Because it's more democratic? Also because they're moderate Labour voters at heart so if they have the choice of two similar Brexit policies, with their traditional voting home being one of them they will naturally go with that one (particularly in tandem with an economically literate centre left policy agenda)
Jeremy Corbyn - Not Not Labour Party(?), not a Communist (BBC)
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Because it's more democratic? Also because they're moderate Labour voters at heart so if they have the choice of two similar Brexit policies, with their traditional voting home being one of them they will naturally go with that one (particularly in tandem with an economically literate centre left policy agenda)
I agree it is more democratic but I don't think it's more popular.
Your second point I think has weight. I just don't think its gains compare to the advantage of having a movement like Momentum excitedly on your side. As I say, doors need to be knocked. The Lib Dems polled high in 2010 and then actually went down in seats, because no one turned out for them. Labour polled low in 2017 but people did turn out, because they had an army of activists getting people out.
I think the reason for he seat change in 2017 was down to the incompetence of Theresa May rather than some grass roots door knocking movement. I think the effect of that is less than is made out.
An incompetent sitting government with a moderate opposition and a leader who is charismatic is enough for a majority. See Cameron and Blair before him.
Apologies for being pedantic but Cameron failed to win a majority, when he campaigned in opposition. And more importantly Starmer has clearly not shown any of the 'charisma' of Cameron and Blair. Nick Clegg showed it but, again, people didn't actually vote for him.
I think you are broadly right but I think there's no chance this current Labour party would get behind a moderate leader, at least not until they are desperate enough for power again to accept their power being clipped.
I think you're hoping for something that won't happen here. There isn't an amount of time that will make climate change less of an issue so there isn't an amount of time that will lead to Labour activists supporting a moderate.
I think this should do it...
1) Declare pro Remain (which he has)
2) Campaign for 2nd Referendum of May's Deal vs Remain (not months of re-negotiations on unicorns)
3) Support for Remain in the Referendum (which he will)
That's probably as pro-Remain as you can be without going full-Lib Dem, who's Cancel Brexit stance is kinda free-riding on the fact they have 0 chance of getting overall majority.
Finally, I think no party is likely to get an overall majority majority in the upcoming GE. I believe the next government will probably need to be a coalition government. I think Starmer's generally more moderate approach, along with the fact that he's not been tarnished with the anti-Semitism allegations, would see SNP and Lib Dems prefer him vastly over Johnson. And I mean both the party leaders as well as their electorate. Therefore more likely to end-up with a Labour govt than under Corbyn.
I agree on the first part. I don't see them becoming more moderate any time soon though. The Momentum folks despise the New Labour legacy and it's centrist politics.
EDIT: And to be fair, I don't hold it against leftists for wanting to have a party they can call home. Part of the problem with FPTP is that it allows for limited parties. If we had proportional representation, there would probably be space for a Social Democratic/Third Way party to satisfy those who want something more centre-left than full lefty.
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As I say, yeah, cause centrist politics is accepting catastrophic climate change. It's naive to think young left wing people will support that.
I think people are just throwing out Starmer because he's recently said he'd campaign remain. I'm not sure you'd be satisfied with him at all as his policies align with Corbyn on public/private. It was him that came up with the 6 tests that have guided the unicorn you all bemoan.
Probably a safer pair of hands in the public view initially until the papers go after him like the rest
Probably a safer pair of hands in the public view initially until the papers go after him like the rest
But it's not though. Have a read (when you have time).
https://www.theguardian.com/politic...radical-agenda-for-tackling-climate-emergency
https://www.libdems.org.uk/environment
I don't think it's as aggressive as Corbyn's new 0-carbon footprint by 2030 admittedly, put it's certainly not accepting of the situation. Generally centrist voters are quite environmentally aware.
Lib Dems don't keep their promises. Like two posts up you just explained to me that you think their brexit stance is based on the fact they know they can't win. It is meaningless.
Perhaps, that's quite possible.
Yeah this is terrifying. Without a profit motive no one is going to want to stop people from dying.
Honest question here: why have Labour not gone remain anyway? Now we know it doesn't really matter to the likes the good people of the caf, because of the referendum pledge, but for those that believe the papers what possible good does it hold to continue to appear on that particular fence?
The way I see it, and I'm happy to be proven wrong here, is that the referendum pledge has already firmly fecked them with a large amount of their leave voters already. It's only my personal experience, and it sucks I know so many leave voters, but I don't know any who are voting labour now. And considering the area I'm from, that's a surprise even to me.
So why not go after the remain ones? If we are as sensible as we like to think we are, surely the referendum and capaign for remain is enough to fight off the nonsense revoke shit from the libs? At the same time, it doesn't affect the other Labour policies either, nipping those one policy jibes in the bud.
I just don't understand the thinking here. You've already pissed off the leave voters, why piss off the remain ones and risk losing them?
Sad, but very true.
Based on? Before you go on about the tuition fees, the Tories were in power not Lib Dems.
And also parties change. It'd be like me saying the Labour are the party of war-mongers based on the war in Iraq.
Well, that's how I see saw it. It was emphatically approved by members at conference as well though. That doesn't mean they wouldn't do it in the very unlikely event they won, just that it was made form position of relative safety to get more votes and attract remainers. It's kinda weird to use something that hasn't come to pass as proof that they wouldn't keep their promises.
It's this. It's that a large amount is not a large enough amount to to mean all leave voters are lost and they can't win constituencies with the ones that will still vote Labour.
I know leave voters who will vote Labour. I still don't think they will win my seat which they normally win regularly.
What have you seen that suggests the Lib Dems have changed? Swinson appears to be fonder of Tories than Clegg. She's welcoming them in to her party.
Of course they wouldn't do it. No one would.
I’m being sarcastic.
And if you take a moment to think, the profit motive isn’t at all effective with regards to health...
Say you are running a pharmaceutical co.
Do you invest in a) a one time cure or b) a palliative treatment upon which the patient will depend for the rest of their lives?
Isn't that a guessing game though? Obviously I can only speak from personal experience, and I've been so surprised by how most I know have voted (and constantly told as many as I can you should vote leave and still vote labour in a futile bid to show eho is actually getting the power), but I can't name a single person who is now voting labour who wants brexit.
It's a bubble, for sure, but seeing the comments from leave voters and the willingness to jump to BJ's side (and seem to forget the party he stands for), I just don't trust the polls on that one. I honestly think it's a bit odd to rely on them when you can push harder for the remain votes.
Maybe I'm wrong on it, good if I am actually. I just don't really get why they wouldn't they to get as many floating remain voters as possible. They are going to lose a fair chunk of leave voters at the next GE, surely that's a given?
A bit but it's not baseless. These people do exist. Whether they'll actually vote for Labour or stay at home cause they can't bring themselves to vote Tory, remains to be seen.
Yeah I picked up on that mate.On a serious note, I still wonder how this isn't just a soundbite. I like the idea, but how the hell would they pull it off?
The election wont just be about Brexit.
It will be on policies that brings relief to working families.
It will be on policies that brings relief to working families.
I'm not saying there are many. My seat was a Labour loss at the last election and I don't see them winning it back this time.
She's also welcoming Labour MPs. Maybe she's a closet Marxist.
And yeah, I'm seeing Swinson who has in the past voted for fracking endorse a ban on fracking in the manifesto on the back of electorate pressure for more green policies. And I'm not the biggest fan of hers anyway.
Also, the way Lib Dem voters are distributed, they would need well above 40% of the popular vote to get a majority. In which case they would indeed revoke. There's no prospect of Lib Dems becoming a majority with ~30% of the vote.
The UK government is the second biggest sponsor of medical research after the US. If a researcher wants government funding then they'll give the government a generic licence to sell any drugs they develop in the UK while selling the international licence to a drugs company.
On a serious note, I still wonder how this isn't just a soundbite. I like the idea, but how the hell would they pull it off?
It's possible that's what I'd do though.
I mean I won't, no doubt I'll do what I normally do and go to the booth with the intention of voting with my anger at Labour, then realising there's no alternative then ticking that box, but I think a lot will stay at home instead.
But then, it's all guesswork.
But we all know she'd vote for fracking again if she was in coalition with the Tories. It's meaningless.
Because estimates such as this one here - https://fullfact.org/europe/did-maj...bour-constituencies-vote-leave-eu-referendum/ - suggest that 61% of Labour constituencies voted to Leave. It is not hard to fathom why a huge party with a diverse support base is reluctant to adopt an unequivocal stance on an issue that divides its supporters. In spite of what Tom Watson et al want you to believe, there is no credible evidence that I am aware of that Labour becoming a pro-Remain party would benefit them electorally
You honestly think that?
I mean you are right in that it should be about more, but brexit is the biggest thing happening to our country in a long time and probably for a long time. I personally think it naive to expect people to just forget about it, or even to use it as a stick to beat people with. Leave or remain, we are all tired with it, but it dominates the discussion and political landscape and there's no escaping that.
Thank you, that makes sense.
I still don't get the part about making it ourselves though. That takes a hell of a lot and how much would all that cost to set up in both money and time anyway?
I have no clue as I'm not a Bio chemist. I'm not sure if it would work but 2 drugs that were developed using UK research funding cost the NHS more than a billion pounds a year so the incentive is there to make it work.
First off, I don't give a damn about Tom Watson. You really need to stop assuming we all read the same papers and believe everything these guys say.
Secondly, yeah polls. They prove everything. It's like there's no willingness to learn from mistakes, which is my main problem with Labour right now and with people who can't debate without assuming every question is lead by a newspaper or a Corbyn enemy.
She probably would, if that was a firm Tory policy, in an exchange for a second referendum which is what wins her most votes and support.
Minority parties in marginal coalition governments don't get too many choices on which of their policies get picked. I'm convinced people are being wilfully ignorant of that, just to suit their narrative.
1. Bolded part: The evolution means multiple deaths due to poor care. Also competition is a dynamic thing not a static process. It is not that after x months, people will know the good from the bad private providers (in that process itself people have died). Players exit the market, others enter it, established ones change their practices, monopolies form, etc. Just because your initial experience with one place is positive does not mean it will continue to be that way. (Additional people die as they keep figuring this out).
Healthcare is not a TV, healthcare demand is mostly price- and supply-inelastic, and it is essential. When you're ill, you are not going from place to place to read Yelp reviews, check ambulance prices, bargain for procedures, ask which scans can be excluded, etc. You may have a relationship with a doctor but the hospital has some prohibitive fees or maybe likes taking an extra X-ray to make more money. In this system, you have to calculate these various things, knowing that they can change over time, and make your best decision, all the whle you're ill and your life might hinge on the outcome. It is pure absurdity.
2. The space program from both the USSR and USA showed the overwhelmingly quick and successful results if governments can throw money and resourcesa at a problem. It is only after the defunding of NASA and the collapse of the USSR that the scientists, trained at government expense, wth government-generated past knowledge, have been absorbed by private industry. India is a country with a notoriously corrupt government, whose space agency can launch satellites at roughly the same rates, sometimes lower, than SpaceX, without having the benefit of a pre-trained workforce.
3. Focusing on actual private sector products: the iPhone, batteries, etc. A lot of the technologies used in mobile phones has come from government departments as varied as the communications industry of the Soviet Union and the US Dept of Defence. No competition. Antibiotics and the polio vaccine was developed by scientists not operating in a competitive market.
So I take massive issue with that line. Does it mean the state can solve all problems? No, but it means the competition is not necessarily the answer.
And in fact this ties in with your posts on climate change. "The rewards are so great the company will solve it." Then why has the cost of solar panels been driven down most prominently by work in Germany and China, both on massive govt subsidies? Where is the plucky startup destroying the field to make a trillion dollars?
You seem to have a very Econ 101 view of what the world looks like, but even there it is made clear that there are many asssumptions to get the fantasy of perfect ompetitive markets. Individual players in most markets are massive, not so small that their effects will not be felt by the aggregate. As shown by Uber and Lyft and Amazon, firms with more resources can operate at a loss to create a barrier for entry into their markets against startups. There has been a lot of talk about information assymetry. Just like that, 3 of 7 assumptions of perfect competition are gone.
No, there are very strong reasons for the market not to solve climate change. The funds, firms and individuals who own the bulk of the market are interested in returns in the short and medium term. This makes sense, to paraphrase, in the long run we are all dead. A who invested in solar in the 90s would be dead before their investment bore fruit in terms of massive profits. B who invested in oil at the same time would be much richer. B would be correct, he was interested in profit maximisation and he got the rewards. The future rewards for investing in solar aren't going to matter to A, he's long dead. Short-term profit thinking dominates a lot of companies, and for good reason. It is profit maximisation in action. The type of firms that can afford to take long-term risks are Google or Amazon, whose existence violates perfect competition.
Which is why this is a policy I can really get behind. And why I thank you for your responses. If they could pull this off, it resonates way more than other recently policies and actually makes good sense.
It's much easier to talk and learn without the annoying assumptions some just automatically come out with. It's often like it's wrong to ask questions on here at times.
Polls do not prove anything. Polls said we wouldn't have the problem of Brexit in the first place, they said we would have Clinton not Trump, they said Labour would get annihilated at the last election. I'll turn the question around: if 61% of Labour constituencies voted to Leave, why should Labour become a pro-Remain party?
I don't believe any party even pretending to care about climate change could go in to coalition with the Tories. I'm not ignorant of what coalition with Tories requires. I think it's an inherently appalling thing to do.
I agree Brexit will not just be forgotten.
But people are hurting. Corbyn is a good campaigner.
And he will campaign on saving the Welfare state. Restoring what has been dismantled.
I honestly don't see what the other parties will offer specifically that helps people.