To feel completely disillusioned with the Labour Party?

Yeah, that it is true. What a "nice" friends club!

I've got something! They've made their already very rich friends richer. Loyalty to ones friends is a good thing, isn't it?

If somebody can find something that has improved in recent years, instead of finding themselves remembering better days in the past, please let me know.
Just have a look to the wage the gentleman in the article used to have and what is happening to him today.

I have learnt something new on the news yesterday. Because my ignorance knows no boundaries and I had, somehow, yet again missed this earlier.
You know when they say that there are shortages of some medicines in UK. Maybe some of you had to go around several pharmacies to get a prescription.
Yesterday, pharmacists were on the news explaining that there are some medicines for which they pay more than the government will give them for them. So, everytime the pharmacist dispenses that medicines, they lose money from their own pocket.
How difficult can this be to address by the corresponding minister? But, no, they will not sort the issue. They will abuse the good faith of hard working people. Under the government of a man whose mother was or is a pharmacist herself.
Really, I have no words.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-norfolk-68497700.amp

Just because the Tories have printed and borrowed at record levels doesn't mean it's a good idea for the economy!

I am in no hurry to take anything I read about Starmer at face value at present. They will try to attack him, anyone around him and make mountains of mole hills because they are on an election campaign.
Do bote, anyone who fits your values.
But bear in mind that what you have today is fruit of the tory policies of the last years. And they had 14 years to make our lives better. But well.... mine is not. So I will be judging them basrd on that, which are facts that I can see with my very own eyrs, instead of some interpretation of someone's words out of context.

My brother and family have spent decades voting Lib Dem in Southend-on-Sea although they are Labour supporters. Traditionally Southend ppl would vote for a pig's bladder on a stick as long as it had a blue rosette pinned to it. But there's talk one of the seats is at risk this time.

There is money available, we're a currency printing state. Choosing not to use it for fiscal stimulation is an ideological choice. Even the USA used it as a mechanism for avoiding the worst effects of covid on their economy. They also used it to transform their fortunes in response to the great depression and we used it after WWII.

Even if you believe in the myth that we need to raise revenue before spending it (we never do) they have choices that they're ignoring. Equalising capital gains, a wealth tax etc.

It's all bullshit from Labour, like their plans for the NHS. Using public funds to pay private hospitals employing NHS doctors to shorten waiting lists, but ignoring the fundamental problem with using private healthcare. Nothing to do with the front bench receiving a fortune in donations from private healthcare though. It's only the Tories that are corrupt.

I disagree with your first paragraph. They know that there will be so little money available for anything. They can have various ideological aims but have to work first on plugging the financial leaks of the Tories and restoring the economy. So we at least know the things they want to do but they can't jump in and immediately do them.

The difference is that the Tories have had 14 years and not done any of them. They were too busy throwing the money away on their mates.

I don't think that the highly polarised and binary politcs of the UK is ever going to be resolved unless we bring in full PR. That has its own drawbacks, but at least it means every vote counts, it would allow for a range of political parties across the spectrum to be represented in Parliament and it would ultimately be more democratic.

I actually agree to a large extent with you here.

This whole argument suffers from an extreme kind of binary reductionism. You can either be an idealistic socialist dreamer with no chance of ever being elected, or a pragmatic savvy operator with no grounding in principle of any kind. That's not really how it works.

I certainly don't subscribe to the leftist idea that Blair's Labour government did no good at all. It was sure as hell better, in so many ways, than the Tory governments that came before or after. But Blair in 1997 campaigned with clear intentions about how he planned to improve the country, rooted in clear social democratic (albeit not socialist) principles. What has Starmer said now to compare with that? That he's going to use a different method from the Tories to satisfy the bigots about immigration?

This is another aspect of the reductionism: the idea that because Starmer obviously isn't like Corbyn, he must be like Blair. But he isn't. He doesn't have the originality, the conviction or the vision that Blair had (whether you agree with that vision or not).

He seems to just be relying on the idea that the best thing a Labour leader can do is have no principles whatsoever, so that nobody can say he has the wrong ones.

There's no difference in ideology between the two parties, you've said yourself "they can't just pour money into the things they would like" . That's an ideological position. They absolutely can pour money into things they like, but they won't because they are following the same neoliberal orthodoxy as the Conservatives.

There are Nobel prize winning economists like Krugman and Sen that have been calling for an alternative approach to the austerity spiral we've been sold.

Where's the ideological difference between two parties who increasingly share the same donors, attend each other's weddings, welcome each other's MPs into their parties, send their kids to the same schools?

You have to win an election before you can start to govern, no? So everything else has to be subsumed to that.

"Everything" else? Then we're back to the same problem. Because "everything else" includes all principles, policies and intentions about what you're going to do after you win.

You need to make your mind up. You can't have it both ways.

@BIWI

There seems to be some misunderstanding. My point wasn't that I BELIEVE Labour won't do any good (although I pretty much do). It was that @pointythings answer to the question "what does the Labour party stand for?" - ie. that they simply stand for winning the election - doesn't in itself hold any promise of them doing any good.

If you say "I stand for a fairer tax system; I'm going to win the election in order to achieve it", then I can vote for you in the hope that will be achieved.

If you simply say "I stand for winning the election", then that gives me no information whatsoever about what you will do regarding tax or anything else - so no reason to believe your winning the election will make any difference.

Now as for your link... Seriously? "Economic stability" (AKA pretending that neoliberalism still works and we just need to carry on waiting for the Trickle Down), "strong national defence" and "secure borders" are supposed to be the three most important, overarching three missions to be focused on? More than the cost of living crisis, snowballing inequality or that little known minor detail that just might affect our futures called . . . the climate crisis? (That'll be the one that is not mentioned anywhere in your link).

You may well agree with these priorities. I don't. That's fine, and not really the point. The point is, how can these be claimed to be LABOUR priorities, in the Labour tradition of advancing the rights and prosperity of the working class, reducing inequality and creating a decent society that cares for everyone? How are these any different from what the Tories will be saying are their priorities? (I haven't looked at theirs, and don't want to).

This is straight out of the right wing playbook, practically verbatim. We now have Reform, the Tories and Labour all competing in the same political space. Some choice.

I also don't think Labour are going to win as comfortably as is predicted. I think a lot of people feel like OP.

Have not read whole thread. Not voting is a legitimate choice I think if you don't support the policies of any party. I think it's sad that people vote against rather than for a political party. Elections are lost not won as someone once said.

An alternative approach might be to get involved in local labour party and try and influence?

What an utterly pointless argument.

We heard exactly the same nonsense from the Labour left about Tony Blair and new Labour. The reality is that a left-wing Labour party has zero chance of ever being elected in this country. All this nonsense about "betraying Labour principles" is a bunch of hot air from people who would rather have ideological purity ahead of having the power to improve society. It's student politics.

I've lived through two periods of Tory rule and one of Labour and without question the best period of my life in terms of prosperity and opportunity was during New Labour. The choice is obvious to many voters like me. All I see from those complaining about Kier's supposed lack of socialist credentials is sour grapes and a denial of reality.

Whatever you think of Kier Starmer and his Labour Party, the Tories, the only close to credible alternative for government, are much worse. Consensus politics and compromise is what I wish those on the left would realise is the only path here.

I think you're probably right to say that the Brexit headbangers will go for Reform - and that is likely to hit the Tory vote hardest. This is a good thing.

Well, that's an interesting interpretation of what I said...

You have to win an election before you can start to govern, no? So everything else has to be subsumed to that. And if you want to know how Labour are going to govern, their website will tell you. Nothing controversial about that, and since you are on here, you clearly know how to use the Internet. Why do you want to be spoonfed?

And while I don't like Starmer he's 100% better than another 5 years of Tory rule

But Thatcher was hard working and focused. She was also honest and wasn't bothered about being "liked". All of those traits are good in my opinion. Did I agree with her policies? No absolutely not. But all of those make her better than the recent Tory leaders (with the exception of Theresa May I guess who I also didn't like)

Labour are against women’s rights imho. I’m a woman and I know what a woman is - it’s not a man saying they are a woman. I disagree with Brexit because it has no good effect. Labour agrees with Brexit. I’m not voting for Labour. I think that Reform will do well in the elections because they have clear policies with nhs access sorted. I’m not a reform voter because of Brexit but looking at the manifestos theirs is the clearest on what a woman is and for the nhs. I’ll probably be voting for the Liberals because of Brexit. I think that people who agree with Brexit will go for Reform instead of the Conservatives or Labour.

Hey, you were the one who answered the question "what is the Labour party for" with "they are for winning the election" - not me.

Now you seem to be saying they're actually for a whole bunch of other stuff, which I can find out by visiting their website. Which begs the question why you didn't just answer with that stuff in the first place.

So which is it? Does the Labour party "stand for" winning the election, as its fundamental purpose (in which case there's no objection to be raised against them doing that by promising to bring back capital punishment and abolish the welfare state, because those are simply ways of achieving what they are "for")? Or does it stand for something else, some other aims or principles, for which "winning the election" is simply a means to that end?

Most people assume that politics eventually comes down to the latter - that the point of anyone winning an election is what they're going to DO once they're elected. But we keep getting people like you trying to justify Starmer's complete betrayal of Labour principles and of the promises he was elected to the leadership for, by claiming it's the other way around and winning the election is actually the purpose in and of itself.

. . . until that idea is taken at face value, and shown to be ridiculous.

If you go to www.electoralcalculus.co.uk you can put your own postcode in to find out the latest prediction for your area.

We, too, @MissyB1 have a straight fight between the Conservatives and the LibDems (perhaps we live in the same place?!) and we voted tactically last time.

But I really hated doing that - would much prefer to go with my own views/values!

Also if it's a straight fight between Tory and Lib Dem (our town) then voting Labour is a vote for the sitting Tory MP. I'm a natural Labour voter but I vote Lib Dem, tactical voting.