Jeremy Corbyn - PM by default?

[Considermesometimes]

I am not a 'woke' labour supporter. I come from a long line of many generations of stout labour supporters. It would be unthinkable up to now in my family for anyone to vote for any other party. I would be shown the door at my gp's house for even having this conversation.

However, I am seriously seriously worried, I would go as far as to say terrified of the prospect of voting for Labour this time, and Jeremy Corbyn actually becoming Prime Minister.
I am interested to know how others are dealing with this problem.

I am worried that some of the policies such as seizing assets and homes from people, massive taxes etc. We are home owners and work very hard, it could all be jeopardised.

Forced closure of private schools in this area would be a complete and utter disaster. As it is we have to finish early on Friday afternoons, and do not have funds for every day stationary much less hundreds of extra children. What would happen to our already very full classes of 33-38 with all the extra children from the private schools? How is this even possible? And yet it seems Labour are fully committed to it when pressed on the issue.

The huge privatisation plan of utilities looks to cost around 200 billion pounds. I don't want our money spent this way! I would much prefer better schools and hospitals, and crime to be under control in this part of the country. I can't even get a GP app for my asthmatic dd at the moment. I could not care less about the Utilities or the railways etc. The LP just do not seem to understand at the moment what matters to most people.

The whole defence and nuclear issue. I don't feel we live in a particularly safe world. I like the fact we have some defences against the nut jobs in the Middle East or North Korea. The fact that other countries would not trust the UK under Corbyn to share intelligence with us, and his lack of decision making in a crisis, or even his basic understanding of deterrents is deeply disturbing.

I just don't think Corbyn is up to the job in any shape or form. Nor do most of the party.

I have thought about voting Lib Dems, but looking at the numbers that will almost certainly result in Corbyn being PM. There is almost no chance at all of Lib Dems getting 326 seats. A vote for Lib Dems is a vote for a Labour government probably propped up by the SNP who will demand another independence referendum in six months.

I am livid with the party for allowing this to happen, how is Corbyn still the leader of the party it is beyond me. How has this been allowed to happen? Chuka Umunna would have made an excellent PM, but all the best candidates are leaving the Labour party.

I don't think I can vote for anyone. That is my final conclusion, for the first time in thirty years I will not vote. What are you planning to do?

No, we left it for you, we knew you’d enjoy it.

That’s so thoughtful of you!

Nationalising the rail services doesn’t have to mean poor service.

Hands up who remembers British Rail!

I remember BR and never getting put on a bus and not having to take out a mortgage for the fare. Those were the days

Hands up who remembers British Rail!

I remember it well thanks.

Are you saying that nationalised services can’t function? Have you spent much time in Europe?

It’s ridiculous that people think privatised public transport means a better service - the public don’t get any choice, they get whichever service provider they’re given, so there’s absolutely no reason for it to be any better quality than a nationalised service. Companies only have to be competitive at times of tender. Profit being a factor doesn’t benefit anyone except shareholders.

He's got to be better than BJ

Are you saying that nationalised services can’t function?

No, not at all, I’ve lived in Europe and know how great the trains there are.

British rail was notoriously shit, terrible trains, awfully unreliable, dreadful food. There’s no halcyon days of British rail travel to hark back to when talking about nationalisation, so it doesn’t fill one with confidence.

No, not trying to close down discussion but ensure there’s honesty and clarity.

I, clearly like others, just find it VERY hard to believe certain posters who claim to be labour supporters actually are when their opinions on certain issues are so far removed from labour ethos, both now and historically. I have entered into discussion in good faith with others who are pro Tory or pro other non labour parties who are clearly genuine in their stated preferences and voting history, but when I am doubtful as to certain claims then yes I will say so.

“when we have only just got our finances in a better place as a country” comments like this which I just can’t take seriously. The finances are not in a better place at all, despite years of austerity. Because austerity was never really about saving money it was about punishing the poor.

And the bbc are hardly an unbiased reporter!

“The vast majority of left wing posters I would say are not pro Corbyn.” I would agree with that, not being anti corbyn doesn’t necessarily mean being pro corbyn, I’m not a particular fan myself, he is as we all are flawed, but I do believe we need the tories out and the most realistic way of achieving this with our current voting system is to vote labour in.

Re deaths - no correlation doesn’t necessarily prove causation but there’s a point where common sense comes in, where logically people understand that if you make swingeing cuts to nhs, housing, benefits etc then people will be damaged by that and that damage can be fatal for the most vulnerable. As well as the stats we have the individual examples and with common sense we know that not all individual examples make it to the news reports, but they give an indication of what’s happening.

“There certainly are way more homeless people visible in my home town since the Tories got in. I should imagine that that in itself has caused deaths.” Exactly - people are seeing the effects in their own localities, they’re not stupid they know that such effects are driven by policy.

“Hands up who remembers British Rail!” Remember it very well, travelled by rail throughout childhood including across country approx 3 monthly as we’d travel from wherever dad was based at the time (mostly southern England) to Scotland in school holidays to visit with family. Able to do so from as far afield as Cornwall with few changes necessary, and very rarely with major delays/disruption. A regular commuter into London or nearby for several years too. Occasionally (mainly just before Christmas) it could get very busy but it was a good atmosphere on the trains and staff were always sensible and helpful. Several family anecdotes of staff helping my mum if she was travelling alone with the 3 of us when we were very young, folding buggies, carrying children & luggage even warming baby bottles.

I’ve also travelled a fair bit by rail since privatisation and almost every journey has been marred by delays, disruptions, poor communication with passengers, rude & surly staff not to mention the extortionate prices. Anecdotes from that for me include on at least 2 occasions a very young dd and I being left stranded at rural stations with no warm shelter or facilities, being poorly advised on sorting onward travel because major delays have resulted in missing our planned connections etc

Noble have you travelled regularly by train recently?

Give me BR any day of the week!

I’ve also experienced the national rail services in Europe.

I don’t understand that argument at all. I don’t think anyone is harking back to the idylls of BR. The point is that as tax payers we spend a lot of money on our rail infrastructure and yet private companies are reaping the rewards of it. Even with hefty price decreases, the rail network could generate money for the country, not for shareholders. Same with utilities, mail network etc. These are things we all need, and for which we are subsiding corporations profits.

Any nationalised service will suffer when starved of funding, as we’ve seen with the NHS over the last decade.

If the tories get back in, in a few short decades people will be talking about the NHS the way you’re talking about British Rail now - while people are being bankrupted by medical bills and unable to get insurance, others will be saying “oh god, don’t you remember how bad the NHS was, we don’t want to go back to that!”

Nationalised services can work brilliantly. Why shouldn’t they?

And as for those who are saying the changes can’t be undone, that’s patently untrue. All of these services have been privatised (which has had a demonstrably negative impact on cost and service), and could be again if such a thing were necessary - and the way a government convinces the public they’re unworkable is by cutting funding until the service is broken.

there’s a point where common sense comes in, where logically people understand that if you make swingeing cuts to nhs, housing, benefits etc then people will be damaged by that and that damage can be fatal for the most vulnerable. As well as the stats we have the individual examples ...

I agree with this in principle, but let's not forget there's a risk of agendas creeping in once we get away from data and into anecdotes ... and anecdotes, as we see on here all the time, are rarely completely free of political bias

It's really not easy to find the facts of such issues rather than a whole load of spin, but it seems a shame not to a least try

I’m not sure what you suggest Puzzled - I’m not sure the tories are keeping a list and full account of those who’ve been driven into poverty or died because of their policies. There’s far more political bias in most media coverage than in most anecdotal evidence.

Noble have you travelled regularly by train recently?

Yes, it’s been fine, actually. Punctual, clean, wifi, power sockets etc. I’m aware that this isn’t the case for every train and I’ve certainly been on shitty trains in the past few years.

But, my flippant comment about British Rail (which was shit) was to make the point that going ‘our trains are shit, let’s nationalise them!’ won’t automatically solve the problem of the trains being shit. It’s a bit more complicated than that, and there’s also a big assumption of competence on the part of the people doing the nationalising which, in my opinion, is not yet earned.

back to 71-72 from memory. We had a 3-day week, then too
This always gets trotted out by revisionist “historians”. The 3 day week was under a Tory government, but it is somehow Labour’s fault.

Do you know @Hingeandbracket (great name) I’d completely forgotten that it happened under a Tory government. The thing I remember best is the power cuts and TV closing down at 9pm to save power.

I remember BR and never getting put on a bus and not having to take out a mortgage for the fare. Those were the days
After you with the rose tinted glasses!
Allowing the unions to take a stranglehold on any public service is the death knell for that service.

And as for those who are saying the changes can’t be undone, that’s patently untrue.

This.
Why the defeatism? Couldn't be some people desperately wanting to not try could it? There are so many propaganda messages flying around these days it's hard to tell who's gaming us for what.

But this I know. The public services - the NHS, national rail, the post service - did not magically appear out of nowhere. The better rail services on the continent are not gifts of god or aliens. Humans built them. If they did it - if British people did it, not long ago - why can't we here build them again?

Yes it was a Tory government at that time. But the Tories then were a very different party from what they are now. There was a post war consensus between all the parties about the value of the welfare state. It got tricky in the 70s with the oil crisis, and the unions had altogether too much power and held the country to ransom.

I understand the concerns that a Corbyn government could turn the clock back to the 1970s, but as I said earlier, for the moment, the chances of a Labour overall majority are very small. There hasn't been a poll showing Labour in the lead so they would need to form a coalition with another party, and it's debatable that they would be able to do that under Corbyn and McDonnell.

Allowing the unions to take a stranglehold on any public service is the death knell for that service.

Has privatisation prevented that? Strange, I thought South West trains were coming to a standstill next month.

I cannot fathom why anyone would vote for him.

If you’re opposed to anecdotal data, here’s some studies and articles backed by government data to think about:

Here’s one study, which links more than 120,000 deaths to the extreme health and social care spending cuts we’ve experienced
bmjopen.bmj.com/content/7/11/e017722

Here’s the housing department handing £817m of cash, allocated for affordable housing, back to the treasury to prop up the help to buy scheme
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/help-to-buy-affordable-housing-funding-divert-property-market-buyers-sajid-javid-a8233011.html

Meanwhile, 2/3 of people affected by the bedroom tax are disabled - but hey, they’ve saved the DWP £500 million
researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/SN06896

This NY Times article is very enlightening including

• Welfare Reform Act of 2012 increased the number of children in poverty by over 650,000.

-Use of food banks almost doubling in 3 years, and even more so in UC areas -How police and social care cuts have increased crime statistics

www.nytimes.com/2019/02/24/world/europe/britain-austerity-may-budget.html

Austerity has disproportionately affected working families with children, and BAME women in particular, while benefiting older homeowners and wealthy pensioners
www.if.org.uk/2015/11/23/new-research-shows-austerity-is-favouring-older-voters-at-the-expense-of-the-young/

DfE stats show 4500 children with EHCPs have no school place - the number of children with SEN, no EHCP and no school place is even higher
www.theguardian.com/education/2018/oct/23/send-special-educational-needs-children-excluded-from-schools

400k more children and 300k more pensioners living in poverty now than in 2012-2013
www.theguardian.com/society/2017/dec/04/uk-government-warned-over-sharp-rise-children-pensioner-poverty-study

40,000 social rent starts under labour in 2009/2010 dropped to just 1,000 in 2016
www.mulbury.co.uk/news/mulbury-homes/comment-time-end-housing-sector-austerity/

Number of rough sleepers people doubled from 2010 to 2016, by the government’s own count
www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2017/02/13/2017-the-year-the-full-effects-of-austerity-are-felt

Benefits cap affecting 116,000 of the country’s poorest families in 2016
www.theguardian.com/society/2016/nov/01/extended-benefit-cap-hit-116000-families-housing-experts

2/3 of those affected by the bedroom tax are disabled
www.theguardian.com/society/2013/jul/16/bedroom-tax-burden-disabled-people

Number of households living in temporary accommodation reached almost 80,000 by last year. 55% of homeless families are working.
england.shelter.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/1545412/2018_07_19_Working_Homelessness_Briefing.pdf

Since 2010, LAs have had to spend £4bn on redundancies due to funding cuts. Birmingham LA laid off half their workforce
www.lgcplus.com/research/lgc-maps/revealed-the-staggering-4bn-cost-of-a-decade-of-job-losses-12-09-2018/

In 5 years, 70% of LAs say they will be unable to fund non-statutory services
www.nlgn.org.uk/public/2018/18304/

We have the worst performing life expectancy rates for women out of the top 20 leading world economies. For men, only the US is worse
www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-45096074

Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016 cut the income of disabled people in the work-related ESA group by almost £30 per week
researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-7649

And that’s obviously those who could get it in the first place. Do I need to talk about the scandal of PIP, revocation of lifetime DLA awards, the fact that 1 in 7 rejected PIP claims are overturned at appeal (for those who have the strength and ability to appeal)? This rate of overturned decisions is increasing every year, not going down.
www.disabilitynewsservice.com/one-in-seven-rejected-pip-claims-is-overturned-dwp-figures-show/

The companies responsible for the horrific treatment of disabled people (at the government’s bidding)? Well they’ve just had their contracts renewed, at a cost of £630 million, without going out to render despite extensive complaints, dodgy practices targeting the most vulnerable people, giving staff targets to turn claimants down etc
(And one of those is ATOS, who’ve never had to pay a penny in U.K. tax by the way)
www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/dwp-quietly-hands-private-firms-16243454

They also received a £40m funding increase, despite never meeting government quality targets - I guess there is a magic money tree when it’s a choice between giving cash to these companies or to disabled people
www.consultancy.uk/news/16818/atos-and-capita-miss-targets-for-acceptable-700-million-pip-assessments

I could do this all day. Is this the country you want to live in? We are an absolute disgrace.

And yet there are so many people who think Corbyn is a danger to this country, while our country is crumbling around his. People talk about the division in this country - who’s responsible for that? The EU has been made a scapegoat for the impact of this government’s policies, yet a bit of left of centre politics is what’s terrifying?

Puzzledandpissedoff I understand what you’re saying and agree - to a point. I think what’s interesting and actually very telling is that even right wing Tory sponsor owned MSM are now having to report on the hardship and deaths being caused by Tory policy.

And it IS frustrating not being able to get the facts but a big part of that is govts (of all colours) blocking the electorate from being told those facts, it should be a matter of public record AND easy to find and assess/see collated figures on the effects policies are having ON US.

Something far too many mps (again of all colours) seem to have forgotten is (to give the title of a site I find very useful) THEY WORK FOR US.

They seem to think that we should feel a huge debt of gratitude for what they do even when what they’re doing is screwing us over!

Anecdote again I know (sorry) but my own personal experience as someone who communicates with whoever my local Mp is and candidates in run ups to elections is that except when I was a full time nurse the tories with the exception of 1 all spoke to me with barely disguised contempt, when the Tory candidates came to my door for the last 2 elections frankly you can drop the “barely disguised” as soon as they realised I was an unemployed, disabled, single mum on benefits, on one occasion he actually physically took 3 steps back! It was really odd and really offensive!

IF tories want to solicit votes from non traditional Tory voters IMO based on my experience they need to treat voters a lot better even at a personal level like that.

Other mps and candidates (not just labour ones all other parties I’ve encountered INCLUDING other far right ones) have engaged with me, politely discussed my questioning of their policies and treated me with dignity even if they disagreed with me.

NobleGiraffe you’re right it’s not simply a case of “nationalise and all will be well” but I don’t think anyone either on thread or politicians is saying that, I believe they’re saying privatisation clearly hasn’t worked and changes need to be made, nationalisation in an organised, sensible way could well be the change that’s needed.

I’m pretty sure (and I KNOW mners will correct me if I’m wrong) that when privatisation was first being mooted the then Tory govt wanting to do it gave assurances that prices wouldn’t sky rocket, service would be good and that profits would remain in the uk - I think all of that was proven wrong in what the first 5-7 years after privatisation?

The one industry that privatisation has benefitted the customers and one I used to work in is telecoms. BT were (still are!) a bloody nightmare to deal with! Especially for commercial customers and their prices as a percentage of household income then was very high, I’m sure I’m not the only mner who well remembers not being allowed to dare to go NEAR the phone until 6pm and even then after about 10 mins your parents would be bugging you to get off it, in my case I had the additional hassle of having to say exactly who I was calling before I did as I stayed in touch with friends from places we’d been moved away from and prices for calls were high and for non local calls were extortionate! My parents themselves used to take it in turns to call their mums in Scotland on a Saturday night for 15 mins so they were only speaking to their own mums once a fortnight! I talk to mine every day now! We also frequently had issues like crossed lines, as army moving a lot we also had things like one week in new place phone would be working and the next they’d cut us off because they mistakenly thought we were leaving the address not newly moved in. Bad weather pretty much guaranteed you couldn’t use the phone, it was horrendous.

Now yes a big part of it is that tech has moved on, but I think a lot of people are unaware/would be shocked to learnt that BT still pretty much owns all telephone lines in uk and charge a fair wack for them to be used, and they’re still really shit at getting repairs done in a timely and competent fashion. They’re still bloody expensive to be with too my parents still insist on being BT customers for both landline and internet, they live very rurally, are elderly and disabled and need reliable service for things like medical equipment and panic buttons yet they’re constantly having issues and getting wrong bills etc.

Funnily enough I was discussing the line aspect with my internet provider recently and telling of the time I reported a fault and the exchange box needed a repair, at the time my home I could see the exchange box from my window, I was told the repair had been done but still wasn’t getting service, contacted again and at one point I was being told by BT openreach “the engineer is there right now working on it madam you’ll have service again very soon” except I could see the exchange box and there wasn’t an engineer in sight!

But then if we have well regulated and run nationalised services it shouldn’t be a problem.

“If they did it - if British people did it, not long ago - why can't we here build them again?” Exactly! I have a feeling nationalising would bring jobs back to uk too. Yes the workers on the ground for things like utilities and rail have to be British residents but with parent companies being outside the uk that surely means there are admin and management jobs associated with those services that are being done outside the uk and therefore not creating jobs or generating income tax within the uk.

Deathgrip well said at 1932.

I’ve been dealing with dwp, tax credits, local council benefits depts, job centres etc for almost 17 years, it’s definitely been my experience it’s got MUCH worse for sick and disabled people like myself in the last 9/10 years.

At EVERY step of the way from initial phone call to claim (3+ hours on hold appeal to anyone? Then you get cut off and have to start all over again?) to speaking to staff who BLATANTLY lie, to being sent the wrong forms, to being told the wrong details of what evidence is required, to them denying you’ve submitted forms (I now submit either by recorded delivery or if in person I insist on a clearly dated signature by the person receiving and I want to see their ID first so I know they’ve signed the right name as they’re not above using false names, or I submit electronically so it can be tracked), to them asking for more evidence MONTHS after submission which you could have provided at the time of submission but were told wasn’t needed, to being assessed by people not qualified in the relevant areas, to assessors lying to you and on forms about you, to being denied contact when trying to follow up on things...

It’s kafkaesque!

it IS frustrating not being able to get the facts but a big part of that is govts (of all colours) blocking the electorate from being told those facts, it should be a matter of public record AND easy to find and assess/see collated figures on the effects policies are having ON US
Something far too many mps (again of all colours) seem to have forgotten is (to give the title of a site I find very useful) THEY WORK FOR US

Brilliantly put, Graphista - and something too many of them would do well to remember

Thank you too, Deathgrip; there were some interesting links in that post at 19.32

I should perhaps clarify that I don't doubt government actions have an effect, since to do so would obviously be ridiculous. What I do object to though is that the facts can be so hard to separate from the endless spin, the bias of whoever's reporting and the general noise and fury

I'm also the first to admit I can be a bit pedantic about this, but people matter, so to do the best for all groups we first have to know what the reality is - and that's not always easy

Unfortunately we live in an era where everybody has the illusion of being extremely informed, while rarely considering the source or quality of the information. In these discussions there are so many people who simultaneously parrot lies and myths while utterly convinced they’re right.

I’m not a Corbyn devotee. I don’t think he’s perfect, but I am becoming increasingly frustrated by seeing people saying things like “I just don’t trust him” while this government is literally plunging millions of people into dire straits (and without recognising that there’s been years of propaganda designed to make sure you don’t trust him).

The most vulnerable members of our society are in a worse position right now than they have been in decades. We have increasing numbers of people each year dying from malnutrition.

It’s not that we don’t have the money - the government can find the money to pay ATOS and Capita to strip less money away from disabled people. They can find the money for Brexit, despite the EU having been nowhere near most of the UK’s radar until Farage, and the tories decided a referendum would be a great way to hold on to those considering voting UKIP. All of the current unrest is a result of that, and a great distraction from the abhorrent ideological financial policies of this government.

And what some people are worried about is how much it would cost to renationalise trains, or that they may turn private schools into state schools (after a protracted period of working on the logistics), or whether tort policies really are responsible for 120,000 deaths or whether it might be more or less...

Millions of people are struggling to house and feed themselves and their children. There are hundreds of thousands of children and pensioners living in poverty. Working people who are homeless, in huge numbers. The nhs is being very deliberately underfunded until public trust falls to critical levels and we all roll over and let them sell it off.

Anyone who thinks Corbyn is the thing to fear right now needs to think again.

Or, we could vote for other parties.

Neither party wins a majority. No one will form a coalition.

Both leaders step down in defeat and we have a new election.

We get better options.