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Corbyn and Momentum

(1001 Posts)
lemongrove Wed 21-Feb-18 22:33:26

Hopefully this will be about politics and news only ,with no personal remarks or attempts to stifle.

Jon Lansman is more dangerous than Corbyn, at least at the moment.

whitewave Fri 02-Mar-18 10:50:12

Corbyn supporter on May upcoming speech

“In your speech, please don’t tell us you want motherhood and apple pie.
Tell us for example a workable solution to the NI border problem
Fudging and obfuscation buys YOU a little more time, in the hope Macawber like something will turn up, but it is no good for the UK”

durhamjen Fri 02-Mar-18 11:33:00

"May is taking a line straight from opposition Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn’s playbook. He vowed to seek a "jobs-first" Brexit, in what turned out to be a first step toward pledging to stay in a customs union after the split to. That policy, which would smooth trade, has the backing of pro-EU rebels in May’s party -- who are increasingly emboldened -- and probably a majority in Parliament."

Bloomberg.

GracesGranMK2 Fri 02-Mar-18 11:42:27

"... a new FT interview with the resolutely anti-austerity Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, is nicely timed. And the paper opens with McDonnell being asked a simple question: who are your business heroes? He can’t think of any, replying instead: “There’ll be creative business leaders but actually, when it comes down to it, they can’t do anything unless they’re part of a collective. Unless they’ve got that wealth creator, that engineer and that work person, that skilled person at the bench to fulfil that idea . . . they’re nothing.”

Lemongrove, Primrose, as far as I can see I, and a few others on here believe this assessment to be true. I don't like the word 'collective' but that's just a different cultural background. I believe it is a society that creates wealth not one or two people. So how ever many silly names some choose to call politicians, or however economical with the truth some posters are, however many names they try to apply to those who do not have any wish to own them, I will not stop believing in society.

If you could tell me that your chosen bit of the political scene could offer a society for all, that raised everyone up, then I would be happy to look at what they want to do. However, the reason we keep having the IHC threads - this is something like the fifth with one being started as soon as another one ends - is because from the right of centre right out to the far right they have nothing positive to say. Their politics have been shown to fail vast swaths of our society.

Yes I have concerns about the parliament after the next one but I had concerns about how far Thatcher's starting gun for neo-liberalism would take us and that worry proved to be reasonable. Hopefully this time we would be aware of the extremes but I would, on the policies I have seen so far rather not let the rights ideology treat even more people as if they were sub-human and so do not have basic human rights to a home, food and a living income.

So, to all those who just have faith in the right wing political view, but advance nothing to substantiate that belief, who try and trash those who want to understand what is being offered by the more socially democratic (or democratically socialist) I will say this: it doesn't work. You cannot change views by attacking all the time.

Grandad1943 Fri 02-Mar-18 13:24:00

Quote....Primrose65 [ I'm not sure if the manifesto is the limit of their ambitions though, or just a taster for a more radical program if they are elected. John McDonnell seems to distance himself sometimes from his very consistent past. He concerns me far more the Corbyn.] End quote.

Primrose to add to what GracesGran so elequently states above, the election of any new government always involves some risk. It is very often that any party after being in government for a period find they cannot fulfil all their manifesto promises or alternatively find they need greater tax revenue than was thought to fulfil those promises.

In the above, the choice the electorate will have at the next election will be to continue with conservative status qua policies that are failing large sections of this population or look to those who offer policies that would attempt to lift up all sections of society equally

In electing those with with social equality policies at their core would be a step into unknown territory after decades of centrist thinking and policy. However, if Britain is to maintain social cohesion then new thinking has to be introduced into government for not to do so will mean the continuation of failure for large swathes of middle Britain.

Eloethan Fri 02-Mar-18 13:56:08

I think most Labour supporters are fully aware that if Labour won, from thereon it would certainly not be a bed of roses.

Corbyn hasn't even been elected to government but the knives are out because the most powerful people in our society don't like what the Labour Party represents, and particularly don't like talk of fairness and social justice. If Labour is elected, there is likely to be a continual barrage of negative press, and every trick in the book will be used to create economic instability so as to discredit Labour. Of course, anyone with any sense is nervous of this but, in my view anyway, another five years of Conservative government will continue to create social division and impoverishment of people and public services and I can't see how we can continue in this way without doing massive damage to everything that is held dear about this country.

Those of us on the left have asked many times, what are the shining achievements that this Conservative government can lay claim to?

Wally Fri 02-Mar-18 14:46:10

I'm a Labour party supporter ( but not this Labour party) and I vote for polices but sure as heck not the policies of Corbyn or that admitted Marxist McDonnell

whitewave Fri 02-Mar-18 15:00:08

Spot the key word

Wally Fri 02-Mar-18 15:08:59

What does anyone think the cost of the sweeping nationalisation will be under Corbyn and McDonnell. There will have to be massive increases in taxation to pay for it e.g. income tax, VAT, national insurance corporation tax that will have business squirming and on top of it all corruption will creep in as it always does with those sorts of industries. We will become uncompetitive which will highly damage our exports and increase the cost of imports.

Anniebach Fri 02-Mar-18 15:09:25

Same for me Wally. I was criticised here for only saying what the Blair government had done but no other labour government, considering the labour government before Blair ended 1983 the labour government of Callaghan . And before this the labour government of Wilson both in the seventies , Wilson in the sixties , Attlee government 1947 - 1951. Little wonder it's the 1997 - 2010 that one remembers, the Attlee government did much for the country but we cannot compare 2018 to the five years following the war.

Wally Fri 02-Mar-18 15:11:33

It's been tried before and it's called Communism and it's failed in every country that has attempted it.

Anniebach Fri 02-Mar-18 15:30:59

You are so right Wally, the reason why the majority of Labour MP's couldn't support Corbyn

Jalima1108 Fri 02-Mar-18 15:37:00

Here's a link to compare Communism and Socialism

www.diffen.com/difference/Communism_vs_Socialism

Primrose65 Fri 02-Mar-18 15:41:58

Wally, I agree that the costs of the promises made by Labour would be damaging.
I'd love to see their impact assessments on removing zero hours contracts and raising the minimum wage for everyone to £10 an hour. It will impact more than a quarter of private sector workers and is not part of the 'costing' in the manifesto.
I don't disagree with the sentiment behind this, I disagree with the feasibility of it. People seem to ask the wrong question here for me. Would you prefer a zero hour job or no job? Are you happy to be unemployed so someone else can earn an extra £2 an hour? For some people - and I'd like to know how many - that will be the choice.

Wally Fri 02-Mar-18 15:43:33

Radical socialism = Communism. Look it up in the dictionary.

Wally Fri 02-Mar-18 15:46:49

Primrose65 Agreed

Wally Fri 02-Mar-18 15:48:38

Anniebach Agreed

trisher Fri 02-Mar-18 16:03:25

Primrose65 Would you prefer a zero hour job or no job?
A zero hours job is not a job. It is a way of exploiting vulnerable people who have no option. In the past. this was how dockers and other workers were treated. They unionised to fight it. Let's put it like this. Suppose your pension was paid on a purely arbritary set of regulations over which you had no influence whatsoever. So for several weeks you might only get £10 or £20, then you might be paid £100, then £30. How would you manage? And you don't have the childcare problems many zero hours workers have. All zero hours contracts do is massage the unemployment figures, they don't provide a reasonable living standard.

GracesGranMK2 Fri 02-Mar-18 16:05:31

You seem to be expecting the LP to do what the Conservatives do, which seems perverse. Why not just support the Conservatives. We are allowed choices.

Anniebach Fri 02-Mar-18 16:07:10

The private sector workers are not spoken of, bring in £10 an hour and many will be unemployed . Is a job paying £8 an hour not preferable to being unemployed. Small businesses are not owned by the so called fat cats, many are owned by people who work longer hours than their employees

whitewave Fri 02-Mar-18 16:10:04

Lots more key words being regurgitated

Zero-hours contract and so called self employment all methods used to exploit the worker and avoid tax

trisher Fri 02-Mar-18 16:10:07

Those same arguments were used by the conservatives when the minimum wage was introduced. Strange to hear them from a long time Labour supporter.

whitewave Fri 02-Mar-18 16:15:02

annie has to face the inevitable I think and find another political party she can support.

My mp is not a natural Corbyn supporter, but he is working hard in the national interest and his particular interests which are the NHS and Foreign aid etc. I have never heard him criticise Corbyn in public. In fact he fights hard for Labour. I admire his integrity and loyalty.

lemongrove Fri 02-Mar-18 16:38:26

whitewave your ‘not a natural Corbyn supporter’ may find himself out on his ear, however hard he fights for the Labour Party.He will have to watch his step with Momentum!

lemongrove Fri 02-Mar-18 16:40:34

annie may have to do what lots of LP voters do, which is probably abstain rather than vote for Corbyn and McDonnell.

lemongrove Fri 02-Mar-18 16:46:02

Corbyn’s ( and Momentum) future policies, should they ever get to enact them will bring economic ruin to the UK.
Of course, if all their ideas and policies should be deemed
‘Aspirations’ and not actually enacted, then better for the country but how would their fans react to that?

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