Can someone just explain to me who the feck Rebecca Long-Bailey actually is, and why a 2015 MP is suddenly the best hope for the major opposition party? I've nerded about politics my whole life, and although I've been splitting my time between Brexit and the US stuff the last 3 years, I'm still quite confused to find the heir apparent to the Labour throne is someone I don't know anything about.
Next Labour leader - Starmer and Rayner win
- Thread starter Kaos
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It really, really is, to people who remember a nationalised BT (ie all the Boomers whose votes you lost) and all those people who live in a world of privately owned tech companies that are shaping the future. What does nationalisting BT tell us about how it should compete with Sky, or Google, or Amazon in the 21st century? Nothing.
It was backwards looking lunacy.
Our economic performance from 1979-2008 was incredibly good, and helped raise living standards in lots of ways. The major downside was regional inequality, which still hasn't been properly addressed.
From 2008 onwards we haven't been performing as well, but still admirably when compared with most other European countries.
Income/Wealth Inequality - I think this is a bug bear for people with a socialist termprement, but doesn't bother me and I don't think bothers most people in the country. People like to see success, as long as that success is earned. Alan Sugar, Richard Branson etc. are popular with the country at large. Philip Green and Mike Ashley aren't not because of their wealth per se, but rather due to there is a sense they have taken advantage of ordinary people to get that wealth.
Environment - Again, another bug bear but the stats would suggest the UK is doing extremely well here on all measures apart from air quality, and that is largely due to the Volkswagen emissions scandal which the UK has been able to do little about due to the EU (and Volkwagen's lobbying power within Germany).
Crumbling public services - Something on which there is consensus across the political divide, with all parties promising to spend. Austerity had to happen, and this was always going to have a knock on effect to public services. The government should have acted quicker when it was obvious things were at breaking point in 2015, but this will now happen.
Overall Britain has been on a strong upwards curve for the past 50 years. Most people realise that, and that's why we have had a broad political consensus.
She seems increasingly like the momentum option. Hence why even people who claim "she's not my choice" keep throwing her in the mix.
As far as I can see anyway. I'm sure someone is about to tell me I'm wrong
At some point the penny will drop with the anti-left lot that they also need to play the game rather than just acting like wreckers. We had that for a few years now and it's gotten no one anywhere. You can't win the game if you're not even going to and beat try level one. I do see more indication of a willingness to compromise now from some at least but those saying we need to purge the far-left and get rid of Momentum are fecking themselves in the eye.
But they were right.
I don't think it really matters at the moment. Wait to see who gets nominated, what their platform is, how they run their campaign and who is supporting them. No one has had a chance to set out their own stall as things stand and there's often a surprise. Cameron came out of nowhere for the Tories and had only been an MP since 2001 when he was made leader in 2005.
I don't think that Blair's economic ideas alienated people at all, he won a 3rd term after the disaster of Iraq after all. I think Blair was the most talented politician of the past 50 years and understood the country perfectly from an economic perspective.
I don't think you should start with ideas how you want to structure the economy or society. I think the only base idea you should start with is "what kind of life do we want the least privileged in society to have". Thinking about structures of economies and societies first is putting the cart before the horse.
OK let me make a confession - I'm a momentum member, I proudly voted for Corbyn in both leadership elections, and this time I'm inclined to vote for a more central candidate.
The point I'd like to make is not all of us are a bunch of hardline, loony, beret-donning marxists intent on waging class warfare. Most of us are disillusioned, mostly young voters who've gravitated towards a platform we felt would enfranchise us and offer us a genuinely progressive platform. The trouble however is if the Labour membership as it stands currently is dominated by our ilk, then unfortunately it serves as nothing more than an echo chamber, churning out excuses with no one within the membership there to contest or debate them. Most members you'll find are innately reasonable and receptive to a debate in changing the party's direction, heck I'd shamelessly throw myself in that category.
What I can say is simply smearing them as cultist loonies who are exclusively at fault will only force them to double down and further entrench themselves in their echo chambers, there needs to be a broad and civil discussion. Re-joining is a good start, but simply paying your £3, voting for Jess Phillips, doing nothing else and complaining that the Momentum loonies have damned the country again isn't the answer to that. If you feel passionately about it join your local Labour community forums, encourage others to take part or at the very least attempt a civil and objective discourse over social media. If people can't be arsed with that, then they have no right complaining that Momentum continue to hold a grip over the party.
Basically a completely ordinary MP by historic standards who just happens to be close to John McDonnell and therefore is the left's preferred candidate.
On the plus side she grew up in Old Trafford at the same time as me, I remember her from my school year, so I do have something of a soft spot. Then again, Danny Welbeck went to the same school as me & I always had a soft spot for him for the same reason, so, maybe that's not such a great reason after all.
Google, Sky and Amazon are nothing like BT. BT provide what is effectively in 2019 an essential public service.
Take a neutral standpoint for a second - what do you think the point of nationalising BT was?
So how can you consider the question “what kind of life do we want the least privileged to have” without considering first how we want society to be structured?
To allow for innovation. In some cases (the railways, water) I think the state can provide better as they are natural monopolies. However in telecommunications we've seen its a massively fast changing industry surely best served by the private sector.
Easily. I can think that I want someone born with severe disabilities and unable to move to have as high a quality of life as possible, which probably involves round the clock residential care. I don't need to think about structuring society to do that, I just need to ensure there are enough care homes and carers.
She nominated Corbyn in 2015 and is seen as loyal by momentum... And that's apparently enough these days to be a potential pm
Though you have to commend momentum if they have organised Raynor going for deputy and rlb for leader as the other 2 main groups (centrist and never really worked with Corbyn) are still touting nandy, phillips and cooper. Whilst the more middle ground (worked with Corbyn but kept enough distance on key issues to not be that associated with him) are touting thornberry, starmer, Lewis.
I find rlb underwhelming ... She certainly wouldn't do much for party unity but momentum will push her hard and unless the other two camps coalesce around a candidate sooner rather than later she has a really good chance
My door-to-door anecdote from the election...
My friend’s dad answered the door to a labour activist in west london. He politely explained that he could not vote for Labour as he works as a manager for BT and fears for his job under a Corbyn government. The activist proceeded to get mad and start shouting ‘YOU’VE HAD YOUR CHANCE’ over and over, while pointing aggressively in his face. This is the most mild mannered bloke you can imagine. He shut the door.
I never knew people were so passionate about rural broadband rollout.
My friend’s dad answered the door to a labour activist in west london. He politely explained that he could not vote for Labour as he works as a manager for BT and fears for his job under a Corbyn government. The activist proceeded to get mad and start shouting ‘YOU’VE HAD YOUR CHANCE’ over and over, while pointing aggressively in his face. This is the most mild mannered bloke you can imagine. He shut the door.
I never knew people were so passionate about rural broadband rollout.
You'd already get a vote as an affiliate without needing to join (if that's the aim of joining, anyway).
They also failed spectacularly at achieving any of their aims.
So we're not THAT far apart then (I'm 'free market first' always)
I have to disagree on the reasoning for nationalising BT OpenReach, the reason for nationalising is thus;
See the below taken from Wikipedia (quick Google, sure I could find a better source!)
"The failure of BT Openreach to offer FTTH to any but a handful of customers, and millions of complaints regarding poor service since it was functionally separated from the main BT operation in 2005, had led nearly all UK ISPs to call for it to be completely split from BT. Ofcom, the UK's telecom regulator, consulted on the proposal and, after informal negotiations with BT failed, stated that it would force BT to divest Openreach into a separately-owned company. However, soon after this was announced, BT expressed its willingness to do more voluntarily; it later agreed with Ofcom to separate Openreach into a different legal company (Openreach Limited), but still owned by BT's parent holding company, BT Group plc. In December 2015, Ofcom revealed that BT's FTTP network passed only 200,000 premises (less than the 1% of the UK's houses and businesses), whilst other ISPs passed more than 200,000. Still, only 2% of the UK was able to receive FTTP."
I work in the IT industry and used to work for an independent telecomms provider so I have an insight into how all of this works and I think there is a common misconception here.
* FTTP or FTTH is 'Fibre to the Premise' or 'Fibre to the Home'
* Many service providers offer 'fibre' broadband, but only part of the network is based on fibre. Usually from the providers core network to the exchange.
* The rest of the network is still based on copper, or copper pairs (bonded DSL)
* There is also a product called 'FTTC' which means 'Fibre to the Cabinet'. This means there is fibre from the core network to the exchange and again to the cabinet (the green 'bins' you see on the street). However, the last leg i.e. from cabinet to your home is copper.
As we all know from GCSE science, copper is a poor conductor. This means an inconsistent service and limited average speeds.
Obviously increasing availability of fibre to the premise will become increasingly important as the IoT (Internet of Things) takes off and all Government services are digitised. I still meet businesses on a regular basis who can't even use Office365 because they are on business parks with 10MB copper Internet connections!
For BT OpenReach, you can understand why they don't upgrade the network. It's a commercial decision for them because they wouldn't see payback for many years. Take the example of a rural community, why would BT roll out a fibre service for ten users, charging £25 a month...how long would it take to pay that back!!! Even in cities it's not that simple because the costs involved in digging up the roads are off-putting to shareholders.
Also, the fact that Virgin, Exponential-E, PlusNet, Level 3, TalkTalk etc....have entered the market doesn't really help increase competition at the pinch-point because of the huge sunk costs involved, they are all heavily reliant on BTs core network infrastructure at some level
See, I do think there's a strong case that the private sector is failing us here....look at rates of FTTP/FTTH in other European/Asian countries....we're miles behind!
Yes, no doubt Openreach needs to do better, and government needs to push them (regulation)/provide funding for this to be done. However nationalising it and then providing free broadband is a hugely radical step for a solvable problem.
It's the same with Mobile networks. It took collaboration and sharing the costs between networks to get some areas of the country sorted that wouldn't make sense commercially otherwise.
BT are now only providing FTTP for entirely new provision, EG new build estates. That doesn't make a dent in the wider requirement though. As BT is a private company it will be making some shrewd decisions around investment. They will eventually move on FTTP but when the time is right commercially. Rolling out FTTP would quickly make their other more profitable products and services redundant, or at best it will slash their margin. BT makes a lot of money off it's leased line network which would suffer because of this.
Mobile providers can offer Unlimited Data now, but why would they when they can still make a hat full offering 8GB, 16GB, 50GB etc as options. Once they move to Unlimited it's over. It happened with Minutes/txts. When I got my first mobile I got 400mins/400txts and had to barter for more than that on my renewal. Once they offered Unlimited there was no turning back and now next to nothing is made on it.
But yeah, would a government take over ensure a faster roll out? Quite possibly.
There's a black Glasgow SNP councillor who's been doing a lot to try and get Glasgow to confront its past insofar as slavery is concerned. Although there are definitely elements of the Yes movement who want to pretend Scotland isn't complicit in empire at all, and some who even want to try and make out we were a victim as opposed to an accomplice.
As for policy - I don't even think you need anything major, just a basic recognition that our country's empire committed lots of heinous crimes that destroyed lives. Governments don't even need to mention it regularly or often, I just don't think a government should take some distorted view of history which ignores our past - even plenty of patriotic Brits would acknowledge our ills.
Well firstly thanks for reading my posts and secondly if I actually had a deep loathing for Britain then Brexit would be fecking brilliant, sit back and watch the union burn due to its nostalgia of empire. But no actually I've tried over the couple of years to elect a political party that runs on a platform of ending food banks, ending homelessness, better worker rights for British workers, etc etc
Its slightly bizarre that I'm having to make this argument to a ''liberal''. But hey nationalism is great killer of brain cells.
You certainly wouldn't celebrate it but it should of course be mentioned and talked about. In the same way when talking about the Haitian revolution its worth discussing that Louverture tried to start a plantation of his own, complete with slave labor. The idea should be to give people a well rounded world view on history and not simply beating the nationalist drum(Which would include just lying)or ignoring history.
One of the many policies I would keep from the 2019 manifesto -
General election 2019: Labour plans to teach British Empire injustice in schools
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...-teach-schools-general-election-a9216891.html
Possibly the greatest book on cricket was by C.R.L James, who was responsible for Black Jacobins. I can't remember who said this but instead of the BBC producing shite bakery shows what about instead, it made a HBO level drama about the Anti Slavery Society and the life of Mary Prince ? And this stuff has real world effects, the biggest barrier to Brexit has the border in Northern Ireland and what percentage of the British public know anything about a country in their own union ? Christ the tories literally deported Black British citizens and at best the public just shrugged.
There's plenty of traction.
Its not jumping up and down as if United had scored a last minute winner but by pushing for policy like the one above and changing the framing of the argument. Bernie effecivlty goes on stage almost every night and says United States is shit, but he frames it by saying - Why is the United States the only industrialised country not to have universal healthcare.
Since the result last Thursday there been this push for Labour to sink to the lowest level in order to appeal to the ''traditional working class'', that if the party waves the flag while foaming at the mouth suddenly everything will be fine(We tried this with New Labour and the result was the BNP doing well in the EU elections)but Its worth saying over and over again there are material reasons why Labour lost small towns, its going to take far more than a leader with an accent.[/USER][/QUOTE]
Ouch.
Its a complete joke that she is the front runner. Just another momentum backed candidate and will be seen as Corbyn 2.0. She has no charisma whatsoever and lacks the gravitas.
It is just so infuriating that they have not learnt their lessons and will just ensure Labour get trounced at the next election as well
But then you are just arguing the same argument as they see the left as the problem! And going by what's been said since the election, they are right. It's excuses upon excuses by those in charge because they care about keeping power than doing what's right.
And stop with the purge nonsense, it's long since been said that at least on here it's not about purging from the party it's about them releasing power and letting others take the reigns. Nothing to do with core left policies which i agree should remain at all costs.
Corbyn sounded utterly broken in his address. Someone needs to pull him aside and say he doesn't have to do this.
100% this. Labour needs to be the go-to party for people in the community. Shame the tories. Present them as absentee landlords and be very vocal about it.Yeah Labours PR game is weak. They could learn from a Pakistani group called Fixit. This group is based in Karachi and their leader has now been elected an MP in Karachi. They started off as a bunch of volunteers who went around highlighting government failures. For example of there were giant potholes they'd Graffiti the road around them and point out the government was failing the people.
The face is the Chief Minister of the Sindh province. I was reading earlier on twitter somone said that one of Labours biggest failures was not getting the Tories to take ownership of their mistakes. Eventually they started volunteering to fix things themselves!
The Labour factions desperately need to get together and agree a compromise on the leader/deputy leader and head off the factional infighting. Those on the left need to accept that RLB/AR isn't a strong ticket even if it is the one which reflects their political views. Those on the right need to convince the left that they're willing to act in good faith going forwards and that electing a soft-left deputy to a leftist leader (or vice-versa) wouldn't lead to another Tom Watson situation, where as soon as he'd been elected he started throwing dung at the people who just voted him in and undermining the leader/left.
Starmer as leader/Rayner as deputy would be my preferred combo to lead a party hovering around the 2017 manifesto in terms of its offer to the nation. Maybe it's wishful thinking but I'd hope that would be a ticket most in the party could back, and which could take the party forwards.
Starmer as leader/Rayner as deputy would be my preferred combo to lead a party hovering around the 2017 manifesto in terms of its offer to the nation. Maybe it's wishful thinking but I'd hope that would be a ticket most in the party could back, and which could take the party forwards.
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Labour have a community based local organisation which I've joined off the back of campaigning in this election and this is exactly what that is trying to achieve.
I hope so, this is what politics is about. When people talk about problems in the pub, someone ought to be able to point towards a Labour affiliated solution, or a labour political personality who'll get involved to try and help. This is how you win back trust, a person at a time. No media BS can change that.
I believe in a large state and that the population will be happier and more prosperous if they have access to things like free childcare, top quality healthcare and quality education. Socially I think I'm pretty liberal. These are the essential and broad points why I've always voted for Labour (even Corbyn x2). That said, I'm certainly more patriotic than many on the left and believe in other unpopular stuff from that point of view like the need for nuclear weapons and a strong military.
I think you're on a hiding to nothing if you think the traditional labour base are going to be amiable to ideas of government mandated education on the crimes of the British Empire. It's a major turnoff because in communities with more nationalistic tendencies because a not insignificant part of their self esteem is often drawn from that feeling of being part of something far greater than the individual. They don't want to feel ashamed of their heritage, its an anathema to them. It's no more complicated than that. It's just one of the many reasons why I don't feel that the heavily idealised manifesto of the like Corbyn proposed will ever return a majority in this country.
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The factions of the party obviously need to compromise with each other.
It is possible. Nowadays, people seem to think New Labour was some monolithic block, but it was really a grand compromise between Blairite and Brownite visions and ideas. The fact people remember it as a unified force is a testament to how successful it was at branding and presentation.
Something similar has to happen now between the socialists/statists and the centre ground.
It is possible. Nowadays, people seem to think New Labour was some monolithic block, but it was really a grand compromise between Blairite and Brownite visions and ideas. The fact people remember it as a unified force is a testament to how successful it was at branding and presentation.
Something similar has to happen now between the socialists/statists and the centre ground.
Yeah, couldn’t Harman step in as acting leader again while the leadership election takes place?
If we use ‘great’ in the more neutral sense, as in ‘influential’ or ‘impactful’, then I think it may become a bit more useful to speak in such terms. We can all acknowledge that Britain is one of the ‘great’ nations/states or whatever, just as we’d recognize, say, Buddhism as one of the great religions without necessarily attaching any moral significance to it. Britain’s contribution to the making of the modern world places it in a very small, select category of historical powers.
I think the danger lies in attempting to measure Britain’s legacy like a score-card or balance-sheet. This approach doesn’t really do much to help our understanding of how Britain shaped and continues to shape the world we live in, it’s more useful for telling us about the politics of the person arguing for one or the other side of the balance-sheet. Which is why I think the Labour manifesto approach discussed above is probably mid-guided, though well-meaning. It comes across as an attempt to balance the score-board rather than promote genuine understanding, and it inevitably provokes a response which deepens the problem.
OK. if you take the example of south korea, it's because it's small and metropolitan and the cost of putting fibre to the front door is therefore low.
But that aside, we're about to roll out 5G wirelessly, driven by the private sector. Why not let that play out first? Or some of the solutions outlined here?
OK, maybe I should have quoted Vodafone instead. But so does Google, in its way.
You mean Labour's plans? Choose your reason - government control of private communications? To throw money at a problem which will probably fix itself in time, given 5G, Starlink and so on?
I don't think the divide between Blairites and Brownites was profound enough to really create all that much of a schism within the party beyond the personal dislike the two men eventually had for each other though. They had different approaches to politics and different ideals, but in many respects they both embraced the project of New Labour and of the party's modernisation. They both allowed deregulation of the financial sector to progress and were fine to retain fairly low taxation while boosting public investment. They were both pro-EU, pro-immigration, and internationalist in their outlooks. There were differences, yes, but not for the two men to be seen as representing fundamentally different wings of the party as the left and centre do now.
I'd say the difference now is that the socialists and centrists just have hugely different ideological outlooks. The left don't see New Labour types as all that much better than moderate Tories; New Labour see the left as worse than moderate Tories/Lib Dems, for the most part. Their ideologies vary to the point where I'm not sure it's tenable for the two factions to continue in the same party in the long-term, while both retaining power to an extent.