Should Left wingers join the Labour Party?

[jonrover]

I think they should, and before September so we can get a proper Democratic Socialist leader instead of David fecking Miliband!
I just have and at £3.25 a month I think its a bargain!

[Yargo]

Doesn't joining Labour rule anyone out as a \"lefty\"? Ex SWP member but now signed up to this organisation http://www.fodsa.co.uk/3.html

[CusworthRovers]

It will take a few years to reverse what Kinnock, Blair and Brown have done, in the name of New Labour. Carefully handpicked candidates hold traditional socialist minded constituencies. 2/3rds of  Donny's seats are good examples of this. It is very difficult for left minded people to make it through the ranks and they are now few and far between and getting less. New Labour has seen to that.

As for the Candidates. The Millibands, Balls and Burnham may as well be called Brown or Blair.

Abbott and McDonnell have rather stupidly given the left less chance of having a socialist minded leader, having stood together and both representing the left. I'm sure you need 35 (ish) MP's to back you. I'm not sure the left have that in MP's, and by both standing it weakens their case to get the necessary backing.

[BillyStubbsTears]

I thought wingers of either extreme were taboo at Donny?

Actually, we are a perfect metaphor for current politics.

Everything in a congested centre with the occasional balding 70s throwback emerging on the wing before running into a dead end.

Back to the core of the question, the problem is that an avowedly left-wing Labour party would be unelectable. There has only been one Labour Govt ever elected on a left-wing (as opposed to centre-left) ticket. That was in 1945 in exceptional circumstances. Lansbury, Bevan, Benn and Foot were charismatic lefties, but when the Labour party swung their way, it was unelectable because the British electorate simply don't want that.

The role of the Labour party has to be to facilitate incremental social-democrat style changes to society, rather than more radical Democratic Socialist changes. Whenever Labour has veered leftwards, it has become a self-indulgent pressure group and has guaranteed long periods of Tory rule.

You xan criticise Kinnock, Blair and Brown, but by making Labour a party of government rather than ineffectual protest, they have allowed the party to make incremental changes that have improved the lot of the working class. We have just had 13 years of a centrist Labour Government that has resulted in the lowest unemployment for two generations, (and the highest employment rates EVER), better schools for our kids, more opportunity than ever for working class kids to go to University, an incomparably better NHS. Easy to dismiss, but put together they have been vitally important moves towards a fairer society. Even when the world economy dropped off a cliff, deliberate Labour policies shielded the ones who normally bear the most vicious consequences (compare employment rates today with those on 1982 or 1992, after the last two recessions).

A long way from perfect, I grant you. I personally felt from the off that Blair was a move too far to the right. But even so, it's more effective than veering into comfortable left-wing policies that would never be implemented because they would never lead to Labour getting into power.

[River Don]

And equally we now have the sight of a Tory party putting up capital gains tax, getting the right all hot under the collar.

To me it seems to me being stuck somewhere in the middle ground is no bad place to be, that's why I've come around to thinking think PR and more coalition would be desirable.

[BillyStubbsTears]

River Don wrote:

And equally we now have the sight of a Tory party putting up capital gains tax, getting the right all hot under the collar.

To me it seems to me being stuck somewhere in the middle ground is no bad place to be, that's why I've come around to thinking think PR and more coalition would be desirable.

PR and coalition politics would raise intriguing possibilities.

In reality, we have 5 main political groupings, each with 15-20% public support. The Labour an Tory parties both consist of de facto coalitions of centrist and more extreme factions. In a truly grown up system, both would split and we would then have 5 separate main parties across the entire spectrum. Democratic Socialist, Social Democratic Labour, Liberal, One Nation Tory and Right wing Libertarian Tory.  

People would be able to vote for someone who genuinely reflected their views, instead of compromising by having no choice but to vote for a huge and disparate party whose particular MP and overall policy might not be particularly appealing.

The other huge advantage is that the two left or two right partied would be able to air genuine disagreements in an open and adult fashion instead of risking being called disloyal to The Party.  

We would also have genuinely open coalition Government, comprising perhap 3 or 4 partners who would have to negotiate and compromise.

[River Don]

BillyStubbsTears wrote:

River Don wrote:

And equally we now have the sight of a Tory party putting up capital gains tax, getting the right all hot under the collar.

To me it seems to me being stuck somewhere in the middle ground is no bad place to be, that's why I've come around to thinking think PR and more coalition would be desirable.

PR and coalition politics would raise intriguing possibilities.

In reality, we have 5 main political groupings, each with 15-20% public support. The Labour an Tory parties both consist of de facto coalitions of centrist and more extreme factions. In a truly grown up system, both would split and we would then have 5 separate main parties across the entire spectrum. Democratic Socialist, Social Democratic Labour, Liberal, One Nation Tory and Right wing Libertarian Tory.  

People would be able to vote for someone who genuinely reflected their views, instead of compromising by having no choice but to vote for a huge and disparate party whose particular MP and overall policy might not be particularly appealing.

The other huge advantage is that the two left or two right partied would be able to air genuine disagreements in an open and adult fashion instead of risking being called disloyal to The Party.  

We would also have genuinely open coalition Government, comprising perhap 3 or 4 partners who would have to negotiate and compromise.

I'd go with all that.

I thought it was very telling watching the first Question Time after the election, seeing the utter contempt the Melanie Philips of the Mail and The editor of the Spectator for the left, don't remember his name, had for the new coalition. It seemed to me the politics of both extremes felt deeply threatened and appalled by what was happening.

It's also interesting to see how the right wing print media are now on a mission to highlight disagreements that might pull the coalition apart.

[CusworthRovers]

It's a shame the powers that be will not allow Labour to be a more socialist party. The very reason why it was set up.

The 2 major parties are as close now as ever, and unfortunately it's more on the character of the leader, as policies are not so different. Just like bloody America.

PR can be dangerous. I believe in Israel they can have about 30 parties as part of a coalition government and all kinds of concessions have to be conceded to the like of Peoples Front of Judea (as an exaggeration). Can be open to corruption, back handers, back scratching and probably bumming.

[BillyStubbsTears]

River Don wrote:

BillyStubbsTears wrote:

River Don wrote:

And equally we now have the sight of a Tory party putting up capital gains tax, getting the right all hot under the collar.

To me it seems to me being stuck somewhere in the middle ground is no bad place to be, that's why I've come around to thinking think PR and more coalition would be desirable.

PR and coalition politics would raise intriguing possibilities.

In reality, we have 5 main political groupings, each with 15-20% public support. The Labour an Tory parties both consist of de facto coalitions of centrist and more extreme factions. In a truly grown up system, both would split and we would then have 5 separate main parties across the entire spectrum. Democratic Socialist, Social Democratic Labour, Liberal, One Nation Tory and Right wing Libertarian Tory.  

People would be able to vote for someone who genuinely reflected their views, instead of compromising by having no choice but to vote for a huge and disparate party whose particular MP and overall policy might not be particularly appealing.

The other huge advantage is that the two left or two right partied would be able to air genuine disagreements in an open and adult fashion instead of risking being called disloyal to The Party.  

We would also have genuinely open coalition Government, comprising perhap 3 or 4 partners who would have to negotiate and compromise.

I'd go with all that.

I thought it was very telling watching the first Question Time after the election, seeing the utter contempt the Melanie Philips of the Mail and The editor of the Spectator for the left, don't remember his name, had for the new coalition. It seemed to me the politics of both extremes felt deeply threatened and appalled by what was happening.

It's also interesting to see how the right wing print media are now on a mission to highlight disagreements that might pull the coalition apart.

It's a nightmare for the Right. They have just had the most promising conditions that they could ever hope to go into an election with, and they still couldn't get anywhere remotely close to a majority. The right wing of the Tory party is flailing around lashing out wherever it can. They bought the Cameron line that they needed to belt up and let him getting on with winning the election on the basis of a his smile and vacuous promises of \"Change\". They assumed that he would deliver them a comfortable majority, and that he could be held to account once they were in power. Niall Ferguson summed it up last year. He said he supported Cameron because he reckoned he was a right-wing mailed fist disguised in a centrist kid glove. (Ferguson remember is the economist who took delight in saying on TV that he thought General Pinochet was right to have his opponents shot, beaten and electrocuted because his far-right economic policy was the right thing for Chile, so you can see where HE is coming from.)

Now the Right is faced with its worst nightmare. They have Cameron having to collaborate with Vince Cable! Even if Cameron WAS a right-wing Trojan Horse, he'd be hard pressed to impose policieds on his Cabinet that would placate the right-wing of the Tory party.

The likes of Melanie Phillips are in a tail-spin. The bright new right-wing dawn that they expected has evaporated, and (just like the far left did to Callaghan in 1978-79) they would rather this experiment fail and let them drag the party to the extreme than see it succeed.

As I say, if we had proper PR, she, David Davies, Peter Lilley, John Redwood etc could all openly campaign against the centrist. It would make for far more grown up politics.

[BillyStubbsTears]

CusworthRovers wrote:

It's a shame the powers that be will not allow Labour to be a more socialist party. The very reason why it was set up.

The 2 major parties are as close now as ever, and unfortunately it's more on the character of the leader, as policies are not so different. Just like bloody America.

PR can be dangerous. I believe in Israel they can have about 30 parties as part of a coalition government and all kinds of concessions have to be conceded to the like of Peoples Front of Judea (as an exaggeration). Can be open to corruption, back handers, back scratching and probably bumming.

Plenty of ways around the People's front of Judea issue. For example, require parties to get, say 5-10% of the total vote before you allow them any seats.

Not sure how to stop ex public schoolboys bumming each other mind.

[River Don]

CusworthRovers wrote:

It's a shame the powers that be will not allow Labour to be a more socialist party. The very reason why it was set up.

The 2 major parties are as close now as ever, and unfortunately it's more on the character of the leader, as policies are not so different. Just like bloody America.

Politics worldwide is becoming more personality obsessed because of the power of modern media, it's nothing to do with voting systems. I don't think it necessarily drags politics to the centre ground either.

Take America. Politics actually looks to be becoming increasingly polarised, well the right at least just keep getting more extreme. The Republicans are so far off the scale these days they can't even recognise the middleground anymore. They would consider the British conservative party to be god damn socialists! Their idea of a moderate is Sarah Palin.

[BobG]

I'm all in favour of PR as well these days I'm sad to say.

I am frankly terrified by the ever increasing pace of the unacknowledged drift to presidential politics in this country. Pretty smiles, pretty faces and pandering to pressure groups is incontrovertibly no way to run a country. Couple that with the gutless inability of politicians of all colours to recognise that not paying our representatives a decent salary leads to rampant corruption through the sale of 'influence' via board room seats, consultancies and so on, and as I keep on saying, we have politics utterly divorced from leadership. Instead, we have politics of self interest, of interest groups and of the lowest common denominator.

Quarter of a million a year for each MP, even half a million, no outside interests allowed and PR for the reasons advanced by Billy and we might have a political system to admire once more. It would certainly mean the end of any kind of dogma based government and it lead to politics based upon principles - principles tempered by the need to find partners willing to enter into coalition.

QED

BobG

[jonrover]

I was thinking exactly the same Cussie. It might be all well and good Labour losing its socialist routes to win middle class votes but lets not forget the Labour party routes, as Blair and co. did. As a party formed through the trade union and socialist movement back in the 1890's the proletariat need to bring it back to those routes and ideals. As for being unelectable if this were to happen, I'm not entirely sure that is an accurate theory. Historically, I would tend to agree, but there is a door wide open for Labour on two fronts. The middle class in this country are about to have its collective pockets well and truly picked in the coming months and years, and this will straight away make them rich picking for the Labour party when we have an election, when this shoddy
collaboration bums it's self into oblivion. Those to the left of centre who couldn't see the wood for the trees with regard to Browns running of the country and voted for anyone other than Labour on that footing, need to have a party that is relevant to their needs. And to much of the working class, me included, this is no longer the case. I know that sounds hypocritical but the only way to change anything like this is from the inside. Its pretty obvious this is true when you get Brown condemning the BA strikes, when really he should be condemning Willie Walsh and using his ministerial muscle to press BA's board to reconsider Willie Walsh's employment.
But I read something today that could make my hopes for taking Labour back for the left a very serious possibility, with the trade unions once again playing a very important role.


{urlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/7488359/British-Airways-strike-The-rise-of-Red-Len-McCluskey.html[/url]

And if any of you happen to be in Unite, this is the man in the flesh

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCGLWPxlXDc&feature=player_embedded#!

[NorthNorfolkRover]

It needs to be a mass membership party. The only people left in politics now are councillors, trade unionists or corrupt businessmen posing as tories because of the ease which their back handers would get them influence. If I was still a member of the labour party I would vote for Dianne Abbot (given the chance ) just for a laugh. Votes without undue influence are what is needed.

[donnybez]

I have spent virtually all of my life but 5 years under a Labour controlled Country


From what i can see, they lost all values and beliefs under this 'New Labour' guise which was made to get the middle classes votes. I wouldn't personally vote for them as, like you who have lived in the 80's, i have nothing but the negative image of this recession in my mind when i thinl Labour

[jonrover]

donnybez wrote:

I have spent virtually all of my life but 5 years under a Labour controlled Country


From what i can see, they lost all values and beliefs under this 'New Labour' guise which was made to get the middle classes votes. I wouldn't personally vote for them as, like you who have lived in the 80's, i have nothing but the negative image of this recession in my mind when i thinl Labour

You need to think outside the box a little Bez. The recession wasn't Labours doing, it was and is a global thing and totally out of any governments control. But if Gordon Brown hadn't have intervened and bailed out the banks then the pain felt in this country would have been 10x worse.

[Filo]

CusworthRovers wrote:

It's a shame the powers that be will not allow Labour to be a more socialist party. The very reason why it was set up.

The 2 major parties are as close now as ever, and unfortunately it's more on the character of the leader, as policies are not so different. Just like bloody America.

PR can be dangerous. I believe in Israel they can have about 30 parties as part of a coalition government and all kinds of concessions have to be conceded to the like of Peoples Front of Judea (as an exaggeration). Can be open to corruption, back handers, back scratching and probably bumming.

It`s happening already in this coalition, David Laws?

[BillyStubbsTears]

jonrover wrote:

donnybez wrote:

I have spent virtually all of my life but 5 years under a Labour controlled Country


From what i can see, they lost all values and beliefs under this 'New Labour' guise which was made to get the middle classes votes. I wouldn't personally vote for them as, like you who have lived in the 80's, i have nothing but the negative image of this recession in my mind when i thinl Labour

You need to think outside the box a little Bez. The recession wasn't Labours doing, it was and is a global thing and totally out of any governments control. But if Gordon Brown hadn't have intervened and bailed out the banks then the pain felt in this country would have been 10x worse.

Excatly Jon.

Recessions happen. It's in the nature of Capitalism. There's little any individual Govt can do to eliminate recessions as part of the cycle of capitlaist economy.

What Governments CAN do is decide how to respond to recessions. This is the thing that is so deeply depressing about the political debate over the last year or so. There has been no open discussion of the different approaches that Governments can take when faced by a worldwide recession.

From 1945-1980, there was a world-wide concensus on what to do. In a recession, Governments spent money to keep the economy going. They hadn't done that in 1929-31 after thw Wall Street Crash and the result was the biggest catastrophe in Capitalist history - a decade of world wide depression, leading ultimately to World War II.

From 45-80, Governments everywhere realised that they had a role to play in smoothing out the worst problems of a recession by spending public money. It worked spectacularly well in that there was no severe worldwide downturn - Government spending always softened the blow.

From 1980-2007, the Thatcher-Reagan approach overturned this. They said that pain during a recession was worthwhile if it led to a stronger long-term economy. Every single politician now in the Con-Dem cabinet, with the exception of two have become adult politicians in this era. They are steeped in this belief. What they don't understand is that this current recession is different.

The Thatcher-Reagan approach was designed to eliminate one of the side effects of the post-war approach - inflation. By hitting economies hard in recessions, they believed that they would squeeze inflation out of the system. By helping out with Govt spending, they believed that they would increase inflation.

But inflation is not a problem today. In 1975-1990, inflation oscillated up to 26-27%. In the last decade, it has scarcely ever been above 3%. Even after the current round of Government spending and money printing, the Bank of England predicts that inflation will be below 2% by the end of the year.

The huge worry now is DEFLATION. A global slow down and lack of confidence that simply stops people spending, and hence seizes up the economy. It's happened in Japan since 1990. They fcuked up coming out of the last recession by applying exactly the sort of deflationary policies that Osbourne wants and they have had two decades of woeful economic performance as a result.

Osbourne and Cameron don't know any different. They are intellectual lightweights, wedded to the Thatcherite economics that they grew up with. They are incapable of conceiving of a different approach.

Which brings us to the two Cabinet members who ARE old enough to know better.

1)Ken Clarke was the Chancellor who brought us out of the last recession in very good shape, by applying PRECISELY the policies that his party hate today. He borrowed, spent, upped taxes and helped the economy to grow sensibly. He was a big enough and mature enough political figure to stick two fingers up to the ideologues in his own party and do the sensible thing. They hated him for it. By 1994, the last Tory Government had a defecit very nearly as big as the current one - 8-9% of GDP - unheard of in peacetime they said at the time - worse than under Labour in 1975. Everything against what Thatcher believed in. In the previous recession in 1980-81, she had reined in public spending at the depth of the recession and the results were horrific - especially round here. But in 93-94 their Chancellor had been round the block and knew what to do when the chips were down. The result, wasn't the disaster that the right-wing theoreticians predicted. With Gordon Brown following much the same policy in his tenure, was the longest spell of stable, sustainable growth WITHOUT a recession that any of us alive have ever known. Ken Clarke, of course, has now been shunted off to be Lord Chancellor, which involves wearing a 200 year old wig, talking aboput the Courts and saying sweet FA about the economy. Even though he's the only Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer in half a century to have understood what needed to be done to bring us out of a recession in a sensible way.

2) Vince Cable was passionate before the Election in crying out for us not to cut public spending NOW. For exactly the same reasons. He was old enough and smart enough to have seen the consequences and to draw the conclusions. He's now been sidelined. He's now put in charge of the Department bearing the worst of the cuts and has no say on macro-economic policy. If that's not an internal Liberal coup by the right-wingers, I don't know what is.

It scares the living daylights out of me that these paper-thin know-nothings like Osbourne are in chargfe of making these monumental decisions. They have no touchstone but their blind belief that Maggie's policies sorted out a dead British economy. They seem to have no conception that the danger today is utterly different, and that following the same policies will be disastrous. Ask the Japanese.

What Brown and Darling did in the depth of THIS recession was EXACTLY what the post-war textbook says. The rest of the world has done more or less the same thing. God fcuking help us if we'd have followed the Thatcherite/Reaganite approach. We should be thoroughly thankful that the current lightweights were nowhere near power two years ago when it really mattered.

[jonrover]

Fantastic post Billy! Some of these youngsters on here won't do far wrong in reading some of your stuff that has been posted on the run up to and after the election, just to get the basic facts about the state of our country and how different approaches will effect the recovery, which at this moment in time essential as all the economic observers worth their salt agree.

Its just a shame the Labour voters who were bewitched by Clegg's polished TV style couldn't see beyond the bullshit, and vote with their head because a Brown/Cable partnership would have got on with the job correctly and recovered the private sector before going about the cuts while protecting education and health, the two things the privileged can afford privately anyway.

But with the approach adopted by the spawn of Thatcher and his chum Giddeon, there could be a lot of red faced Tories on here when their own party Rodgers em up the old sludge valve because really the Tories don't represent their circumstances as well as what Labour would but they are just too dim or ignorant to realise it.

[BobG]

Sometimes I think that a long, arduous and extremely expensive education has been totally wasted on me. Why can I not write a post like BST's? That post should be framed. It should be hung on every wall of every house in this country. In particular, Cameron, Clegg, Osbourne and their shallow, vacuous, simple minded, sheep like chums should be forced to read it. Every single day.

Japan has spent 20 years not recovering from the disaster their right wingers inflicted. Go check your Japanese growth PEP's. They have consistently fallen, year after year after year. These assholes are now threatening to do the same to us. And all because we, the great British electorate, are still unable to see beyond a toothy smile and a nice handshake. I don't like Gordon Brown. I detest his database and surveillance state. But by God, without him not only would I now be out of a job, and so would you, but also I'd have lost pretty well all the cash I had in the bank as they crashed one after another. I'd be barred from any credit too as all the lenders called in their debts simply to survive (and so imposed impossibly huge thresholds to avoid incurring yet more bad debt) before they'd lend. 95% of the members of this forum now would be in the same position - starving. The State couldn't then afford to feed you that's for sure.

I'm going to emigrate. Somewhere nice and sensible. Thailand perhaps.

BobG