Is a more left Labour government what people want?

We live in a very right wing country when you look back historically. The most successful Labour leader was centrist and I’d say we are largely centre right as a nation.

Corbyn was successful, as much as people like to lambast him, he was particularly successful with the younger generation who actually went out and voted for a change. He could never have been PM though, partly because the media denigrated him at every turn.

I think Labour needs Andy Burnham. The man has done a fantastic job in Manchester and it would be great to see that success recreated nationally.

In some parts of the country they were. In other places and especially larger cities they were an emphatic yes to more left wing policies.

So what you’ve described is more public spending, this would need to be paid for by income tax, that’s left-leaning as the right tend to want to not tax, or spend on public services, they prefer to privatise and look how that’s turned out with the water in England and the energy companies, British telecom, British steel etc.

Most of the things people complain about have been caused by Tory governments over the years that have been voted in by those who are now complaining.

‘Not making working pay is the biggest bugbear for everyone’

You see, it isn’t. It is for you and I’ve no doubt many others but not everyone, including me.

Except those who voted green, who do I think.

Absolutely this, also as a former Labour Party member and campaigner, only a few short years ago I voted for the Green Party too, now I can think of nothing more abhorrent. I can understand why those who were not even left leaning to start with are swinging to the far right

Yet when Labour try to improve wages in the NHS, they are trashed, increase NMW... again trashed.

We have a crumbling infrastructure because for 14 years, the Tory never invested in it, be it NHS, Roads, Dentistry... Schools... all run down over 14years of Austerity.

People don't want higher taxes but they want better infrastructure, they want more council housing but wont pay for it, housing is extremely expensive... so instead of accepting this will take time to fix, they seek a quick fix... ie Reform or the Greens.

Immigration is, net, is 204k.... so down to what is, according to you/FT "manageable"

We cannot force people to work in Health and for med staff, AHPs and HCPs all require degrees, which vast majority of "economically inactive" do not have.

Does the FT or our other right wing media report this? is it on BBC or Sky or headlines in the 'Mail or Express?

Your post highlights exactly why Labour are doomed, easy fixes, blaming the wrong people, failure to accept where we are as a country and how very difficult it will be to correct.

There is a whole group of younger people eligible to vote but they are not engaged by left or right or any of this. Someone needs to get to grips with the issues that they are facing - student loans, lack of opportunities, cost of living, housing crisis, young parents struggling with childcare costs etc. What are any of these politicians doing for them?

Yes please.

I would much prefer a more left leaning labour. At the moment I think there isn’t a big difference between them and the tories with labour being more towards the centre. If they were more left I would vote for them rather than my current vote to the greens

Your government should not worsen or exacerbate macro challenges.

This Labour government has done just that.

Falling living standards, weak economic growth and opportunities are problems for most of the world at the same time as stock markets are at an all time high. It’s fantasy to think that any particular government can change this.

My own view, as a former Labour supporter and resident in a constituency which should be a slam-dunk Labour stronghold is that the party have lost their way and fragmented which all political parties seem to do. Like it or not, insult it or not, but this country is rejecting immigration. That is a fact. They are rejecting it and that rejection is also coming from previous tranches of immigrants who have settled in the UK.

There is a widespread belief that this period of migration (2000-2026) is unprecedented and different. Over the last 25 years we have shifted the Overton Window so much that numbers like 150,000 or 200,000 in regards to annual immigration now seem tame and manageable and they are far from it.

Any other political debate is moot when the spectre of immigration looms on the political battlefield because working class and middle and upper class will absolutely unite on that one issue - the UK is rejecting mass migration and no insults will stop it.

More liberal and, dare I say it, younger voices can accuse people of racism as much as they want and froth online but at present Our social infrastructure is collapsing (housing, medical services, dentistry, schooling)

We cannot build a surplus while paying billions in subsidies, temporary housing and other administrative functions

Social unrest is growing. Migrant labour is suppressing wages - especially in the medical services; it is not that our NHS runs on migrants; it is that our NHS runs on low paid workers and migrants will accept those positions

You don't need to vote reform or even be right wing to understand these things; I cannot stand the Reform party but I can absolutely predict their path to power and why the British populace will vote them in.
Until the UK political establishment is willing to enact the will of the majority, protest votes will continue to undermine the nation with terrible outcomes. The model for limiting migration exists legally - it is the same as Japan, South Korea, Australia, Singapore and other nations.

The answer is simply NO.

The Labour response seems to be raising taxes rather than reducing the level of benefits to be paid. That alone is a disqualifier for me but, even worse in the eyes of the layman, Labour are perceived to be raising taxes to hand to immigrants rather than citizens. That will not be forgiven but a voting populace. They would rather the status quo burn.

In Arbroath the council declared to it's constituents who enquired that a portion of their new build houses were reserved for migrant families. That is insanity. The same issue in other councils.

Source: This weekend’s FT.

In times when living standards and opportunities are dropping like a lead balloon and taxes rising and rapid social change then it’s not unusual at all for the far left and right to take a foothold. Infuse the imported sectarian conflicts which the greens keen to use to their advantage then we’ve ended up where we are.

This is where things go wrong - people are told they are ‘simple minded’, because they voted for anyone other than a ‘far-left Labour government’.

Staggering.

More people voted for RW parties.

Would you like to compare the numbers?

Last Thursday’s results were an emphatic no to ‘more socialism’.

Which countries would you point to where an intellectual-led far left party has won power and been a success?

I can think of a lot of failures and some catastrophies, but nothing we should want to copy.

Which are you thinking of?

I know Labour purport to want economic growth, but they’re doing their best to prevent this in private business.

I run a small business in the midlands. We employ 8 people and turnover $2million. We would love to expand, we have ideas and a plan. But to do this would mean taking on new staff and we’re so wary of doing this with the new workers rights laws. We’ve taken a chance on staff before - ones with big gaps in work history because of disabilities, caring responsibilities, illness. Some of these have worked out and some haven’t. But we need the ability to move them on if they’re not right - we’re too small to keep on a person who can’t do the job.

And you might say “well just fairly dismiss them then” and that’s fine - we have done that before and been taken to tribunal, spent thousands of pounds to have the tribunal find in our favour. Great - but there are no costs orders so we’re out of pocket whether we win or lose.

The cost of hiring staff now also means we just take on more and more ourselves instead of hiring another staff member. We would also like to take on a new commercial unit but the costs of rates, bills etc are just too high so we’ll try to reconfigure the one we have.

Everything we do is about saving costs instead of spending money to expand.

There must be thousands of small businesses like ours who would take on new staff, expand and actually create economic growth but are making different decisions due to this government’s policies.

Lots of people who identify as "left wingers" of late have demonstrated a woeful lack of basic critical thinking and skills/sense in understandig reality. Including way too many of those who went to university. They'd have flailed there in my day.

Academic standards, esp in the humanities, and esp in terms of understanding what things like "empirical evidence" mean and require, even if they're not always applicable in your discipline, have dropped massively and are woeful in comparison to even 30 years ago. We have graduates coming into public education/NGO/charity positions who seem to think their job is to indoctrinate others into their erroneous beliefs about righteousness, rather than deal with the material facts and issues in front of them. These people are also influencing public policy. Ignorantly and in an ideological rather than fat-tested way.

Sorry, but if you think it's only those you label "the right" who have a thinking problem, you are sorely mistaken and frankly, dangerously naive. There's no excuse at all for a lot of the ignorant, ideology-led, guff and attempts at imposition of it currently on display. It's certainly does not signify that you are "more intelligent" than the rest of us supposed plebs.

We definitely need more people to study and understand history, so they realise that neither far left nor far right parties are a good idea…