To be ashamed of the Labour Party leadership

[20nil]

Long term member, did not support Corbyn, but even I am surprised by quite how bad he's been.

Where is the opposition? I get that Brexit is difficult, but where is Labour on the collapse of the NHS, the explosion of homelessness, the decimation of local council funding and the ticking bomb that is school funding?

Why is it that we now look to the Lords, the Cof E and petitions to be the opposition?

Shocking state of affairs.

Its not fucking one party state if in a democracy the majority of people are voting for the same party out of a selection of several parties. Other parties need to up their game, stop being shite and make people want to vote for them.

i fear the only way another party will make serious in-roads against the SNP is when Scotland is independent and a total economic basket case. So in other words, Labour is shite and can only get into power through the utter failure of another party, not actually on the merit of Labour being any good. God forbid Scotland get independence and fair ok, Labour will be truly dead and buried.

I agree with 20nil.

I think the collapse of the Liberal vote in the last GE has distorted perceptions. Where did their traditional voters go? Going by anecdotal evidence of the, admittedly limited, number I've spoken to, they seem to have mostly shifted to the right and voted Conservative, masking those further right that left the Conservatives to vote UKIP.

This idea that Labour is the party that the working class vote for isn't correct, if it ever was. A good number of working class people actually vote Conservative, for example the Sun readers, and their politics closely match the jingoistic, patriotic voice of that newspaper. Some vote Liberal. Some have always voted UKIP since the party's conception and, before that, voted NF.

Why are Labour floundering right now? Because they're not talking to the electorate and because their current discourse is an apologetic, navel-gazing one. They don't inspire confidence when they can't even celebrate their most outstanding period from 1997, when they won 3 consecutive elections! "Oh but they were Tory policies and Tory finances..." Were they hell!!!
So why has Austerity been busily trying to reverse all those policies, then??
The Conservatives try to grab all the credit for Labour policies - and Labour sit there and let them!

I read an interview in one of our trade magazines where the Shadow Education Secretary introduced herself to the readers.
She started with a defensive "I know I haven't got a degree..."! Unbelievable!

They need to stop apologising for the past - so Tony Blair took us to join the US war with Iraq - did we hear Mrs. T and the Conservatives harping on apologetically about the Falklands? Of course not!

And where were Labour outside the polling stations in my area? Conservatives were there; UKIP were there. Where were they canvassing? Not in my area! I got practically on 1st name terms with the Conservative candidate, I saw him so often. Labour and Liberal? Nowhere to be seen.

It is no good canvassing in the areas you think you'll do well. You have to work harder and get your message to the people who wouldn't vote for you in a million years because actually talking to those people will gain their respect, if nothing else.

Oh, and stop listening to the Conservatives telling you where you went wrong! They really, really are not out to help you!

if Scotland does do OK after independence, I would be delighted as they won't have killed my kids' futures. I can't for the life of me envisage that being the reality though. Yes, you're right, one party state was a sloppy use of a term - it feels that way if you're in the minority that doesn't vote for them time and time again though.

Yes, you're right, one party state was a sloppy use of a term - it feels that way if you're in the minority that doesn't vote for them time and time again though. Umm Scotland every time Conservatives get in power despite having no majority vote in Scotland. But Id never class UK as a one party state. Just unequal states where regardless what the smaller state actually votes, it counts for shit unless in concurrence with the larger state. At least in an independent Scotland if the majority voted Labour, then Labour would be in power.

an apologetic, navel-gazing one

The crash happened on our watch. Brown may not have started the bubble, but he pumped it up.

Moreover:

"We set up the FSA [the City regulator] believing the problem would come from the failure of an individual institution. That was the big mistake. We didn't understand just how entangled things were."

• Gordon Brown

And may i ask, if you are a Labour supporter, how do you feel the Conservatives are preserving your children's future? Id say (as an ex Labour voter) you must be caught between a rock and hard place!

Well, the SNP would be in power and they'd have to answer for their disastrous policies. I certainly don't think the SNP are doing a better job than the tories, particularly with education. Yes, I'm not sure who on earth I will vote for, I didn't vote in the last local elections.

Make, yes - and here I think you are right about the simplicity of the message thing. I want the party I support to acknowledge mistakes because that is part of being truthful and planning for a better future. The tories do it less, however so I wish Labour would do it in a less protracted and public way.

"The crash happened on our watch. Brown may not have started the bubble, but he pumped it up. "

The ERM debacle and Black Wednesday happened on the Conservative watch. Do you hear them endlessly agonising over what a disaster it was?

In an independent Scotland Snp would indeed have to answer for their actions as it truly would be down to them, no interference from Westminister. And the public would hold them accountable in that they would either be reelected or not, and if not pave the way for another party be it Labour/Greens etc or even Tory (fingers crossed unlikely). It would seem Scottish independence would be good (possibly) for Scottish Labour but disastrous for RoU Labour.

The ERM debacle and Black Wednesday happened on the Conservative watch. Do you hear them endlessly agonising over what a disaster it was?

Point taken. But I don't know that the mechanism crisis was of the same order.

Our on-going crisis is an indictment of the core principles of the free market. There can be no booms without crashes. Risk, the absolute foundation of finance cannot by its very definition be made unrisky. The lever of interest rates/monetary policy has proven to be completely ineffectual.

Our only salvation - and many say it is a stay of execution - is to guarantee banks a blank check. To deny the nature of markets and declare them too big to fail.

The odd thing is, and this is stunning, people applaud these insane low interest rates and inflation rates. They are symptoms of disease, of things terribly wrong, not sought for outcomes. What will happen when they rise? And they must.

Scotland is a red herring in many respects. Labour would have still won in 97, 01 and 05 without a single Scottish vote.

Labour can still win without strong support in Scotland. But to do that they need good, unifying leadership and they need a positive vision for the country.

Unfortunately we are in the cycle of boom and bust to get out of that would mean reshaping to something very different for our economy and as I have said before we are not a socialist country people won't vote for high tax increases to change this pattern it would result in too many people being in an even more difficult situation. The best any government can do is putting in policies to not allow the economy to hit such highs and lows. Low interest rates is keeping many people in their homes it will stay that way for it to collapse banks would be the ultimate winners and the government would have to deal with many home owners losing their homes that would be an absolute disaster.

It was surprisingly a right wing Tory who has really bought the hammer down on the buy to let maket its early days to see the real impact but this will change people investing in property to make money quickly (along with oversea investors that is the next to be tackled).

As for open border while I agree we absolutely should be increasing workers rights, basic pay this is a failure of the EU becuase high productivity had been valued more. But when open borders are on a more even level (not only economically but in social issues) it can maybe work and that isn't the case right now we are years away from that

Tanith, great post, absolutely agree with your analysis of our response to the Blair years.

I did say that they could win without Scotland but that they would need to woo over Tory/Ukip voters. Im not sure how feasible that is in a post Brexit UK.

Tanith I agree too and thanks for agreeing with me

I suspect that actually the voting public isn't intrinsically opposed to a lot of Labour policy. Poll after poll has showed (under Miliband and beyond) that most people want the very richest to pay higher tax, the railways nationalised, the NHS protected, a decent minimum wage, improved education, more social housing and some form of rent control. What JC hasn't managed to do is to set this out in a coherent and convincing way. The shocking, unforgivable thing is that the Tories have run with a lot of theses ideas, have made them their own and have made them popular!

I've always supported PR and I think Labour should too. But apart from that, here's a sure fire way to win votes:

argue that Health and Education should be de-politicised, like the Bank of England. No Secretaries of State, just real experts. No chopping and changing of curriculum etc.. every couple of years, just a stable, sensible evolution of education and health policy.

The Tories will oppose this because they want to privatise the NHS and state schools, but they will look very, very weak if they refuse to cooperate on non-partisan lines. The gesture will make Labour look serious, grown up, committed to the public good above their own electoral ambitions. Most experts will tend towards Labour policy, as they are at the moment in the grammar school debate.

Most of Labour's recent electoral issues are down to credibility - people had no faith in their ability to deliver. Whilst an independent Scotland may hold the SNP to better account, the economic price would still be too high for me. Yes sturgeon didn't miss a trick in pointing out that labour couldn't win in England last time.

Love that health/education policy idea 20mil agree that is appealing across the board.

The idea stealing thing does intensely annoy me. Very petty.raising the income tax threshold was the thing Lib Dems decided was worth sacrificing everything else for then the Tories ran off with the credit. Labour must not let this happen to them. But at the moment they are!

Unfortunately we are in the cycle of boom and bust to get out of that would mean reshaping to something very different for our economy and as I have said before we are not a socialist country people won't vote for high tax increases to change this pattern it would result in too many people being in an even more difficult situation. The best any government can do is putting in policies to not allow the economy to hit such highs and lows. Low interest rates is keeping many people in their homes it will stay that way for it to collapse banks would be the ultimate winners and the government would have to deal with many home owners losing their homes that would be an absolute disaster.

It was surprisingly a right wing Tory who has really bought the hammer down on the buy to let maket its early days to see the real impact but this will change people investing in property to make money quickly (along with oversea investors that is the next to be tackled).

As for open border while I agree we absolutely should be increasing workers rights, basic pay this is a failure of the EU becuase high productivity had been valued more. But when open borders are on a more even level (not only economically but in social issues) it can maybe work and that isn't the case right now we are years away from that.

This is close to Conservative.

No it's more centre left politics

I recognise that we are not or have ever been a socialist country or even close to one and that the public would reject socialist policies as it would mean such an upheaval all of society would pay the poorest would struggle the most.

A 5p increase in income tax, 8p or 10p or 20p in higher tax brackets higher stamp duty (inline with more left party countries) would be a high increase that people simply won't vote for and all increases would come back at us through costs of goods and services that are not owned by the government. An increase of 1p would raise at the most £7 billion pounds to renationalise the trains would cost around £5 billion. The NHS costs over £110 billion.

The left can't just rely on that old line of an increase in tax as Corbyn does. The NHS has to be looked a s questioned can it be run differently is it time for a different way of funding or paying tax rather than just letting it break beyond being repair. Mass immigration and open door policies are not want everyone wants many people want more control over immigration people have found that the changes has happened to quickly and the areas that this happens to are always the poorest where services are stretched so are often stretched further this needs to be acknowledged.
Services in many areas are at breaking point they need to be funded better and also managed better. Money wasted by local authorities is criminal at times.

Labour under Corbyn only want to address certain issues that suit their agenda that's not opposition politics that's student politics

But we do need to pay more tax. I agree, not to fund everything on JC's wish list, but part of the mess we are in is down to government after government refusing to admit this. I say this as a higher rate tax payer. We should pay more and the government should explain exactly where the money goes.

I agree we need to pay more tax but we have to work with what we have not what we ideally want

No it's more centre left politics

Perhaps. The center is probably further right than it was. The system we live with is Thatcher/Hayek. Blair did not change this.

This idea that Labour is the party that the working class vote for isn't correct,

Is England basically Conservative?

This idea that Labour is the party that the working class vote for isn't correct

Exactly. A recent poll by the independent states they are the third Most popular party amongst the working class.

make, I think a large proposition of people are conservative with a small c, aren't they? So the party which presents as traditionalist does have an inbuilt advantage.

A question - genuinely, would you rather have a centrist Labour government with a personable leader as previously discussed, or Tory government with Labour in opposition for however long it takes to get a hard left government elected?

This isn't in any way snippy, btw. Real question