UKC

So how will this pan out when Corbyn and Trump are our respective leaders?

In reply to kevin stephens:


The beard meets the hair…….

In reply to kevin stephens:

I think there is no chance of Trump being there...

He's being written off by every political commentator, some say the odds are a 1% chance, I think that is generous.

Just his comments on Hispanics alone will have cost him a huge amount of potential voters, which is why Bush is probably the leading republican candidate.

Trump is just showing his hand early and being very aggressive in early campaigns. But his latest comments about McCain have basically ended any hope, he's pissed off the military (which he'll be Commander in Chief of) and the hispanics....

http://www.freep.com/story/sports/columnists/mitch-albom/2015/07/18/donald-...

In reply to kevin stephens:

Hmmm could be interesting -- Uncle Sam says bend over and Corbyn says 'I assume you mean backwards'.

It'll make a change from the response that the US generally gets from our 'public schoolboy' politicians who see nothing unusual in bending over forwards.

In reply to Lord of Starkness:
Bloody queers, huh?

How enlightened of you. :-|

In reply to Roadrunner5:

There's also no chance of Corbyn being our leader.

In reply to whenry:

Why so sure? Everyone seems to be writing him off, but is there not a chance that he'll appeal to a decent proportion of the former Lib Dem voters and former Scottish Labour voters? As well as the more left wing labour voters?

In reply to RyanOsborne:

Because, whilst I'm sure that he will appeal to those segments of the population, they are only a small proportion of the electorate. You need to carry a majority of English constituencies in order to win a general election, and as history has shown, there aren't enough with such left wing views for him to win.

I'm not saying he won't win the Labour leadership contest, but he won't win a general election.

In reply to whenry:


It's "soaraway Jezzer"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11754888/Disastrous-Labour-...

In reply to Postmanpat:

I see Blair has entered the fray this morning. His comments are spot on, as were Blunkett's yesterday.

In reply to kevin stephens:


I don't think either have much chance. People like Trump and Corbyn get much press attention because they are outspoken a appeal to supporters core supporters, but then tend not to go down very well with the general electorate who swing vote over a fence.

In reply to neilh:


That is what I thought. Agreeing with TB doesn't feel quite right though. He is decidedly tainted.

In reply to ByEek:

There is a saying "play the ball not the man".So what if he is tainted, you cannot ignore somebody who positioned the Labour Party to win 3 elections.

In reply to neilh:


I completely agree. He talks a good talk (sometimes) but as an individual, I find him rather repulsive.

In reply to whenry:



But Labour didn't espouse left wing views at the last election, hence why they lost their traditional voter base.

Corbyn stands a better chance than the other lot of being PM. At the very least as Labour leader he might shift the nature of discourse in this country back towards the left.

In reply to ByEek:

If Corbyn does win the leadership does the party split? It seems to me the main options are

1) A few Blairites defect, probably to the Libdems. Labour soldiers on under a left wing prospectus and, if things go pear shaped for the economy over the next four years. it is not absolutely impossible that they get elected. Corbyn's simplistic and superficial solutions could be quite beguiling but things would have to go badly wrong for Dave and George.

2) The Labour party splits completely leaving a rump of "Old Labour" union backed Corbynites and either a new party or a vastly expanded Libdem party. This would fit well with the Libdems creep to the left and could actually represent very serious opposition to the Tories-but are most Labourites too tribal to move?

Traditionally the Liberals were the party of the left but were superseded by Labour when organised labour in the form of the unions replaced them. Logically, as the unions decline the Liberals should reemerge as the party of the left.

In reply to Trevers:

There is no hope with views like this. Suggest you read the Guardians editorial on this aspect from last weekend.

In reply to neilh:

I'm more interested in a swing in the the nature of debate in this country than in a victory for the Labour party itself. I've voted in two general elections and neither time voted for a Labour candidate.

Could you link me to this article?

In reply to Postmanpat:


I don't think Labour would split. But I think like the Tories and their Euro sceptic elephant-in-the room, there would be one party with two distinct camps. I think that has probably always been the case since the Blair years, but since then to their credit, all the leaders have managed to keep the party united. It is only this last week that the current fissure between traditional and modernising has shown itself.

In reply to whenry:


Think again.

Anybody can pay to be a Labour member for the princely sum of three whole pounds.

Somebody told the Tory masses and now they are signing up so that they can legally vote for the next Labour Leader.

In reply to Trevers:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/19/observer-view-labour-l...

In reply to The Lemming:

Yes, but that's because they think he'll make Labour unelectable - I'm confident that they're right, much as I'm against such action on principle.

In reply to Trevers:

Labour did espouse fairly left-wing views - and lost the election because of it. Going even further left is not the solution... if they want to win.

In reply to kevin stephens:

Far more likely is Boris and Trump

In reply to Trevers:


I'm not sure it's that straightforward. Apart from anything else, Labour actually gained more votes than in 2010 in England, so it's not clear that their lack of left-wing views cost them votes.

The thing that bothers me about the Labour leadership election is the way in which the three other candidates are trying to dismiss Corbyn, without acknowledging that some of what he says might be worth listening to. He's the one standing up for the poor, the weak, the dispossessed and the vulnerable - all the others are just doing Tory-lite, which isn't very attractive when the Tories are doing Tory-proper.

In reply to neilh:


Certainly not. I'm not sure the lesson is really 'copy what Blair did', though - a lot was probably down to the built-up toxicity of the Tory brand at that time, and the huge number of people who just wouldn't vote Conservative.

The thing is, Blair left Labour with much the same sort of toxicity, and their vote has never recovered from his influence.

It all looks good when you look at vote share:
http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/percentvote.htm

- but that misses something very important:
http://www.ukpolitical.info/Turnout45.htm

Labour and the Conservatives battle over the 'middle-ground' voters, trying to steal them from each other, but there's an enormous pool of potential voters which aren't being won over by this; winning a decent chunk of them could change everything.

Who'll get them, though? It might not be the traditional Left or Right. (In Scotland, it has mostly been the SNP, with the Greens getting a few too).

In reply to tony:

But that is the very point. Alot of traditional Labour voters are saying we want aspiration. Just standing up for the poor is not strong enough as a single message.

In reply to tony:


I think a BBC article suggest that Labour seemed to be focusing on gaining more red votes in already safe Labour seats rather than going for Tory seats. If you want to win an election, bolstering support in safe areas is not going to win the day even if you can stand up afterwards and tell everyone you got more votes than last time. UKIP stand as testimony to this.

In reply to neilh:

One thing we tend to forget is that Blair rather inherited the Labour leadership on the untimley death of Juhn Smith, a socialist. The subsequent election could have been won by labour if they painted themselves canary yellow and sang yankee doodle dandy backwards. So we cant credit TB with round 1, it was really an own goal from the Tories.

How the world would have looked under a Smith premiership, sadly we will never know

In reply to neilh:

I largely agree with a lot of this article. Of course Labour aren't going to win an election by trying to be seen as a Robin Hood party.

However I still think that the public concerns that the party need to address are a symptom of the skewed nature of the debate. The article mentioned benefits and immigration- areas of concern yes, but not the causes of our countries problems as the Daily Mail would contend. There are far more important issues such as an aging population and young-old inequality. So that's why I think the country needs a strong voice on the left to rebalance the debate.

As the article points out, the Tories are masterful at shaping the nature of the debate.

In reply to Trevers:



Since when have a left wing leader won repeat elections.. The last Labour Party were tied to the unions. But they actually had very few policies, they were just the typical opposition party with few hard ideas until too late.

In reply to neilh:


We keep hearing that, but is it true, or is it just the leadership contenders doing their Tory-lite thing? And if Labour doesn't stand up for its core values of supporting the weak, the ill and so on, what's it for? At least Corbyn is presenting a real alternative. At the moment, I suspect there are Tory MPs who are more left-wing than some Labour MPs.

In reply to kipper12:



I'm not sure about that at all. Labour swept in with the new labour idea, Blair massively changed the party from the off.

In reply to tony:


To me it just sounds like they're parroting the buzzword of the last electionn.

In reply to The Lemming:

Technically you are wrong. You can pay £3 to be a Labour Supporter and get a vote. Becoming a member costs more.

In reply to Trevers:


My thoughts too, and look where it got them.

In reply to Graeme Alderson:

Three pounds seems a good deal to allow you to vote for somebody who you disagree with so that their party will never again be elected.

Seems like money well spent, especially when it costs less than a pint.

In reply to tony:

Please god not trump, not any republican or the world is probably doomed. Hilary will prevail.

In reply to Timmd:

Yes it was a bad taste joke but done to highlight how many times do we seem to get shafted by our colonial cousins - and how our ruling elite always seems to demur to the US when good old Uncle Sam and his boys want to wield their big stick and see backing from the UK as giving it some legitimacy.

In reply to skog:


That's a good point. And I don't think the Labour party pretending to be the tory party really does them any favours (austerity-lite anyone?).

I think an lot of people could really get behind a credible left wing party, and even if they don't win an election, as Trevers says, at least it will lead to a bigger left wing voice in the political system.

After another five years of cuts and austerity for the poor, a strong left wing voice might just appeal far more than centrism.

In reply to RyanOsborne:


What is the evidence for this?

In reply to Postmanpat:

Evidence? It's in the future...

In reply to RyanOsborne:


But it hasn't happened in the past five years. Why should it change?

In reply to Postmanpat:


Over the last five years, it's been easy for the Tories to point the finger at Labour and say they're to blame for everything. They've been helped by the way Labour have failed to deal with the issue. In 2020, the Tories will have been in power for 10 years, and it'll be harder to escape some responsibility for the shape of the economy and the state of the welfare systems and the NHS and everything else. If Labour develop a credible defence of the welfare state, they'll have a genuine alternative to the Tory message of a diminished welfare state. Given the changing demographics, this may well have some appeal. Few of the significant current societal problems we have are going to be made better by cuts to the welfare budget.

In reply to Postmanpat:

Because the cuts will be deeper, harsher on the poor and will have been going on for ten years. I think (hope) that a decade of austerity and low living standards (for the majority of people) will ignite the electorate's aspiration for a fairer, better society.

In reply to RyanOsborne:

It will be amusing then if the Tories plan works., such as higher salaries and a lower deficit. If the economy is even stronger than now, then labour will be shafted

In reply to tony:

Yes, the Tories have been able to point the finger, but at the same time, the economy has improved, unemployment has fallen, wages are starting to rise, and the cost of living has fallen. All under the Conservatives/Lib Dems.

Labour's solution to the NHS and Welfare budget is simply to spend more - we can't afford to spend more, which most people recognise - as evidenced by the election.

In reply to neilh:


I don't actually think this crosses the minds of some people

In reply to whenry:


The improvement in the economy has been slow and painful and we're a long way from being back in a good place - the fact that we've had record low interest rates for the past 7 years is a sign of just how fragile the economy is. Many people's wages are still lower than in 2008, and the public sector pay freeze will see public sector workers fall even further behind.


Of course we can afford it, if we choose to. This idea that we can't afford it is nonsense, and it's one of the ways in which Labour has gone badly wrong, with its race to the bottom of the tax ladder. We can choose to have low tax rates, but if we do that, we have to recognise that we have a stripped-down version of the public services which leaves the the weak, the young and the old at the bottom of the pile with little light at the end of the tunnel.

What bothers me is that there's never any kind of analysis of what is actually wanted from our government spending and how much it will cost. The only message is to cut and keep cutting, with little regard of the consequences.

In reply to tony:

History has shown that high tax rates in the UK are unsustainable - people avoid paying it, whether by legal or illegal avoidance and evasion methods, or simply by working less. Lower tax rates have resulted in higher revenues. Whilst some on the left may dream of a socialist paradise, the fact remains that most in the UK prefer lower taxes and lower government spending - and consistently vote for parties that implement such policies. The public sector pay freeze is only viewed as a bad thing by those in the public sector - those of us in the private sector think that the idea of automatic pay rises is a poor joke.

In reply to whenry:


This is another thing that bother me - it's either high tax rates or low tax rates. What's wrong with the right tax rates for the desired spending? Nobody ever calculates that.


5.7 million people - what would the tax take be if their pay went up by inflation, rather than below inflation?


So the economy isn't doing that well after all?

In reply to tony:

>
Because they can't define "desired spending". It is an infinite amount.

In reply to Postmanpat:


That's what I would have thought: that most Labour voters were too tribal to move. Except they were wiped off the map (bar one MP) in Scotland, where large swathes of the population (everyone from my background for starters) would traditionally vote for anyone or anything wearing a red rossette.

You and I are getting auld. The new generation are not necessarily voting for what their dads did anymore. Interesting times, apart from the generally low calibre of politician on pretty much all sides.

In reply to Postmanpat:


Exactly.. As someone who is left of centre a traditional left wing party has no future in the UK as we have such a massive middle class. If they go left again the Tories will get in again.

In reply to Roadrunner5:

Massive middle class my arse. The greatest trick Thatcher pulled, making suckers like you think they are middle class. Earning over 200k a year? Private income? Multiple inherited properties? All four of your kids in private school?
40k isn't a middle class income, and it wont put a down payment on a property in anywhere pleasant to live within the M25. Stop peddling this received message from 'the media' as the left and right of the right wing establishment pull rank including scary Trots like Toynbee with her million pound tuscany villa that there's no room for a discussion of left wing in British politics as we are force fed horse shit that the country will explode in a puff of smoke if the rich and corporate should pay their fare share of the tax bill. Scotlands so so different than the rest of the U.K. is it?

D

In reply to Roadrunner5:

Without this sounding smug at all, or anything like that, it feels funny reading things like this when my parents have always been left of centre and middle class too.

It doesn't have to follow that once people move on from 'struggling' when it comes to finances, and can start to afford nicer holidays and material things, and more expensive food and that kind of thing, that they become more selfish about things like tax and wealth distribution.

I guess people who have similar world views often tend to become friends with one another, but other than a few who vote Conservative, the rest of the family friends I know and friends of my parents from the baby boomer generation are lefties who are doing well enough that they'd be called middle class, and fit the stereotypes to do with educations and professions.

In reply to Dauphin:

Numpties like me... I live in the U.S.?

Your rant is just meaningless hot air.

The UK has moved on from the traditional hierarchy. We have fewer shop floor workers, more professional white collar workers.


Labours traditional ground is dwindling and unless they take the new labour stance they are finished as has been shown time and time again. You can keep saying a traditional left wing party is viable but the UK electorate doesn't tend to vote them in, and even rarer keeps them in.

People saying the SNP show it can be different are totally ignoring the independence factor.

In reply to Timmd:
You can be left of centre and middle class, that was what Blair targeted. I've got a few tort friends, unsurprisingly all work in finance... Nice guys to be fair.

Centre left is basically the best of both worlds, government owned institutions like the NHS, free education but also private enterprise, pro-social equality, fair competition.. Fair taxation.

Unfortunately Blair poisoned the middle ground so few potential labour leaders were willing to step that way so we ended up with Ed not David.

In reply to Roadrunner5:


You're right, independence is obviously a huge factor in voting SNP. But I think the SNP show that if you represent something that people really believe in then there's a good chance that you can win the support of a lot of people. The conservatives don't offer that for me personally, nor did Ed with his Austerity Lite.

In reply to Postmanpat:


But might it not be a better place to start? For example, in the next few years, the RAF will have fewer planes than at any point since its formation in 1918. Is that because that's the appropriate state to be in given current military thinking, or because of spending limits?

In reply to tony:


The "appropriate" state of the armed forces would presumably be to effectively counter any conceivable threat to national security: 1,000 planes, 10,000 planes?

In reality "appropriate" is defined by what is desired in the context of what is affordable.

In reply to Postmanpat:


I don't know. Has anyone asked the RAF?

In reply to tony:


Turkeys ? Christmas ?

In reply to Roadrunner5:

A lefty business man I know has never minded the amount of tax he pays from earning more than 50k, he sees it as fair enough. I find myself thinking if the UK was more productive, then people mightn't mind paying taxes if there was a tangible improvement in infrastructure and the quality of services too, if there was the sense of having something to show for where the money was going, even if the two weren't directly related, but it can seem that things remain average while the poor get demonised.

In reply to kevin stephens:

This is a very odd contest. Almost a media non-entity but really exciting in labour terms with MP's who put Corbyn on the platform now expressing regret because he is a now a viable candidate rather than a sacrificial lamb (to make it look like real debate occurred). We have some naughty conservatives paying £3 and voting for him and more seriously a 'people's movement' pushing hard from far-left non-labour members. We have a few libdems very publicly joining and voting for Liz on the other end (for those who watch This Week).

I think Corbyn is right on some things and the one with the most coherent message but wrong on so much more. In any case, if elected the right wing press will try to destroy him. His only chance of PM is if he rides the storm and austerity turns out much worse than Keynsian economists fear (programmes like the recent Panorama "Perfect Storm" show some issues that might wake the politically slumbering population up... cutting council's to the bone hits social care hard, forcing an aging population unnecessarily into hospitals, which screws the financialy wobbly NHS).

In reply to tony:


Well that's the point! If you ask the RAF they'll say 100,000 planes, minimum!

In reply to tony:


I don't see why the left can't do that from the centre left... Tory-lite is a bit of a throw away comment at anyone who isn't a raving unionite, who are against solid democratic process.

In reply to kevin stephens:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-33723766