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Well, there we have it: Jeremy Corbyn has just been announced the next Labour Leader - Part 2

193 replies

Donotknowhownottomind · 14/09/2015 20:50

Just opening the continuation of the last thread...

OP posts:
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LurkingHusband · 16/09/2015 13:24

People need to remember what the alternatives to Foot were. None of them were stellar choices (Healey, Shore, Silkin).

In fact it's arguable that the reason Foot was elected was because he wasn't associated with Labour 1974-1979. Given the mess they made.

At the time, Labour was fighting a very public battle over the direction it should go in, with a lot of pressure from groups like Militant.

Bottom line is (as pointed out earlier) Labour had to ditch Militant, CND and Clause IV before they got elected again.

For the Tories, Militant were the gift that kept on giving.

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squidzin · 16/09/2015 13:43

The only person who knows what they are saying on this thread is Garrick.
How can anyone say we haven't moved right as a country? I have never read such ignorance. Thatcher only won because of the Falklands. Foot was not nationally detested.

JC is not as left as the establishment would have you believe a lot of his views are mainstream.

A maximum wage is supported by many mainstream economists.

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howabout · 16/09/2015 15:23

Totally agree squidzin

I would add to your list a couple of other points.

David Davis voted against the tax credit changes yesterday and a number of his fellow conservative backbenchers are looking for concessions in return for their continuing support.

There is a fair amount of criticism of the proposed Union law changes within the conservative party.

Conservatives are not universally in favour of Trident.

Stating the blindingly obvious they are just as equivocal on the EU as JC.

I don't necessarily think JC has to win a general election to achieve the objective of moving the country back to the middle and the evidence to date is that he is already making progress.

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wasonthelist · 16/09/2015 15:39

Although I have never voted Tory, I find myself in agreement wih Davi Davis every time he rebels - I agreed with him about ID cards and detention without trial, now this. Worrying :)

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Garrick · 16/09/2015 15:48

Being a Tory doesn't have to mean dismissing human rights :) Although it often looks like it these days.

Thank you, squid!

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Alyosha · 16/09/2015 16:26

David Davis is quite a classical "liberal" Tory, so small state but protective of legal rights. He's against gay marriage & the EU.

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mummymeister · 16/09/2015 16:33

squidzin. which economists? the same ones who thought it was a good idea to put a 99% tax on certain people under labour?

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wasonthelist · 16/09/2015 16:45

The top rate of income tax was 83% - an additional surcharge for unearned income took it to 98 (not 99 but that's splitting hairs). These rates only applied at income levels way above what any normal person would earn, unlike the recent years of fiscal drag eroding the level at which 40% has cut in.

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Garrick · 16/09/2015 16:57

Mummymeister:-

Dr Ha-Joon Chang University of Cambridge
Thomas Piketty Paris School of Economics
David Blanchflower Bruce V Rauner professor of economics at Dartmouth College and ex-monetary policy committee
Prof Mariana Mazzucato RM Phillips professor in the economics of innovation, University of Sussex
Jared Bernstein Former chief economist and economic adviser to vice-president Joe Biden
Prof Simon Wren-Lewis University of Oxford
Prof Victoria Chick University College London
Prof Ozlem Onaran Department of international business and economics, University of Greenwich
Prof Engelbert Stockhammer Professor of economics, University of Kingston
Howard Reed Director, Landman Economics
Richard Murphy Tax Research UK
Stewart Lansley Visiting fellow, Bristol University Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research
Prof Andrew Cumbers Professor of political economy, Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow
Prof Malcolm Sawyer, Emeritus professor of economics, Leeds University Business School
Prof George Irvin Professorial research fellow, Soas, University of London
Prof John Weeks Emeritus professor, Soas, University of London
Prof Prem Sikka, Professor of accounting, University of Essex
Prof Christine Cooper Accounting and finance, Strathclyde Business School
Prof Diane Elson, Emeritus professor, University of Essex and chair of UK Women’s Budget Group
Professor Jonathan Michie University of Oxford
Prof Robert McMaster Professor of political economy, Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow
Dr Jo Michell Senior lecturer in economics, University of the West of England, Bristol
Prof Sheila Dow Emeritus professor of economics, University of Stirling
Prof John Grahl Professor of European integration, University of Middlesex
Prof Jan Toporowski Professor of economics, Soas, University of London
Prof Philip Arestis University of Cambridge
Prof Giuseppe Fontana Professor of monetary economics, Leeds University Business School
Prof David Spencer Professor of economics and political economy, Leeds University Business School
Prof Alfredo Saad Filho Professor of political economy, Soas, University of London
Prof Mary Mellor Professor emeritus, Northumbria University
Dr Craig Berry Deputy director, Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute (speri)
Prof David Newbery Emeritus professor of Economics, Cambridge University
Prof Hugh Willmott Cass Business School
Prof Steve Keen Professor of economics, Kingston University
Dr Henning Meyer Research associate, Public Policy Group, London School of Economics
Prof John Van Reenen Professor of economics, London School of Economics
Prof Ismail Ertürk Senior lecturer in banking, University of Manchester
Prof Susan Himmelweit Emeritus professor of economics, Open University
Prof Valpy FitzGerald Emeritus professor of international development finance, University of Oxford
Prof Simon Mohun, Emeritus professor of political economy, Queen Mary, University of London
Stewart Wallis, Executive director, New Economics Foundation
Prof Klaus Nielsen, Professor of institutional economics, Birkbeck, University of London
Prof Pritam Singh Professor of economics, Oxford Brookes University
Dr Andrew Mearman Associate professor in economics, UWE Bristol
Prof Matthew Watson Professor of political economy, University of Warwick
Prof Grazia Ietto-Gillies Emeritus professor of applied economics, London South Bank University
Dr Mary V Wrenn Joan Robinson research fellow in heterodox economics, Girton College, University of Cambridge
Geoffrey Hodgson Research professor, University of Hertfordshire
Dr Daniela Gabor Associate professor, UWE Bristol
Prof Bruce Cronin Director, Centre for Business Network Analysis, University of Greenwich
Dr Annina Kaltenbrunner Lecturer in the economics of globalisation & the international economy, Leeds University Business School
Prof Gary Dymski Professor of applied economics, Leeds University Business School
Michael Burke Economist
Dr Russell Smith Senior lecturer in economics, Cardiff School of Management
Prof Philip B. Whyman Professor of economics, University of Central Lancashire
Prof Tony Thirlwall Professor of applied economics, University of Kent
Michael Kitson Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge
Dr Abigail McKnight Senior research fellow, Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion, London School of Economics
Dr Ken Coutts Assistant director of Research, faculty of economics, University of Cambridge
Prof Robert H Wade London School of Economics
Dr Kalim Siddiqui Department of strategy, marketing and economics, University of Huddersfield
Prof Stuart Holland University of Coimbra
Dr Alberto Paloni Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow
Ewa Karwowski Lecturer in economics, Kingston University
Professor Marcus Miller University of Warwick
Dr Gary Slater Leeds University Business School
Professor David Bailey Aston Business School
Dr David Harvie Senior lecturer in finance and political economy, University of Leicester
Barbara Harriss-White Emeritus professor and senior research fellow, area studies, Oxford University
Dr Bruce Philp Head of department, strategy, marketing and economics, Birmingham City Business School
Roberto Veneziani School of economics and finance, Queen Mary, University of London
Dr Julian Wells Principal lecturer in economics, Kingston University, London
Dr Neil Lancastle Department of accounting and finance, De Montfort University
Mimoza Shabani Lecturer in financial economics, University of East London
Dr Ashley L Carreras Principal lecturer in economics and decision analysis, faculty of business and law, De Montfort University
Prof Michael Lipton Research professor of economics, Sussex University
Dr Graham Gudgin Research associate, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge and senior economic advisor, Oxford Economics
Prof Geraint Johnes Professor of economics, Lancaster University Management School
Andrew Simms Fellow, New Economics Foundation

www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jun/12/osborne-plan-has-no-basis-in-economics

Also Paul Krugman, Warren Buffett, and a heck of a lot more.

Is that enough for you? I can find more :)

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Shutthatdoor · 16/09/2015 17:03

The only person who knows what they are saying on this thread is Garrick.

No need to be rude. It is called seeing things differently.

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howabout · 16/09/2015 17:07

Mummy for people within the tax credits / benefits system tax rates under the conservatives are pretty close to 100% or in some cases more.

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squidzin · 16/09/2015 17:11

Garrick. That's what i was going to say.

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mollie123 · 16/09/2015 17:20

tax credits have nothing to do with tax
they were introduced at the level they were so that people came to depend on them to buy votes

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howabout · 16/09/2015 17:28

Mollie you may say tax relief on pension contributions while I say benefit. You may say tax free personal allowance while I say benefit. You may say NI earned pension while I say benefit. You may say tax reliefs on childcare or indeed free childcare while I say benefit. You may say housing benefit while I say tax subsidy to landlords.

Whether it is a tax or a benefit is very much in the eye of the beholder imo.

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wasonthelist · 16/09/2015 17:41

they were introduced at the level they were so that people came to depend on them to buy votes

That didn't work then did it?

Proper Psephology would probably question the oft-repeated pub logic that claims all benefit claimants/tax credit recipients vote Labour - but it's patently not the case given the outcome of the last election is it?

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JanetBlyton · 16/09/2015 17:54

It did work. Blair gave them o ut like smarties to all families earning up to £50k+ so make benefits claimants of most families. It was ridiculous and just led to low wages by employers. Thankfully Parliament today votes for the cuts so the day is saved because of the wisdom of the British people in voting in Tory rule.

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wasonthelist · 16/09/2015 18:05

So, Janet, didn't all the recipients of Blair's largesse vote Labour at the most recent election then?

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wasonthelist · 16/09/2015 18:06

Sorry that should have read Why didn't....

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squidzin · 16/09/2015 18:11

Blair was as neoliberal as they come.

As neoliberal as Thatcher.

Tax credits work as a business benefit/subsidy to enable wage compression, in the same way housing benefit enables the rental and housing boom.

JanetB I will agree with you to the extent that the day is saved, but only because Corbyn has been voted in, Blairites to be ousted.

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squidzin · 16/09/2015 18:16

Corbyn has more sense than to enable such a ridiculous pro-free- capitalist system. JC's stance on the EU is spot on in that respect.

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mummymeister · 16/09/2015 18:58

squidzin - best laugh I have had all day. all that effort to cut and paste from the Guardian.

Look I am happy to disagree with you or anyone else that Corbyn isn't the great saviour of this country riding in on his socialist charger.

I have been around a long time and seen politicians come and go. I also happen to have worked in London boroughs with Mr C. Nothing you say now or in the future is going to make me change my mind about the facts that I know to be true in relation to him as a person and how he will be perceived by this country.

at the moment, he is the new kid in town so opinions are at the polar ends of the scale. give it time and they will calm down. but, he is still unelectable and will never be PM.

The Blairites have not been ousted and you are ridiculous to think that they have. they have made a tactical withdrawal, kept out of his car crash of a cabinet and are just biding their time.

I just don't get how so many of the paid up members of the tooting popular front (showing my age here) don't see how Corbyn is coming across as an angry young student. who says "out, out out" all the time with no idea of what he wants "in, in , in" or more importantly how he is going to pay for it.

there is no way the members of his shadow cabinet whose partners are on mega salaries are going to let him introduce any sort of meaningful wage cap. so he bans anyone earning over £4m a year. so what. its a stunt.

I know why don't we just pay everyone the same amount of money regardless as to what job they do. Oh hang on that was communism and that didn't work did it.

I am not against a mansion tax but then I live in a rural area where you can still buy a family house for under £100K.

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mollie123 · 16/09/2015 19:01

how
did you really mean this then
for people within the tax credits / benefits system tax rates under the conservatives are pretty close to 100% or in some cases more.
most people on tax credits pay no income tax - therefore they are a misnomer
they should have been called 'wage topup benefit', 'child support benefit'
which is actually what they are

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Garrick · 16/09/2015 19:21

Mummy, the wilful inability of anti-Corbynites to hear the rest of us repeating "We didn't vote for a prime minister, we voted for an opposition leader" is almost as amusing as your dismissing the 40 economists who signed an open letter on the economy as a c&p from the Guardian. What did you want me to do, get them all to phone you individually?

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squidzin · 16/09/2015 20:10

Mummy, huh?
I did not copy-and-paste from the Guardian.
The Guardian are anti-Corbyn hence I have boycotted. Their board of directors are a bunch of neoliberal Blairites.

Whatever, who you worked for. Lucky you with your middle class privilege.

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Mistigri · 16/09/2015 20:19

mollie most people receive some benefits and simultaneously experience some withdrawals from their earnings (this is true at all levels of income btw - the tax advantages that accrue to pension contributions are a form of benefit).

What matters is the withdrawal rate - how much gets clawed back for every extra pound you earn. And it's true that this will be extremely high for some people. Now, I think it's generally accepted that tax rates that are excessively high tend to act as a disincentive to high earners. That's why punitive top tax rates don't work. So explain to me why they should work any better for low earners?

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