Can you seriously tell me that you would not rather have Brown as Prime Minister than Cameron?
Brown's done and agreed with some awful stuff as Chancellor and PM, but I can't stand the thought of my country being led by that cock Cameron.
Labour faces "utter destruction at the next election" if it continues on its current
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Can you seriously tell me that you would not rather have Brown as Prime Minister than Cameron?
Brown's done and agreed with some awful stuff as Chancellor and PM, but I can't stand the thought of my country being led by that cock Cameron.
Steve Booth
Bourgeois apologist
Labour face electoral wipeout
We've seen by-elections where Labour have come third or worse, even less votes than the BNP. I doubt whether a Tory victory of this magnitude will make any real difference on the ground, as New Labour are basically Thatcherite Tories anyway.
The point is that with such a stalemate, some kind of long term radical realignment of politics is quite possible. One doomsday scenario is that the Labour vote might collapse to such an extent that the BNP begin to win some Westminster seats. It might not go that way, for example, we might get Green Party MPs. But if this is possible, why not have real Left MPs?
There is a need to get across to people the complete failure of the Labcon paradigm, but also that another kind of politics is possible. People know the existing stuff is rubbsh, but they don't yet see a credible alternative.
There was a poll published in the Lancashire Evening Post a little while ago (think it was probably a national thing but applied to local constituencies) which was predicting a 200+ seat majority for the Conservatives.
We've seen by-elections where Labour have come third or worse, even less votes than the BNP. I doubt whether a Tory victory of this magnitude will make any real difference on the ground, as New Labour are basically Thatcherite Tories anyway.
The point is that with such a stalemate, some kind of long term radical realignment of politics is quite possible. One doomsday scenario is that the Labour vote might collapse to such an extent that the BNP begin to win some Westminster seats. It might not go that way, for example, we might get Green Party MPs. But if this is possible, why not have real Left MPs?
There is a need to get across to people the complete failure of the Labcon paradigm, but also that another kind of politics is possible. People know the existing stuff is rubbsh, but they don't yet see a credible alternative.
Kid_Eternity
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Yes but Major wasn't sitting at the top of a party that have 100 or so seats won from the Labour party the way the Labour party is with seats which used to be Tory. Those marginals (or super marginals as they now can be termed given the serious losses in heart land seats) will swing right to Cameron. Add the heartland seats which are so fucked off (they remember 18 years of Tories and now see 11 years of Nu Lab on top of that (again another problem Major never had) and you have the making of a landslide.
I really don't think you can compare Major to Brown in any real sense.
I have thought for years when nu labour loses an election that the blood letting will start and the left will blame the policies of the right .The left has kept quiet whilst in power but when out of power they have nothing to loose.but one big question is there anything left of the left
danny la rouge
Ninja swords for all disabled people
I can't stand the thought of either of the cocks.Can you seriously tell me that you would not rather have Brown as Prime Minister than Cameron?
Brown's done and agreed with some awful stuff as Chancellor and PM, but I can't stand the thought of my country being led by that cock Cameron.
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
I would honestly not care whether Brown or Cameron was PM.
Some of the hangers-on, I think, would be better with Brown than Cameron - but the number of social libertarians and others with any concern for actual people in the NL camp is decreasing, let alone their importance, so, not a huge difference in practice.
Some of the hangers-on, I think, would be better with Brown than Cameron - but the number of social libertarians and others with any concern for actual people in the NL camp is decreasing, let alone their importance, so, not a huge difference in practice.
jiggajagga
Judge_Mental
Trouble is, if you can't vote Labour,
You can't vote Tory,
You can't vote Lib Dem,
who can you vote for?
BNP FFS??
If the BNP do well at the next election it is the above's fault for decrying their roots.
I myself am voteless at the next election
doddles
Appreciates the good eggs
You know, I was living in the USA from 2000-2007 (originally from Australia, though I lived in Switzerland for 8 years, so familiar with Europe as well). Anyway, many many people said the same thing about Gore and Bush in 2000 - they couldn't see the difference, since the Democrats had sold out to big business and pandered to the centre-right while abandoning their roots. Many didn't vote or voted for Nader as a consequence.
They were half right - right about the Democrats. But they were totally wrong about there being no difference between Gore/Dems and Bush/Repubs.
I think we all know what happened next.
If you think that there's no difference between Labour and Tories, just wait and see what the Tories do when they get in power, with a huge electoral mandate and parliamentary majority with no counter-balance from the left to keep them in check. It will make the Blair/Brown show seem like Marxism in comparison.
jiggajagga
Judge_Mental
Well said m8. I agree entirely. The problem is that history seems to have stopped in 1997 in this country!
Although I despise new labour and all it doesn't stand for I starkly remember what a horrible country we lived in during the 1980s if you were not one of Maggies 'chosen few'.
Lets face it, the reason the housing situation in this country is the way it is is Maggies selling off of council houses. It may have sounded good at the time but we are now reaping what we have sown.
You have made me reconsider toddles. I (with heavy heart) would still have to choose new labour over the tories at the next election. The lesser of two evils I think, but the lack of choice on which way you want your society to go in this country still frightens me very much as I get older.
lewislewis
Lumumba Cymru
Personally I think it's time to weaken London's centralised grip on UK politics by giving more autonomy to Wales & Scotland, gradually leading to the break-up of the UK. The left in England will have to formulate a response to this. The left in Wales & Scotland have already adapted to the situation and have achieved some gains as a result. Until then, if i was in a constituency in England i'd support the Greens.
Can you seriously tell me that you would not rather have Brown as Prime Minister than Cameron?
Brown's done and agreed with some awful stuff as Chancellor and PM, but I can't stand the thought of my country being led by that cock Cameron.
This is true but New Labour have took us all for granted over the years
Your points are sound but i couldn't ever vote for a govt who wants to charge us for being spied on (ID cards) and has closed more PO's than even the Tories managed
Do you think that a Democrat would have acted differently? Clinton was a pretty enthusiastic bomber after all.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Nonsense. The Labopur party has continued in the same vein as the Tories, deepening and widing their attacks and carrying them into areas that the tories never dared to. This is the central fact of the changed poltical landscape we operate in today and unless you come to grips with it you're going to be floundering politically. Labour are relying on people taking the exact attaitude as above - but they're in for a real shock in the general election. Those they used to rely on have already 'made the break'.
If the official Tories win the next election as distinct from the Provisional Tories the self-styled 'New Labour' there will be a difference. They will sadly be able to push the current policies further, with privatisation of the Health and Education services extended along with the abolition of national wage agreements. The Tories have no policies that remain exclusively their own, it will just be a worsening of the existing policies which Labour stole from them.
There is no reason to assume that the Tories will have a large majority though. I think that Labour will lose from lack of support but the Tories might just win an overall majority from a hesitant electorate.
As for a balance from the left, this is more likely under the Tories. The voice of the trade union movement has been stifled by their senior bureaucrats and the TUC desperately trying to support the New Labour status quo. With the official Tories in government, the trade union bosses will have to respond to the howls of rage from the members. They will have no friends in parliament nor any hope of promises of future rewards for holding off action.
Parliamentary democracy will also come under question. As the people who were seduced into voting Tory realise that the change they were promised turns into a worsening of standards of living. They will see no hope of anything different because even if the Labour Party in opposition changes its statements of policy no-one will believe them.
If as I think likely, the Tory majority is small then it might be possible to make individual MPs susceptible to public opinion. If this weakening of the whip system takes place there could be an increase in interest in politics as issues are debated in public sphere. The monopoly of power of the two main parties could be removed and smaller parties and independents responding to public opinion could create and vote for policies that favour the masses rather than the elites.
The glass is half full
There is no reason to assume that the Tories will have a large majority though. I think that Labour will lose from lack of support but the Tories might just win an overall majority from a hesitant electorate.
As for a balance from the left, this is more likely under the Tories. The voice of the trade union movement has been stifled by their senior bureaucrats and the TUC desperately trying to support the New Labour status quo. With the official Tories in government, the trade union bosses will have to respond to the howls of rage from the members. They will have no friends in parliament nor any hope of promises of future rewards for holding off action.
Parliamentary democracy will also come under question. As the people who were seduced into voting Tory realise that the change they were promised turns into a worsening of standards of living. They will see no hope of anything different because even if the Labour Party in opposition changes its statements of policy no-one will believe them.
If as I think likely, the Tory majority is small then it might be possible to make individual MPs susceptible to public opinion. If this weakening of the whip system takes place there could be an increase in interest in politics as issues are debated in public sphere. The monopoly of power of the two main parties could be removed and smaller parties and independents responding to public opinion could create and vote for policies that favour the masses rather than the elites.
The glass is half full
Steve Booth
Bourgeois apologist
Leopard not change its spots
In the wake of the defeat of Labour in the May elections, loss of 140 council seats plus, loss of Bury, Hartlepool, North Tyneside, slaughtered in Wales, worst results for 40 years, on something like 24% of the poll even in the Labour Heartlands. Then with the loss of the London mayor to Boris Johnson, 140,000 votes. The loss of the Crewe and Nantwich by-election (22nd May) a 17.6% 8,000 vote swing with the Tories on 49% of the poll. Labour came fifth in Henley, behind the BNP, and lost its deposit. (26th June). Then the 24th July Glasgow by-election, a rock solid safe seat with a 22.54% swing, is it possible to believe that Labour will scrape through, and give the Tories a narrow majority? With respect, I don't think it is.
If the voting trends in these council elections and by-elections were repeated as a General Election, Labour would be facing an electoral wipeout.
Of course, something big might happen to change all this, Cameron put his foot in his mouth in a big way. But I don't think that Gordon Brown and New Labour has it within itself to change. They are heading for extinction.
But they won't be there. They'll be wiped out.
In the wake of the defeat of Labour in the May elections, loss of 140 council seats plus, loss of Bury, Hartlepool, North Tyneside, slaughtered in Wales, worst results for 40 years, on something like 24% of the poll even in the Labour Heartlands. Then with the loss of the London mayor to Boris Johnson, 140,000 votes. The loss of the Crewe and Nantwich by-election (22nd May) a 17.6% 8,000 vote swing with the Tories on 49% of the poll. Labour came fifth in Henley, behind the BNP, and lost its deposit. (26th June). Then the 24th July Glasgow by-election, a rock solid safe seat with a 22.54% swing, is it possible to believe that Labour will scrape through, and give the Tories a narrow majority? With respect, I don't think it is.
If the voting trends in these council elections and by-elections were repeated as a General Election, Labour would be facing an electoral wipeout.
Of course, something big might happen to change all this, Cameron put his foot in his mouth in a big way. But I don't think that Gordon Brown and New Labour has it within itself to change. They are heading for extinction.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
...and Brown ruled out a windfall tax on energy companies to provide money to alleviate 'fuel-poverty' yesterday. Refusing to take the small sort of confidence building step that would help them if they tories did blow up. He genuinely doesn't seem to realise just how deep in the shit they are. I think the tories expected it in 97, but Brown simply does not seem able to see it.
Trouble is, if you can't vote Labour,
You can't vote Tory,
You can't vote Lib Dem,
who can you vote for?
BNP FFS??
If the BNP do well at the next election it is the above's fault for decrying their roots.
I myself am voteless at the next election
I can understand you not voting when faced with that shower of shit but i will be voting for the least of all evils (probably lib dem if no one decent is standing)
doddles
Appreciates the good eggs
You're right that Labour continued on with the Tories policies and pushed them further. But to think that the Tories wouldn't do the same and more if they get into power is a mistake.
The experience in the USA was very similar. Clinton took the Dems further right than they'd ever been. By 2000, many on the left were saying exactly the same things you are now saying about Labour. Many said that the Dems needed a huge upset loss to shock them back towards the left, and perhaps they were right. But at what cost? 8 years of Bush, Cheney and Rove.
Fruitloop said:
The Rebubs did far more damage than bombing Iraq, as bad as that was. For starters, they pulled military out of Afghanistan to send to Iraq, with the result that Afghanistan (the real place where the terrorists were hanging out) has been a festering mess ever since. They cut all funding to any charity that advised the use of condoms, with disastrous effects on AIDS campaigners in Africa who lost millions of dollars in funding. They gave tax cuts to the richest people in the USA. They brought in health care/insurance laws that increased the monopoly enjoyed by private health insurance companies and drug companies in the USA. They secretly locked up and tortured people without right to trial (not just fighters in Afghanistan, but normal people transiting airports in the USA on their way home to Canada). They changed environmental laws to reverse pollution control measures on coal power plants, reverse protection of lands and protected species and took away any semblance of independence of the Environmental Protection Agency.
I could go on and on. The Dems might have been bad. They would not have been anywhere near that bad.
The parallels between the political landscape in the USA in 2000, and that in the UK in 2008 are scary. What to do about it? I don't know, because voting for Labour hardly seems like a reasonable option. But the prospect of the Tories in power with a massive majority makes me very worried indeed.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Whose thinking that the tories wouldn't do the same? I'm certainly not. I'm saying that both do already operate exactly the same with precious few substantial policy differences between them (anyone name any?). because they're not in control, they're both driven by the imperatives of international capital. There is no left or right for them be pushed into. They're both trapped in the exact same circle.
And you can't map the postion of ther UK directly onto the UK for so mnay reasons. The US is the worlds military superpwer, global production depends on its market, which in turn depend on massive capital inflows. It has the power to project its muilitary strength half way around the globe on a sustained basis. It has a very different political tradtion, one that has long accepted many of the things that are only starting to take plae here. (and you seme to be equating th democrats and labour with the left in your posts, which i think no one here is doing).
And what did happen after Clinton? A massive shift of wealth upwards. been going on since the early 70s. Murderous foriegn intervention. Been going on even longer. Destabilisation of strategically important areas. Ditto. Ruthless pursuit of intersts of US state/capital all else be damned. Been going on for centuries. Gore would have reacted in substantially the same way as Bush did, so would Clinton, so would Lord Obama. They might not have stage managed the PR and corruption involved so badly though, or a few other cosmetic differences. But that's it. Because they're also trapped in that same circle as the tories and labour.
I'll concede there might be larger internal differences in the US ruling class than in the UK right now, but they're tiny differences that actually make very little difference to people mother than themselves. The really damaging polcies, the ones that effect the rest of us, they're pretty bloody united on those, over here and over there.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
And on the mapping of the US onto the UK, if anything Blair and Brown were the Bush Presidency, not the Clinton one.
Well put.
CyberRose
أرفع الشفرات
Looks to me like after the next general election, we'll either have a Labour or Conservative government
For those hoping for a Conservative government (!) consider this:
Labour's major funding comes from the trade unions, which means there is a very real possibility that with the threat of a withdrawal of funding, a Labour government might have to bow down to the pressures of the trade unions over the interests of business (as happened with the temporary workers). I think Labour is scared of businesses, and the economic impact that could result in not appeasing them (if what's bad for the economy leads to job losses etc then voters won't be pleased with Labour). However, I don't think there are many in the Labour government that actually support the interests of business over those of the trade unions. However, contrast that with the Conservatives, who have no trade union pressure and actually support the interests of businesses ideologically.
Labour might not be everyone's cup of tea, but there is no way you can claim to support the working classes if you actually want the Conservatives to win because if you think the working class are suffering now under Labour, you ain't seen nothing until you see how much they are suffering under the Conservatives...
For those hoping for a Conservative government (!) consider this:
Labour's major funding comes from the trade unions, which means there is a very real possibility that with the threat of a withdrawal of funding, a Labour government might have to bow down to the pressures of the trade unions over the interests of business (as happened with the temporary workers). I think Labour is scared of businesses, and the economic impact that could result in not appeasing them (if what's bad for the economy leads to job losses etc then voters won't be pleased with Labour). However, I don't think there are many in the Labour government that actually support the interests of business over those of the trade unions. However, contrast that with the Conservatives, who have no trade union pressure and actually support the interests of businesses ideologically.
Labour might not be everyone's cup of tea, but there is no way you can claim to support the working classes if you actually want the Conservatives to win because if you think the working class are suffering now under Labour, you ain't seen nothing until you see how much they are suffering under the Conservatives...
doddles
Appreciates the good eggs
And there's the trap you're falling for. You're comparing Labour policy as evidenced by what they have done with Tory policy based on what they *say* they will do. Exactly what voters did in the USA in 2000. What Bush said he would do (which was close to the Clinton status quo) and what he actually did were two completely different things.
The Tories will present a set of policies designed not to scare off the centre-right voters that they hope to snag from Brown, and designed to seem not really worse than Labour to the disenfranchised Labour voters, who will then stay away from the polls.
When they get voted in with a huge majority, their stated policies will go out the window, and they'll steam ahead with a right-wing economic agenda that will be even further right (much more so) than Labour's.
Obviously it's never possible to map one country's position onto another - there are always differences. But we can look for parallels. And although the two countries have very different political traditions, I would argue that UK politics has been moving ever closer to the USA's system in many ways for the last decade. As for the Dems and Labour - they are both more left than the Repubs and Tories. They are both more right than many Northern European countries' conservative parties. In many respects they have a more rightist agenda now than Thatcher and Reagan had in the 80s. There's no magical static boundary between left and right.
Your opinion of US politics is largely based on its foreign policy - fair enough. But in domestic issues the differences between the two parties, though not massive, are important. Any number of indicators of poverty, people without basic health insurance, public debt, income inequality, real wage growth, etc. confirm that. Most "ordinary" people in the USA are experiencing that difference now too. As bad as things might be currently under Brown's misguided policies, I think they'll be a lot worse when the Tories start gutting/selling off any remaining public assets, further deregulating the markets and shifting the tax burden further down the wealth scale.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Who here apart from afew no-hopers like derf who no one takes seriously wants the tories to win?
The unions have been threatening to withdraw funds for donkeys years, and each time it comes to the crunch they sign some shitty agreement like the warwick one that actually sells out all the principles they're supposed to have (which are just internal tactics to maintain their own positions anyway). Labour has been trying to get away from the unions for decades on top of this and into state funding. If you think the unions matter to the those in control of labour then i think you're miles off. They'll keep them jhanging on and pocketing the cash but doing nothing in return, and that's all they can wring out of the Labour party. Being fomrally inside the tent is enough for those in contraol of the union leaderships. They are a mirror image of the labour leadership.
And people who trot out last line seem to be blind to the statitics about increased inequality under labour in just about every single area, increasing social segregation, increasingly class divide education and health, real grinding poverty. Now i saw the suffering under the tories in the 80s first hand (i don't think that you did), i don't think it's that different from what's currently going on. In fcat the attacks on social provision, benefits etc have probbaly made being at the bottom end of the pile worse nowadays.
danny la rouge
Ninja swords for all disabled people
Exactly.
CyberRose
أرفع الشفرات
Well altho I was only born in 1981 (it's my birthday today in fact! 
) I was brought up in an ex-coal mining community in South Yorkshire so I do have memories of what it was like and I know first hand what the lasting effects have been right up until today
Anyway, if Labour lose the next election, I expect things to get much worse for the working class
) I was brought up in an ex-coal mining community in South Yorkshire so I do have memories of what it was like and I know first hand what the lasting effects have been right up until todayAnyway, if Labour lose the next election, I expect things to get much worse for the working class
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
No i'm not. I comparing what the tories have historically done when in power, including when they were at their most ideological and fully committed to prosecuting the class war (under thatcher) to what the labourtparty has done since 1997 and concluding that since there's no substantial differences between the two it seems reasonable to think that the tories will continue on in the same vein. Labout is dismantling the NHS bit by bit, mass sackings and cut-backs in public services they're attacking those on benefits, they're providing handouts and subsidies to the rich whilst cutting their taxes and responsibilities to almost nothing and so on. How much further 'right' can you get.
Compare your argument you make above to the ones people were putting around 1997 about Blair, he'll put sensible sounding policies that will attempt to hoover up the soft right but once in power he'll move the overall economic picture leftwards. Well, he didn't. He carried on with pretty much exactly the same policies as the previous tory govt. Exactly as Cameron will do. Because there's no need to do anything else. Both parties have rthe same agenda, the pursuit of business interests - they both react exactly the same way. Partly because they're constrained by global pressures but alos partly because they both genuinely now believe the exact same things.
There's no real difference between right and left in major governing parties full stop except for a few very limited local/regional/city examples in europe. Every govt is following the neo-liberal agenda as far as it can in some mad rush to the bottom - which isn't to say that they have to, they just are all largely in agreement that they should be acting like this. It's why a few desperate leftits are putting their hopes in the EU, despite this too being an explicitly neo-liberla construction.
They won't. Just about every indicator of inequality shows rises under labour. They showed the same thing under the tories from 1979 onwards. Because both parties enacted policies lead to this. There is no secret tory plan to do anything but carry on with the economic consensus that covers the whole last 30 years. All the bad things you say that you fear the tories if they return to power doing labour have already made real starts on. I fear the labour party in the same way you do the tories.
danny la rouge
Ninja swords for all disabled people
Really? Why?
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