending to want that but really don't give a shit or have no idea.

Much as people like yourself like to suggest that he wants to turn Britain into British Leyland circa 1976, thats just not the case.

What would be so wrong if he did ? Is society a better place for working people now that we have weak unions ? Most people on low wages ( that's just most people really ) would say no, as would people on zero hour contracts or part time hours. Oh, don't forget everyone one else walking the two year tightrope where they can be fired for no reason when starting a new job.

The greatest victory of the neo-liberal revolution surely has to be instilling the un-questionable narrative that union power had to be subdued for the good of society.
I think we all know who it was really good for.

What would be so wrong if he did?

Indeed what would be so wrong with producing goods that people don't want? Ill have an allegro in fawn please. The history of UK car manufacturing in the golden era. What's not to like?

Grum - great charts, puts the austerity claim to bed doesn't it. Also interesting what happened and why to bring debt levels down (and how the UK underperformed globally as a result). Cold turkey is pretty unappetising. Good job state pensions are off balance sheet - imagine knowing that your pension was merely a Ponzi scheme.

mol - just for you, here is his conclusion

New Labour’s sheepishness in defending its record had allowed the Corbynistas to make all the running. The Corbyn economic plan doesn’t want any commitments to eliminating the current deficit. The hard won successes of the post 1997 period are to be reversed with increases in union power and public ownership. “Tax justice” is the answer to most problems – soaking the rich.

Voting for Corbyn is gesture politics. It makes many on the left feel good about themselves and avoids the painful task of re-thinking policies and reconnecting beyond the base to the rest of the electorate.

It is a howl for the past rather than a serious fight for the future.

We shall see! And that is from the LSE of all places...

So this neoliberalism that everyone talks about - what is it?

Olds wikki talks about laissez-faire economic liberalism which hardly matches history. Fatcher was a mile away from Hayek and the Austrians in reality. Does "L-F" include regulating pricing in so-called liberalised markets and cross-subsidisation of unprofitable routes etc.

Sloppy categorisation perhaps?

People want something different.

Recent polls on SNP performance suggest that when the reality is examined, people get sadly disappointed. Nothing new there. Gesture politics has to be backed up with real politics - look what that did for poor Cleggie (remember him, the last media inspired political bubble in Westminster?)

grum under the Tories our debt is far lower than it would have been under Labour, that's the important fact.

Dragon, interesting I didn't know that. Perhaps he'd like to make it clear he will be supporting an "out" vote in the referendum. That would be an important thing to declare his view on

whatnobeer, had Labour responded differently to the crises they might have won the 2010 general election ? Had they been more on the ball with regard to consumer credit perhaps the crises wouldn't have impacted us so badly ? They lost the election in part as they had no economic credibility which coincidently isn't something Corbyn is going to bring to the table is it ?

under the Tories our debt is far lower than it would have been under Labour, that's the important fact.

Indeed what would be so wrong with producing goods that people don't want? Ill have an allegro in fawn please. The history of UK car manufacturing in the golden era. What's not to like?

well done for drifting my point and laying the blame for british leyland's marketing strategy on the unions. but let's run with it anyway.................

so the choice is a fawn allegro and decent wages and conditions or an infinite choice of cars but your wages are so low that you'll need some deregulated credit in order to buy one.

after 35 years of the experiment - allegro please.

Ah yes, the financial crisis that was the fault of the Labour government, despite happening pretty much all over the world, regardless of who was in charge, and definitely would of happened here even if the Tories had been running the place.

[i]Speaking last month, the retired civil service chief said it was too difficult for civil servants to call for public spending to be reigned in until after the financial crisis hit.

The former cabinet secretary said that the Treasury was prone to “wishful thinking” and that “the politics” of the time had prevented civil servants from speaking more openly about the increasing level of debt.

He suggested that spending was too high because of “optimism bias” in the growth forecasts: “It was a forecast error, but also by a process of optimism bias, not enough people were saying: ‘Come on, do you really think we are able to expect 2.75 per cent growth indefinitely?’”

Questioned on whether he thinks civil servants should have come forward, Turnbull – who was permanent secretary at the Treasury from 1998 to 2002 – suggested that they were scared to. “Yes, maybe Whitehall should have,” he said. “But it’s quite difficult when your minister is proclaiming that we have transformed the propects of the UK economy.”

When asked directly what prevented civil servants from telling politicians that borrowing was too high, he said: “The politics was that we had put an end to boom and bust.”

Turnbull added: “We had a sense of overconfidence; it happened all around the world, but it was a rather extreme form of it in the UK.”

The problem, he argued, demonstrates a need for an organisation such as the Office of Budget Responsibility, which has been set up by the coalition government. “Having someone outside the process is helpful,” he said. “I think the OBR is something which is necessary, providing some degree of external constraint less prone to wishful thinking.”

Turnbull said that that excessive borrowing started to be a problem from 2005. “It kind of crept up on us in 2005, 2006, 2007, and we were still expanding public spending at 4.5 percent a year,” he said, arguing that the Treasury should have been putting more money aside. “You might have thought that we should have been giving priority to getting borrowing under better control, putting money aside in the good years – and it didn’t happen,” he commented.

Turnbull said that “there were some other places that had begun to accumulate surpluses for a rainy day; places like Australia.”
While Turnbull argued that the primary reason Britain is “in the mess that we’re in” is because “public spending got too big relative to the productive resources of the economy, by error” he added that a loss of output caused by the financial crisis has also contributed to the budget deficit.
[/i]

Joshua Chambers 2010i nterview for civil service life with Lord Turnbull, former head of the Civil Service and Cabinet Secretary for Blair from 2002-2005

[quote=trailmonkey said]
after 35 years of the experiment - allegro please.

Sorry mate, you'll have to wait. We're on strike.

😀

well done for drifting my point and laying the blame for british leyland's marketing strategy on the unions. but let's run with it anyway.................

Unions? Who mentioned unions? Oh it was Harold Wilson complaining about them earlier on the thread. I forgot. Another red bloody Tory. They get everywhere.

Sorry mate, you'll have to wait. We're on strike.

Good. Hope you get what you want.

Look back 30, 50 or 100 years ago, the poor where much worse off than they are today. More people own their own homes, have access to one or more cars, foreign holidays, superior medical care etc than ever before

The rich are just as fantastically wealthy, entrenched and powerful as they were 4 centuries ago.
That is the real problem.
We have progressed form the bottom 50% having 0.1 % of income to 1 %and you want us to cheer for capitalism for raising the poor out of poverty.

As always your views are a joy to read as incisive as they are compassionate and informed

Hold the bus...Support for Labour in Scotland is now putting them in third place...behind "them"

We have progressed form the bottom 50% having 0.1 % of income to 1 %

and you want us to cheer for capitalism for raising the poor out of poverty.

The rich are just as fantastically wealthy, entrenched and powerful as they were 4 centuries ago.

We've been through this a million times - but more equal societies are happier, better societies - and the better off are happier and healthier in more equal societies too. Loads of evidence to back this up which I have posted numerous times on previous threads and can't be arsed googling again.

grum under the Tories our debt is far lower than it would have been under Labour, that's the important fact.

Laugahble use of the word 'fact' there.

the report last year showed that the top 1% owned 41% of all the personal wealth in the world; the top 10% owned 86% and the bottom 50% of owned less than 1% of all the wealth.

Whether we want to argue over whether it has [marginally]raised the income of the very poorest [ it has] the spread of the wealth is so iniquitous that it is impossible to justify morally or argue that capitalism is about wealth distribution or helping the poor.
The very rich remain very rich and many of us would like the pie cutting up considerably fairer than it is currently under whatever you wish to term this model.

It is very unwise, and makes one look silly, to state an opinion on something utterly untestable and then claim its a fact.

thanks aracer it works great

Just to be totally clear here - I don't want more money for myself, I'm fine. I do think that as pointed out above the fact that people who work full time still need assistance from the state is completely messed up. The idea that we can't possibly take a little bit more money off people who have far, far more than they will ever need to rectify this situation is ridiculous.

And the justification of 'well these people are so greedy that they will just leave if they have to pay the amount of tax they are supposed to' as if that's a reasonable position is particularly sick-making. The passive acceptance of this kind of sociopathy is amazing.

By the way, most of these people didn't really earn their wealth, they inherited it, or were provided with enough privilege to make it very easy for them.

http://inequality.org/selfmade-myth-hallucinating-rich/

The rich are just as fantastically wealthy, entrenched and powerful as they were 4 centuries ago

Really?

Because a look at the houses and estates owned by the National Trust tells me thats really quite questionable - even if you look at the ones like Woburn Abbey that still are owned by their historical families, they hardly function as they once did, as the private playgrounds and fiefdoms of a super rich elite, do they?