"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."
Do they feck!
Jeremy Corbyn - Not Not Labour Party(?), not a Communist (BBC)
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Do they feck!
He's not shut away there obviously. He does make the effort to get involved with the wider world... like attending Bilderberg meetings and such.
Very safe, highest police to population ratio in the world.
Probably the opposite ratio in London.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...ing-overseas-foreign-buyers-mps-a7138176.html
Not sure I see the link, what has money laundering got to do with police to population ratio?
No, Sorry. I meant the number of big-time criminals owning land in London may well be among the highest for any city in the world. I can't imagine the total value of those properties bought with laundered money.
What is the need for professional politicians to act like five-year old's? No better than the rabid Corbyn supporters in cases like that.
Words like "annihilation" when they've brought it upon themselves. If they want Corbyn out then they should present a halfway competent candidate, because we're still waiting. Both sides are absolutely shambolic in this.
To be fair, Chris Mullin is not an MP any more (although a superb author of A Very British Coup, which is well worth a read), and he is both very left wing, critical of New Labour, and the Corbyn leadership.
For context, read this:
https://profilebooks.com/blog/cat/news/post/why-jeremy-corbyn-must-go-chris-mullin/
And this (November 2015):
http://www.newstatesman.com/politic...ere-are-one-or-two-people-who-are-riding-fall
And these tweets too:
The Times made me laugh this morning....
Speaking about kicking people out of the partyThe Times made me laugh this morning....
The party leadership need to get them all off twitter. How can that kind of behaviour be acceptable in representing the party or constituents. This type of playground infighting has pissed me off from the start, that was their stance from day 1 of Corbyn no wonder the party is in such a state.
That article from Johnson was really disappointing. An ode to Sainsbury and another two fingers up at the membership. The man was the head of the Labour remain campaign and couldn't even get his own constituency to vote remain yet he has the cheek to attack Corbyn on the issue.
Madness.... a friend of a friend was barred from joining because she said on social media..."I f 'ing love the Foo Fighters" !!!
How any part of the Labour Party expect to win power after all this crap is beyond me!
Really ?
But yeah agree with you, this ''leadership contest'' has been awful for the party.
What a joke that party has become. Having voted for them in every general election I could, it's sad to see that a party you consistently put your faith in can sink so low. From the perspective of a former Labour voter out of the loop, it appears to be a case of damned if you do, damned if you don't. Corbyn has too many idealistic followers who will never reconcile their differences with Labour politicians, and those politicians would appear to be utterly aimless if left to their own devices. Hit the reset button.
Thats certainly something from nothing. These days in times like this its a long road to ruin. There's no way back with all this bridge burning and stacked actors. Better to breakout and let it die
Sorry
Johnson's article was ridiculous as well because McDonnell was pointing out the inconsistency from the NEC, not personally attacking Sainsbury (e.g. members being banned for having tweeted in support of the Greens/other causes, meanwhile Sainsbury gave the Lib Dems £2m)
Sainsbury ringfenced that donation for the referendum. Which I think is fair enough, given the Lib Dems are the most uniformly pro EU party.
How do they not in your view?
It doesn't follow. The figures are out of date. Their profit has grown. Did it mention the dividends it pays to shareholders? The state pays these firms massive subsidies. Network rail bears the burden for major infrastructure costs which privatised rail benefits from - and is hugely in debt while these companies reap huge profits. Passengers in the UK pay huge fares compared to similar countries and many have to stand or sit - often after waiting a long time for their train. Why do you think national rail companies of other nations are buying up shares in these companies? Branson is on record (way back) as saying "Let's do it! It's a licence to print money!". I could go on... but I can't be arsed right now.
The figures are not out of date - dividends pay around £200m per year.
Here are figures from 2015 showing a £183m total payment - http://actionforrail.org/private-ra...c-subsidies-to-fund-pay-outs-to-shareholders/
Here is also evidence from the campaign for nationalisation that most people think prices will fall after nationalisation - http://theconversation.com/the-case-for-re-nationalising-britains-railways-45963
The problem here (again) is that public ownership is not a panacea in and of itself. The massive investment through Network Rail is needed to maintain track and existing infrastructure. If we renationalise the railways, we have a distinct problem regarding funding. How will we pay for the upgrades required? We could get consumers to do so through fare increases, but that would be unpopular. We need a form of revenue for the railways - at present, this is not forthcoming. We also need to pay down the £40bn Network Rail debt. Even if we claw back £200m a year through dividend payments (which is not the correct calculation, but let's go with it), we still need to find a massive pot of money to sort the network out.
Given the problems the UK has with social care and the NHS (to name two) following the austerity of the last six years, the railways are not a top priority in my view.
Here are figures from 2015 showing a £183m total payment - http://actionforrail.org/private-ra...c-subsidies-to-fund-pay-outs-to-shareholders/
Here is also evidence from the campaign for nationalisation that most people think prices will fall after nationalisation - http://theconversation.com/the-case-for-re-nationalising-britains-railways-45963
The problem here (again) is that public ownership is not a panacea in and of itself. The massive investment through Network Rail is needed to maintain track and existing infrastructure. If we renationalise the railways, we have a distinct problem regarding funding. How will we pay for the upgrades required? We could get consumers to do so through fare increases, but that would be unpopular. We need a form of revenue for the railways - at present, this is not forthcoming. We also need to pay down the £40bn Network Rail debt. Even if we claw back £200m a year through dividend payments (which is not the correct calculation, but let's go with it), we still need to find a massive pot of money to sort the network out.
Given the problems the UK has with social care and the NHS (to name two) following the austerity of the last six years, the railways are not a top priority in my view.
About as expected, a repeat of last year more or less.
This is fairly amazing though
Not sure if there's an analogous case in recent political history, with a party's membership being so fundamentally altered in character within the space of 15 months.
More reason the party should split.
Yes, and this is why it was a huge mistake for some (and it was some) opponents of Corbyn to push for a cut off date for new members. The correct strategy should have been to out recruit him. There is a good piece in the New Statesman by George Eaton suggesting that what will happen after September is that all opponents will keep their mouths shut for an extended period of time. Probably for the best.
Yeah about as expected but Smiths own figures in the YouGov poll aren't particularly encouraging either. They show the electorate think he's even less likely to win the next GE than Corbyn.
Grim figures for Labour all round really
Edit, actually they think Corbyn is more likely to win but also more likely to lose so there you go
Also they have Corbyn as principled, honest but deluded and divisive. Smith is largely an unknown but leads with untrustworthy.
Grim figures for Labour all round really
Edit, actually they think Corbyn is more likely to win but also more likely to lose so there you go
Also they have Corbyn as principled, honest but deluded and divisive. Smith is largely an unknown but leads with untrustworthy.
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I will await the massive media campaign against Corbyn to resume on 25 September. There has been a noticeable cooling of criticism during the leadership campaign from the Mail and Telegraph. I think they are hoping Corbyn wins massively.
Could be a possibility. For all the rumours of a new breakaway party, those who are arguing against Corbyn are doing so on the basis that the party should be looking to obtain a viable route into power. A breakaway party fecks that for both sides: Corbyn loses the MP's and moderate support, but at the same time he'd still have the Labour name and I think you'd see a surprising amount of continuing loyalty to the Labour party itself if the other MP's leave. Essentially, both sides would only be hurt.
And in addition to that, the moderates have kind of lost the argument that their doing this is in any way helpful to the party. Despite the cut off dates for membership and the dissatisfaction with Corbyn, the coup has been a complete and utter failure from the start with an utter embarrassment of a candidate up against Corbyn and they can't even begin to claim it's been in any way helpful or useful.
The split should happen long-term, but short-term it only involves each side further fecking up any hopes of electability for the other side, however slim those may currently be.
I think they're saving themselves for the GE campaign. Prepare for daily mentions of the IRA, Hamas and Venezuela.
Well apart from running the "Nazi stormtroopers" story anyway.
short term pain for long term (potential) gain... I suspect the redrawing of the boundries and reduction in total MP numbers will ignite the whole de-selection stuff again and that will probably come after what I fully expect to be a fragmented and toxic conference - I honestly think a split will happen fairly soon - unless May decides she wants to take advantage of the mess labour are in now and call a snap election to ensure she gets 5 years to formulate and execute a brexit strategy and she does so with more perceived legitimacy
Okay let's get the crystal ball out and say Corbyn is going to be a disaster, i still don't see how splitting the party now rather than waiting it out is the best answer.
Its throwing the toys out of the pram because they didnt get their way. They should get behind him (properly this time) and in a year or two if he's a failure or loses a snap GE he'll be gone anyway.
In what sense? We'd be talking about a completely new, fresh political party here. I'd imagine there's a lot of work involved in establishing that - even basic elements like leadership elections, party meetings, how they're organised/structured etc.
I'd imagine a Corbyn/anti-Corbyn split would drive the vote down the middle. Corbyn would keep the leftist element, but would still retain a lot of support due to having the party name and a lot of people still voting Labour irrespective of what happens. So in that regard, a completely new party would perhaps have somewhere around 15-20%, depending on how well they pitch themselves/their manifesto etc.
The problem would come to winning seats. The Labour split would drive a lot of constituencies down the middle, potentially allowing the Tories to gain in a lot of them. It's a complete Tory wet dream, actually - a divided Labour vote giving them many more seats. I'd see either Labour side struggling to take more than 100 seats.
And what happens if it's shit, too? What if the leader is absolutely terrible and doesn't reflect the aims of this new party? Do they split again? A couple of bad elections for this new party and it'd have the potential for utter disaster - they wouldn't have the comfort Labour have in certain areas no matter how poorly they do, and would lack the structure that comes with longevity to keep going. Yeah, there's a voter base, but that's no guarantee of anything...look at UKIP, who have lots of voters, but risk disaster if they don't find a good new leader because the party is still bare structurally.
I understand the reasoning for a Labour split and in a PR system it makes complete sense. But in the current context it'd be a disaster and would perpetrate massive Tory gains...the thing that the moderates supposedly want to stop. It's the same as the ideological purity that Corbyn's being blamed for, only in a different form.
Sticking with Corbyn guarantees thats a problem - so why not stand on a platform they believe in for the 150+mps who have no confidence in him...
They can switch to CO-OP Labour which is recognised by the electoral commission and be the official opposition for the next few years and get the platform and exposure to develop a centrist manifesto
Sounds like a better option than having momentum chuck bricks and insults at them till they deselect them unless they sumbit to the bulling and stand on a platform they dont believe in knowing they will loose
So yeah Im all for a split
There was this brilliant imagined Thick of It sketch on Reddit.
Not asking for much then. Standing on a platform they believe in alone will be a tough one. Especially while there is a chance ******* Harman will walk into the room and make them abstain so they can look tough on *issue X* again. They sure have principles but, if the Sun won't like them, they quickly have others.
Heck, you can't even get the members of this new-new-new Labour to agree on what abuse is, nevermind condemn it. Maybe they can start by agreeing on what level of donation someone has to give the party before they're freely allowed to throw the Nazi label around? Small steps like that.
That was one article from a Labour donor. That's not a campaign. Hell, even the Telegraph gave Corbyn a column a few weeks back. They have not even started. That's the scary part.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics...ny-jk-rowling-laments-corbyns-strong-position
Interesting article. JK Rowling is getting a lot of heat on twitter for this tweet.
It'll be interesting to see what happens now. If the leftist pro-Corbyn group in Labour split off from the Labour party and form another party, the Tories will win election after election. Labour votes in every seat will be split too much.
Tories must be looking at the Labour infighting with glee.
I don't get why the Blairite faction in Labour doesn't like Corbyn though. Why do they think he's so unelectable and that his supporters are using Labour's assets to split off? Are Corbyn's supporters trying to take control of Labour and impose themselves on the Blairites?
Interesting article. JK Rowling is getting a lot of heat on twitter for this tweet.
It'll be interesting to see what happens now. If the leftist pro-Corbyn group in Labour split off from the Labour party and form another party, the Tories will win election after election. Labour votes in every seat will be split too much.
Tories must be looking at the Labour infighting with glee.
I don't get why the Blairite faction in Labour doesn't like Corbyn though. Why do they think he's so unelectable and that his supporters are using Labour's assets to split off? Are Corbyn's supporters trying to take control of Labour and impose themselves on the Blairites?
Nice of Nick Cohen to take time out of glorifying the Iraq war (even post Chilcot) to talk about immorality.
Thanks for posting it though, one of the most hilariously hypocritical things I've ever seen.
They don't think that they're asset stripping thats just one in a long line of attack peices.
They're mostly longstanding members, donors, career politicians, it's their party and they dont want to concede control to a new branch or to the members. No different to most organisations in that regard.
Of course its their own failures that have led to this but im yet to see much acceptance of that. In a way i think they're also using Corbyn to embody all those failures, to provide something tangible to fight against. Its better to paint someone as untrustworthy on the economy and throw them under the bus, thus making any alternative more trustworthy, than it is to stand there and simply tell the public you're now trustworthy.
Yeah I'm getting slightly tried of the ''critic'' of the Corbyn by people like Nick Cohen. He's right that the Corbyn links to foreign policy aren't great or some what extreme but the fact is people like Corbyn hadn't been in power and the people who have(People who have similar views to Mr Cohen)have done nothing but blow huge chucks of the middle east up and backed dictatorships for the past 16 odd years. So I think it's fair to say Operation Democracy Bombing the middle east hasn't worked.
Still can't be too mad a Nick, as he's got a great sense of humour. He want Liz Kendall was going to win the last leadership election.