We it seems we are faced with a choice between 1984 or Animal Farm.
(Guess which is on the GCSE English Lit syllabus)

Well, my lad has been told to read 1984, so I guess that is. He’s reading my 50th anniversary edition of Animal Farm instead, because it looks so damn good… (and he has to wait for other kids to read the few copies of 1984 the school owns).

http://www.openculture.com/2017/08/ralph-steadmans-surrealist-illustrations-of-george-orwells-animal-farm-1995.html

McDonnell has just committed to a 32 hour working week. A potential game changer.

There’s nothing preposterous about the policy of staying neutral over a deal or remain ref.

Corbyn isn’t staying neutral, he is fighting for Brexit. He doesn’t want a Labour government getting in the way of delivering that. You have to admire him sticking to his principals really… when so much of the rest of the Labour movement would rather safeguard jobs, workers rights, living standards, environmental standards, food standards etc and stop Brexit.

McDonnell has just committed to a 32 hour working week.

Well, as long as that’s paired with measures to stop the slide from employee to self employed status for those that are low paid and work long hours…

Corbyn isn’t staying neutral

He’s said he will stay neutral in a new referendum campaign. Labour support for remain isn’t about Corbyn thinks or does, it’s about using the party machine and voter databases to support the campaign. They can do that with Corbyn remaining neutral.

Question: McDonnell has said the first step to delivering a 4 day week will be opting out of the European Working Time Directive. Does remaining prevent that?

Well, as long as that’s paired with measures to stop the slide from employee to self employed status for those that are low paid and work long hours…

He also committed to abolish zero hours contracts.

Question: McDonnell has said the first step to delivering a 4 day week will be opting out of the European Working Time Directive. Does remaining prevent that?

The UK has already opted out of the European Working Time Directive, for the opposite reason, because the UK wants workers to work longer. The directive has maximum hours (48 iirc) but national governments are allowed to set a lower working week if they wish.

Frankly it is quite clear who is driving brexit, and it isn’t anyone with a social conscious. The fantasy that brexit will deliver a better world just will not happen.

kelvin

Corbyn isn’t staying neutral, he is fighting for Brexit.

Committing to a ref seems a strange way of going about that.

McDonnell has just committed to a 32 hour working week. A potential game changer.

It certainly means they know for sure they’re gonna lose the election and can safely promise *anything*.

Britain has a terrible productivity problem. Reducing productivity by 15pc is mental.

He’s not neutral, he’s attempting to be the balance/brake against Labour stopping Brexit. He’s no more neutral than he ever has been… he’s a Brexiteer fighting to keep Brexit alive within the Labour movement.

And zero hours contracts is a red herring. If you’re self employed to provide a service, you may be on a retainer, or other contract that isn’t directly link your hours worked, nor places a limit on how many hours you work. Stopping zero hour contracts (or at the very least stopping those that lock you in as if waged) is important, but it doesn’t on its own bring all workers within any new working hours directive type legislation. I’d like to see the details about how this would be achieved, before cheering a 32 hour working week headline policy. Details matter.

Britain has a terrible productivity problem. Reducing productivity by 15pc is mental.

Britain has a terrible productivity problem, because it squeezes working people too hard for too long, people are miserable at work, they feel untrusted and devalued by conditions, actually improving conditions is the solution. Working less hours would help.

He’s said he will stay neutral in a new referendum campaign. Labour support for remain isn’t about Corbyn thinks or does, it’s about using the party machine and voter databases to support the campaign. They can do that with Corbyn remaining neutral.

But we all know where his heart lies – he’s a born Brexiteer, has been all his life..

Seems more like a democrat tbh, he may be for brexit, but is clearly willing to allow the nation to decide for itself.

I really don’t see how people can criticise that, cept to further their own agenda.

I really don’t see how people can criticise that, cept to further their own agenda.

Because most people who support brexit do so because they believed lies and racist propaganda. Corbyn has totally failed to challenge that rhetoric, and it is because he still thinks he can deliver a unicorn brexit of his own, he doesn’t care about the damage the rhetoric has and is causing because he thinks it could deliver him a path to power and his own fantastic utopia. He is just the other arse cheek to Johnson/Trump. He just isn’t looking at the reality of what is happening, just believing it will all magically fix itself once he takes over.

You have to have sort of grudgingly admire what he has achieved. He’s devised a form of populism that is universally unpopular*

*Sixth formers excepted

MSP
He just isn’t looking at the reality of what is happening.

😆

He’s the only one looking at the current reality in relation to brexit!

Tell me the other solution to Brexit rather than a referendum?

binners

Subscriber
You have to have sort of grudgingly admire what he has achieved. He’s devised a form of populism that is universally unpopular*

*Sixth formers excepted

Posted 9 minutes ago

Perhaps, but there’s comes a time when you should perhaps chill with your rhetoric too, and get behind him on a single issue.

Corbyn is correct when it comes to a ref.

His policies are largely irrelevant when you factor in the bigger picture.

This brexit shit isn’t going to last forever, there’s now 2 options now.

A corbyn government and a ref.

A boris government and out on our arse.

The choices there really decide the direction of travel for this country for the next 20/30/40 years and more than any current manifesto, either parties current policies are irrelevant. We can change policy direction in short order.

We won’t change the decision we make on brexit.

McDonnell has just committed to a 32 hour working week

Shit! that means I’m going to have to start eating into my own time on this forum

How do we “get behind him”?

I’m voting Labour, despite it having a leader who wants Brexit, because at least those he has been fighting in the party for three years have managed to get a referendum policy past him and his team… but by god was that a battle. I’m getting behind Labour, not Corbyn, and hope that Brexit can be stopped despite all his efforts to save it. Those efforts won’t end if he becomes PM. He won’t be “neutral”, he will use both party and government bureaucracy to try and enable Brexit, and others in the party will have to be prepared to fight him and his millionaire Straight Left confidants.

Shit! that means I’m going to have to start eating into my own time on this forum

😂

kelvin
kelvin

Subscriber
How do we “get behind him”?

I’m voting Labour, despite it having a leader who wants Brexit, because at least those he has been fighting in the party for three years have managed to get a referendum policy past him and his team… but by god was that a battle. I’m getting behind Labour, not Corbyn, and hope that Brexit can be stopped despite all his efforts to save it. Those efforts won’t end if he becomes PM. He won’t be “neutral”, he will use both party and government bureaucracy to try and enable Brexit.

Stop attacking him on the issue would be a start.

It really doesn’t matter what he believes, as long as a ref happens, what you suspect his beliefs are, are irrelevant.

Stop attacking him on the issue would be a start.

Hell no. He has had to be dragged to the current position by people pointing out that his Jobs First Brexit was bullshit, and that sacking people who proposed a second referendum was unwelcome, and by millions of people, including Labour members, voting for other parties at this year’s elections to ram the message home that chasing his red unicorn Brexit boondoggle is bad for Labour, and bad for the UK and its workers. The pressure on him and his team needs to increase, not decrease, and I hope Labour members find a way of doing exactly that this week. I’ve been impressed with the front benchers piling the pressure on already at conference side events. Why should we insignificant normal voters stop?

There are plenty of countries who work longer hours than us AND have higher productivity.

Reducing working hours isn’t going to magically improve that.

kelvin

Subscriber
Stop attacking him on the issue would be a start.

Hell no. He has had to be dragged to the current position by people pointing out that his Jobs First Brexit was bullshit, and that sacking people who proposed a second referendum was unwelcome, and by millions of people, including Labour members, voting for other parties at this year’s elections to ram the message home that chasing his red unicorn Brexit boondoggle is bad for Labour, and bad for the UK and its workers. The pressure on him and his team needs to increase, not decrease, and I hope Labour members find a way of doing exactly that this week. I’ve been impressed with the front benchers piling the pressure on already at conference side events. Why should we insignificant normal voters stop?

I’ve made my points above, if you don’t get it, you don’t get it…

Try again… what are your points?
That as PM he and his staunch anti-European Straight Left team would just let everyone else get on with sorting out the Brexit mess without seeking to influence/restrict/promote their own policy aims?
That we should support any fudge Corbyn puts his name to, rather than support those in his party looking to make it clear that Brexit is not in the interests of those the Labour Party should be standing up for?
That dissent over Brexit within the Labour Party should be suppressed because a Johnson government is so damaging than we should put Brexit to one side ‘till after an election to get rid of him?
Tell us your thinking… beyond “stop attacking Corbyn on this issue.”

Reducing working hours isn’t going to magically improve that.

I couldn’t realy GAS about improving productivity, I care about improving my own quality of life, and working less is a big part of that. If productivity improves – as some research has indicated – as a result then great, but that’s not the main driver.

kelvin

Subscriber
Try again… what are your points?
That as PM he and his staunch anti-European Straight Left team would just let everyone else get on with sorting out the Brexit mess without seeking to influence/restrict/promote their own policy aims?
That we should support any fudge Corbyn puts his name to, rather than support those in his party looking to make it clear that Brexit is not in the interests of those the Labour Party should be standing up for?
That dissent over Brexit within the Labour Party should be suppressed because a Johnson government is so damaging than we should put Brexit to one side ‘till after an election to get rid of him?
Tell us your thinking… beyond “stop attacking Corbyn on this issue.”

It’s fairly simplistic, I’m sure you can read, it’s all above.

I couldn’t realy GAS about improving productivity, I care about improving my own quality of life, and working less is a big part of that.

I’m not sure a 20% cut in income would improve your quality of life.

Bloody hippy layabout!

It’s fairly simplistic, I’m sure you can read, it’s all above.

No, go on, try explaining your thoughts. We’re listening… well, I am. And as you say “I don’t get it.” So what am I missing? Why should those that want a Labour government, and also to stop Brexit, say so, even if the Labour leader only supports one of those aims.

How mad is Politics at the moment:

Abolishing Ofsted:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-49785130

Booing the National Chair of Jewish Labour Mike Katz:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/sign-taken-down-labour-anti-20146095

…and then Andrew Fisher *really* going for Corbyns innner circle:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/21/remain-mps-accuse-jeremy-corbyn-shutting-down-brexit-debate

Fisher wrote a memo to colleagues, the Sunday Times reports, saying members of Corbyn’s team had a “lack of professionalism, competence and human decency”. He also accused them of making a “blizzard of lies and excuses” and apparently claimed that the highest ranks of the party were engaged in “class war”.

kelvin

No, go on, try explaining your thoughts. We’re listening… well, I am. And as you say “I don’t get it.” So what am I missing? Why should those that want a Labour government, and also to stop Brexit, say so, even if the Labour leader only supports one of those aims.

I’ve made my points above, if you don’t get it, you don’t get it…

Just spell it out for us. Come on.

I have, fairly clearly. Really don’t feel any need to repeat myself (anymore ) here! 😆

And on Tom Watson, the misguided attempt to remove him can be explained by the simple fact that he’s a king size **** who for two years has been acting as shadow leader in waiting rather than deputy leader. He simply hasn’t done his job, and the labour party has suffered massively because of it.

so he’s performed similarly to Corbyn then – so they both should go maybe ??

There are plenty of countries who work longer hours than us AND have higher productivity.

Reducing working hours isn’t going to magically improve that.

Actually one of the big problems of the UK workplace is unclaimed and unreported hours. I barely know anyone who only works their 40 hour week, most do 50+ but still only get paid for 40 and reported as 40. There are very few countries that will allow such abuses.

Reducing working hours clearly isn’t going to magically improve productivity, but it would be a change in the right direction of making employees more than just human batteries, and with other changes that force businesses to value people and that will raise productivity.

I couldn’t realy GAS about improving productivity, I care about improving my own quality of life, and working less is a big part of that

sounds like you have the type of attitude that has lead to this country having terrible productivity figures…

Reducing working hours clearly isn’t going to magically improve productivity, but it would be a change in the right direction of making employees more than just human batteries, and with other changes that force businesses to value people and that will raise productivity.

What it would actually do is increase the overhead of employing staff and drive investment in automation. Great if you work in an industry that provides automation…

sounds like you have the type of attitude that has lead to this country having terrible productivity figures…

No one ever died wishing they’d worked more.

I’m not sure a 20% cut in income would improve your quality of life.

Think you’ve missed the main point of the policy, which is a cut in working hours with no cut in pay.

What it would actually do is increase the overhead of employing staff and drive investment in automation. Great if you work in an industry that provides automation…

Yet most of Europe have higher productivity, more restrictive working hour regulations and greater employee protection regulations. It is almost as if treating people better rather than just exploiting them is better for productivity.

Automation is a problem society will have to deal with as it gathers pace, but squeezing peoples lifes even more won’t hold it back.

Think you’ve missed the main point of the policy, which is a cut in working hours with no cut in pay.

I see. You must be assuming you’ll be in the lucky 80% that isn’t instantly made redundant?