The Labour Party

I don't think that Eloethan's post sounds aggressive. All she's done is highlight what's actually happening in this country. Like many others, I get frustrated when people don't seem to believe that they're happening and having a negative effect. You still haven't explained why you think I was over-egging. Frankly, I see quite a few ostriches.

I think people have every right to be angry about cuts, especially as many of them aren't necessary.

Rather than slinging insults around and sticking undefinable labels on people, maybe it would be good to have a sensible discussion about economics and/or politics. I know politicians seem incapable of having such a discussion, but I would have hoped for better from here.

So....would somebody like to define what exactly is meant by 'far left'. I know it's a phrase guaranteed to put the average Daily Mail reader into a paranoid spin, but what does it mean in real, definable terms?

OK apologies for only mentioning the small number of vociferous right wingers. I'll be specific. I 'm also put off by the equally small number of vociferous posters who see Corbyn and his acolytes as the answer to the country's problems. I don't see him as a future Prime Minister, wish I could, I've tried but I just can't see him carrying the politically disaffected or those who are drawn to awful parties like Ukip with him. Consensus isn't always a dirty word.

"Plenty of LibDem/Conservative supporters are very vocal on here" No, more to the point, there are plenty of people who don't necessarily vote LibDem/Cons who find themselves posting on here purely to offset the adulation and blinkers that flourish. It is not necessary to be rabidly FOR something else to point out the blind adoration some have for Corbyn.

X-posts Iam

Note I used the word 'unwilling' and you said 'to avoid' - it's not a case of us being afraid to, more a case of 'what's the point?'

Have you any idea how agressive your post sounds Eloethan?

Perhaps that's why moderate Labour voters are unwilling to put their heads above the parapet or perhaps they really don't feel they want to argue their principles with those who are not willing to listen.

At least daphned could acknowledge what is happening with the party, which is what this thread is sbout - rather than another rant against cuts.

I suspect partly to avoid being hammered. or drawn into yet another thread that becomes little more than left bashing from a small number of vociferous posters Eloethan.

Well, I can certainly see what the Conservatives stand for, and I don't like it.

Just a brief update on this government's performance:

Tragedy of ravenous schoolchildren (All Party Parliamentary Group on Hunger as reported in The I 16.4.16)

Paupers' funerals could return, warn MPs (The I 31.3.16)

"Appalling" benefit delays force more poor to use food banks The I 13.4.16)

Betrayal of the North (museum closures) (The I 12.3.16)

One million British workers will soon be on zero-hours contracts (up 100,000/15% in the last year) (The I 9.3.16)

Council homes sell-off "will hit elderly people (The I 4.3.16)

Bed blocking is "a growing problem" (The I 1.3.16)

Price rises outpace earnings in more than a quarter of UK towns (the I 26.2.16)

Warning on rise in homeless sheltering in bins (11 people killed in last 5 years) (Guardian 12.3.16)

Richest 10% benefit the most from tax changes (The I 18.3.16)

Apprenticeships "flatlining" and not helping young (The I 21.3.16)

North "ignored" as flood money goes to South (The I 28.3.16)

Anya What are your "socialist principles" and in what way does the current
Labour Party not represent them?

I think it was you that said there is a cohort of "quiet socialists" on Gransnet. Why are they quiet? Plenty of LibDem/Conservative supporters are very vocal on here and other political threads so why are "quiet socialists" so shy?

PS. We had our local elections last year. Independents made mincemeat of the standing Conservatives in this town.

In what way do you think I'm over-egging the cake? I don't accept that I'm exaggerating about what's happening in this country.

I regularly get feeds from 'Momentum' on my Facebook page. I'm not denying what's happening within the Labour Party, but what I read is that people are genuinely suffering from cuts and want an end to so-called 'austerity', which is actually no such thing. Do you disagree that people are suffering?

Maybe you could give details of what you think is happening. I don't think it's all sweetness and light, but nor do I see an imminent takeover by revolutionaries.

i think you are over-egging the cake Daphned but I take your point. However it is a political reality that a swing to the far right elicits an equal reaction with a swing to the far left. To deny that means you are denying the reality of what is happening within the Labour Party or all would be sweetness and harmony - which it patently isn't. The Tories too are starting to unravel, but as I pointed out that's not my issue.

Can I bring myself to vote for Labour, as it 'stands' in the local elections? I doubt it, as I don't know what it stands for any more or which way it is headed. This is 2016 - not 30+ years ago, which seemed to be held up as an ideal in your post. Times move on.

But neither can I bring myself to vote for the local conservatives who are, I know for a fact, a bunch of self-serving idiots. So unless the Monster Raving Loonies or another alternative party is standing in the locals I will have to stay at home and not vote.....and I suspect the turn out will be very poor next month.

Ditto from me too.

Yes, thanks for your post daphnedill.

Ditto what Tegan said: Good post daphnedill.

What I find interesting at the moment as the Labour leadership begins to formulate it plans, like EU policy and economy fiscal responsibility, which are chiming with mainstream Labour policy and even may I whisper Tory policy. As each is announced the opposition is rolled in including the media to annouce "yes, well of course they don't really believe it" How bizarre is that!!!

Good post daphnedill.

varian, I am a lifelong Liberal (later LibDem) supporter, because I had always felt that the party's values were closest to my own. If the UK had anything like the northern European Social Democrat parties, I would have voted for them, but the LibDems were the next best thing. I come from a very Conservatve family. I even know from family history research that my grandparents and great grandparents voted Conservative.

A few years ago, my life was turned upside down. I was ill and, as a result, lost my job and career, my house and my savings. Before then life had been difficult as a single parent with no support from my children's father, but I had coped. Suddenly, I was faced with having to ask for help and I was truly shocked to find out how little there is. Forget all the benefit porn programmes and stories about benefit scroungers. I'm not stupid and I looked at every possibility. Unless I deliberately defrauded the system (which I wasn't prepared to do), there is very little support for people in my situation. Like many others, I thought there was a safety net, but there isn't. I had always been a relatively high earner, so had paid thousands into the system and found this particularly galling, especially when the media was promoting 'shirker versus striver' rhetoric.

As I recovered, I thought more about politics than I ever had done. I realised that I wasn't the only one in my situation and that in some ways I was lucky, because at least I'd had a decent education and had marketable skills.

I voted Labour in the last election for the first time ever. I live in a true blue Conservative constituency (53% voted Conservative), so I knew my vote wouldn't make any difference, but at least it was one more vote in the national total. I will definitely vote Labour again, because it's the only party which can beat the Conservatives. I don't agree with everything Labour says and I don't think Corbyn will make a good PM, although there are some others in the wings. The majority of people in the UK (even in England) didn't vote for the Conservatives, but the opposition is split between various parties.

I dispute that Corbyn is 'far left', but the norm has moved further to the right over the last 30 years. What Corbyn actually says would not have been considered far left 30 years ago. I think we have reached a tipping point (as another thread suggests). Most public service workers have had their pay frozen and conditions have become worse, people can see for themselves that state schools have bigger classes and fewer qualified teachers and that NHS waiting times have become longer. Manufacturing has been destroyed and people are having to cope with the uncertainty of zero hours contracts. Higher education saddles people with lifelong debt. The dream of owning a home has gone for all except the very rich and those who inherit. Inequality is growing. The UK's 'silver' has been sold off, in many cases to foreign bidders. Private individuals are making profits from providing health, education, social care, etc while the services provided are worse. Over the last six years tax breaks have favoured the rich...and so it goes on. Neoliberalism has imploded and we're seeing the consequences.

I think we're at the point where people are seeing that the status quo can't continue. The disputes are about which way the country should go with pressures from both ends of the political spectrum. One way or the other, I think the political scene will be quite different in ten years or so and I think the Labour Party will survive, although it needs to focus on what it stands for.

No Rosesarered, that happened to thatcher

We have an ever widening gulf between left and right in this country. If we ignore the nationalists whose only aim is to break up the UK, we have two very left wing parties - Corbyn's Labour party and the Greens who in many ways are even further to the left, and on the other side the wicked Tories or UKIP.

The only party which you should support if you are not an extremist or a separatist is the Liberal Democrat Party.

And the following week, it could be Cameron doing the same thing.

I have this scene in my head ( from Carry On Cleo) and Corbyn is staggering about with a knife in his back on the floor of the House, crying 'infamy, infamy, they've all got in in for me!'

I thought it had split!

There will be no split in the Labour Party.

I have only just felt able to actually join the Labour Party as at last it is saying the things that align with my thinking. For many many elections I have felt unrepresented by any mainstream party.

I think there is a danger when all major parties have similar positions on policies. e,g as Labour grew more right of centre it forced Tories to go further right and that pushes the neo-fascits further along too.

It would be just as bad in the opposite direction as i think that there is a circle of extremism where both extreme L/R are a hairsbreadth apart!!

The growth of left wing activism may actually eventually allow more moderate 'central' mainstream politics.

I voted Labour for many years, but they have not (IMO) had a creditable leader and shadow cabinet since the days of Blair & Brown. It would take an enormous turn around in their leadership before I would vote for them again.

Time to and leave the thread to go as usual.......