Keir Starmer Labour Leader

Everyone knows what the triangulation is FFS. You’d have to be a barely functioning organism not to. No one is a fecking astute political genius for pointing it out, but thanks again guys.

The issue is that if it fails to win because it’s alienated left wing/young people, then it’s a failure of the leadership and strategy, not of ideological left wingers for not voting.

Not unless it was also ideologically arrogant uncompromising Centrists who wouldn’t vote for Corbyn who were solely at fault for our present Tory governments, rather than Corbyn or the left?

Because if you believe one, you should believe the other. Otherwise you’re just openly admitting that people who have slightly different politics to you are lesser, non-legitimate people who don’t deserve the same kind of political representation as you, or the ability to decide for themselves what’s important? That comprise should only happen towards you - the most important and righteous voter that exists *(which tbf I’m sure plenty of people actually do think!)

The whole point of the gambit is to alienate enough of the left that it brings round more of the right. If it works, it’s a legitimate and successful strategy, but if it doesn’t, then it isn’t. And left wing people have as much right and agency to reject it as the people who spent 5 years loudly complaining about Brexit and Corbyn making them “politically homeless” did, because otherwise, you’re functionally admitting that you’ve no tollerance for any political agency except your own.

The whole point is to make the left angry. What do you expect them to do? Just shut up and ignore the platform being pushed rightwards so you don’t feel bad about it? You should be delighted it’s working, you ghouls!

*similarly, if you spent much of the Corbyn years calling on his opponents to compromise or be responsible for the Tory’s etc etc, you should probably suck it up.
 
FY0YbI9XkAEI0KA

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...y-join-pickets-starmer-faces-test-party-unity

Look we can’t support striking workers in case we get voted into government and are expected to do something about low wages.
 
Fluctuation0161 said:
Yet voter turnout can fluctuate massively. It jumped from 59% in 2001 to 69% in 2017. In 1997 it was nearly 72%.
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Yes and in 2019 when lets be honest Labour took a pounding with a hard left socialist as there leader it was 67.3% the second highest turn out of this century in general elections, beaten only by 2019's 69% which Labour also lost with a left wing socialist in charge.

Rather ironically labour won the election of 2001, perhaps Labour might be better of dis engaging people?
 
The Tories are fecking the corpse and Starmer is saying we won't stick it in but some light frottage is needed to get it back on it's feet and let's also try to appeal to the voting public that want more corpse fecking. The problem with the left is that they won't accept a pragmatic level of defilement because they are married to political purity.
 
dumbo said:
The Tories are fecking the corpse and Starmer is saying we won't stick it in but some light frottage is needed to get it back on it's feet and let's also try to appeal to the voting public that want more corpse fecking. The problem with the left is that they won't accept a pragmatic level of defilement because they are married to political purity.
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“Why are the left so darn ideological and divisively attack people on their own side!” I say as I campaign to make them disappear from public life for the sake of optics.
 
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nickm said:
In our system Labour needs Tory votes to win. Everything else follows from this.
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In our system Labour needs Scottish votes to win, nothing (i.e. Labour Government at Westminster) will follow until that happens.
 
Mockney said:
“Why are the left so darn ideological and divisively attack people on their own side!” I say as I campaign to make them disappear from public politics for the sake of optics.
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Didn't you also vote for the Starmer campaign ?

Starmer couldn’t of won the leadership without a very big chunk of the left vote, most of them just believed the snake oil he was selling at the time. But it would be odd if a left wing person knew the actual goals of Starmer yet still to voted for him.
 
Sweet Square said:
Didn't you also vote for the Starmer campaign ?
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I did. Partly cos I didn’t feel Long Baily could win a GE (still don’t) and that Starmer might (TBD) though not out of any great enthusiasm. I compromised (as I have at pretty much every election in some way, despite apparently being hard left extremist ideologue) And yes, I hoped he could be held to his pledges. It’s been disappointing to see his naysayers fears realised regarding this. However even if I’d voted in a purely cynical way and only cared about the endgame, I’d still be annoyed at people who wouldn’t compromise with a more left wing party insult left wing voters for doing the exact same thing with a centrist/right one. They’d still be hypocrites. And so would people who now suddenly don’t care about it.

Voter blaming is not it. It’s the politicians job to win people round, and if they fail, or renege on their promises they should be accountable for it. If the triangulation works, fair fecks. If it doesn’t, it’s all on him.
 
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Longshanks said:
Are you convinced that the majority of 'workers' want a left wing socialist party?

Train drivers and rail workers, do you think there all left wing socialist's? I'm actually willing to bet that not alot of them not being a member of a union doesn't make you a left wing socialist it also dosent instantly make you a Labour voter.

The vast majority of people 'the electorate' if you like are not left wing socialists infact they don't really have a particular political ideal, they just vote for the least worst party, the one they think will best for them. They don't care about nurses using food banks as much as they don't care about illegal immigrants crossing the channel every day. When it comes to election time they care about how themselves and the little bubble they live in is going to be affected by who they vote for.

They don't care about left wing right wing socialism, centrist, neo Liberalism they don't care about ideals and you cant rely on there empathy to be willing to help others.

But they can be very easily swayed by the media, its why corbyn ultimately failed he was so easy to attack and to be honest any really idealistic left wing socialist would suffer the same fate from the largely right wing media.
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Surveys show that every time the electorate is presented with green and/or socialy liberal or 'fair' policies, in a sort of blind taste test, they overwhelmingly support them. People are, in general, very fair-minded and socialist in attitude. It's only a small percentage that will consistently choose 'cruel' or 'selfish' policies without knowing which party has put them forward. Therefore, as you have highlighted, they choose right wing, selfish parties because that is the message that is rammed down their throat by the right wing media. So the answer, to me anyway, is not to try to be 'centre-right' but to highlight how successful we could be as a country if we stopped voting in the tories and advocated the renationalisation of those areas of the economy that have been privatised. And, right now, with the damage already done by Brexit, with the huge spike in the cost of living, there's never been a better time to go on a full-out offensive and hammer home the failures of 'the market' to give us more choice and cheaper prices.
 
Mockney said:
I did. Partly cos I didn’t feel Long Baily could win a GE (still don’t) and that Starmer might (TBD) though not out of any great enthusiasm. I compromised (as I have at pretty much every election in some way, despite apparently being hard left extremist ideologue) And yes, I hoped he could be held to his pledges. It’s been disappointing to see his naysayers fears realised regarding this.
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Yeah RLB was and is still shite. It will interesting to how Labour polling continues to go, atm a bunch of tories have moved but it’s more due a dislike of the current Boris leadership rather than anything Labour is offering and Starmer personal polling is awful.

So if the tories start to regain the support they’ve lost(Which given the incoming crisis, it’s very possible), Starmer will only have the type of centre left labour members/voters who believed his social democratic shtick. And while granted it just online, so it’s almost meaningless there have a surprising amount of always vote labour types who are very pissed about him not supporting the current strike wave. Although as a full time naysayer, I’m not expecting it to lead to much.

Mockney said:
Voter blaming is not it. It’s the politicians job to win people round, and if they fail, or renege on their promises they should be accountable for it. If the triangulation works, fair fecks. If it doesn’t, it’s all on him.
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Agree in part about the voter blaming. It’s the job of politicians to win people over and to present their plan to the public but the chances are if Starmer loses the next election it will be for same reason Corbyn did - Labour voters are less likely to vote, they bunch together in the cities and once again getting done in by reactionary home owners.

Imo giving some much weight to the leadership has on election outcomes leads to what we’ve seen in the Labour Party. Massive leaps that aren’t really grounded in anything, one minute it’s let’s all be kind to each and have socialism to then well we need a knighted sir because electable suit(The fact Starmer has gone all fat and red is clearly another pledge broken).
 
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Sweet Square said:
And while granted it just online, so it’s almost meaningless there have a surprising amount of always vote labour types who are very pissed about him not supporting the current strike wave. Although as a full time naysayer, I’m not expecting it to lead to much.
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Look, I’m always trying to be pragmatic, but the biggest issue I have with centrists (or at least the kind of centrists who handwave compromise with the right as sensible but balk at popular lefty policies as populist) is that their idea of “practical” always seems to lead back to a version of centrism that existed 30 years ago, and won an election in a very different - and very specific - landscape. Economically the gap is massive from the relatively good economy Blair inherited in 1997, which allowed him to promise high public spending without any massive formative change to the way things worked, or how people were taxed… He also wasn’t up against a huge demographic age shift to the left, as the liberal boomers were still in their 40s and Gen X could still plausibly afford houses.

Plus Blair actually had policies and positive optics. And rode a wave of burgeoning popular culture and Cool-Britainia national pride that, actually, all pretty much occurred under Major (Gazza, Cantona, Britpop, the Young British Artists et al had all arguably peaked by ‘97… the same year Be Here Now came out!)

He actually seemed quite progressive to the average normie voter. As did the only Democrats who’ve managed to break the similar right wing Hegemony in America. Obama and Clinton ran as young idealistic candidates, and even Corbyn (failure that he was) massively increased the vote share. So absolutely nothing “sensible” points to some beige war of attrition as the best route to power for ostensibly progressive candidates… except in the minds of middle aged bores who can’t get over the 90s. Fukuyama was wrong. And clinging to that seems way more “naive” than the “student politics” of actually having some interesting politics that probably wouldn’t pass fully formed in a Scotland-less minority government anyway!

There IS a ‘practmatic’ kind of centrism that could work, but it’s not this by a long shot. Its a modern, optimistic one that uses the best leftist ideas - as it has always done. Some cnut said the left claim Atlee when he was a moderate, but he was a moderate socialist who implemented a fecking socialist health system! My nan was his personal private secretary for a time, he wasn’t just some suit who promised not to rock the boat. He beat a fecking War hero the year the war ended! And if he was a Centrist, then centrism has fallen the feck off… failing to hold ourselves to the standards of moderates from 80 years ago is fecking bleak!! Even Blair didn’t run on being just like Harold Wilson had been 30 years earlier, and the idea 97 can just be repeated wholesale is as blinkered and regressive as Brexiters who thought they could just vote themselves back into a mythical 1950s!

Bah, humbug!

Anyway, Friday innit? Whose got the bag?
 
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Mockney said:
Fukuyama was wrong.
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i agree with basically all of your post but this is the most important part really. many political types have yet to understand it. and inasmuch as they do they grasp for the wrong solutions.
 
Agree with all that @Mockney.

If you were to ask someone to put together a policy package for today's Britain which was as progressive and radical as New Labour's offer was in 1997 it would probably look at lot like what Corbyn ran on in 2017. The fact that the PLP had to be dragged along behind that manifesto kicking and screaming says a lot about the current state of the party.
 
Starmer is digging a hole for himself here. There's going to be more and more of these strikes and when those October energy bills kick in the country could well shut down. What will his position be then?
 
jeff_goldblum said:
Agree with all that @Mockney.

If you were to ask someone to put together a policy package for today's Britain which was as progressive and radical as New Labour's offer was in 1997 it would probably look at lot like what Corbyn ran on in 2017. The fact that the PLP had to be dragged along behind that manifesto kicking and screaming says a lot about the current state of the party.
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Yep, proper 'Sliding Doors' moment that 2017 election.
 
jeff_goldblum said:
Agree with all that @Mockney.

If you were to ask someone to put together a policy package for today's Britain which was as progressive and radical as New Labour's offer was in 1997 it would probably look at lot like what Corbyn ran on in 2017. The fact that the PLP had to be dragged along behind that manifesto kicking and screaming says a lot about the current state of the party.
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The 2017 manifesto was not so detached from Labour history: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/corbyns-labour-agenda/

Which makes me wonder how much of the PLP's hatred was because they put Corbyn on the ballot and he beat them, and this led to an ongoing campaign whereby everything he did was wrong by default.

If Burnham was leader and had that manifesto I bet the PLP say next to nothing (although he likely would not have cut through to the electorate in the same way)
 
Also where has this idea that voting in a boring establishment moderate and then hoping they go (or can be pushed) left once in power come from? When has that actually ever happened? ‘Cos as far as the evidence goes, it a been pretty much the complete opposite. Clinton, Obama, Blair (Macron if you wanna go that far at a push!) may have been moderate to the left of their parties but they ran as transformative inspirational candidates to the wider electorate - as Starmer did in his own leadership battle - and then turned out to be disappointingly moderate and occasionally hawkish in practice when the actual grind of the job took hold…So all the evidence points to Starmer’s Labour being actually less progressive than they promise to be if elected (which isn’t much!)

So where have all the grown up sensible centrists got this idea that the other way around is the smart ticket from? Nothing backs that up. What is it based on? Because at worst it seems wholely disingenuous from the “we’re basing our stance on the historical evidence” contingent.
 
Mockney said:
Also where has this idea that voting in a boring establishment moderate and then hoping they go (or can be pushed) left once in power come from? When has that actually ever happened? ‘Cos as far as the evidence goes, it a been pretty much the complete opposite. Clinton, Obama, Blair (Macron if you wanna go that far at a push!) may have been moderate to the left of their parties but they ran as transformative inspirational candidates to the wider electorate - as Starmer did in his own leadership battle - and then turned out to be disappointingly moderate and occasionally hawkish in practice when the actual grind of the job took hold…So all the evidence points to Starmer’s Labour being actually less progressive than they promise to be if elected (which isn’t much!)

So where have all the grown up sensible centrists got this idea that the other way around is the smart ticket from? Nothing backs that up. What is it based on? Because at worst it seems wholely disingenuous from the “we’re basing our stance on the historical evidence” contingent.
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Exactly. This is just a myth that the centrists tell us to get our lefty votes so they can get the Red Tories in, keep their property prices rising and feel good about themselves all at the same time.
 
Frosty said:
I also think Starmer needs reminding that Blair had policies.
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Did he though, when he was in opposition? My recollection is that Blair had positions rather than policies. He didnt unveil policies until the election campaign.
 
CassiusClaymore said:
Starmer is digging a hole for himself here. There's going to be more and more of these strikes and when those October energy bills kick in the country could well shut down. What will his position be then?
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Digging a hole with who though? Only with people who think that labour looking like an undisciplined rabble, doesn't matter.
 
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jeff_goldblum said:
Agree with all that @Mockney.

If you were to ask someone to put together a policy package for today's Britain which was as progressive and radical as New Labour's offer was in 1997 it would probably look at lot like what Corbyn ran on in 2017. The fact that the PLP had to be dragged along behind that manifesto kicking and screaming says a lot about the current state of the party.
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Labours offer in 1997 wasn't that radical, Brown was criticised for excessive caution especially on public spending. It was a soft left of centre of package carefully calibrated to voter concerns. It was costed, a lot of positioning work had been done to prepare the public for each policy proposal and each of the key ones had a target and timeframe attached (the pledge card thing). There was a lot of focus on not over promising, in building public trust in labours ability to deliver. Frankly a level of care taken there that was a zillion miles from Corbyns c- grade approach.
 
Badunk said:
Surveys show that every time the electorate is presented with green and/or socialy liberal or 'fair' policies, in a sort of blind taste test, they overwhelmingly support them. People are, in general, very fair-minded and socialist in attitude. It's only a small percentage that will consistently choose 'cruel' or 'selfish' policies without knowing which party has put them forward. Therefore, as you have highlighted, they choose right wing, selfish parties because that is the message that is rammed down their throat by the right wing media. So the answer, to me anyway, is not to try to be 'centre-right' but to highlight how successful we could be as a country if we stopped voting in the tories and advocated the renationalisation of those areas of the economy that have been privatised. And, right now, with the damage already done by Brexit, with the huge spike in the cost of living, there's never been a better time to go on a full-out offensive and hammer home the failures of 'the market' to give us more choice and cheaper prices.
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People have been saying they like labour ideas - or to put it another way, lying - and then voting Tories, for YEARS. I remember the same thing when Thatcher was PM. Blair's approach was 1) get the media onside yes BUT also 2) act in a disciplined way and build trust in labours ability to deliver. Because his view was part of the reason people balked at voting labour even though they apparently "liked" the policies, is because they didn't think labour was up to the job of actually realising them. Similar thing sank Corbyn proving labour just wont learn that lesson.
 
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Longshanks said:
Yes and in 2019 when lets be honest Labour took a pounding with a hard left socialist as there leader it was 67.3% the second highest turn out of this century in general elections, beaten only by 2019's 69% which Labour also lost with a left wing socialist in charge.

Rather ironically labour won the election of 2001, perhaps Labour might be better of dis engaging people?
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If dis engaging people is the current Labour leadership strategy it is certainly working!

I assume the second year you are referring to is 2017 with 68.8%. I wonder what the turnout would've been in 2017 if we didn't have Labour's own staff diverting funds away from winnable seats.

I also assume when you refer to the "second highest turn out of this century" you are only referring to the last 22 years. A little bit of a spurious claim?
 
nickm said:
Did he though, when he was in opposition? My recollection is that Blair had positions rather than policies. He didnt unveil policies until the election campaign.
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That's my recollection as well

Alistair Campbell was on a podcast last week saying starmer should have one or two key policy aspirations and areas of focus but avoid detailed policies ... so logically that's probably what he did with Blair as well

Education education education springs to mind
 
Fluctuation0161 said:
If dis engaging people is the current Labour leadership strategy it is certainly working!

I assume the second year you are referring to is 2017 with 68.8%. I wonder what the turnout would've been in 2017 if we didn't have Labour's own staff diverting funds away from winnable seats.

I also assume when you refer to the "second highest turn out of this century" you are only referring to the last 22 years. A little bit of a spurious claim?
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A little bit spurious maybe, but its the second highest in 25 years, thats a whole generation, if you like we can compare it to the average since 1974 which is 69.5. So just below the average, I dont belive the issue is voter turnout, there is no saying that even if those funds weren't diverted that there would of been more turnout or the extra turnout would of resulted in more labour votes.

One of Labours biggest mistakes of the corbyn era was believing that they could convince everyone they came across to vote for them and not understanding why people had reservations putting it down to them being brainwashed calling them sheeple etc rather than actually engaging with people.
 
Mockney said:
Look, I’m always trying to be pragmatic, but the biggest issue I have with centrists (or at least the kind of centrists who handwave compromise with the right as sensible but balk at popular lefty policies as populist) is that their idea of “practical” always seems to lead back to a version of centrism that existed 30 years ago, and won an election in a very different - and very specific - landscape. Economically the gap is massive from the relatively good economy Blair inherited in 1997, which allowed him to promise high public spending without any massive formative change to the way things worked, or how people were taxed… He also wasn’t up against a huge demographic age shift to the left, as the liberal boomers were still in their 40s and Gen X could still plausibly afford houses.

Plus Blair actually had policies and positive optics. And rode a wave of burgeoning popular culture and Cool-Britainia national pride that, actually, all pretty much occurred under Major (Gazza, Cantona, Britpop, the Young British Artists et al had all arguably peaked by ‘97… the same year Be Here Now came out!)

He actually seemed quite progressive to the average normie voter. As did the only Democrats who’ve managed to break the similar right wing Hegemony in America. Obama and Clinton ran as young idealistic candidates, and even Corbyn (failure that he was) massively increased the vote share. So absolutely nothing “sensible” points to some beige war of attrition as the best route to power for ostensibly progressive candidates… except in the minds of middle aged bores who can’t get over the 90s. Fukuyama was wrong. And clinging to that seems way more “naive” than the “student politics” of actually having some interesting politics that probably wouldn’t pass fully formed in a Scotland-less minority government anyway!

There IS a ‘practmatic’ kind of centrism that could work, but it’s not this by a long shot. Its a modern, optimistic one that uses the best leftist ideas - as it has always done. Some cnut said the left claim Atlee when he was a moderate, but he was a moderate socialist who implemented a fecking socialist health system! My nan was his personal private secretary for a time, he wasn’t just some suit who promised not to rock the boat. He beat a fecking War hero the year the war ended! And if he was a Centrist, then centrism has fallen the feck off… failing to hold ourselves to the standards of moderates from 80 years ago is fecking bleak!! Even Blair didn’t run on being just like Harold Wilson had been 30 years earlier, and the idea 97 can just be repeated wholesale is as blinkered and regressive as Brexiters who thought they could just vote themselves back into a mythical 1950s!

Bah, humbug!

Anyway, Friday innit? Whose got the bag?
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Just because Fukuyama was wrong doesn't mean Marx was right.

The labour party isn't a revolutionary socialist party. It seeks and occasionally gets power the revolutionary socialists only dream about. The occasional extreme left attempt to steal the brand in the hope they get elected only ever sees mainstream voters turn their back on the Labour party leaving it in disarray. Peak Blair and Brown would struggle to get the current party elected and would never make it to leadership roles anyway. They were both hated by the left as modernizers in the 80/90's.

Harping back to the 80's is a dumb thing to do but I doubt harping back to the 70's is anything to cheer on either.

So the centrists didn't vote for our guy so if we don't vote for the centrists guy its his fault right? The truth is he will trade the loony lefty vote for the two he might get from moderate voters but there is no guarantee he gets those votes just a certainty that the price of holding on tight to the Corbynistas is certain defeat.

Also,

Conservatives get elected whether people own their own homes or not. They get elected even if the Labour party is united and they get elected generation after generation despite the youth voters consistently saying they support labour and its policies. To some people voting Labour is like wearing a ponytail, there comes a time when it just doesn't suit you anymore. So please can we stop with the variations on the youth quake Corbyn was before his time and everyone loved him.
 
I really don't like him.

But his Labour will still be 100 times better an option than the tories.
 
sun_tzu said:
That's my recollection as well

Alistair Campbell was on a podcast last week saying starmer should have one or two key policy aspirations and areas of focus but avoid detailed policies ... so logically that's probably what he did with Blair as well

Education education education springs to mind
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Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime. Not just a slogan, a position. Easy to understand, hard to attack, and enabled him to state labours distinctive and socially minded position in a key area of voter concern (and traditional Tory strength), and make an intellectually coherent argument, and all without making a single policy promise until he had to. This kind of thing is at the core of how Blair won 3 elections.
 
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nickm said:
Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime. Easy to understand, enabled him to state labours position in a key area of voter concern (and traditional Tory strength) and make an intellectually coherent argument, and all without making a single policy promise until he had to.
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Not true I'm afraid. The 1994 conference speech Blair did a couple of months after he became leader announced a bunch of policies which ended up in the manifesto for 1997 including devolution, the minimum wage and the Freedom of Information Act. Funnily enough, he also announced that the railways and the postal service would be publicly owned under a Labour government.

As i said to @sun_tzu when he made a similar point yesterday, that speech was made further before the 1997 election than we currently are from the latest possible date the next election could be.

Edit: just realised you were specifically referring to the crime example with the bolded, so pretend I quoted the post sun was agreeing with which made the general point about Labour having few solid policies before the election period in 1997
 
nickm said:
Did he though, when he was in opposition? My recollection is that Blair had positions rather than policies. He didnt unveil policies until the election campaign.
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I am comparing Blair's announcements to Starmer's here. Blair was elected in July 1994 and the 1994 conference was held in October.

In 1994 the conference speech led on Clause IV: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/1994/oct/05/speeches.michaelwhite

But even in that speech there was a commitment to a national minimum wage and full employment (with a caveat that would be the end point, not in any way immediate).

From the article:

" Mr Blair took delegates through an eloquent rendition of his four key themes of opportunity, responsibility, fairness and trust. He led them towards his conclusion that the need for restored honesty in public life and for a new public philosophy must be matched by Labour. "
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The 1995 conference speech included an appeal to the 'decent, good, patriotic' majority, but there was a series of specific policy initiatives.

"Though he went further than before in pledging a Labour government to retain a publicly owned railway, his boldest stroke was to reveal that shadow ministers have negotiated an understanding with British Telecom to open the heavily regulated telecommunications market to 'free and fair' competition from 2002.

'In return for access to the market I can announce they have agreed, as they build their (fibre optic) network, to connect up every school, every college, every hospital and every library in Britain for free,' he told his party's annual conference."
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He went on:

In setting out familiar Labour policies for cutting class sizes, tackling unemployment and reforming the constitution, he assured trade unions - including at those GCHQ - that they would get new rights of recognition plus the social chapter, but no return to the old days.

And in a significant move on rail privatisation he said: 'To anyone thinking of grabbing our railways . . . so they can make a quick profit as our network is broken up and sold off, I say this - there will be a publicly owned and publicly accountable railway system under a Labour government.'
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Style, yes. Values, certainly. But there was substantial policy too.

A full manifesto was published in 1996: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Labour,_New_Life_for_Britain

In addition there was a veritable avalanche of policy materials being churned out. I will give one example.

At the end of June 1995 the Labour Party's Economic Policy Commission presented a consultation document called ‘A New Economic Future for Britain: Economic and Employment Opportunities for all’. This document sketched out giving the Bank of England Independence, the national minimum wage, vocational training and life long learning with proposals on how it could be paid for, opting into the Social Charter of the Maastricht Treaty, amongst others, as well as asking British pension funds and insurance companies to invest in longer-term assets to increase investment in the British economy.
 
jeff_goldblum said:
Not true I'm afraid. The 1994 conference speech Blair did a couple of months after he became leader announced a bunch of policies which ended up in the manifesto for 1997 including devolution, the minimum wage and the Freedom of Information Act. Funnily enough, he also announced that the railways and the postal service would be publicly owned under a Labour government.

As i said to @sun_tzu when he made a similar point yesterday, that speech was made further before the 1997 election than we currently are from the latest possible date the next election could be.

Edit: just realised you were specifically referring to the crime example with the bolded, so pretend I quoted the post sun was agreeing with which made the general point about Labour having few solid policies before the election period in 1997
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There is this from December 1995:

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199596/cmhansrd/vo951208/debtext/51208-07.htm

Mr. Michael:
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The Labour party has been in the forefront of promoting closed circuit television as an instrument in the fight against crime. Partnerships between Labour local authorities, the police and local business communities have shown the way forward. I am glad that the Home Secretary has joined us in promoting such schemes. I have helped to promote some of them myself. I must sound a note of caution. CCTV schemes work only if they are well designed, utilise the right equipment installed in the right locations and if monitoring is well planned and each partner feels that he has some ownership of the scheme.

I warn the Minister that the public's continued support is essential. The Government's commitment to CCTV is weakened by their failure to support Labour proposals for statutory regulation to monitor its use. In that, I agree with the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery in his earlier intervention. If CCTV schemes are to be effective, the public must be confident that they are used honestly and effectively. Last week, I offered the Minister the chance of a Bill to pass through the House quickly, to outlaw the sale of video tapes from surveillance operations of any sort undertaken by the police, local authorities, private companies or individuals--unless the Home Secretary decided that their publication was in the public interest. After the sale of video tapes offering cheap gratification--whether through scenes of violence, sexual passion in a lift or thrilling car chases--who doubts that control is needed? Nobody outside the Home Office. I repeat our offer, for the day that the Minister catches up with the rest of us on that particular issue.

The need for legislation to regulate the private security industry falls into the same category. The Minister has promised to allow access by employers to police records, so that staff can be vetted. What about the employers themselves? I am not talking about decent firms in the private security industry, because they share our concerns; they want statutory regulation as much as we do. Police officers at every level have told me of their concerns. Crooks with records of violent crime, having partners whose record of fraud is as long as your arm, are running private security companies. Not only does the Home Secretary refuse to take a grip on that scandal but he wants to give those crooks ready access to police computer records, which is insane. Is that what the Conservative party means by a policy against crime?

The Minister, for failing to provide relevant professional qualifications and training for probation officers, has rightly been attacked by Labour and all the relevant professional bodies, which recognise the need for specialist training. Entrants to the probation service from the police or armed services are the first to recognise that they need specialist training, and they want a proper qualification in their new profession. Each year, the probation service deals with offenders who are more difficult, damaged and dangerous. Failing to ensure adequate training and qualifications for new entrants through a national scheme means that the Home Secretary is putting at risk the safety of the public and of new probation officers.

Today, the Minister had a chance to present new ideas and positive policies, but where are the real measures to combat crime? The Government have little to say. They are not implementing the proposals that we have made over the years or measures to tackle disorder on our streets, criminal neighbours, delay at every stage of the criminal justice process or the delays that bedevil our court system.

Where in the Minister's speech were the measures to tackle youth crime? We have made proposal after proposal to nip offending in the bud and to prevent young offenders from becoming repeat offenders. The Government have rejected them all. In recent years, the Government have cut the youth service, which a report produced by Coopers and Lybrand last year showed is cost-effective in preventing crime.
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Frosty said:
There is this from December 1995:

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199596/cmhansrd/vo951208/debtext/51208-07.htm
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This is from the 1994 conference speech @nickm

"Over the past year we have put forward a range of detailed policies to fight crime, policies that are tough on crime, measures to tackle juvenile offending, to crack down on illegal firearms, to punish properly crimes of violence, including racial violence, to give victims the right to be consulted before charges are dropped or changed; and policies that are tough on the causes of crime - a comprehensive crime prevention programme, an anti-drugs initiative, long-term measures to break the culture of drugs, family instability, high unemployment and urban squalor in which some of the worst criminals are brought up."
 
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