Gilzeantoscore
Justin Edinburgh
If you're remotely attracted to the snake oil that is neo liberalism, go the whole hog and vote for your local Tory candidate.
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Politics, politics, politics
- Thread starter markysimmo
- Start date
If you're remotely attracted to the snake oil that is neo liberalism, go the whole hog and vote for your local Tory candidate.
Parklaner81
Steve Hodge
I wasn't attempting to sway you. I was simply pointing out how wrong your previous statement was.
ShipOfTheseus
Clint Dempsey
The 1997-2010 Labour administration brought in Sure Start and the minimum wage, targeted redistributive benefits and tax credits, expanded access to universities, slashed NHS waiting lists and did a whole host of other good things. Can you really look at that record, sneer at the people who achieved it for being "neo-liberal", and claim that there is no difference between them and the Tories?
My local Tory candidate is Theresa Villiers, who is the hardest of Brexiteers despite having been Northern Ireland secretary and knowing exactly what a physical border would do to the peace process, so the suggestion you make is particularly horrific.
Gilzeantoscore
Justin Edinburgh
Slashed NHS waiting lists... bravo who would expect a Labour administration to do that? They were neo liberal, they were free marketeers, just check Blair's public comments.
Blair's Labour did a lot of good for the country (although the expense and subsequent financial issues don't nearly show his time in such a good light). The expanded access to universities was not one of them though. Degrees are now virtually worthless in the workplace as they no longer separate the intellectual elite from the rest.
ShipOfTheseus
Clint Dempsey
I don't think we're ever going to come to an agreement on definitions. Or anything else.
And yet we would both, presumably, vote for a Labour party led by - say - Emily Thornberry. Perhaps you'd even go as far as Stella Creasy. Funny things, big tents.
ShipOfTheseus
Clint Dempsey
Most OECD countries have similar levels of higher education now; the UK is hardly an outlier. If you have the misfortune to have to look at graduate CVs, you can spot the intellectual elite because they went to real universities and did proper degrees.
Also, you can interview people and see whether they are clever. Most people are improved by spending three years needing to take something abstract seriously, with a big fudge-off test at the end, so the societal contribution goes well beyond the ability to rank candidates.
Edit: charging the poor sods £30k for it and then making them pay it back at eye-watering rates of interest is all a bit off. But that happened later.
Gilzeantoscore
Justin Edinburgh
Yes, but only by holding my nose.
I quite like Barry Gardiner, I'd choose him over either of those, though I expect the party will try to put forward women candidates to get the first female Labour leader. Not a fan of Creasy, she seems a bit false to me, though I'd vote for her over any Tory, assuming I agreed with the policies put forward.
ShipOfTheseus
Clint Dempsey
Yeah, a woman is nailed on I think.
Gutter Boy
Tim Sherwood
Working tax credits are a dumb idea. It supports big corporations in paying insufficient wages. I'm all for universal basic income. But working tax credits was just a specifically cynical attempt by Brown to tie people in precarious positions into dependency on a future Labour government. It was an pact with the evil corporations to try and cling onto power.
I think the problem with New Labour's legacy is that they presided over a major national/international decline. From the fall of the Berlin Wall till the World Trade Centre thing (1989-2001) was a bit of a golden age. Since then, for reasons of greed and technology, fear and hatred have risen. New Labour coincides with the country/world becoming a worse place, but Blair's foreign and immigration policies contributed significantly too.
ShipOfTheseus
Clint Dempsey
Bit harsh, given that it went hand-in-hand with the minimum wage.
Gutter Boy
Tim Sherwood
You don't realise the misogyny that exists in the Labour party and Momentum if you think that's remotely possible.
You mention Stella Creasy, look at the kind of crap she has to deal with: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/squawkbox-stella-creasy_uk_5a44a3f5e4b025f99e19a10e and http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/skylar-bakerjordan/why-jared-omaras-misogyny_b_18371578.html
Misogyny and anti-Semitism are the two big internal blights of the left in this country
Gutter Boy
Tim Sherwood
Minimum wage is actually a pretty dumb idea too. All it does is cause wage and price inflation (plus discrimination against young people). Pay ratios are a much smarter idea - 15:1 between the CEO and the cleaners.
ShipOfTheseus
Clint Dempsey
I agree that elements of the hard-left are spectacularly obnoxious on Twitter, and that women who attract Momentum's opprobrium get a harder time of it than men.
Not sure that stops the PLP, collectively, from preferring female representatives of the various factions and putting them to the membership.
ShipOfTheseus
Clint Dempsey
Those ratios would be unenforceable for multinationals, and create even more incentives for tax avoidance.
What's wrong with wage inflation at the bottom end of the payscale? Isn't that the objective?
Gutter Boy
Tim Sherwood
Look at the internal assignation of Angela Eagle when she stood as leadership candidate - they had to quickly slot in Owen Smith because it was getting so embarrassing for the party. Harriet Harman and Yvette Cooper should have been far more prominent in a meritocratic party. It's a big cultural problem. It's the old tension between the majority old white working classes and minority metropolitan Guardian readers. In contrast, look at how the Lib Dems are grooming Jo Swinson
Gutter Boy
Tim Sherwood
Not unenforceable with a bit of resolve to take on the interests of big business. We've had 40 years of governments bending over and letting them do whatever they want.
It doesn't happen at the bottom end though. People higher are the foodchain are much more adept and getting theirs increased to maintain the gap, so all wages increase, the price of all goods increase and exports drop. Wages are always relative, not absolute. So the trick is to manage the relativity.
ShipOfTheseus
Clint Dempsey
Smith got a kicking as well.
Yvette was a solid leadership contender in 2015 and she represented the Brownites together with the old Northern Labour civic machines. In a sane world, she'd have won. She was my second preference vote after Liz Kendall.
Parklaner81
Steve Hodge
The people the minimum wage squeezes in my opinion are the lower-middle income earners. They aren't so able to maintain relativity. The minimum wage has more than doubled since its inception, with current indications being that it will continue to rise at a considerable rate. Over a similar period, average earnings have increased by more like 60% or so.