The Left's way forward

I agree with Iam64 too.

Good heavens, soon. Does that mean we agree with each other?

Apparently Jeremy Corbyn's odds have reduced from 100-1 to 7-1.

Yes durhamjen!

I don't see why some people throw their hands up in horror at the mention of public sector workers.

Vast numbers of people are now employed in or studying for jobs in areas such as marketing, advertising, political and social research, personal training, fashion, media, etc., etc. - jobs that can hardly be described as essential and which, in many cases just involve one group of British people selling their services to another group of British people. This apparently contributes to "growth" but I can never understand why, nor why increases in sales of goods (much of which are imported because we don't manufacture that much these days) boosts our economy.

Only 9% of our jobs are in manufacturing, 1% in agriculture and fishing, 8% in construction and 1% in energy and water. I would consider these to be very useful jobs but they form only a small proportion of work.

In that context, why are public sector workers deemed to be such a drain on society? Do we not need nurses, teachers, doctors, "dinner ladies", road crossing attendants, classroom assistants, refuse collectors, environmental officers, ambulance drivers, tax officers, immigration officers, paramedics, prison officers, police officers, court and local authority administrators, librarians, passport office staff, physiotherapists, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, etc. etc. etc.? These are the people who do necessary work in maintaining our infrastucture, our laws and our health system, etc. If these jobs are removed from the public sector, they either leave great gaps in essential services or they are transferred to the private sector. In the latter case, this results in inferior pay and working conditions for the staff, quite often a less efficient service and, in the long run, higher costs because there are shareholders to be paid out.

Just because a job isn't profit driven doesn't mean it's unnecessary or undesirable.

There is an argument that having lots of public sector workers spending money locally helps business and commerce to thrive. If you have a town where nearly everyone is on benefits, the town centre will bear witness to this. Jobs have been removed from the public sector in 3 ways:
Privatise - the organisations created may "slim down" their workforce subsequently. (though all those call centres in the energy companies dealing with people changing suppliers seem to have created them!)
Outsource services - e.g. rubbish collection. Works out cheaper for the council tax payer as the jobs are not unionised and therefore lower paid. (There was a lot of this going on in the Blair years.
Cut local authority budgets so tha staff made redundant and post disappear.
Getting all those outsourced utility jobs back into the public sector would be a huge, and hugely expensive project. It would take years and, well, create thousands more public sector jobs for HR and legal experts.
The up-side of having private utilities is that you can regulate them. By 1980 the water infrastructure in this country was massively under-funded and inefficiently run. Beaches were heavily polluted with sewage and the water distribution system consisted mainly of rusty, leaky Victorian pipes. No politician was going to put up taxes to pay for the necessary clean up job.
I think the left has to recognise that calling for re-nationalisation of utilities is a lost cause.

As I have always understood it, it is becuase the money to pay public workers comes from the Government in the first place.
Nothing to do with whether the job is important or not.

So to take a fisherman. The fisherman catches fish. If he catches lots of fish, that is money for the fisherman, so money he has to spend.
It didnt cost the Government a penny to provide the fish.

So from the Treasury's point of view.
Cost of the fisherman 0. If he puts his money back into the economy by spending it on food, clothes, utilities etc etc, plus his taxes,
gain to the economy of £7000 or whatever[very rough figures].

If the Government wants say a nurse.
[I wont take into account cost of training a nurse, and ongoing training].
Salary £20,000. Nurse gets taxed, spends on food , clothes, utilities etc. Cost £7000[same as fisherman, very rough figures].
Cost to the Treasury £27,000.

Quite a difference.

The fashion person is in the fisherman group.

It is acost to the taxpayer like you and me soon and I am quite happy to contribute to the pot in the form of taxes for the civilizing effect all these people have on the country in which we all live.

What I am not happy with - and I would like this to be taken on board by the left is the way the government tries to justify welfare cuts by scapegoating and demonizing those at the receiving end of the cuts. So we have had sold to us the picture of the unemployed lazing in bed whilst "hard working" families totter off to work, or people with grownup families living in social housing acting like dogs in the manger when their house could be used by a "hardworking" family. Now of course the only way they think they can justify the latest tax credit cuts is to scapegoat businesses, w hen in fact Gordon Brown brought the tax credit system in because he recognised that small business represented the largest employer overall and thought this would assist them in employing people, arguing that people were better off gainfully employed helping the UK economy to grow.

I agree whitewave someone in the Labour party should stand up and deny this idea that people on benefits are scrounging. It is of course an attempt to split the "working class" and has been enormously successful.
As far as public sector workers go, I think even the conservatives now know we need them. Mrs Thatcher did toy with the idea of promoting private education by giving parents vouchers which they could use to pay for their chosen school. Some teacher friends with children said at the time that they would collect the vouchers and home school their own children. Anyway the policy has disappeared!

soontobe I think your analysis is too simplistic. What is the cost to the economy if the state doesn't provide by way of taxation: roads, public transport, sewers, hospitals, schools, etc.? The infrastructure of a country supports not just individuals but businesses also.

Any views on Labour's liking for abstaining on recent Commons votes?

Here is an extract from Mhairi Black's article in the Guardian :

It was by surprise that the first opportunity to (challenge the Tory government) was actually on an amendment put forward by a backbench Tory rebel challenging his own government. William Cash put forward an amendment which would have applied the same purdah arrangements that govern ministerial and official announcements, visits and publicity during general elections to the campaign period before the EU referendum.

As depressing as it is that the Conservatives have a majority in parliament, it is worth remembering that the majority is very slim by historical standards. The SNP did not only believe in the argument put forward in the amendment, but we also viewed this as an opportunity to defeat the government on a key issue. All 56 of us trooped through the lobby alongside 25 Tory rebels to discover only four Labour members alongside us. Four.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/15/mhairi-black-labour-hurt-snp-oppose?CMP=share_btn_tw

I am at a loss to explain it?

The analysis was simplistic.
Of course the country needs those services that you listed which will cost the taxpayer. But it doesnt want any more than it needs if they can be employed elsewhere.

Which was my worry at the last election if Labour had got in soon. The creation of more "Town Hall" based non-jobs. Our council has cut 1200 jobs since 2010 saving a massive £90million. My question is what on earth were all of them people doing? Were they "doing" anything?

They were doing things like running libraries, providing care , running nurseries, looking after footpaths, emptying dustbins etc.

Those employees left are trying either to cover the gap or services have been entirely lost.

I would hope that the left will look seriously at public services, like care and nursery facilities
, often for those less fortunate and reinstate them asap.

The services may now be rather cut to the bone, but we dont need all of them reinstated.

We did go through a period around here, of potholes taking a long time to be filled in.
Plus white lines on roads almost disappeared before they were repainted. To such a bad extent, that I got tempted to buy pots of paint and go out and repaint them myself!

Apart from that, and I realise that it is just anecdotal, that is the only differences that I have been affected by.

I'm not sure about that though whitewave we still have our libraries, nurseries etc. and the bins are being emptied, roads swept, grass cut etc. too. I appreciate that some services for some people may have been affected but I also know that there were an awful lot of town hall pen pushers doing very little.

Our town hall is undergoing a massive refurbishment program and the inhabitants have been distributed around the town into other various council buildings which makes me wonder why the council has so many offices spread out all over. We have various housing offices (5 that I can think of without even trying) a huge dedicated council tax office, a massive (and I mean massive) educational authority building and the list goes on and on..............

The cuts have of course been carefully targeted to affect the lives of those less likely to create a fuss. So care and children's services, things like respite care for families with disabled children, sure start centres and nurseries. The real effects won't be fully felt for many years. Research showed that children from poor backgrounds, provided with support ,resulted in less crimes and young offenders, expect these figures to rise again as today's toddlers reach adolescence.

My grandson has dyslexia and has been receiving assistance from a trained teacher and began to do well. The council cut out this assistance without any warning to the parents. My daughter is able to afford special after school tutoring and at £48 a pop this is not something many parents could afford. Grandson is I am pleased to say on course for A* in the sciences and engineering English is still looking dodgy so more tutoring will be required. How can this be justified?

"Public Services (Ownership and User Involvement)

Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)

Caroline Lucas, supported by Ms Margaret Ritchie, Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and Louise Haigh, presented a Bill to promote public ownership of public services; to introduce a presumption in favour of service provision by public sector and not-for-profit entities; and to put in place mechanisms to increase the accountability, transparency and public control of public services, including those operated by private companies.

Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 22 January, and to be printed (Bill 36)."

Bill going through parliament. Note that Jeremy Corbyn supported Caroline Lucas in this bill.

weownit.org.uk/public-service-users-bill

Not many signatures on this petition. I know my MP has signed up to it. Has yours?

Services for the sick. disabled and children at risk of abuse and neglect continue to be subjected to further cuts. As Trisher has already pointed out, the research evidence (and the experience in other northern european countries) confirms that early intervention is both cost and welfare effective. I despair when I read people worrying about pot holes when we have such serious losses going on under our noses.

Corbyn has said he will get rid of student fees, etc.,and said how he will fund it. That should be a help for all students.

The Telegraph is encouraging Tories to sign up and vote for Corbyn to "destroy" the Labour Party.
Clearly the Tory party is the most anti-democratic body in the UK.

Attacking the Labour funding and attempting to manipulate the leadership vote is an utter disgrace.
Attempting to take the vote away from the Scottish mp's is another example.
The Tory party is becoming extreme.

I am getting a bit concerned about the Tory party too partly because of the union stuff[and I say that as someone who has probably voted Conservative more times than voting for a different party].

Talk about kettle and pot - the tories want unions to have (apologies I can't remember the exact percentage) but a very much larger mandate for strike action than the tories have for their awful policies on benefits/strikes/education/health.