to think that the far left of the Labour Party are doing themselves no favours

[Ohbehave1]

Diane Abbott saying that Chairman Mao did more good than harm.

John McDonnell threw a copy of Maos little read book across the despatch box and said the George Osborne should take a leaf out of Moas book.

Since when has a person who murdered or caused the starvation of over 60 million people been a good man?

also although China commits ongoing human and animal rights abuses, 1) is it clear that labour won't allow chinese investment in the UK? (re-nationalization of rail aside) and 2) Are we ok with comparing modern China with Mao? Not sure that's particularly culturally sensitive/correct. It's not quite like comparing Nazis with modern day Germany but it may be akin to comparing Nazis to the post WW2 East german regime. Horrible political rhetoric.

1) is it clear that labour won't allow chinese investment in the UK? (re-nationalization of rail aside)

I think it's pretty clear that a Corbyn government wouldn't be signing any deals of the sort that Gideon has just signed. I hope and believe they'd recognise the severe risk posed to our energy security by selling everything to China and Russia, however, once Corbyn is overthrown by the Labour Thatcherites, all bets will be off on that.

I'll just mention this again - how does it make any sense to export all our jobs to China and fill the oceans and airways with pollution generating vessels carrying stuff from one end of the planet to the other?

On the nuclear deal McDonnell might do better to look into the financial structure of the particular deal and gen up on
Industrial cultures over the globe.

For those who can't be bothered - Abbott (perhaps foolishly) offered a possible reason why some people might wear a Mao T-shirt - in response to a question from Andrew Neil. That is all. She did NOT say "I love/approve of/advocate Mao" at all.

Wasonthelist. It does make sense to my employer - it keeps their 25,000 workforce worldwide (5000 of them here in the UK) in a job. Markets these days are very much price driven - certainly in the Aerospace industry I work in. If a company wants to stay in business it needs to be able to beat the competition on price.

It's all very well to use climate change in the argument, but in a global market place it is important to use a global supply chain.

Wasonthelist: it makes sense only if you don't think long term and only because trade has globalised whereas working conditions, health and safety cultures and pollution control have not. Jeremy Corbyn is not the answer however.

I saw what she said on Mao. It just isn,t my main issue with her political beliefs.

Jeremy Corbyn is not the answer however.

Perhaps not, but he's a lot closer to it than Tony Blair ever was - or Milliband, and certainly closer than any of the Tories who simply don't care about anything unless it generates oodles of cash.

I'm afraid it just does come down to money. If something is cheaper to make in China, even if you have to ship it half way around the world, then that is what will happen.

He would be a terrible leader and so he will not be elected. That means Tory rule. That is a bad result in my book. More than bad.

I agree Ena, we need an electable labour leader, not out-dated ideas from yesteryear. We need global fights for labour standards in all countries, not banning Chinese investment.

We need global fights for labour standards in all countries Ha ha good luck with that one!

I'm afraid it just does come down to money. If something is cheaper to make in China, even if you have to ship it half way around the world, then that is what will happen.
Only because the stupid way we run "money" makes taking away our jobs and giving them to badly exploited workers in China, and cranking up emissions and consumption of oil massively in China and for transporting them back here - we should be challenging that "norm" - and no-one in the Tory or Blairite Labour is going to do that.

So McDonnel needs to make the case for UK industry however the only politician who is trying to occupy that particular ground by racing around the country in hi-vis and hard hat is flipping George Osborne - go figure!

Capitalism is estimated to have caused hundreds of millions of deaths through imperialist wars, slavery, starvation, and preventable disease, not to mention the threat of climate change exacerbated by globalisation. Just thought I'd mention it.

Capitalism has also gone hand on hand with reduced starvation thanks to the green revolution, rising living standards education and medical advances. There have been wars since prehistory.

What's the alternative twist?

Go back to queens and kings? Leninism? Stalinism? Maoism?

Most people are happy with some redistribution as we have in European style capitalism. Try to introduce heavier redistribution, and you need to be much more authoritarian to force people to comply. Then everyone is unhappy, because virtually no one enjoys authoritarian rule.

Capitalism does not cause preventable disease - it does cure it however. Most starvation has been caused by the communists and imperialist wars are not capitalist - capitalists love peace.

Oh, and Hitler was a left-wing dictator, head of the nationalist socialist party who nationalised most German industry.

Of course capitalism doesn't cause preventable disease. It does, however, stop the cures reaching the peope who need them, like the man who raised the cost of TB drugs by two thousand percent overnight. About twenty thousand people die of hunger and related illnesses a day, most of them children, while we throw away thousands of tons of food a day.

I don't know what the answer is. But rampant capitalism is no better than communism

Only because the stupid way we run "money" makes taking away our jobs and giving them to badly exploited workers in China, and cranking up emissions and consumption of oil massively in China and for transporting them back here - we should be challenging that "norm" - and no-one in the Tory or Blairite Labour is going to do that

And how do you challenge that 'norm' within a globalised economy?

A major point why it is cheaper to run things from China is not just down to exploitation of workers but natural resources which we don't have, there is a reason we are not leading the computer hardware industry and its not due to intelligence.

China is effectively shipping work out to Vietnam and India and Africa etc because they are raising the living standards of the average Chinese worker.

China doesn't have an abundance of some of the raw materials it needs either, hence their extensive investments in parts of Africa (for example) where they are found. The cost of moving things and people about is stupidly low. Taxing avaiation fuel woild be a start, but there's a lot else that could be done if we had a mind to save the planet rather than just make a small number of people even richer. Of course defeatists will call that old fashioned and so on, but I have respect for the people advocating it rather than just saying anything goes.

That hasn't really tackled the idea of challenging the 'norm' of our monetary system though, 'a lot else' isnt an alternative idea.

China is exploiting Africa not only for raw materials (which in modern terms China holds the majority of cards) but to also build factories that can produce products that are palatable price wise on a global scale. They are heavily financing not only infrastructure (rail/road etc) but water/internet and health distribution, yes there are nefarious reasons why this is being done but they are conceivably achieving more than giving charity money to corrupt local governments to help the local population

I suppose though that if your main issue that you have an issue with is the globalised price of delivering goods then I suppose we could restrict all uk supermarkets to only uk food with just seasonal or limiting amounts of fruit and veg?

I think if you read accounts of life under communist regimes it can be an eye opener.

I recommend anyone toying with voting Labour again to look into the journalism of Seumas Milne, Corbyn's Director of Communications. His own words have helped make my mind up this evening.

The current Labour leadership seem to have in their past consistently favoured listening to hard men with weapons tbh and I for one am out.

I don't seem to fit their favoured demographic!

I should say I share some of your views Twist!

That guy pushing up his drug prices is at least exposed by the press.

....leading a party that essentially doesn't want you there is impossible I think.

Not quite... Yes, the parliamentary party don't want him as leader, but the party at large does, having given him a massive mandate only a couple of months or so back.

It is that gulf between the parliamentary party and the wider party that will be the party's undoing imo.

I meant the parliamentary party, sorry - I am one of the 251,417 who voted for him a couple of months back.