Jeremy Corbyn - Not Not Labour Party(?), not a Communist (BBC)

Frosty said:
It was passed in 2011 sadly. Thanks Nick Clegg!
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Not according to the article?

A similar exercise was begun in 2013 but abandoned by Cameron in the face of pressure from his Lib Dem coalition partners, and anger from his own backbenches. The Tories are hoping to avoid a repeat of the anger by offering affected its MPs the chance to move into seats vacated by colleagues retiring.
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DenisIrwin said:
My (limited) understanding is...

Branson runs Virgin trains. Under a Corbyn-led Labour government their licence to operate would lapse and the service would be brought under public ownersip/control. He also runs Virgin healthcare providing services under contract to the NHS (and pay no taxes due to offshore status). Branson would still be rich, but would be taking less money offshore. The public/government would win. There would a similar number of people employed.

Green... well, let's just see what unravels there. I hope he is forced to at least pay the pensions fund. Vile individual. Lessons need to be learned about the way he was able to mismanage things so badly to his own (and his Monaco-based wife's) advantage. The rules governing offshore tax status need to be looked at, imo. There is probably more chance of that happening under a Corbyn-led Labour government than either a Tory or "centre-left" one.

Corbyn has said the top tax rate would be 50p. Not exactly draconian, and certainly not 98p.

I agree that politics in this country has moved significantly to the right, in both major parties (and with the emergence of UKIP), as is evident in analysis of the Brexit vote. Not a good thing, imo.

The top 1% have done extremely well under the Tories. The rest of us, whether we be traditional Labour or Tory (or undecided or whatever) voters, have not. Corbyn's policies will appeal most to the most disadvantaged, but should appeal to everyone in the bottom 90-99% as well. The thought that traditional Tory voters couldn't possibly be won over by Corbyn's policies is rubbish. Socialism isn't a bad thing. Honestly.

By the way, Kinnock and Miliband lost. The Tories have a slender lead. It's certainly possible for Labour under Corbyn to come back at them strongly enough to defeat them over the course of the next 4 years - especially if the increased membership is anything to go by.
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Also, do we have any evidence that Tory voters would ever vote in the numbers necessary for Corbyn to come close to getting elected?
 
Frosty said:
Passed in 2011, postponed in 2013 as the LDs wanted a tit for tat approach to the Tories torpedoing Lords reform. All the new maps need is a straight Commons vote - no new legislation is required, so it will go through on party lines.
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Thats what I meant though. It would need all the Tory MPs who would lose their seat to vote it through because more stand to loss their seat than their majority.

And even then, it would face huge Lord's opposition (but was it a manifesto pledge? probably was) and be deeply unpopular to the general populace (hopefully regardless of party affiliation) who will view it as a putsch. I'm not massively opposed to boundary reform, as part of a general policy of electoral reform, but yeah, its a pretty blatant attempt at gerrymandering.
 
Marching said:
Doesn't bother me in the slightest what the 1% have done.
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Doesn't bother me in the slightest what you think. It will have resonance with the British electorate though. There are a lot of people not doing so well that will be pissed off that the top 1% have thrived under the Tories while they've struggled through unnecessary austerity.
 
NinjaFletch said:
Thats what I meant though. It would need all the Tory MPs who would lose their seat to vote it through because more stand to loss their seat than their majority.

And even then, it would face huge Lord's opposition (but was it a manifesto pledge? probably was) and be deeply unpopular to the general populace (hopefully regardless of party affiliation) who will view it as a putsch. I'm not massively opposed to boundary reform, as part of a general policy of electoral reform, but yeah, its a pretty blatant attempt at gerrymandering.
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This isn't news. Corbyn has talked about it. He said it would be cause for reselection of candidates prior to the next GE - and was criticised for "threatening" rebelious Labour MPs with it.
 
NinjaFletch said:
Thats what I meant though. It would need all the Tory MPs who would lose their seat to vote it through because more stand to loss their seat than their majority.

And even then, it would face huge Lord's opposition (but was it a manifesto pledge? probably was) and be deeply unpopular to the general populace (hopefully regardless of party affiliation) who will view it as a putsch. I'm not massively opposed to boundary reform, as part of a general policy of electoral reform, but yeah, its a pretty blatant attempt at gerrymandering.
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Yes it was a manifesto pledge sadly. However if it would only affect 10-15 Tory seats (which is a reasonable estimate even from a neutral review), then that would easily enable vulnerable MPs to replace retiring ones. Bearing in mind the lack of an opposition Party, I reckon this could get passed really speedily. Not that I don't share your position, but I am not sure that boundary reform will be a big issue on the doorstep.
 
DenisIrwin said:
This isn't news. Corbyn has talked about it. He said it would be cause for reselection of candidates prior to the next GE - and was criticised for "threatening" rebelious Labour MPs with it.
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I'm well aware that talk has been afoot for awhile and research has been ongoing, but the report being nearly finished and the speculation as to which constituencies will be affected is, to my knowledge, new.
 
DenisIrwin said:
This isn't news. Corbyn has talked about it. He said it would be cause for reselection of candidates prior to the next GE - and was criticised for "threatening" rebelious Labour MPs with it.
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It was a veiled threat though. And fair enough - the man and his team have an agenda, and it is nothing that Blair/Brown/Campbell didn't do, and every party leader for that matter.

Skills said:
How do they reach the conclusion that labour is over-represented? Surely it's the other way around with the conservative party managing a majority in parliament with only 37% of the total vote
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Structurally the electoral map means that urban votes are "worth" more than rural votes, because urban constituencies are smaller. Labour voters and generally urban voters. The Tory move to change the electoral roll from household to individual registration led to 800,000 persons dropping off the register, mostly in Labour areas, which is a bigger issue for the redrawn boundaries.
 
Skills said:
How do they reach the conclusion that labour is over-represented? Surely it's the other way around with the conservative party managing a majority in parliament with only 37% of the total vote
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It's more structural than that, read a paper on it a while back - can't remember the exact figures but for a decent example of the discrepancy: Labour in 2005 won 356 seats on 35% of the vote, the Tories in 2015 won 331 seats on 37% of the vote. A big part of the difference is the fact that very safe Labour seats in big cities have ridiculously low turnout, down in the ~20% region, so they win plenty of seats with a relatively low amount of the vote. Not a huge amount of the difference is due to differential boundary sizes, which is what's being legislated against.
 
Frosty said:
It was a veiled threat though. And fair enough - the man and his team have an agenda, and it is nothing that Blair/Brown/Campbell didn't do, and every party leader for that matter.



Structurally the electoral map means that urban votes are "worth" more than rural votes, because urban constituencies are smaller. Labour voters and generally urban voters. The Tory move to change the electoral roll from household to individual registration led to 800,000 persons dropping off the register, mostly in Labour areas, which is a bigger issue for the redrawn boundaries.
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I really don't think he meant it to be anything other than a statement of fact. The MSM portrayed it as a threat.
 
DenisIrwin said:
Doesn't bother me in the slightest what you think. It will have resonance with the British electorate though. There are a lot of people not doing so well that will be pissed off that the top 1% have thrived under the Tories while they've struggled through unnecessary austerity.
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Will it bollox. You can't change the 1% and the rest of the British electorate are bright enough to realise they can't either and won't waste their time worrying about it. Certainly won't be bothering about an article that's 16 months old and goes on about Gopi Hinduja and Len Blavatnik who I bet you have never heard of. You sound so bitter. :(
 
DenisIrwin said:
I really don't think he meant it to be anything other than a statement of fact. The MSM portrayed it as a threat.
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Come on now. Momentum and Corbyn supporters and unnamed advisors have been quoted as supporting deselection in press articles over the last year.

If Corbyn didn't know that statement of fact was both a) plausibly deniable and b) a veiled threat trying to ensure the loyalty of MPs who he perceives as going against the membership then he is too naive to be a leader.
 
Marching said:
Will it bollox. You can't change the 1% and the rest of the British electorate are bright enough to realise they can't either and won't waste their time worrying about it. Certainly won't be bothering about an article that's 16 months old and goes on about Gopi Hinduja and Len Blavatnik who I bet you have never heard of. You sound so bitter. :(
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That's possibly because I am fecking bitter about the fecking Tory cnuts.
 
Frosty said:
Come on now. Momentum and Corbyn supporters and unnamed advisors have been quoted as supporting deselection in press articles over the last year.

If Corbyn didn't know that statement of fact was both a) plausibly deniable and b) a veiled threat trying to ensure the loyalty of MPs who he perceives as going against the membership then he is too naive to be a leader.
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Are you so naive to think the MSM wouldn't/haven't twisted his statement of fact and made it into a threat?
 
DenisIrwin said:
That's possibly because I am fecking bitter about the fecking Tory cnuts.
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Kind of sounds like you'll struggle with debating if you have such an entrenched position.

On a sidenote, I do find the notion that the likes of Branson and Green live on their own private Caribbean island/in Monaco purely for tax reasons a tad laughable. Obviously it's a factor, but there are other ways around it. The 'tax exile' label almost sounds like Branson is suffering in his Caribbean heaven. As a knight of the realm, he should know his place and be sat in some grimey, rainy suburb in England.
 
Jippy said:
Kind of sounds like you'll struggle with debating if you have such an entrenched position.

On a sidenote, I do find the notion that the likes of Branson and Green live on their own private Caribbean island/in Monaco purely for tax reasons a tad laughable. Obviously it's a factor, but there are other ways around it. The 'tax exile' label almost sounds like Branson is suffering in his Caribbean heaven. As a knight of the realm, he should know his place and be sat in some grimey, rainy suburb in England.
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In fairness I absolutely refuse to believe anyone lives in Monaco for any other reason. It's an absolute hole.
 
NinjaFletch said:
In fairness I absolutely refuse to believe anyone lives in Monaco for any other reason. It's an absolute hole.
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It's not a 'hole'. I'd be pretty happy in a mansion with a pool and all year sun. Necker looks stunning. Obviously it's no coincidence all the F1 drivers live in Monaco though.
 
DenisIrwin said:
Are you so naive to think the MSM wouldn't/haven't twisted his statement of fact and made it into a threat?
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No, they haven't. Not on this point. And again, that is fine. I would be more surprised if he wasn't making a point. I would be concerned too, and think that the man has no political nous.

https://www.ft.com/content/8d09d2f4-4f38-11e6-88c5-db83e98a590a

I am not naive. I know every Labour leader will have to deal with a hostile press. But those statements are clear. Especially as is clear that the boundary changes have to be approved by an up and down vote by Parliament. The Leader of the Opposition is already conceding defeat? No. He is using the prospect of losing the vote to make a political threat.
 
NinjaFletch said:
In fairness I absolutely refuse to believe anyone lives in Monaco for any other reason. It's an absolute hole.
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Just in case that's not an odd sense of humour you've got there....why is it a hole?
 
Jippy said:
It's not a 'hole'. I'd be pretty happy in a mansion with a pool and all year sun. Necker looks stunning. Obviously it's no coincidence all the F1 drivers live in Monaco though.
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I can think of little good to say about Monaco, and thats from the point of view of a person who can't afford to live almost anywhere in the world. Put it this way. If I could afford to live in Monaco it would be very low down on the list of places I would actually like to live in. If you can chose to live anywhere then why on earth would you live there?

Marching said:
Just in case that's not an odd sense of humour you've got there....why is it a hole?
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Overcrowded, apartment blocks as far as the eye can see, nicer towns and cities within spitting distance etc.. its no Coventry, but I find it bizarre that people that can afford to live there would actually chose to do so.
 
Frosty said:
No, they haven't. Not on this point. And again, that is fine. I would be more surprised if he wasn't making a point. I would be concerned too, and think that the man has no political nous.

https://www.ft.com/content/8d09d2f4-4f38-11e6-88c5-db83e98a590a

I am not naive. I know every Labour leader will have to deal with a hostile press. But those statements are clear. Especially as is clear that the boundary changes have to be approved by an up and down vote by Parliament. The Leader of the Opposition is already conceding defeat? No. He is using the prospect of losing the vote to make a political threat.
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I can't read that.
 
NinjaFletch said:
I can think of little good to say about Monaco, and thats from the point of view of a person who can't afford to live almost anywhere in the world. Put it this way. If I could afford to live in Monaco it would be very low down on the list of places I would actually like to live in. If you can chose to live anywhere then why on earth would you live there?




Overcrowded, apartment blocks as far as the eye can see, nicer towns and cities within spitting distance etc.. its no Coventry, but I find it bizarre that people that can afford to live there would actually chose to do so.
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Interesting. Ive visited Monaco regularly over the last 30 years and I'd live there in a heartbeat. It's safe, spotlessly clean and in a beautiful part of the world. That's not to say there are more beautiful places to have a home but it's as far from being a 'hole' as you can get.
 
NinjaFletch said:
I can think of little good to say about Monaco, and thats from the point of view of a person who can't afford to live almost anywhere in the world. Put it this way. If I could afford to live in Monaco it would be very low down on the list of places I would actually like to live in. If you can chose to live anywhere then why on earth would you live there?




Overcrowded, apartment blocks as far as the eye can see, nicer towns and cities within spitting distance etc.. its no Coventry, but I find it bizarre that people that can afford to live there would actually chose to do so.
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Tbh, I spent a day there about 24 years ago. I think that a hole' is a stretch tbf, especially if you're loaded, living somewhere nice.
 
Marching said:
Interesting. Ive visited Monaco regularly over the last 30 years and I'd live there in a heartbeat. It's safe, spotlessly clean and in a beautiful part of the world. That's not to say there are more beautiful places to have a home but it's as far from being a 'hole' as you can get.
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Obviously its a bit of hyperbole, and each to their own but yeah, if not for the allure and status symbol aspect of it I can see little other than tax status that Monaco has going for it.

Anyway if I was a super rich and famous type I'd probably want to pay more to get away from tourists gawping at me and avoid the South of France like the plague as a result, and wouldn't want to live in as crowded place as Monaco, but thats just personal preference.
 
Marching said:
So Branson and Green are not going to be filthy rich under a Corbyn run country? Of course they are and furthermore they will probably simply move their riches even further out of the reach of the government than they are currently. I had a friend many years ago who was a hugely successful author and he paid up to 98p in the pound in taxes on some earnings under a Labour government...all this led to his good friend the author Dick Francis trying to persuade him for many years to join him as a tax exile which meant little or no tax income was collected by the government. Rich business men and women employ hundreds of thousands of people who all pay tax and as they currently pay all the taxes they are legally required to I don't see what else anyone can do. You obviously don't like the fact they are rich but so fecking what. It's got bugger all to do you with you...or me or Stan or anyone else.

The whole point of an opposition party is eventually to become the government and the country has moved so far away from the far left that Corbyn represents I can't see how he can hope to convince enough Tories to vote for him...and it is those Tories he needs and not the already converted that turn up at his rallies.

Blair/Kinnocks/Millibands Labour all achieved government and they are not left enough for your version of Labour or indeed Corbyn's so it seems the answer is to split the party....that or Corbyn to join the Socialist Party and leave the MP's he can't work with to get on with working to be the opposition that could achieve power.
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Aaaah, reminds me of the time it was reported that liam brady took home 4p in the pound at the height of his career. at the end of the financial year he ended up paying 0 tax.

I would love to be in a position where i was 'taxed' at 98%. So rich boy sob stories dont really carry any weight whatsoever.
 
Frosty said:
No, they haven't. Not on this point. And again, that is fine. I would be more surprised if he wasn't making a point. I would be concerned too, and think that the man has no political nous.

https://www.ft.com/content/8d09d2f4-4f38-11e6-88c5-db83e98a590a

I am not naive. I know every Labour leader will have to deal with a hostile press. But those statements are clear. Especially as is clear that the boundary changes have to be approved by an up and down vote by Parliament. The Leader of the Opposition is already conceding defeat? No. He is using the prospect of losing the vote to make a political threat.
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Interesting... SkyNews reporting that Owen Smith's seat will be a casualty of boundary reform.
 
DenisIrwin said:
Interesting... SkyNews reporting that Owen Smith's seat will be a casualty of boundary reform.
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Scores are in the same position. Rosie Winterton will be in charge of making sense of the mess.

DenisIrwin said:
the “Owen 2016” campaign is using the headquarters of polling company, “Survation Ltd.”, to administer its London phone-banks

https://heavymetalpolitics.wordpres...-2016-campaign-using-polling-company-offices/
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So the point is that Owen Smith is trying to get a biased audience for the debates?

Kind of like this alleged report? http://www.express.co.uk/news/polit...-Labour-leadership-debate-Victoria-Derbyshire

This infighting is embarrassing and getting ridiculous from all involved. Smith's mistake was to run on a Corbyn-lite platform.
 
DenisIrwin said:
I can't read that.
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The FT report is similar to all other news reports covering Corbyn's comments.

From this Guardian report: http://www.theguardian.com/politics...-fears-of-labour-mps-who-oppose-jeremy-corbyn

Mandatory reselection is a totemic issue on the left of the Labour party, and was one of the central demands of the Bennite Campaign for Labour Party Democracy, of which Corbyn was a founder member.
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That's the context, as well as allies through the media at the time (Livingstone for example) talking about deselection as if we were back in 1981.
 
Here is The Observer's leader on nationalisation. Good points made, I think:

The railways can evoke passionate views about the merits of public ownership in the same way as the NHS. As nationally owned entities, the two are kindred spirits. The National Health Service Act of 1946 was followed a year later by the Transport Act that merged the “big four” rail routes and created British Railways. But they have taken different paths since, with the disastrous privatisation of the rail network in the mid-1990s resulting in today’s patched-up structure: the infrastructure – tracks and stations – is nationally owned, while the services – run on privately owned trains – are operated by the private sector on a route-by-route basis under the franchise system.

Jeremy Corbyn addressed this mess earlier this month with a call for nationalisation of those private operators, and created a mess of his own when the operator he used to make his point, Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Trains, took umbrage. But don’t let a dissection of seat availability in carriage H, or your view of Corbyn or Branson, detract from a valid question raised by the Labour leader’s clumsy foray: what benefits have been delivered by private ownership of rail services?

Safety and punctuality, the two key factors for passengers, have improved vastly since the nadir of 2000 when the network ground to a near-halt in the wake of the fatal Hatfield crash. That improvement was only possible because the then operator of the rail system, privately owned Railtrack, was replaced by a state-controlled entity, Network Rail. Billions of pounds of state funding has been pumped into Network Rail, through grants and debt, with a noticeable improvement in services as a result. Any train operator pointing to increased passenger numbers, improved punctuality and a sea-change in safety since 2000 should be thanking, therefore, the taxpayer, not the private sector. Private operators run branded carriages while a nationally owned business does the hard work.

Corbyn’s central argument is that nationalisation of rail franchises – such as Virgin Trains East Coast and Greater Anglia – will make services less crowded and fares cheaper. If we accept that nationalisation has made trains safer and more punctual, should it follow that the same policy for franchises will provide more seats at lower expense to the passenger? No, because the issue is ultimately one of funding, not of ownership. Consider the figures: farepayers put £8.8bn into the railways in 2014-2015, compared with £3.5bn from the state. Next to this combined “input” of £12.3bn, private operators took out £222m in dividend payments. These figures suggest that nationalisation will not make a meaningful difference in terms of adding more seats – new carriage orders cost between £1bn and £4.5bn a go – or lowering fare levels through greater subsidy.

That leaves two options: increased public subsidy or reducing costs. Both are problematic for Labour or any party. Analogous to the NHS as a symbol of collective endeavour, the railways merit considerable public investment but the health service is probably as far as the electorate will allow bottomless taxpayer commitment to go. Labour, punished by voters last time round for failing to restore trust lost over deficit spending, will struggle to make an argument for pumping more cash into the railways.

The deficit problem also applies to reducing costs. Network Rail’s undoubted achievements have left a towering mountain of debt: more than £40bn. It has to be reduced, and it would be dangerous to add to it at the rate seen over the past decade. If fares fall, it would not be wise to balance out the funding reduction with a rise in Network Rail’s debt. Elsewhere on the network, the consequences of trying to take costs out of the system are stark. The industrial action causing disruption on the Southern rail franchise – a key London commuter route – is centred on attempts to introduce new train carriages without guards: in other words, to reduce costs. A Labour party under Corbyn would not be expected to take sides against the rail unions, which locks off a further option for getting fares down and funding new carriages.

The case for nationalising rail operators is persuasive because the benefit operators such as Virgin bring to passengers is minimal compared with the far greater achievement of state-backed Network Rail. Indeed, a saving of £222m per year is better than nothing when some public benefits are being axed for similar gains. Nonetheless, Corbyn is in the classic post-credit crunch bind: common ownership of rail, as with health, housing and energy, is a common good. But he will struggle to pay for it.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/27/railway-nationalisation-jeremy-corbyn-virgin
 
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