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

[Shamwow]

There's a great documentary ''Countdown to Zero'' that talks about just how close the US and Russia come to mutual assured destruction. The closets it seems(Well this is what I remember from the doc anyway) was when US aircraft triggered the Russian alert system into thinking it that the US had fired nukes(Of course the US had no idea that this would happen)and the Kremlin's generals marched into Boris Yeltsin's office and demanded a response. Yeltsin simply refused to believe the Americans would do such a thing, and decide not to act thus saving the world.


Cheers Yeltsin.

There is more than just that occasion. The one you are thinking of is the Norwegian missile crisis where a scientific missile was launched that just happened to take a similar path and trajectory to what the Russian detection systems would have expected a Trident missile to take. I'm aware of at least two other similar incidents.

Stuff like that suggests to me that the whole idea of MAD as a deterrent is just as likely to result in an accidental escalation as it is to result in long-term peace. If it keeps on going long enough then eventually one of these incidents will happen where the person with their finger on the trigger does not think as logically as Yeltsin, Petrov or Arkhipov did. If that happens, I'd rather us not be one of the nations that has nuclear weapons. The UK as a nuclear armed ally of the US would have almost certainly been one of the targets if Russia's dead hand "fail-deadly" were to be activated.

That's in addition to the stuff I've already talked about with regard to my opinion that MAD is getting less and less viable as more countries gain nuclear capability and technologies that would make it harder to identify an aggressor such as submarine launched ballistic missiles become more prevalent.

There is an interesting article by George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn from a few years ago that talks around this subject and one of the things it says is that MAD is too unstable as a deterrent. It's here if you want to read it: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703300904576178760530169414

 

[Shamwow]

Alan Sugar has officially left the party.

One more reason to like this new Labour leadership.

There was an article about him that made me laugh on the front page of the London Standard. Alan Sugar says Corbyn and Khan are going to destroy London's booming property market.

He says this when he's launching a new super-expensive apartment block he's built where the apartments cost £8million each or something utterly ridiculous.

Boo-fecking-hoo Alan.

 

[SteveJ]

Sid James Alan Sugar shouldn't have been in the Party to begin with.

 

[Member 55443]

There was an article about him that made me laugh on the front page of the London Standard. Alan Sugar says Corbyn and Khan are going to destroy London's booming property market.

He says this when he's launching a new super-expensive apartment block he's built where the apartments cost £8million each or something utterly ridiculous.

Boo-fecking-hoo Alan.

What a cretin.

 

[Ubik]

First of all I'm not talking about us knowing - you seem to be under the assumption that all our intelligence services will still be relevant in this scenario - I'm talking about the people on the Trident submarine knowing. Considering the letters of last resort apply in the case that they have no communication with the leadership of the country (which is the point), what makes you think they will have access to intelligence that they can be completely confident in? It's very likely that they will be isolated and uncertain.

Secondly, there are multiple reasons why we might not know who just crippled the country - for instance, if the attack is from submarine launched missiles, how would we know with certainty who launched them? Detection systems malfunction. Stealth aircraft will be more common in the future. Countries that have nuclear weapons share borders.

My hypothesis is even backed up somewhat by history. There have been instances in the past where the only reason that nuclear war didn't happen was because someone either bottled it or used common sense and didn't follow orders to the letter (i.e. Stanislav Petrov).

It's more that you're just picking a scenario that seems more than a little unlikely to prove your argument that it's a pointless deterrent. It relies on a state being confident enough that it had destroyed our entire command and control network and eliminated our security forces, who wouldn't just all be hunkered down in one place but spread out across the world with access to satellite communication (unless these guys have been extra thorough and taken out our sats too), and achieved all this without anyone even being able to say for certain they'd launched these presumably hundreds of warheads. To me, that seems quite a gamble for a government to take when launching a first strike given how many continuous deterrents are operational.

Does anyone think it's moral to use them? That's an odd point to make.

It was used to emphasise his point after Kuenssberg repeated the question of whether he would use them. It was clear he was saying he would never authorise their use. That was my point.

 

[Shamwow]

It's more that you're just picking a scenario that seems more than a little unlikely to prove your argument that it's a pointless deterrent. It relies on a state being confident enough that it had destroyed our entire command and control network and eliminated our security forces, who wouldn't just all be hunkered down in one place but spread out across the world with access to satellite communication (unless these guys have been extra thorough and taken out our sats too), and achieved all this without anyone even being able to say for certain they'd launched these presumably hundreds of warheads. To me, that seems quite a gamble for a government to take when launching a first strike given how many continuous deterrents are operational.

It's not one scenario - it's many and these scenarios will get more likely as technology develops and more countries gain access to nuclear weapons.

In addition, whether it be through human error or an issue with the system, the possibility of a nuclear attack being "accidentally" launched is very real - it seems that these incidents have brought us closer to nuclear war in history than anything intentional. The probability of such an occurence resulting in an actual nuclear weapon detonating is going to tend toward 1 as time goes on.

Call me a pessimist but I don't see these weapons of immense destruction, death, and suffering resulting in anything positive for us.

And while we make a fuss about the need for this nuclear deterrent, we are still sticking relying on wishful thinking when it comes to the future of the environment - something that is a much more realistic threat for our survival.

I'd rather we spend the £100bn on something like (just because we were talking about it earlier) nuclear fusion power research. Imagine if we cracked that and the benefits it would bring to our nation and the entire world.

Even the US has apparently only spent something like $30 billion on it in the last 50 years.

 

[sun_tzu]

I'd rather we spend the £100bn on something like (just because we were talking about it earlier) nuclear fusion power research. Imagine if we cracked that and the benefits it would bring to our nation and the entire world.

Even the US has apparently only spent something like $30 billion on it in the last 50 years.

Some problems money cant solve

If we had working theoretical models as to how to sustain yet contain a fusion reaction I am sure the money would be there to build prototypes and take it forwards... at the moment some of the cleverest people in the world try to come up with theoretical technical solutions and putting more money out there cant help people change the laws of physics - at the moment its beyond us, some more people working on the theory is by no means a bad idea - but that does not cost $100bn

Pay 1000 top scientists £100,000 a year to work on it for 10 years and thats £1BN... pay 100,000 top scientists £100,000 to work on it for 10 years and you end up with £100BN spent, probably 99,000 scientists doing research they are not best suited to and all the other great things they could have worked on going nowhere - and even then Id be shocked if within 10 years they could close the gap from where they are now to a theoretical prototype for sustained, contained commercially viable fusion.

 

[Shamwow]

Some problems money cant solve

If we had working theoretical models as to how to sustain yet contain a fusion reaction I am sure the money would be there to build prototypes and take it forwards... at the moment some of the cleverest people in the world try to come up with theoretical technical solutions and putting more money out there cant help people change the laws of physics - at the moment its beyond us, some more people working on the theory is by no means a bad idea - but that does not cost $100bn

Pay 1000 top scientists £100,000 a year to work on it for 10 years and thats £1BN... pay 100,000 top scientists £100,000 to work on it for 10 years and you end up with £100BN spent, probably 99,000 scientists doing research they are not best suited to and all the other great things they could have worked on going nowhere - and even then Id be shocked if within 10 years they could close the gap from where they are now to a theoretical prototype for sustained, contained commercially viable fusion.

First off you're massively oversimplifying the issue by saying the only costs are paying scientists.

In addition to that it's an issue already that ITER is over-budget and missing deadlines so there's definitely scope for investing billions more into research.

Finally, like I said before, the scientists themselves are saying that the funding is pathetic, we should listen to them.

And come on, use a bit of common sense - like I alluded to, that's an example that I used because we were talking about it earlier - out of many examples that I could give where the money would be better spent. It wouldn't necessarily have to be all £100bn on fusion. Just an example of something that has more potential value to us then a weapon designed to cause millions of deaths.

 

[sun_tzu]

First off you're massively oversimplifying the issue by saying the only costs are paying scientists.

In addition to that it's an issue already that ITER is over-budget and missing deadlines so there's definitely scope for investing billions more into research.

Finally, like I said before, the scientists themselves are saying that the funding is pathetic, we should listen to them.

And come on, use a bit of common sense - like I alluded to, that's an example that I used because we were talking about it earlier - out of many examples that I could give where the money would be better spent. It wouldn't necessarily have to be all £100bn on fusion. Just an example of something that has more potential value to us then a weapon designed to cause millions of deaths.

100bn - over its lifespan which is I think at least 25 years?

so whats that 4bn a year

out of a total defence budget of 38bn?

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/mar/21/budget-2014-tax-spending-visualised

all of a sudden that does not seem quite so much does it

and quite frankly when we are spending £58bn a year on interest I would suggest any savings would be better used towards paying off the debt (circa £1,200 BN) though of course closing the deficit first which is of course something like £50BN still I think)

National Debt = £1,200,000,000,000 (approx 18,000 per person)
Cost of trident =£100,000,000,000 (approx 1,550 per person)
Interest on national debt per year = £58,000,000,000 (approx 892 per person)
cost of trident per year = £4,000,000,000 (approx £61 per person)

so each day each person pays about £2.45 in interest for the government

Trident would cost about £0.17 per day per person.

So yeah in the grand scheme of things I think the actual funding for trident should be a non issue - morally if we want it or not thats a debate worth having... but if you dont use the money on trident lets pay some debt off for a change - or at the very least lets cut the deficit a little rather than fund R&D for the sake of it

 

[Shamwow]

100bn - over its lifespan which is I think at least 25 years?

so whats that 4bn a year

out of a total defence budget of 38bn?

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/mar/21/budget-2014-tax-spending-visualised

all of a sudden that does not seem quite so much does it

and quite frankly when we are spending £58bn a year on interest I would suggest any savings would be better used towards paying off the debt (circa £1,200 BN) though of course closing the deficit first which is of course something like £50BN still I think)

National Debt = £1,200,000,000,000 (approx 18,000 per person)
Cost of trident =£100,000,000,000 (approx 1,550 per person)
Interest on national debt per year = £58,000,000,000 (approx 892 per person)
cost of trident per year = £4,000,000,000 (approx £61 per person)

so each day each person pays about £2.45 in interest for the government

Trident would cost about £0.17 per day per person.

So yeah in the grand scheme of things I think the actual funding for trident should be a non issue - morally if we want it or not thats a debate worth having... but if you dont use the money on trident lets pay some debt off for a change - or at the very least lets cut the deficit a little rather than fund R&D for the sake of it

£4 billion a year isn't even close to a non-issue. At least you seem to agree that there are better things to spend the money on.

 

[bishblaize]

Corbyn's popularity ratings seem to be going backwards since his conference speech. This from the days after his speech.

Full data here - http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.ne...r713es5o/SunResults_150930_Corbyn_Website.pdf

Currently on minus 8. Was on minus 3 before the conference I think. That was Ipsos Mori and this is YouGov though, so the methodology probably differs. But still, so sign of a honeymoon period. Its pretty unusual for public opinion to actually fall after a conference speech, the increased exposure usually helps.

 

[sun_tzu]

Corbyn's popularity ratings seem to be going backwards since his conference speech. This from the days after his speech.

Full data here - http://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.ne...r713es5o/SunResults_150930_Corbyn_Website.pdf

Currently on minus 8. Was on minus 3 before the conference I think. That was Ipsos Mori and this is YouGov though, so the methodology probably differs. But still, so sign of a honeymoon period. Its pretty unusual for public opinion to actually fall after a conference speech, the increased exposure usually helps.

I'm no fan of Corbyn but I wouldn't read too much into any polling yet.
Wait and see what happens after they have actually announced some policies and faced some probing questions with regards to the funding - that will probably give a truer indication of things (I think they will tank personally but it remains to be seen)

 

[Ubik]

I only heard about the "strong message here" thing yesterday on This Week, actually feeling sorry for him now. Out of his depth. One more mention of "the new politics" though and I'm going to be irritated. The last politician to do that had his career and his party destroyed by real politics.

It's not one scenario - it's many and these scenarios will get more likely as technology develops and more countries gain access to nuclear weapons.

In addition, whether it be through human error or an issue with the system, the possibility of a nuclear attack being "accidentally" launched is very real - it seems that these incidents have brought us closer to nuclear war in history than anything intentional. The probability of such an occurence resulting in an actual nuclear weapon detonating is going to tend toward 1 as time goes on.

Call me a pessimist but I don't see these weapons of immense destruction, death, and suffering resulting in anything positive for us.

And while we make a fuss about the need for this nuclear deterrent, we are still sticking relying on wishful thinking when it comes to the future of the environment - something that is a much more realistic threat for our survival.

I'd rather we spend the £100bn on something like (just because we were talking about it earlier) nuclear fusion power research. Imagine if we cracked that and the benefits it would bring to our nation and the entire world.

Even the US has apparently only spent something like $30 billion on it in the last 50 years.

I don't think we'll really get anywhere with this line, in my view it functions perfectly adequately as a deterrent. And it's not really spending money on nukes that prevent us spending money on fusion research, it's lack of political will generally. If results were guaranteed, maybe there would be.

 

[Shamwow]

I don't think we'll really get anywhere with this line, in my view it functions perfectly adequately as a deterrent. And it's not really spending money on nukes that prevent us spending money on fusion research, it's lack of political will generally. If results were guaranteed, maybe there would be.

Sigh. I said in my post that I'm just mentioning fusion research as an example purely because it's something we were talking about earlier. "Something like". Choose whatever alternative that doesn't involve ridiculous doomsday devices you want.

Do you have any points to argue against my reasoning that MAD will likely result in an accidental launch at some point?

 

[Ubik]

Sigh. I said in my post that I'm just mentioning fusion research as an example purely because it's something we were talking about earlier. "Something like". Choose whatever alternative that doesn't involve ridiculous doomsday devices you want.

Do you have any points to argue against my reasoning that MAD will likely result in an accidental launch at some point?

Can't be bothered to be honest, the sigh thing is quite annoying.

 

[Shamwow]

Can't be bothered to be honest, the sigh thing is quite annoying.

I'll take that as a no.

 

[Ubik]

This is quite funny - http://blogs.new.spectator.co.uk/20...-do-a-guardian-corbynista-lectures-blairites/

The Fabian Society’s question time event at Labour party conference made for a lively debate. Tony Blair’s former staffer John McTernan joined Tim Montgomerie, Labour’s Kate Green and the Guardian‘s Ellie Mae O’Hagan to discuss the future of the Labour party now Jeremy Corbyn is leader. With McTernan criticising Corbyn for a leader’s speech which ‘gave no indication’ that the party had just lost an election, it fell on O’Hagan — who works for the Centre of Labour and Social Studies — to fight Corbyn’s corner.

To kick her argument off, the Guardian writer — and Corbyn champion — explained that after the election result she had realised that in order for Labour to win the next election they needed to discover why people had voted Tory. To do this, she sent an email to her friends organising a trip to a constituency Labour would need to win in 2020:

‘I want to talk about May 8th – the day after the general election because of what I did on May 8th. I got up, I burst into tears and then I emailed all of my friends who I know are lefties, and I said we need to go to a constituency and we need to canvass, maybe a constituency like Thurrock or Nuneaton.

We need to go there and canvass and we just need to meet as many people as we can, and we need to say to them: did you vote conservative? Why did you vote conservative? What do you think about politics? And without judgement and without wanting to have an argument just hear what they have to say and then talk about and think about the results with an open mind.’

O’Hagan said that given her own mission to discover why Tory voters voted as they did, she could not understand why Labour members aren’t doing the same canvassing among Corbyn supporters in their own party:

‘Where is the curiousity about why that happened in your party? Why aren’t you going out there and meeting people who voted for Jeremy? And saying why, why did you do that? Why are you instead calling them morons? Why is there such a lack of curiousity?’

Happily one member of the audience was feeling curious. They asked Ellie what she had learned when she had canvassed the Tory voters after the election. Only there was a small catch: she hadn’t actually gone canvassing:

‘Unfortunately we haven’t actually done the canvassing yet. I only said that we were going to, it’s still in the offing and obviously it got swept up by a massive leadership election and put on a back burner.’

Despite the admission, O’Hagan still managed to win the biggest audience cheers at the event. Vive la Revolution!

 

[CassiusClaymore]

So is this Stewart Lee article from a few weeks back which I only came across today...

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/06/stewart-lee-jeremy-corbyn-new-christs-bin-laden

Loved this bit...

“Had Corbyn really said the death of Bin Laden was a ‘tragedy?’” asked a painter. “Not really,” offered a young woman tapping at an iPhone. It appeared the veteran leftwinger had used those words, but as part of a forward moving collection of sentences, which contextualised them in the way that sentences in a supporting argument do, in order to lament the lack of due process in Bin Laden’s killing, which Corbyn believed, rightly or wrongly, had ongoing global implications.

Anyone familiar with human language, such as a baby, a dolphin, or a cleverer than average dog, would have experienced such a syntactical procedure before, perhaps involving nouns and verbs and various qualifying phrases.

Only by decontextualising these words entirely were the Mail, the Express, theTelegraph and the actual genuine leader of the Liberal Democrats, Tim Farron, able to misrepresent Corbyn so absurdly.

And the bit about Jan Moir obviously.

 

[Sweet Square]

There is more than just that occasion. The one you are thinking of is the Norwegian missile crisis where a scientific missile was launched that just happened to take a similar path and trajectory to what the Russian detection systems would have expected a Trident missile to take. I'm aware of at least two other similar incidents.

Stuff like that suggests to me that the whole idea of MAD as a deterrent is just as likely to result in an accidental escalation as it is to result in long-term peace. If it keeps on going long enough then eventually one of these incidents will happen where the person with their finger on the trigger does not think as logically as Yeltsin, Petrov or Arkhipov did. If that happens, I'd rather us not be one of the nations that has nuclear weapons. The UK as a nuclear armed ally of the US would have almost certainly been one of the targets if Russia's dead hand "fail-deadly" were to be activated.

That's in addition to the stuff I've already talked about with regard to my opinion that MAD is getting less and less viable as more countries gain nuclear capability and technologies that would make it harder to identify an aggressor such as submarine launched ballistic missiles become more prevalent.

There is an interesting article by George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger and Sam Nunn from a few years ago that talks around this subject and one of the things it says is that MAD is too unstable as a deterrent. It's here if you want to read it: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703300904576178760530169414

Thanks(Sadly I can't access the article as it's behide a pay wall). Yeah I think that's the one it's been a while since I've seen the doc, very scary knowing how much has been down to dumb luck.

 

[The Purist]

I would love Corbyn to get elected because lord knows politics in this country needs to be freshened up with a guy who (genuinely) will hurt the rich and help the everyday working class family.

That said, there is no chance he will win the election. The media will destroy him in the run-up by posting half truths and damning headlines of doom and gloom under a Corbyn leadership and the majority of people who don't read anything independently will put their vote on whoever Rupert Murdoch tells them too as usual; all the while becoming poorer without understanding that they make the same mistake every single time.

Same thing happened with the Scottish Independence referendum - and when your media can influence you to vote against your own independence (in a decision that, to be honest, wasn't even the clear-cut superior decision economically) then you can be sure they will stop Corbyn from being elected.

 

[sun_tzu]

I would love Corbyn to get elected because lord knows politics in this country needs to be freshened up with a guy who (genuinely) will hurt the rich and help the everyday working class family.

So you want to genuinely hurt the rich... For presumably being rich?
That's rather an ideologically vindictive perspective isn't it?
Wanting a more progressive tax system, wanting to ensure a more equal society are quite noble aspirations and not something I'm adverse to helping pay for but wanting somebody to genuinely hurt the rich for the crime of having worked hard and taken risks seems rather nasty... Well I'm fairly rich and I can guarantee I will sack employees before my family's lifestyle suffers. And as I can relatively easily relocate my business if my business taxes increase, so it's going to be rather difficult to hurt me without hurting a lot of everyday family's as well.
I wonder also how many doctors etc will cast eyes towards Australia and America if you introduce what seems to be an ideological attack on people who are high earners as thats what you seem to genuinely want.

 

[The Purist]

So you want to genuinely hurt the rich... For presumably being rich?
That's rather an ideologically vindictive perspective isn't it?
Wanting a more progressive tax system, wanting to ensure a more equal society are quite noble aspirations and not something I'm adverse to helping pay for but wanting somebody to genuinely hurt the rich for the crime of having worked hard and taken risks seems rather nasty... Well I'm fairly rich and I can guarantee I will sack employees before my family's lifestyle suffers. And as I can relatively easily relocate my business if my business taxes increase, so it's going to be rather difficult to hurt me without hurting a lot of everyday family's as well.
I wonder also how many doctors etc will cast eyes towards Australia and America if you introduce what seems to be an ideological attack on people who are high earners as thats what you seem to genuinely want.

I'm fairly 'rich' also.. but I wouldn't hesitate to look beyond myself. I understand the concept of money supply and the inequality associated with it in this country and that definitely needs changed. (The UK is the most inequality ridden country in Europe).

Perhaps 'hurt' was the incorrect adjective... but the point remains.

 

[Don't Kill Bill]

So you want to genuinely hurt the rich... For presumably being rich?
That's rather an ideologically vindictive perspective isn't it?
Wanting a more progressive tax system, wanting to ensure a more equal society are quite noble aspirations and not something I'm adverse to helping pay for but wanting somebody to genuinely hurt the rich for the crime of having worked hard and taken risks seems rather nasty... Well I'm fairly rich and I can guarantee I will sack employees before my family's lifestyle suffers. And as I can relatively easily relocate my business if my business taxes increase, so it's going to be rather difficult to hurt me without hurting a lot of everyday family's as well.
I wonder also how many doctors etc will cast eyes towards Australia and America if you introduce what seems to be an ideological attack on people who are high earners as thats what you seem to genuinely want.

I'm not sure you can help the poor without hurting the interests of the rich. The lie that protecting and lets face it enhancing the interests of the rich is good for the poor has been shown clearly through the financial crash and what we now know about how that happened and who pays the price in the long run.

Second point, you really think wealthy people over all work harder than the working poor because I don't see it. At almost every turn(there are some exceptions) the rich insist in having the easiest and best way of life. Its ridiculous to say otherwise. Their voices are heard and are loud whenever anyone suggests in any way a diminution of their power and control. By contrast the interests of the poor are easily ignored.

When people resort to threats about leaving if we ask them to pay more in taxes I just wish they really would feck off. The country will carry on perfectly well without them and in truth never miss them. Their supposed indispensability would be shown up for what it is, a cowardly bluff the consequences false and the benefit of not having such nasty people around would make a better country for everyone else to live in. Its like the bankers before the crash the BP exec before the gulf spill or the boss of VW. Its all about how great they are and how much they are responsible for all the money being made. Then we find out just how useless or criminally negligent they are.

I'm going to struggle to vote for Corbyn but it won't be because I'm afraid to pay more tax. While I live in this country I have a larger vested interest in it being a nice place to live and I would like to see it get better for my and everyone else kids. I'm not a leach sucking its blood until it time to drop off and find the next place.

 

[Kaos]

I'm not sure you can help the poor without hurting the interests of the rich. The lie that protecting and lets face it enhancing the interests of the rich is good for the poor has been shown clearly through the financial crash and what we now know about how that happened and who pays the price in the long run.

Second point, you really think wealthy people over all work harder than the working poor because I don't see it. At almost every turn(there are some exceptions) the rich insist in having the easiest and best way of life. Its ridiculous to say otherwise. Their voices are heard and are loud whenever anyone suggests in any way a diminution of their power and control. By contrast the interests of the poor are easily ignored.

When people resort to threats about leaving if we ask them to pay more in taxes I just wish they really would feck off. The country will carry on perfectly well without them and in truth never miss them. Their supposed indispensability would be shown up for what it is, a cowardly bluff the consequences false and the benefit of not having such nasty people around would make a better country for everyone else to live in. Its like the bankers before the crash the BP exec before the gulf spill or the boss of VW. Its all about how great they are and how much they are responsible for all the money being made. Then we find out just how useless or criminally negligent they are.

I'm going to struggle to vote for Corbyn but it won't be because I'm afraid to pay more tax. While I live in this country I have a larger vested interest in it being a nice place to live and I would like to see it get better for my and everyone else kids. I'm not a leach sucking its blood until it time to drop off and find the next place.

Well said.

 

[jeff_goldblum]

The idea that taxing the rich is a tax on hard-workers or 'risk-takers' is bollocks. The nature of our economic system and its prioritisation of certain careers means that there are a limited number of high-paying jobs. Many people have absolutely zero prospect for upward mobility regardless of whether they deserve it or not. Add to that the head start that rich folks get simply from having disposable income or useful contacts from the word go and the idea that we live in a meritocracy is laughable.

What we have is a system where working hard doesn't guarentee you success or even security and where the family you were born into still largely determines the course of your life.

 

[Untied]

The idea that taxing the rich is a tax on hard-workers or 'risk-takers' is bollocks. The nature of our economic system and its prioritisation of certain careers means that there are a limited number of high-paying jobs. Many people have absolutely zero prospect for upward mobility regardless of whether they deserve it or not. Add to that the head start that rich folks get simply from having disposable income or useful contacts from the word go and the idea that we live in a meritocracy is laughable.

What we have is a system where working hard doesn't guarentee you success or even security and where the family you were born into still largely determines the course of your life.

I've come to the conclusion that the single biggest difference between those on the left and those the right is that those on the right believe that the world as it stands is a meritocracy, or can become one.

 

[berbatrick]

http://www.theguardian.com/environm...g-is-benign-our-rivers-tell-a-different-story

A solid defence of the DEFRA shadow secretary's statement.

 

[Ducklegs]

I would love Corbyn to get elected because lord knows politics in this country needs to be freshened up with a guy who (genuinely) will hurt the rich and help the everyday working class family.
.

Stop right there.

What has he actually said that he is going to do for the working class family?

Lay it on the line for me, what's he said he is going to do for me?

 

[swooshboy]

So you want to genuinely hurt the rich... For presumably being rich?
That's rather an ideologically vindictive perspective isn't it?
Wanting a more progressive tax system, wanting to ensure a more equal society are quite noble aspirations and not something I'm adverse to helping pay for but wanting somebody to genuinely hurt the rich for the crime of having worked hard and taken risks seems rather nasty... Well I'm fairly rich and I can guarantee I will sack employees before my family's lifestyle suffers. And as I can relatively easily relocate my business if my business taxes increase, so it's going to be rather difficult to hurt me without hurting a lot of everyday family's as well.
I wonder also how many doctors etc will cast eyes towards Australia and America if you introduce what seems to be an ideological attack on people who are high earners as thats what you seem to genuinely want.

I love this scene from The West Wing on the issue of taxing the rich:

 

[Getsme]

Stop right there.

What has he actually said that he is going to do for the working class family?

Lay it on the line for me, what's he said he is going to do for me?

There's feck all he can do, at the end of the day the rich will always win.

 

[Classical Mechanic]

The idea that taxing the rich is a tax on hard-workers or 'risk-takers' is bollocks. The nature of our economic system and its prioritisation of certain careers means that there are a limited number of high-paying jobs. Many people have absolutely zero prospect for upward mobility regardless of whether they deserve it or not. Add to that the head start that rich folks get simply from having disposable income or useful contacts from the word go and the idea that we live in a meritocracy is laughable.

What we have is a system where working hard doesn't guarentee you success or even security and where the family you were born into still largely determines the course of your life.

You have to work, hard, smart and have the charisma to take you places. If only it were a case of working hard.

 

[Smores]

I've come to the conclusion that the single biggest difference between those on the left and those the right is that those on the right believe that the world as it stands is a meritocracy, or can become one.

That's very true and it frames most debates around tax redistribution along with the idea that their wealth was created in a vacuum. Most people I have this argument with don't accept the money supply elements that allow anyone to get themselves into a position of good fortune.

 

[bishblaize]

A snap survey from Survation & Huffington Post last night.

David Cameron said that Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn has a 'security-threatening, terrorist-sympathising, Britain-hating ideology'. Do you agree or disagree?

1 in 5 Labour voters agree with that statement?

 

[Smores]

A snap survey from Survation & Huffington Post last night.

David Cameron said that Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn has a 'security-threatening, terrorist-sympathising, Britain-hating ideology'. Do you agree or disagree?

1 in 5 Labour voters agree with that statement?

Whilst some will consider and answer the question at hand most are simply telling you who they support so 1 in 5 against Corbyn sounds right. Not sure these type of polls provide much validity.

 

[Drifter]

Snubbing the Queen again apparently



Jeremy Corbyn has turned down the chance to be made a member of the privy council in person by the Queen, with his office saying that private engagements made such a ceremony impossible.

The decision suggested that the Labour leader, a republican, was unwilling to follow convention and bow in front of the monarch, sometimes seen as an essential part of the privy council ceremony.

Corbyn has previously revealed that he needed to think about whether he was willing to attend such a ceremony.

In practice it is possible, and frequent, for members of the privy council to be appointed without meeting the monarch through a device known as an Order in Council, but is rare for a party political leader to use such a course.

Corbyn’s office said that he had a prior engagement, but declined to say how much notice he had been given to Buckingham Palace, or the nature of the private engagement that meant he was unable to meet the Queen.

It was being claimed that it was the responsibility of Corbyn’s staff to contact the palace to state he would attend Thursday’s meeting, and the Corbyn office confirmed they had written to say he would not.

In practice, the largely ceremonial body made up of 600 senior figures including politicians meets very rarely and not to transact any serious business. But other leftwing Labour leader including Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock quickly became privy councillors so entitling them to higher class security information, and briefings.

David Cameron launched a strong attack on Corbyn in his conference speech arguing he was a terrorist sympathiser, an attack prompted by conversations Cameron held in America at the United Nations last week where he was struck by foreign leaders disbelief at the Labour leader’s reported view.

 

[Zarlak]

Second point, you really think wealthy people over all work harder than the working poor because I don't see it. At almost every turn(there are some exceptions) the rich insist in having the easiest and best way of life. Its ridiculous to say otherwise. Their voices are heard and are loud whenever anyone suggests in any way a diminution of their power and control. By contrast the interests of the poor are easily ignored.

This is just misguided unfortunately. Unless your wealth was literally handed to you, the rich work a lot, lot harder than most of the working poor. Especially if they started the business themselves. The first few years you can expect 18 hour working days 7 days a week. Most CEO's that I've read about or know personally are up at 5am working at 6am and stop working at about 9pm. My CEO answers my emails at 3am and is in work at 9. Most start with absolutely nothing and build their business through a ridiculous amount of hard work.

Not to say that the working poor are lazy, they're not. I know there's tonnes out there who have more than one job and work long hours etc but to say that the wealthy have an easy and best way of life and don't work hard is flat out ludicrous. Achieving success and wealth is the complete opposite of easy.

 

[jeff_goldblum]

This is just misguided unfortunately. Unless your wealth was literally handed to you, the rich work a lot, lot harder than most of the working poor. Especially if they started the business themselves. The first few years you can expect 18 hour working days 7 days a week. Most CEO's that I've read about or know personally are up at 5am working at 6am and stop working at about 9pm. My CEO answers my emails at 3am and is in work at 9. Most start with absolutely nothing and build their business through a ridiculous amount of hard work.

Not to say that the working poor are lazy, they're not. I know there's tonnes out there who have more than one job and work long hours etc but to say that the wealthy have an easy and best way of life and don't work hard is flat out ludicrous. Achieving success and wealth is the complete opposite of easy.

It's certainly true that if you're not born with riches you do have to work ridiculously hard to get rich. This is precisely why the vast majority of rich people are people who had well-off parents and the connections and capital that affords. If you don't have that, even if you work hard and do everything right your chances of getting 'rich' are very small. The experiences you mention of hard-working small-business CEOs aren't typical of rich folks, most of whom did have it, to some extent, handed to them either through private schoolin/tutoring, knowing the right people, having the right accent/surname or having the money to afford to support themselves whilst doing internships, working unsociable hours etc.

And, frankly, it's easy to work hard when you know that doing so means you're getting a big fat paycheck. If someone turned up on the doorstep of a poor family and said 'We'll pay you £150,000 a year but you'll have to work a shit-ton' most people who take it in a heartbeat. Especially since many work long hours in worse jobs for far less money.

 

[Zarlak]

It's certainly true that if you're not born with riches you do have to work ridiculously hard to get rich. This is precisely why the vast majority of rich people are people who had well-off parents and the connections and capital that affords. If you don't have that, even if you work hard and do everything right your chances of getting 'rich' are very small. The experiences you mention of the hard-working small-business CEO isn't typical of rich folks.

And, frankly, it's easy to work hard when you know that doing so means you're getting a big fat paycheck. If someone turned up on the doorstep of a poor family and said 'We'll pay you £150,000 a year but you'll have to work a shit-ton' most people who take it in a heartbeat. Especially since many work long hours in worse jobs for far less money.

The experiences that I am describing are of small, medium and large business CEO's. Not everybody has well off parents or connections and capital. Many businesses are grown from the CEO's own house. It's also not easy to work hard because you know you're getting a big fat paycheck. The first few years are often spent as I said working almost the entire day 7 days a week and operating at a loss making no money at all. Much of your post is pure conjecture. Who the feck starts a business and makes a £150k wage in their first year. Nobody. Maybe after years and years of hard hard work they get a wage that reflects their hard work and success but let's not pretend there are scores of truffle eating CEO's out there that started a company and instantly became millionaires without having to do any work. That's rubbish.

 

[jeff_goldblum]

The experiences that I am describing are of small, medium and large business CEO's. Not everybody has well off parents or connections and capital. Many businesses are grown from the CEO's own house. It's also not easy to work hard because you know you're getting a big fat paycheck. The first few years are often spent as I said working almost the entire day 7 days a week and operating at a loss making no money at all. Much of your post is pure conjecture. Who the feck starts a business and makes a £150k wage in their first year. Nobody. Maybe after years and years of hard hard work they get a wage that reflects their hard work and success.

I know, that's my point. You're taking the experiences of a tiny minority who don't really reflect what life is really like for rich folks.

To clarify, I'm not making any claims about how easy it is to run a small business. I'm saying that, in any line of work, once you've got yourself into a position where you are getting paid good money for your labour, it's easier to motivate yourself to work hard than it is for someone who will earn a relative pittance regardless of how hard they work. The latter is a reality for millions of people. Those lucky few who find themselves in the former situation are largely those who had a huge head start in life because of their parentage.

 

[Zarlak]

I know, that's my point. You're taking the experiences of a tiny minority who don't really reflect what life is really like for rich folks.

To clarify, I'm not making any claims about how easy it is to run a small business. I'm saying that, in any line of work, once you've got yourself into a position where you are getting paid good money for your labour, it's easier to motivate yourself to work hard than it is for someone who will earn a relative pittance regardless of how hard they work. The latter is a reality for millions of people. Those lucky few who find themselves in the former situation are largely those who had a huge head start in life because of their parentage.

But that's irrelevant. It's completely moot. So what? They still work harder, and they still endured a lengthy period where they were essentially poor and working all hours of every day without any days off to get themselves to where they are. I don't understand your point, it means nothing.

Regarding the first line, you're contradicting yourself. The experiences quoted are not from a tiny minority. You seem to have an axe to grind against people who have worked their arses off to get to where they are today. I think you're understating the amount of people who work incredibly hard and are for some time actually poor until they find success, and massively exaggerating the amount who were simply handed it because they had rich parents because it makes it easier to hate them that way.