Forum menu
Most people aren't rich, most people would benefit from a Labour party looking after them. The problem is that most people have been convinced otherwise by Tories.
Actually most people in the UK are very rich on a global basis. Anyone with assets over £500k is a member of the 1% - think about property and value of a pension and that is a very large proportion of the UK, perhaps even the majority
Was the VAT increase progressive?
It helped to bring us into line woth the rest of Europe. Once we add VAT to food (as the EU wants us too as well as removing reduced rates on energy bills) we'll be just like them. VAT is also an exceplent tax as it collects money from tourists for example
What TMH says is spot on re the myths touted by the left. The majority of people in the UK "take out" or benefit more from the state than they contribute. Thats fine as a concept the point is where do you draw the line ?
The Labour party does not offer an aspirational goal, it bleets about unfairness and inequality when the reality is the UK is one of the best places in the world to live if your are poor. Yes, in their vision of utopia it would be even better but the electorate don't buy their vision and most importantly the consequences.
No one can be sure of electibility though
@Alex, all the old school Labour figures like Blunket etc said (I paraphrase), "we tried this before and it didn't work"
If Labour want to persist with the Corbyn experiment into 2020 I would for one would say, be my guest. Lets put a hard left manifesto under Corbyn to the electorate at the GE 2020.
jambalaya - MemberThe majority of people in the UK "take out" or benefit more from the state than they contribute.
This only works if you pretend their only contribution is via tax paid, and ignore their contribution via work. I understand why people like to pretend this, though. Meanwhile companies make goods, profits and tax revenues by magic, owners "create wealth" and employees take more than they give.
Lets put a hard left manifesto under Corbyn to the electorate at the GE 2020.
Ah perspective again. And the media fallacy from the resident stw arbiter of press neutrality that corbyn is somehow 'hard' left.
If we were to plot current conservative and labour policies on the political compass (that last year even made thm look left wing or so he told us), do you think the conservatives would be further over to the right of the middle line, or Labour over to the left of it?
If you look a what they do rather than what they and others say they do, then they would be very much in the centre and overlapping and often on the other side of their supposed points - its like the SNP who have polices tha would make the Toires blush and yet pretend to be left of centre. Nonsense.
Can't work out what you mean about relative 'hardness' of leftlabour or right/conservative wings.
Also can't work out if you are expressing your distaste about the political compass project, the snp, both or neither.
None of the above.
A least the political compass had two dimensions 😉
Winky smilie is unhelpful: perhaps condescendion at jambalaya's reduction to/clumsy use of 'hard left', or my attempts to add the all important perspective to it? I figured that in this particular instance/poster it was better challenging just one axis at a time. I don't think he could cope with the idea of conservatives being further north too.
Should we talk about Vicki Kirby instead?
Trying to make political milage on the issue is simply to miss the point
Well then educate me.
Seems to me that increasing VAT on essentials is taxing the poor proportionally more and is hence regressive. Can you explain why that's not the case?
VAT on essentials
Define 'essential'
Electricity and gas?
Electricity and gas?
Yep, but the rate wasn't increased on either of these.
Seems to me that increasing VAT on essentials is taxing the poor proportionally more and is hence regressive
VAT is an EU issue as the majority of rates (+/- a little) re decided there. The UK has some noted exemptions but it's the eurocracy that is driving VAT
The UK has some noted exemptions but it's the eurocracy that is driving VAT
Poor George Osborne, look how his hands are tied by those evil foreigners!
[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10371590 ]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10371590[/url]
jambalaya - MemberActually most people in the UK are very rich on a global basis. Anyone with assets over £500k is a member of the 1% - think about property and value of a pension and that is a very large proportion of the UK, perhaps even the majority
Sorry Jammers, old chap, but with that one statement you've shown what I suspect a lot of Tory MP's think. That the rarefied air they circulate in is somehow representative of the lives of most [s]plebs[/s] 'ordinary people'
You're seriously suggesting that the majority of the UK population is individually sat on assets totalling over half a million quid? Sorry dear boy, but thats just more.....
[img] 
[/img]
[URL= http://www.sherv.net/cm/emo/laughing/crying.gi f" target="_blank">http://www.sherv.net/cm/emo/laughing/crying.gi f"/> [/IMG][/URL]
"More or less" did this.
If you're on Minimum wage you're in the top 10pc wealthiest people on the planet. And that's before you factor in the free healthcare we all get.
Osborne putting VAT up to 20% simply brought it broadly in line with the rest of Europe. However the UK still holds a 0% rate on 'essentials' that the EU would love to be bumped up to 5% minimum.
If you're on Minimum wage you're in the top 10pc wealthiest people on the planet. And that's before you factor in the free healthcare we all get.
I don't think anyone's denying that if you're born in this country then you're very lucky compared to most people in the world. However, it's not a race to the bottom, and it can't be used as justification or excuse for the hardship and poverty some people in this country experience. If it was, then I'd expect the likes of Jamba and his ilk to be ardent flag wavers of economic immigration and foreign aid in order to help all those poor sods who were born somewhere less rich than we were.
The issue isn't how much capital the majority of Brits might have, or the average Brit.
The issue is that *given* most of us have so much, some people are still in significant poverty despite their best efforts. This is a travesty, we should all be ashamed. There IS enough money to help everyone, and for the highly successful to still be filthy rich. The issue seems to be that the filthy rich resent helping those in need.
In other news - I just found out the latest ICM poll has Tories and Labour on level points, with Labour having gained four. Comres has Labour still a fair way behind but also having gained two against a Tory loss of three.
That is interesting, isn't it?
That is interesting, isn't it?
http://www.icmunlimited.com/media-centre/media-center/guardian-poll-march-2016
However, the headline figures are somewhat misleading, and few should be in any doubt of ICM’s view of our own survey.
Oh aye, don't get me wrong I'm not proclaiming the new era.
However the trends were somewhat interesting, I thought. Both polls showed a fall for the Tories and an increase for Labour.
Considering that Corbyn is supposed to be so toxic and loony left, and still has his own MPs slagging him off and ignoring the tory shambles over Europe, shouldn't the tories be in a double digit lead? That's not interesting at all is it!
There IS enough money to help everyone, and for the highly successful to still be filthy rich. The issue seems to be that the filthy rich resent helping those in need.
I think the upper echelons of society seem to reverting back to some kind of Victorian morality where wealth would appear to be some kind of reward from god for your righteousness, and therefore a reflection of your worth as a human being. Thus they can dispense with a welfare system that doesn't judge, but supplies on the basis of need, without prejudice. To be replaced by charity, where those god has deemed to be more righteous can dispense crumbs from the top table, dependent on who they deem to be 'deserving' of their largesse, who must of course be eternally grateful.
I'm working back in Manchester City Centre again, after a few years away, and I am genuinely shocked at the explosion of the homeless on the streets. A lot of whom clearly with mental health issues.
If a society is judged on how it cares for its most vulnerable, then George Osbournes latest wheeze to slash the benefits of the disabled seems pretty indicative of the society we now have. Cold, harsh,and uncaring, with a strata at the top obsessed with accumulating more and more, for no purpose other than they seem to think they deserve it
I'm working back in Manchester City Centre again, after a few years away, and I am genuinely shocked at the explosion of the homeless on the streets. A lot of whom clearly with mental health issues.
That can't be right - THM has stats to show the opposite!!
However, I note with amusement suggestions that Gideon is now planning to copy Corbyn with a programme of "Peoples' Quantitative Easing" http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/mar/15/george-osborne-budget-to-set-transport-schemes-in-motion
Binners; I am off to buy a special hat...a special hat just so I can take it off to you for that Jambabollocks pic. Top work fella.
I think it's a bit close to bullying imvho...
Considering that Corbyn is supposed to be so toxic and loony left, and still has his own MPs slagging him off and ignoring the tory shambles over Europe, shouldn't the tories be in a double digit lead? That's not interesting at all is it!
And conversely, with the Tories about to rip each other apart over the absolute disaster that was the EU negotiations and Brexit referendum, with economic indicators not great, with the NHS being dismembered, with the pension retreats, with austerity...Labour should be demolishing the Tories everywhere.
And yet they're not.
However, I note with amusement suggestions that Gideon is now planning to copy Corbyn with a programme of "Peoples' Quantitative Easing" http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/mar/15/george-osborne-budget-to-set-transport-schemes-in-motion
where is there any mention of quantitative easing in that article ?
And yet they're not.
Yet...
Yet...
New leader should do it. Not long now I guess.
New leader should do it.
Lolz really?
Couldn't do any worse. 🙂
Don't count on it!
Initial reports of 'cheap gains now, hard stuff later' budget looks like one of a government not expecting to still be the government for much of 2020 😕
@binners you have to include the implied value of the state and private pensions
Cranberry that article is bobbins
Whether it's Bullingdon bullies burning money in front of homeless people and trashing restaurants for fun or OULC labour activists ganging up on Jews and being racist douchebags.
The nastiness in politics seems to spring from the self entitled few and especially at Oxford uni for some reason, who believe they are genuinely better than everyone else, unfortunately from Blair and co to bojo, Cameron and Osborne etc
..... That place is great at producing sociopaths
(sorry that took me 8 hrs to finish the sentence)
Haters look away:
they'll be apoplectic in torygraph towers with that news.
Wow, polls aren't always 100% accurate?! Thanks for letting me know.
Your link just shows the dangers of false pessimism really doesn't it - good thing David Cameron didn't believe them and give up. 😉
Funny isn't it how polls are irrelevant when it's Corbyn/labour doing well but completely reliable when they're saying the opposite 🙂
Isn't it just.
Certainly the case during the last election 😆
[img] 
[/img]
Total carnage for Corbyn and Labour today at PMQ's. Even their MPs where laughing at Cameron's jibes about "the list". When you have the PM and large numbers of Tories MPs declaring they are "core plus" supporters of Corbyn you have to think he cannot survive too much longer. I can't post the f-bomb laden tweet of one Labour to today's self inflicted disaster.
Cameron also took time to reference the significant problem Labour has with anti-semitism and the recent abuse of students, he made it clear it was Corbyn's problem to sort out. We've discussed that here already and its an endemic problem in particular with Corbyn's core new supporters and one which is not going to go away quickly.
Really Jambo, if you think Cameron having a laugh and joke at PMQs is high on the priority list of problems for Corbyn then you really don't understand what's going on. The list was almost certainly leaked by a Corbyn supporter - rumour has it Damian McBride was the culprit - in order to demonstrate that opposition in the PLP to Corbyn is not nearly as ubiquitous as the blairites and their friends in the press would have everyone believe. So whilst you completely miss the point and have a laugh at some joke that will be forgotten in an instant, Corbyn may well have been strengthened against any potential leadership challenges.
And really, are you seriously suggesting that anti-semitism in the labour party is endemic? That's as preposterous as saying the tories are all neo-nazis.
Endemic?
😆
Read the dictionary before using words you're not sure about jamba.
Just more...
[IMG] 
[/IMG]
Is JC(not Jesus Christ) still a Utopian? 😆
Can we all be careful and remember that the meaning of anti-Semetic also includes anybody who remarks upon the actions of the state of Israel. Nobody actually agreed about this,the Jewish council just decided that being critical of land grabs etc, was evidence of anti-Semitism,as an nod to their murderous friends in Palestine and the Levant. So that was more Jambabollocks...Or just his usual anti-arab prejudice.
FFS! Why are those people in Israel or Palestine a concern? 🙄
I don't want to feed them so let them sort out their problems themselves. 😡
#jambafacts must be MASSIVELY more influential than I realised if MPs are asking questions about anti-semitism in Parliament and the PM is explicitly telling Corbyn the Labour Party has a problem. Endemic is the right word imo, the Party is riddled with it especially at grass roots level
Why don't you guys do some googling about a Labour supported trade union event in Bournemouth last year where a group of Jews seeking to put Israels side of the argument where told by the organisers they had to leave as they could not provide them protection following a series of altercations
@duckman critising Israeli policy isn't anti-semitic people like Corbyn and Owen Jones understand that. They are however very different in their actions and beliefs than many in the Labour Party. There is plenty of critism of Israel here,mIndon't see much that could be seen as anti-semitic unlike the Labour member (recentlt rejoined and now expelled) from Woking (llarge Muslim popultaion) who Tweeted about big Jewish noses.
This piece sums up my view on the anti-semitic abuse in Oxford
[url= http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/03/antisemitic_bigots_at_oxford_and_elsewhere.html ]American Thinker[/url]
I must have missed the carnage in PMQs?
I really, really hope G.O can survive this difficult time and becomes leader of the Tories.
Are we seriously being asked to consider the significance of a single tweet from an expelled Labour Party member from Woking? Is this a test for the smallest possible measurable ISO unit of relevance? The WdT (Woking douchebag Tweet)?
Yes I read that American thinker piece and there wasn't much in it was there? 1 tweet. Not sure what the other 2 people named are supposed to have done?
Actually Jamby; as I said,being critical of the state of Israel IS anti-Semetic, the Jewish council counts it towards it's evidence. Honestly, trying to portray anti-Israeli sentiment as being a massive problem in the Labour party just shows how desperate you are. Mind you,you were making brexit capital out of the Belgium bombings yesterday,so at least you remain as classy as ever.
[i]Already down to one Scottish MP in Westminster after the SNP’s general election success last year, Labour could be left in third place in Scotland for the first time since December 1910, with its lowest vote in the post-war era, the poll forecasts.[/i]
[url= http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/27/scottish-election-poll-puts-labour-in-third-place-behind-tories ]Guardian Story[/url]
I'll leave the Naz Shah story for the time being as Corbyn seems to have ensured she was suspended (temporary of course) although our Ken doesn't even think what she put on Facebook is anti-Semitic
So given the labour right and some idiot individuals have done their best in the last few weeks to scupper the election campaign, and the almost zealous attempts of the likes of Kuensberg and others in the media to sway voters with relentlessly negative coverage, it appears that all the predictions of labour imploding in England and especially the south have come to nothing*. Have they imagined what might be possible if they actually put aside their personal grievances and pulled in the same direction?
*Ignoring Scotland, which is a special case.
One of thise not great, not awful
Enough there for either side to maintain their polemic so little point discussing it as there will be no balanced thinking going on.
The racist smears have been pretty effective and if you cannot beat a tory govt this divided and in the "mid term" then it probably does not auger well
"Enough there for either side to maintain their polemic"
This.
[url= http://www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/2016/05/local-elections ]Abysmal[/url]
It's true they should be doing better. But given the relentless attempts of Corbyn's enemies to use every opportunity to damage him, he's proving surprisingly resilient when it comes to elections.
JC(not Jesus Christ) should insist on staying in his current position.
He is always right (I mean correct) and he should simply fire those that oppose him within the party.
😈
"and he should simply fire those that oppose him within the party."
Quite a departure from his existing strategy of suspending people who support him. 😀
@ daz h yes true but the labour party has a touch of the peoples front of judea scene about it at the moment and its hard to see where it ends
I cannot see either the PLP supporting him or the membership not supporting him so self destructions seems eminently possible.
Divided parties really really struggle to win and the Labour Party is pretty split
Its also hard to see why so many of the soft left guardian reading types hate him so much, often it seems more than they hate Tories. The guardian has been relentless on the anti semitic BS hard left attack for months now - never open the articles up to BTL commentary though- at some points I have thought Jamby writes for them.
outofbreath - Member"and he should simply fire those that oppose him within the party."
Quite a departure from his existing strategy of suspending people who support him.
Ya, suspending is weak.
He should fire them to teach them a lesson. 😛
It's true they should be doing better. But given the relentless attempts of Corbyn's enemies to use every opportunity to damage him, he's proving surprisingly resilient when it comes to elections.
Imagine what it would be like if the other parties got involved too...
Yep its a bitch for Corbyn. Basically the media see Corbyn as the interesting story so the try and push it. Whether this be interviewing anti Corbyn MPs constantly on the BBC or all out attack by the right wing press.
But he's still standing. When did you say he'd be gone by Jambalaya?
Imagine what it would be like if the other parties got involved too...
I doubt it would make any difference. JC has had the entire UK media industry at his throat relentlessly for months.....
[img] 
:large[/img]
I doubt it would make any difference
Oh dear, he is in trouble then.
dazh - MemberHave they imagined what might be possible if they actually put aside their personal grievances and pulled in the same direction?
Absolutely, that's why they're working so hard to pull it apart. If they didn't think Corbyn could win, they wouldn't bother.
If they didn't think Corbyn could win, they wouldn't bother.
Surely if they thought Corbyn [b]could[/b] win, they wouldn't bother? In fact, isn't winning the election at [u]any[/u] cost regardless of principles written into the very DNA of the Blairites?
I cannot see either the PLP supporting him or the membership not supporting him so self destructions seems eminently possible.
Well if you ask me, the longer Corbyn lasts, and I for one think he probably will go all the way to 2020, the stronger his position becomes. He's in the process of restructuring the party to be more member-led and democratic, and with that will come the opportunity for the likes of John Mann et al to be deselected. John McD has already been on the news today saying they should put up or shut up. Now the blairites are saying he's got til next year before they get rid of him, when in the autumn they were saying he's got til this May. I'm wondering when it is they'll realise that they're not in control of this situation and accept the democratic will of the wider party?
In fact, isn't winning the election at any cost regardless of principles written into the very DNA of the Blairites?
Obviously not...
Given that the membership will never elect another Blairite, I don't really see why they are still entertaining delusions of leadership.
Now the blairites are saying he's got til next year before they get rid of him, when in the autumn they were saying he's got til this May.
Except they don't have any means to get rid of him. If the membership want him as leader (which over 60% do), he stays.....
@ dazh or we end up with the SDP all over again
History suggests the outcome for a more left wing labour party is not great.
I do agree the Blairites need to learn to respect the membership, or they may well strike back, and constant talks of revolt are unhelpful in the extreme....not least, as they know the polling shows, because they have no chance of winning any vote.
what a spineless bunch of wazzocks the blairite wing is, according to the bbc political correspondent last week who couldn't name names but they were major players the "coup" was a done deal and nothing could save Jeremy.
or we end up with the SDP all over again
I'm not convinced that will happen for the simple reason that I don't think the blairites have the backbone or the mass popular support to carry it through. The SDP split came after a decade of infighting between the right and the Bennites and the huge power of the unions. The problem this time is they are not fighting other labour MPs or self interested union leaders, but the wider membership. They can moan all they like about how their party has been taken over by the left, but in reality all that's happened is the membership and grassroots have reclaimed the power that was denied to them under the Blairite regime.