Gordon gone by the summer

[_angel_]

Labour are already doing so via their attacks on incapacity benefit, JSA, and the new housing benefit policies.



.

I know the labour party are fucking up benefits but god knows what a tory government will do (they'll feel the need to 'out tough' them for sure)

Re the housing benefit proposals, the allowances for Leeds area don't seem too bad. Surely it's a better thing to allow claimants to know exactly how much they are entitled to rather than the previous smoke and mirrors arrangement whereby you were never knowing how much of your rent would be covered.

??

 

[Socialist Cynic]

The Tories will talk tough, but there’s seriously very little they can actually do that Labour aren’t in the process of doing already. They use the same economic benchmarks and have the same desired outcome. The worst I can see happening as a result is a slight acceleration in the process.

We ran a splash on the housing benefit changes in Freedom (anarchist newspaper), basically while a few people get a small benefit from it, the area allocations mean that a huge number of housing benefit claimants whose homes happen to be on the edges between affluent/poor areas get classed as requiring less benefit. As time goes on if they end up having to move it means they’ll be forced to do so into poorer districts. The set-up effectively works as a long-term gentrification measure.

Landlords have also routinely been warning that the way it’s being paid (direct to claimants) means they will not take it any more, cutting down the number of landlords prepared to take housing benefits by up to half. Given that so many landlords are already arsey about renting to claimants, this is manifestly not a good thing.

 

[poster342002]

Any member of the parliamentary Labour party who believes that a return to Blairism will win over the electorate is seriously fucking deluded.

Don't be so sure. The (wrong, imo) perception is still that Brown = Old Labour. So the false logic will be: "Brown = Old Labour = Failure. What's needed is a return to successfull Blairism".

 

[Haller]

Don't be so sure. The (wrong, imo) perception is still that Brown = Old Labour. So the false logic will be: "Brown = Old Labour = Failure. What's needed is a return to successfull Blairism".

And don't underestimate the feelgood factor (or rather, its absence). As the economy worsens, the Blair decade will start looking like a golden age of consumerism. And Brown will be seen as the man who ended it.

 

[glenquagmire]

The Tories will talk tough, but there’s seriously very little they can actually do that Labour aren’t in the process of doing already. They use the same economic benchmarks and have the same desired outcome. The worst I can see happening as a result is a slight acceleration in the process.

A few suggestions here: http://www.davidosler.com/2008/05/the_agenda_for_the_next_conser.html

A massive acceleration of attacks on the public sector is the most likely thing.

 

[_angel_]

The Tories will talk tough, but there’s seriously very little they can actually do that Labour aren’t in the process of doing already. They use the same economic benchmarks and have the same desired outcome. The worst I can see happening as a result is a slight acceleration in the process.

We ran a splash on the housing benefit changes in Freedom (anarchist newspaper), basically while a few people get a small benefit from it, the area allocations mean that a huge number of housing benefit claimants whose homes happen to be on the edges between affluent/poor areas get classed as requiring less benefit. As time goes on if they end up having to move it means they’ll be forced to do so into poorer districts. The set-up effectively works as a long-term gentrification measure.

Landlords have also routinely been warning that the way it’s being paid (direct to claimants) means they will not take it any more, cutting down the number of landlords prepared to take housing benefits by up to half. Given that so many landlords are already arsey about renting to claimants, this is manifestly not a good thing.

I always wondered how they could know if it's housing benefit if it got paid direct to claimants.

(I suppose if you've got enough money to pay the rent while your LEA arses around they needn't know. But then if you had that money you probably wouldn't be claiming anyway. )

 

[Socialist Cynic]

A massive acceleration of attacks on the public sector is the most likely thing.

What and you think Labour won’t do exactly the same next time around? They’re going slow at the moment, but it’s mostly been primer work so far, splitting the younger workers (who have already basically lost defined benefit pensions, for example) from the older ones, the more militant from the less (breaking up national bargaining etc), breaking down individual unions by pushing them into early betrayals of their membership.

Why do you think they’re doing this? It’s not so Gordon can then go ‘actually, we’re going to be nice to you from now on’, it’s so that when the next round of attacks comes, Labour can do them without a problem. There is no difference in direction between the Tories and Labour, it’s only the tactics which are being argued – and those are not decided by parliamentarians anyway when it comes right down to it.

 

[glenquagmire]

What and you think Labour won’t do exactly the same next time around? They’re going slow at the moment, but it’s mostly been primer work so far, splitting the younger workers (who have already basically lost defined benefit pensions, for example) from the older ones, the more militant from the less (breaking up national bargaining etc), breaking down individual unions by pushing them into early betrayals of their membership.

Why do you think they’re doing this? It’s not so Gordon can then go ‘actually, we’re going to be nice to you from now on’, it’s so that when the next round of attacks comes, Labour can do them without a problem. There is no difference in direction between the Tories and Labour, it’s only the tactics which are being argued – and those are not decided by parliamentarians anyway when it comes right down to it.

No difference whatsoever? Not even a fag paper between a Tory and Labour administration in 2012? The Tories would have introduced the limited protection for agency workers that was announced yesterday for example?

Righto.

 

[Socialist Cynic]

Politics is not about ideology it's about prevailing economic and social conditions. The Tories were instrumental in building the NHS, Labour have been instrumental in dismantling it.

The 'protection' for agency workers is a fucking joke - how many agency workers actually manage three months in one role? It's nowhere near what's acutally needed, can be gotten around very simply (sorry mr smith, I know it's been two months and 29 days since we took you on, but unfortunately we have to let you go) and frankly, yes I could see that being pushed through under a Cameron administration as a sop to their new 'liberal' character.

Incidentally, Labour only introduced it because it's an EU requirement anyway - and it's well below what's supposed to be the standard.

The CBI struck the deal fearing that if it continued to press the UK to block the temporary workers directive at the EU, Britain might have lost its cherished opt-out from the EU working time directive.

 

[glenquagmire]

Politics is not about ideology it's about prevailing economic and social conditions. The Tories were instrumental in building the NHS, Labour have been instrumental in dismantling it.

The 'protection' for agency workers is a fucking joke - how many agency workers actually manage three months in one role? It's nowhere near what's acutally needed, can be gotten around very simply (sorry mr smith, I know it's been two months and 29 days since we took you on, but unfortunately we have to let you go) and frankly, yes I could see that being pushed through under a Cameron administration as a sop to their new 'liberal' character.

Incidentally, Labour only introduced it because it's an EU requirement anyway - and it's well below what's supposed to be the standard.

I was in an agency role for two years but never mind. The new liberal character won't survive the morning after the election. Thatcher was elected on a moderate manifesto.

What a lot of crap. If you really can't see any difference at all (look at how the respective parties voted in the abortion vote the other day, for a start) then I doubt I'll have much success in convincing you otherwise. Never mind, I give up.

 

[KeyboardJockey]

I serious think that geof hoon is from another planet he talks as if nothing is happening

I didn't realise astromomers had discovered a planet called Cretin?

 

[Socialist Cynic]

Thatcher was elected on a moderate manifesto.

The prevailing social and economic situation demanded that the ruling class respond with extreme force to union power. The difference was tactics not intent, Labour attempted to contain the unions with nice rhetoric and softly softly and when that failed, the Tories went to war to break them.

Of course labourites are more likely to vote on 'free' (ie non-economic) issues in a generally more progressive way, that's why they're in labour. If the whole bunch of them were independents they'd do the same thing.

That's not my point though, and you've signally failed to demonstrate a reason why the Tories would change tactics when the current ones are working so well - hence your inability to convince me of your case.

 

[Haller]

I was in an agency role for two years but never mind. The new liberal character won't survive the morning after the election. Thatcher was elected on a moderate manifesto.

I know I've said this before, but...

This approach simply won't work. It's the equivalent to the Tories' failed 'demon eyes' campaign against Blair - the implication there being that under the New Labour rhetoric was the unreformed old left. It wasn't true, and it convinced no one.

Cameron is not the same as Thatcher. He has changed the Tory Party. It is different to previous models. And claiming that somehow it's still the same will do nothing to prevent the increasingly likely Tory victory at the next election - because no one will believe something that's clearly untrue.

 

[Roadkill]

Well, the Tories won it, and fairly handsomely too.

The question is, what's the fall-out going to be...?

 

[tbaldwin]

Any member of the parliamentary Labour party who believes that a return to Blairism will win over the electorate is seriously fucking deluded.

Hopefully they are in a minority but i am sure they exist.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

Any member of the parliamentary Labour party who believes that a return to Blairism will win over the electorate is seriously fucking deluded.

How can the Labour party return to Blairism? Blairism is an economic policy inherited from Thatcher. While Blair was leader his Chancellor who creates the economic policy was Gordon Brown who is now leader. Labour has never left Blairism. It cannot return to something it never left.

The idea that Brown was somehow more 'old Labour' than Blair is absolute rubbish and was just something that the media either made up or just simply got wrong. Nobody in the Labour party thought that. Brown was always understood to be just as Tory as Tony.

Certainly in the period just before the take over by Brown the media were talking of the Blair camp and the Brown camp and sometimes using the phrase Blairites. This was a different use of the word to the way we on the left use the word, it was just a reference to people who didn't want Blair the person to be replaced. It was not about any policy difference to anyone who understands the Labour Party better than the tabloid hacks.

 

[Haller]

The idea that Brown was somehow more 'old Labour' than Blair is absolute rubbish and was just something that the media either made up or just simply got wrong. Nobody in the Labour party thought that. Brown was always understood to be just as Tory as Tony.

That may have been true of Labour activists - particularly those who identify themselves as being on the left - but there were certainly MPs who believed that Brown would put the Party back on track. The likes of Diane Abbot and Dennis Skinner were convinced that Brown was part of the Labour tradition in a way that Blair wasn't, and that his premiership would see a return to 'old Labour'.

The level of disillusion that has resulted from the frustration of those hopes shouldn't be underestimated.

 

[treelover]

Actually the intention of the local housing allowance is that over time, no council will want to have higher LHA than others as they fear claimants may move there. It's once again a U.S idea, championed by the Tories, picked up by Nl, as always, though I do agree the process is more transparent.


'Re the housing benefit proposals, the allowances for Leeds area don't seem too bad. Surely it's a better thing to allow claimants to know exactly how much they are entitled to rather than the previous smoke and mirrors arrangement whereby you were never knowing how much of your rent would be covered.'

'

 

[Meltingpot]

And Britain will never be taken seriously on the world stage if we elect a man named 'Balls' and that's a fact.

LOL I agree, mind you I suspect he's used to all the ribbing by now.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

Haller you may be right about certain MPs like Diane Abbot and Skinner but even there I feel it would have been wishful thinking rather than a real hope. Also Brown in getting out and about among MPs would tell them what they wanted to hear to get their support. The drift into Tory policies occurred long before the 97 election and at that time the party was trying to appeal to the old and new labour people simultaneously. After the election the great hope of influence by the left was Prescott who really turned out to be a pawn of Blair in persuading trade unionists and left activists that the party was not going too far right and to trust Blair.

 

[treelover]

Haller, you just can't know that, behind Cameron are some very nasty people indeed, when the economy tanks, they will look for all sorts of scapegoats.


yes, i know, i have just described Nl as well, that surely is the problem...

 

[Meltingpot]

No difference whatsoever? Not even a fag paper between a Tory and Labour administration in 2012? The Tories would have introduced the limited protection for agency workers that was announced yesterday for example?

Righto.

In that case, why did John Major, when asked on "Frost" what he thought of Labour under Tony Blair, say "They've got good policies - our policies?" He if anyone should know. In fact on a different occasion he went even further, saying he wouldn't have introduced tuition fees for university students as Labour has done.

It's a right wing government we have now, like it or not.

 

[Haller]

Haller you may be right about certain MPs like Diane Abbot and Skinner but even there I feel it would have been wishful thinking rather than a real hope...

I agree it wasn't a real hope in the sense of it ever becoming reality, but the capacity of professional politicians to indulge in self-delusion is often more impressive than their grasp of reality. The wishful thinking indulged in by the rump of the parliamentary left is at the root of the outrage over the abolition of the 10% tax band - if Brown had done that while Blair was still prime minister, it wouldn't have had anything like the same impact.

 

[Haller]

Haller, you just can't know that, behind Cameron are some very nasty people indeed, when the economy tanks, they will look for all sorts of scapegoats.

Again, I suspect this is a flip of the argument that the Tories used about New Labour - behind Blair there were allegedly hordes of Old Labour types who would pull the strings.

In both cases, it underestimates the centralization of power in the hands of the leader. Since the last Tory conference, Cameron has been in complete control of his party, even though there are huge swathes of the membership that don't agree with his direction: the desire to win is stronger than ideology in the Conservative Party, just as it was in the Labour Party in the mid-1990s.

The result is a New Toryism. If it has echoes of a previous Tory leader, they are echoes of Major (and his ambition of 'a nation at ease with itself'), not Thatcher. Not that anyone will cite Major as an influence, of course...

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The result is a New Toryism. If it has echoes of a previous Tory leader, they are echoes of Major (and his ambition of 'a nation at ease with itself'), not Thatcher. Not that anyone will cite Major as an influence, of course...

I suppose we'll see a little of what New Toryism means with Mayor Johnson. As far as I can tell so far, it means the same as New Labour, just with the rich mates of the Tories running things rather than the rich mates of New Labour. I will be interested to see how authoritarian, albeit only within his very narrow remit, Johnson will be. The signs aren't good so far.

 

[Haller]

As far as I can tell so far, it means the same as New Labour...

I agree entirely. Both take for granted the Thatcherite revolution, and Cameron's Tories have accepted the Blairite modification of Thatcherism.

 

[ViolentPanda]

How can the Labour party return to Blairism? Blairism is an economic policy inherited from Thatcher. While Blair was leader his Chancellor who creates the economic policy was Gordon Brown who is now leader. Labour has never left Blairism. It cannot return to something it never left.

By "Blairism" I don't mean the neo-liberalism dressed up in nice language, or the neo-Victorian policies and rumblings about "immigration" and "dependency culture", I mean the cult of personality.

The idea that Brown was somehow more 'old Labour' than Blair is absolute rubbish and was just something that the media either made up or just simply got wrong. Nobody in the Labour party thought that. Brown was always understood to be just as Tory as Tony.

I agree, but because Brown had (many moons ago, to be sure) made some fairly good arguments for socialism, something that Blair was never able or willing to do, people (and especially those who rely on the partisan elements of the media) were/are willing to believe that Brown has/had a glimmer of leftism to him.

Certainly in the period just before the take over by Brown the media were talking of the Blair camp and the Brown camp and sometimes using the phrase Blairites. This was a different use of the word to the way we on the left use the word, it was just a reference to people who didn't want Blair the person to be replaced. It was not about any policy difference to anyone who understands the Labour Party better than the tabloid hacks.

Tribalism, in other words.

 

[glenquagmire]

In fairness to Diane Abbott, and with no illusions in her, she was one of the few who signed nomination papers when John McDonnell tried to challenge Brown last summer.