'Old' Labour

Thanks for sharing that great article MaizieD. I am sure it will be very informative to any who read it.

Again many thanks.

Thank you so muxh for this Maizie- and yes, this is becoming clearer now.

People might be interested to read this blog. Simon Wren-Lewis, one of the economists advising Corbyn:

He thinks that if Corbyn got into government that would be the end of Brexit, whether Corbyn liked it or not.

I'll leave you to judge...

mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-remainers-urging-people-to-vote-for.html

Fennel I was referring to building sites

jura2, Jeremy Corbyn continuously supported the delicate conference adopted policy of seeking a General Election as first priority.

That policy as time has progressed has turned out to be the very much correct one. After all, even the Tory Party seem to have now come round to the idea that only a General Election has any chance of "democratically" resolving the Brexit crisis.

I prefer to hope that the situation isn't as hopeless as that.
We're very proud of our oldest grand daughter who did a 3 year apprenticeship in industrial electrics. At 22 she now has a steady job, a good wage and has bought her own home.
She did have a good example to follow from her father, our SiL.
There must be many others like that.

Grandad- he should have come off that fence and joined the fight a very long time ago ...
but he wants a GE more than anything else, at any cost- hard Brexit and massive decline. I have made that vera clear many times.

I prefer so called ‘bland statements ‘ to epistles

Fennel it’s country wide, don’t want apprentice pay, not going to work in the rain or cold. I have been with a building
firm over 30 years, use to have parents asking for work for their sons , I remember a mother willing to drive 20 miles to and from work for her son.

Plumbing is difficult, many who did an apprenticeship became self employed and don’t want to take on an apprentice. Many in building have gone self enployed too.

jura2 Quote [ Old and new and everything in between- the LP is currently as divided as the Cons. And cannot offer an effective opposition to No Deal Brexit due to said divisions- a disaster.] End Quote.

jura2, Jeremy Corbyn has advised that he will table a motion of no confidence in the government as soon as Parliament reassembled in September.

Therefore jura2, would you care to inform this forum of what more (in your opinion) Corbyn and the Parliamentary Labour party could or can do?

That would make a good change from your usual practice of making bland statements such as in the above.

Iam I think university degrees are very over-rated these days. As you say, we need apprenticeships and technical colleges.
Annie - why won't they work on building sites?

Old and new and everything in between- the LP is currently as divided as the Cons. And cannot offer an effective oppostion to No Deal Brexit due to said divisions- a disaster.

Unions in Scotland have helped secure decent payrises for public sector workers .The latest being Prison warders who have been awarded 15% 10% backdated to last April and the rest split over the coming two years . this will add around £2000 this year to their wage .Warders in England and Wales were awarded ..according to ITV news ( I dont know if its true ) just 2 and a half %

Iam many youngsters are not eager to work on building sites

I vividly remember the 1997 election - a group of us at a friend's house waiting for Portillo's result. The cheer that went up when it was announced. I also remember seeing TB when he was shadow home secretary debating a member from each of the other main parties and how impressed I was. But the Iraq war brought an end to such thoughts. Whenever I see him on tv now, he always makes sense but sadly I and many other Labour supporters can never forgive him.

RosieLeah, bringing back secondary modern schools would do nothing to help working class children go to university.

Bringing back proper apprenticeships and technical colleges woul help the country by training young people who aren’t wanting academic training. We need more engineers, there are good engineering degrees. We need brick layers, joiner’s, plumbers but bringing back secondary modern schools won’t help that either

^That's what it means to me too Grany.
Are those values still relevant now? Can we go back to those times?
Trisher I certainly wasn't converted by Blair^

Yes these values are still relevant now and like you say more needed now than ever.

Thanks for that bit of history, Grandad. I've never been able to understand the fear some have of the so-called 'power of the Unions.' imo they're the backbone of the LP, theoretically and financially.
I wish we could bring back those idealistic days of Socialism in the late 50s and early 60s. They're needed more than ever now.

This thread poses an interesting question by the opening poster. If anyone looks back at the history of the Labour movement in Britain they will see that the Labour Party was born out of the growing workplace power of the trade unions at the beginning of the nineteen hundreds. It was, however, a realisation by those unions that not all the aspirations of working people in regard to better health care, housing etc could be brought about by way of workplace influence.

Therefore the Trade Union Congress was brought into being and that body initiated the formation of the Labour Party as it's political arm. Following that the parliamentary labour party was formed to bring forward candidates to fight for Labour movement representation in the House of Commons.

The Labour party remained closely aligned to its trade union roots throughout the early years of the nineteen hundreds. Evidence to the foregoing can be witnessed in the fact that many of the members of Cabinet in the 1945 Clement Attlee Labour government were from trade union backgrounds.

However, the trade Unions gradually relinquished ever more autonomy to the Labour Party during the period beginning with the1960s so as to grant greater speed and flexibility to the parliamentary Labour party in forming its policies and other actions. That parliamentary Labour Party autonomy reached its zenith under the leadership of Tony Blair when all trade union representation was eliminated from the Labour party National Executive Committee (NEC).

Further to the above, the influence of the Labour Party Constituency parties was then also drastically reduced when all candidates for palimentery seats were selected by the NEC and then "parachuted" into the constituencies with the local parties having no say in that selection whatsoever.

Many would argue that the above gave Britain a Tony Blair centre-right government which acted under the label of the Labour movement, but in fact, had virtually severed all communication and representation to that body. Again, many would argue that such a government without ties to its roots and not even accepting a reasonable level of representation from its own district and constituency parties, eventually brought Britain the beginnings of zero-hours contracts, the Gig Economy, the British side of the banking crisis and the Iraq war.

However, the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party in 2015, has brought action that has once again given the Labour party district and constituency parties far greater representation within the NEC, and perhaps most importantly the Broader Labour movement by way of the trade unions is also now once again well represented on that body. So, whatever the criticisms of Jeremy Corbyn, his legacy to the Labour Party and the broader Labour movement in the country will be the above structure, and many at the grassroots of the movement are and will be forever grateful.

Therefore those seeking "what is old labour" may look no further than what it is now.

That's what it means to me too Grany.
Are those values still relevant now? Can we go back to those times?
Trisher I certainly wasn't converted by Blair.

Old Labour is traditional Labour The Attlee Socialist government that brought us the NHS and welfare state before New Labour and Blair that is what I think Old Labour is, anyway a good thing for old Labour too to be too.

Old Labour refers to the traditional Labour policies such as nationalisation, redistribution of income and wealth and an extended public sector that were rejected by the New Labour approach.

Doesn't "Old Labour" mean anyone who wasn't converted by Blair and became "New Labour"? It sounds like a biased opinion anyway. Perhaps it's jut another way of calling you a 'socialist'.

Thanks, Fennel. The woman's response is not exactly illuminating, is it? To label you 'Old Labour' just because of your background..

Can anybody else throw any light on what 'Old Labour' actually stands for?

Maizie I told this lady that I had always voted Labour because I grew up in a NE mining town and saw the deprivation. And the post war Labour govts. reforms.
I didn't tell her this, but I also spent a year at the LSE in 1959 when all these reforms were being planned. Some brilliant Socialist lecturers.
Then she said - ah - you're Old Labour.

Would someone please tell me what the characteristics of 'Old Labour' are/were?