To ask you what you would like to say to the Labour Party leadership?

[happyon]

This is a bit of a TAAT, but I didn't want to take the other excellent thread in only one direction, so here is a new one.

I'm a member of the Labour Party and I know there are other members here and plenty of voters. I also know that there's a world of rage out there about what this government is doing to this country and how ineffectually Labour seem to be responding.

I suspect that important Labour types will read this if get enough people involved. They need to listen to us or we will have to deal with another Tory government.

I'll begin by saying that I want Labour to:

Support a living wage for everyone, in all parts of the country. Immediately.

Remove tuition fees.

Put someone in charge of schools who knows something about education and give them a team of educational specialist advisors that they have to listen to; same goes for health.

Recruit some MPs that didn't go to public school.

Increase the lower tax bracket.

Stop trying to force both parents back to work unless they want to, I really don't think it's good for society in the long-term.

Ed Mil will be the leader at the GE. We really don't have much time to get organised and unseat this bunch of vandals from power, so Ed step on the gas and get a willing public behind you.

Labour will not win an election with Milliband as leader. That's my opinion. Somebody told me he can't be got rid of till he loses the election. That seems a bit mad.

People round here are beginning to think the Coalition have done a good job. Apparently its been tough but "worth it".

Get rid of Miliband/Balls and come up with some policies.

Sort out housing. This is the greatest problem we have, and it is storing up a world of problems for the future. A proper house building programme, building social homes for working families to rent at low prices would provide Jobs in the short term, stability for families in the long term, people would have money left over to spend, benefitting the economy, and the rent they paid would be going back into the community rather than into rich property owners' pockets. Win win. And my kids would t feel they had to move away from the local area in order to survive, meaning I could help support them with their kids, keeping local communities alive and sustainable.

I am with ocelot. Understand that many people want a true alternative, and many others could be sold on it if properly presented.

Renationalise everything. It's a no brainer that we are better off reinvesting profits from public services than handing them over to Serco's shareholders.

Living wage.

Put some money into legal aid.

Put some proper effort into fighting the ' Labour left us this mess' shite which I hear all the time and no-one seems to effectively counter.

I rather like Ed but he seems to think too much and say too little.

I will never vote to the right of Labour, although I could be swayed by Green and Plaid. I have sort of stuck with Labour as a coalition of the left but I don't see the leadership listening to the left of the party.

renationalisation is never going to happen whatever colour the govt. too many pension funds invested here the whole pension industry i.e. your pension would collapse and be worthless. if you have selection panels made up of one sort of person then that's who they are going to choose - someone just like them. make it fair and be radical. allow anyone who is a member of the party to vote OMOV to get a candidate they can get behind. wish all parties would do this. it might stop the rise of the bland in politics. not sure about John Smith tbh. Brown was their biggest disaster. hasn't even had a mention on this thread that's the legacy of his leadership.

not so sure about the pension thing and re-nationalisation of public services, unless you have specific and testable statistics for this? Pension funds would surely re-invest elsewhere. On the face of it it appears as a sort of Level One scare.

Sorry pans didn't mean it to read like some sort of scare. anything of course is doable if you are the govt but don't think anyone of any colour politics would risk another scandal/problem in the banking industry. you can only re-invest what you can re-sell which if an industry is nationalised is zilch. also think too many essential services that have been de-nationalised (i.e they were once owned by us) are now owned by foreign companies. they wont let their investments go down the pan either. whats needed is a tighter screw on them to control prices. stop pussyfooting around them and treating them with kid gloves. other countries with services in private hands manage it so why cant we.

oh sure regularising (?) the utilities has been an utter failure - because it was never really attempted! I guess my point was the flow of capital investment is incredibly fluid, and global, so returns on investments for pension funds are not restricted to the UK, no matter who actually owns the utilities.
I get a bit twitchy when anyone says 'you can't do it because the markets won't like it'. Well 'the markets' have royally fucked us up anyways.
You may be able to tell I have nooo global finance experience whatsoever, but the 'arguments for stasis' are less water-tight than a colander. Bankers would appear to be able to "hold the country to ransom" much as the same way they also accuse unions for having done so historically.

I haven't read the whole thread (will do) but I want them not to be a watered down version of the fecking coalition. Be their own party, stand up for public services, stop being so apologist about the deficit, realise that whilst the economy is clearly very important, so are other issues (health, environment, support for families and communities.) and get rid of Ed Milliband. I'm sure he's a nice guy, but he's not a strong leader. I despair really, I despise Cameron and Clegg, but can't bring myself to vote for milliband at the mo.

wel tbf no-one is actually voting for Milliband, are they? They would be voting for a more just society, and in an incredibly wealthy country (6th richest in the world). The personalities involved are pretty much a side show that the Tory media would want you to invest in. So don't let them succeed.

I want a fab new alternative party made of articulate state school educated MPs with sensible aims that are t put to line their own pockets. I reckon I'm not the only one-any takers?!

Umm.. the Milliband bros were state school educated - Ed, I am pretty sure isn't in it to line his pockets - he doesn't have that demand.

Read Twitter and other social media, see what people are saying, and get your arse in gear, if you want to re-gain trust.

Plenty of far from posh labour MPs in this neck of the woods, btw. Many from Labour Left.

Let teachers teach.
Disband Ofsted.
Forget licensing teachers.
Recognise the importance of extra curricular activities- clubs, exchanges, tours, productions and value the goodwill of teachers.
Learning walks and dialogue marking are nonsense.
Ensure that school management still teach and not just a token lesson.
Ensure more short breaks for families with disabled children.

I suspect that twitter and social media are not the sources of enquiry for the people who will actually vote in a Labour govt, or at least be the section that will tip the balance in the favour.

Ironically..using twitter..here is a taste of things to come IF the privatisation of the NHS continues. It's evidence of the economic damage done by private health system in the US.
poverty and losses of businesses due to outstanding medical bills

Clive Peedell is an oncologist consultant who has established the National Health Action Party, @NHAparty

www.labour.org.uk/ed_miliband

www.yourbritain.org.uk/

You can feed into the policy review here I think. You can't unveil the manifesto too early before a General Election or the opposition steal the policies.

I'm ok with milliband, he hasn't shirked in the Murdoch or energy companies arguments - he just needs to do that for everything else

With the new political class everyone is baby Straw, Blair, Harman and straight from uni to spad with no real life experience so might as well stick with him

I would tell them they are disgusting corrupt scum.

Anybody who continues to vote for the 3 main parties or votes UKIP bears responsibility for allowing the festering pool of self serving corruption in government to continue.

Labour: are you listening?

Can someone who tweets please send this on?

My next suggestion: stop accepting this 'labour left this country in a mess'. crap. How did you let Cameron get away with this? Stop rolling over. Labour made real mistakes, but the whole world went into recession, not just the UK.

Stop colluding in your own downfall!

Pans I agree with you about the market. Oh we have to do such and such because of the market... Well didn't we invent the market economy to work for us, and can't we manipulate it if it ain't working, which it isn't? It makes me think of a primitive tribe sacrificing people to a volcano Out something... We have to feed some poor people to the economy beast!