Labour morale is wonderfully low

[longfingernails]

I heard nary a peep from any senior Labour figure in the last month!

The self-pity on Labour sites is self-evident
labourlist.org/2013/08/cameron-may-be-out-of-touch-but-the-labour-leadership-are-running-out-of-time/

The Tories are successfully striking a chord when they say Ed Miliband is weak on the economy, weak on immigration, weak on welfare (even voting against a £26000 a year benefits cap!!)

And I am starting to think that some of the Lib Dem's soft-left voters might even forgive them for tuition fees etc. if the economy keeps growing well. These soft-left Lib Dem to Labour defectors are pretty much the entire reason for Labour's lead; that their votes are soft is what will make that lead so flaky come the election.

These are good days for us small c conservatives indeed, especially with UKIP doing a fine job keeping the Tories honest.

[MrJudgeyPants]

To paraphrase then, Ed is crap!

[ttosca]

These are good days for us small c conservatives indeed, especially with UKIP doing a fine job keeping the Tories honest.

lol!

[ophelia275]

I dislike the Tories immenseley but to be honest I would be wary of voting Labour in 2015 because I know how much they screwed up the economy in 13 years in power. I don't agree with their stance on welfare either. I don't see why there shouldn't be a benefit cap and I wonder why Labour did so little during their years in power to rebuild social housing and to stop their monster (BTL) destroying so many peoples lives. This is a Labour legacy that so many people forget. I always found it strange that they are supposedly the party of the poor and downtrodden whereas it was their policies (tax credits and housing benefits) that have given rise to a league of super-rich landlords and big businesses creaming it from the taxpayer. Surely that is not socialism?

Also, in regards to Ed Milliband. He just doesn't have much charisma and comes across as a rich, middle-class kid who has never grown out of the whole "Che Guevara is cool" university socialism. Very easy to be a socialist and spend other peoples money when you live in a million pound house and have a nice inheritance from daddy and a successful career.

Then again, the Tories are living up to their worst stereotypes. It's awful. There really is no one party that seems to represent the ordinary majority (not super rich, lower middle class workers).

[Billwoody]

100% agree with Ophelia. What Labour did not do in 13 years is the root of some of the major issues affecting people today.
Spent everything and then some during the boom years, nothing set aside for a rainy day. Cuts therefore required.
Lumbered schools and hospitals with PFI deals that we will be paying over the odds for for years.
They have the cheek to harp on about Mrs T selling off Council houses and yet only a tiny number were built between 1997 and 2010.
Let BTL get completely out of hand with no controls on housing benefit meaning rents spiralled.
And, when Tony Blair tried to reform social care it was stopped by Gordon Brown so we have an ageing population with no plan to pay for them - now fucking the NHS.
Tony Blair - OK
Gordon Brown - majorly deluded. Prudence and abolishing boom and bust - MY ARSE.

[EeTraceyluv]

That is the one major thing that winds me up so much about socialists - the wittering on about selling of council stock under Mrs T - the failure of labour to address it when they could have is always conveniently ignored

[ttosca]

New Labour were not socialist.

[EeTraceyluv]

People I know who profess to be 'socialist'

[SirChenjin]

So many people who claim to be socialist were very quick to buy their council houses (which, don't forget, could be passed to them when their parents died) - that Thatcher policy didn't seem so unpopular, did it?

[longfingernails]

The big step Cameron needs to make if he wants to increase the number of Tory MPs in 2015 is to deposh the Cabinet - to win over working class voters who like Tory policies on the economy, welfare, and immigration (though they don't go nearly far enough), but are put off by the liberal guilt and arrogance of the Cameroons.

Theresa May should be promoted to Chancellor. Philip Hammond to Home Secretary. Justine Greening to Defence Secretary; Chris Grayling to Foreign Secretary. Michael Gove and Iain Duncan Smith are both passionate about their portfolios and should stay where they are. Michael Fallon would be a good fit for Health.

Osborne should retire with his head held high as the man who restored fiscal sanity to Britain - he is surely clever enough to realise that he is an electoral liability, regardless of policies. Dominic Grieve and the other ECHR defenders should all resign in disgrace.

I'm not sure Cameron would be capable of taking such steps, however.

[JakeBullet]

Are you bored LFN....you are like ttosca....you only come here to post smug stuff and she/he comes on to rant.

The last Labour Govt were anything but Labour....very evidently.

Politics is boring now.....all middle of the road and as mediocre as each other.

Hell...keep posting...you and ttosca are opposite ends of the spectrum....but at least ttosca cares about the vulnerable which you don't judging by your comments on welfare cuts not going far enough. May you never need benefits dearie...because if you do then I can guarantee you will have one hell of a shock.

[longfingernails]

I post my own thoughts; ttosca copy/pastes long rambling articles from God knows where.

By the way, the most compassionate thing we can do for those on benefits but capable of work is to cut welfare. Tax cuts for the low-paid, funded by cuts in benefits, is the way to go.

[Hassled]

Much as I disagree with your political views, I agree with you here.

I'm a Labour member/sort-of activist. Labour morale is bloody low, and I'm very grateful that Andy Burnham has had the guts to say that we need to sort ourselves out pronto. I'm glad that there are finally, finally rumblings from the membership. Ed Miliband is a good man, principled, intelligent, all the rest of it - but that isn't enough to lead the party effectively. He doesn't have the charisma that Cameron has, and that's not something you can just create.

There's a vagueness to Labour at the moment, as your link points out - most people won't have a clue what Labour policies are, other than "against the Tories" which isn't enough to win an election. We should be shouting from the rooftops, and instead there's just an ineffectual "you're wrong, we're right".

A couple of years ago I started a thread asking which political figures from the "other side" one secretly admired/liked (I said William Hague). Quite a few Labour supporters could name a Tory they liked; very few Tory supporters could name someone from Labour. But that likeability factor is key - we have to have people that the man in the street a) recognises b) thinks "yes, they're OK" and c) knows what they stand for. And we just don't at the moment.

So LFN - I'm not surprised you're smug. I just hope there's a sufficiently radical change over the next year that your smugness goes up in smoke :o. We're certainly living in interesting times.

[flatpackhamster]

I think Labour and Conservatives have the same problem - they're essentially at war with themselves. In the Conservative party, there's Cameron and his centre-left big-state metropolitan worldview, and all the people that support him on that, and then there's the 'Old Tory', who tend to be socially more traditional. The latter are just walking away from the party, and memberships has halved in 5 years. Morale might be higher in CCHQ but the constituencies are shutting up shop. Some constituencies have between 100 and 150 members. I know UKIP branches with as many as that. I was a Conservative member up until about 2006/7 (can't remember when exactly). I voted for David Davis in the leadership election, I gave Cameron a year and when he came out in opposition to grammar schools I cancelled my membership.

Labour's problem is the same one that has haunted it since the days of Thatcher. It has two groups of people, one centre left and one far left. The far left imagine that you can govern from the left and bring the centre with you and they don't care how many centrists they ostracise. The centre left recognise that you have to bring the left with you and govern from the centre. Those two groups are now pretty much in open opposition to each other. The unions have decided to start buying their MPs in to positions and are threatening to cut Ed's subsidy if he doesn't kowtow to them.

Every party has this problem - different groups with different views of the world. UKIP has its libertarians and its authoritarians, the Conservatives its 'wets', Labour its communists and trotskyites. What matters is how the leader of the party manages the views of the diverging groups to keep them all attacking outward instead of inward. Margaret Thatcher was a master. So was Tony Blair. Major and Brown were both terrible. Hague and Duncan Smith were terrible. Ed (I think) is terrible.

[ttosca]

LFN-

By the way, the most compassionate thing we can do for those on benefits but capable of work is to cut welfare.

Excuse me? In the real world, outside of Daily Mail headlines, the vast majority of people on benefits and capable of work are looking for work and have no intention of staying on welfare.

Secondly, the best way to 'make work pay', if you're not a cunt, is to actually make work pay - that is, a proper living wage.

Whilst benefits are barely enough for anyone to subsist on (as anyone who received benefits will tell you), the majority of welfare recipients are currently in work.

We have a huge problem on the working poor in this country because we have tolerated a situation where exploitation of working people is not only allowed, but encouraged. The state effectively susbsidises businesses by topping up wages of the poor.

Tax cuts for the low-paid, funded by cuts in benefits, is the way to go.

Tax cuts for the lowest paid is in order. Cuts in benefits are already happening and are making thousands of people homeless as well as killing people. The Tory scum will never be forgiven for their treatment of the ill and disabled people.

[longfingernails]

Hassled Burnham knows that his job is in jeopardy; Red Ed made the fundamental mistake of keeping him Shadow Health Secretary, and the coverups over Mid-Staff can always be laid at his door even if they don't resonate too deeply with the public. So he has little to lose by speaking out.

flatpackhamster On this you are right. But I am still hopeful, UKIP membership is soaring and I hope that within a few elections Conservative-UKIP anti-Labour tactical voting will be every bit as common as Labour-Lib Dem anti-Tory tactical voting is now. I think we have a strong chance of the first UKIP MP in Eastleigh if only Tory voters have the sense to tactically vote UKIP.

ttosca Unemployment is falling, and never went too high. It's because of our flexible labour market. There is a simple trade-off between jobs and pay, and unlike you, I don't think unemployment is a price worth paying. Rather than destroy jobs by forcing up wages, why not cut taxes funded by cuts in benefits?

[expatinscotland]

Ed must go.

[sweetkitty]

Totally agree expat Labour have no chance of winning the next election if he stays.

A strong opposition is needed right now, where is the major opposition to the welfare cuts?

Labour messed up big time and are not sitting by idly whilst the Tories rip the country apart.

[SirChenjin]

We have a huge problem on the working poor in this country because we have tolerated a situation where exploitation of working people is not only allowed, but encouraged. The state effectively susbsidises businesses by topping up wages of the poor

I completely agree with this statement. Labour had 13 (or whatever it was, felt a lot longer...) to sort this out, the Tories have had 2, and neither tackled it. Instead they created a benefit culture instead of offering tax breaks.

[ttosca]

LFN-

ttosca Unemployment is falling, and never went too high. It's because of our flexible labour market. There is a simple trade-off between jobs and pay, and unlike you, I don't think unemployment is a price worth paying. Rather than destroy jobs by forcing up wages, why not cut taxes funded by cuts in benefits?

'Unemployment' is more than merely a figure. It is a real quantity which affects peoples lives individually as well as the economy as a whole.

The levels of unemployment have been down by zero-hour contracts, many more part-time jobs (even though people want more hours), and exploitative schemes like workfare.

It's not just the figures which are important, but the quality of employment.

The fact is that even many people in full-time paid work are not paid a living wage, and therefore have to receive benefits which amount to a subsidy of wages for corporations.

Job insecurity, in the form of part-time contract work, zero-hours, and other mechanisms of a 'flexible' job market not only increase job insecurity, but hurt the wider economy by decreasing consumer spending.

Rather than destroy jobs by forcing up wages, why not cut taxes funded by cuts in benefits?

Secondly, I don't think it's the case, at least with larger corporations, that there is a trade-off between destroying jobs and paying a decent wage. This claim was made about the minimum wage, and it turned out to be utterly wrong.

Sure, small mom and pop stores may not be able to hire as much, but then we could enact a 'living wage' law for corporations over a certain size (say, 1000 employees).

The bottom line is that there is depressed demand in the economy because people aren't being paid enough, and wages have fallen considerably behind inflation. Before the crisis, spending was kept up through credit. The Tories are now trying to re-inflate a housing bubble so that house prices rise and people feel richer and spend more money. This is not a long-term solution and will cause another crash.

One way or another the imbalance in the economy needs to be corrected. If you don't want to pay for welfare, then make sure there corporations pay a living wage.

But you can't have a low-wage, low corporation-tax economy along with no welfare. You'll end up with millions of poor and homeless people and all the demand sucked out of the economy - which is pretty much where the Tories have been taking us for the past three years.

[ttosca]

I completely agree with this statement. Labour had 13 (or whatever it was, felt a lot longer...) to sort this out, the Tories have had 2, and neither tackled it. Instead they created a benefit culture instead of offering tax breaks.

What good will tax breaks do when wages are so low?

No, how about companies pay people are decent, living wage, and we make sure that corporations pay their fare share of taxes, too.

That way govt. tax revenue will increase and we will spend less subsidising corporations.

[SirChenjin]

I'm not suggesting an either/or approach. I want a living wage PLUS appropriate tax breaks for workers PLUS a fair share of corporation tax. I also want to see zero hours contracts made illegal.

[flatpackhamster]

SirChenjin

I'm not suggesting an either/or approach. I want a living wage PLUS appropriate tax breaks for workers PLUS a fair share of corporation tax. I also want to see zero hours contracts made illegal.

I think you'll find France is ---> that way.

They have all the lovely things you have. And a structural unemployment of 7%, as opposed to ours of 2%. Have you seen their youth unemployment rate at the moment?

[ttosca]

They have all the lovely things you have. And a structural unemployment of 7%, as opposed to ours of 2%. Have you seen their youth unemployment rate at the moment?

LOL - 2%!

One month ago, the BBC was reporting 7.8%:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/10604117

And the official figures mask a much larger problem of underemployment and workfare schemes, where people are forced to work for free and are officially classified as 'employed'.

So where did you get the fantasy figure of 2% unemployment?

Here is a discussion of UK unemployment figures:

scriptonitedaily.wordpress.com/2013/08/06/1-million-jobless-left-out-of-uk-govt-unemployment-figures/

[ttosca]

Higher wages won?t increase unemployment!

Conservatives on the right contend that higher salaries mean fewer jobs. A wealth of research suggests otherwise

---
Fast food workers are going on strike from New York to Seattle to demand higher wages, highlighting the never-ending controversy over the consequences of raising the minimum wage. Many news stories seem to suggest that economists have decided a higher minimum wage will cause job loss. However, with more analysis, we undercover the truth: there is no clear link between a higher minimum wage and reduced employment.

John Schmitt, a Senior Economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, reported in February 2013 that multiple meta-studies (studies that use statistical techniques to analyze a large amount of separate studies) found that for both older and current studies alike, there is no statistical significance in the effect of an increased minimum wage. Put plainly, if the effect is not statistically significant, then there is no proven effect? increases in the minimum wage do not cause job loss.

www.salon.com/2013/08/10/increased_wages_wont_reduce_employment_partner/

[ttosca]

100% agree with Ophelia. What Labour did not do in 13 years is the root of some of the major issues affecting people today.
Spent everything and then some during the boom years, nothing set aside for a rainy day. Cuts therefore required.

This is nonsense.

----


International recognition of what we always knew: ?inherited mess? = myth
05/08/2013 · by skwalker1964 · Bookmark the permalink. ·

The Observer published a very interesting article on Sunday, in which its senior economic correspondent, William Keegan, noted that two economists of world renown have recently assessed the economic performance of the last Labour government and come to similar conclusions:

The ?inherited mess? ? that most worn-out of Tory accusations against the Labour party ? is a complete myth.

skwalker1964.wordpress.com/2013/08/05/international-recognition-of-what-we-always-knew-inherited-mess-myth/