Harry’s Place

I’m tempted to say,Ben that you should address this to those Labour MPs who thought that replacing Blair with Brown was a good idea.
To do exactly what the Tory front bench wanted them to do was the biggest self inflicted wound by the Labour party since 49.5% of us voted for the infantilism of Tony Benn.

I think now we know what Tories felt like under Major and stuff like this
http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=webcameron.davidsdiary.page&obj_id=144136

makes it far worse.
I suspect Cameron may not have tried that if Blair was his opponent.
Open goal now.

From my side (of the Pond, of the politcal spectrum) a can’t quite figure out what Labour is losing to.

I wouldn’t get too worked up about it, old boy. Oh hang on, that’s what Benji would say. But I really wouldn’t get too worked up about it, old boy. This Government has come close to the end of its natural life. It happens to Governments. It doesn’t mean they’re destroyed as a political force.

What is Labour losing to?

I think actually it’s more a cyclic thing - the growing desire to throw out the incumbent regime - more or less regardless as to whether they’ve done anything wrong - a big vicious press campaign - Brown was villified so much for not calling a general election last year (but why should he have…there was certainly no constitutional necessity or expectation?).

And don’t forget that the Tories really were in the wilderness for years - a succession of leaders who either were too young & inexperienced for the task, just not up to the task, and just plain hideous - who had no idea whatsoever of how to connect with the electorate. Although there are still good reasons to be concerned about what the party stands for, and the competency of some of those associated with its senior leadership, it’s no longer the complete basket case that it was - if we are honest - from the mid-1990s or earlier. Or at least it is not generally percieved as such.

And now, disastrously for Labour, some of the knives seem to be coming out in public - - - Prescott, Levy, bloody Cherie Blair —-

In short they’ve lost their appeal.

(Oh, today’s Catholic Herald has not one, but two, columnists suggesting that Boris Johnson would make a great PM in the future. Hmmm…I’ll say, diplomatically)

I think this is largely about perceptions, not policy. The government are still, mostly, doing a fairly decent job (although all of the things that were objectionable about NuLab from the start - and if we are honest OldLab as well - - - the authoritarianism, the hectoring, the self-righteousness - are still there - - but they were there when the party was popular and shiny and the media’s and Middle England’s darling too). Depressing as it is to say, it’s almost as if they need another Alastair Campbell to massage the media (if they are willing to be massaged by the Labour party, which is less certain than was the case 12 or 13 years ago), and another Mandelson to create order, and call the shots in determining a sense of direction.

So (and acknowledging my position as a non-partisan type), I’m really not sure what Labour can do - - playing up the inexperience of the opposition can only go so far. Demonstrating party unity would probably be a good start. And getting Brown to lighten up in public and give the impression of being an inspirational - rather than merely competent - leader. Would it that were not necessary, but unfortunately in this TV-driven age I fear it is.

“NuLab” Oh Ven! Actually, I know you don’t mean it in “that way”, but blogs are increasingly infected by this sort of phraseology. And I can only assume, given I just don’t see it in the real world, that this is a bloggertarian construct. It is dreadful.

Yes, it sort of is a cyclical thing. And I’m not too worked up about it. In fact, I’m quite resigned to it.

But that doesn’t mean that the outcome of the next election will be anything other than a disaster for vulnerable people in our society. I suppose I shall be taxed less. Whoo-fucking-pee.

And that is why I’m not too worked up about it. Because I’m going to be insulated from the results of having the Tories back. For anyone who relies on the government to provide them with fairer life chances, well, then they will be fucked. It’s time that this was acknowledged, rather than having a bunch of middle class people (yes yes I am one blah blah) bollocking on a rather rareified manner. I’ve got to be honest here, and I know you will tell me I’m being overwrought (sp?) - and there really are much worse things to be ffs - but it is basically obscene to see the lack of commitment here on a supposedly left-wing blog. You will now tell me that “Liberty, if it means anything etc etc”

Yes, we are going to witness a change of government. But unless a bunch of “ooh well I don’t like this bit of the Labour Party” people pull their fingers out, then we are in my view about to witness a massive defeat, the like of which will result in a generational change of political values. And that is a frankly appalling concept.

So, yeah, it’s a partisan piece. And it’s a partisan piece talking to people who are “Decent”, and it’s asking them to consider why that is, what that actually means, and which party best represents that view.

And it is also very personal. And it is nakedly pro Labour. No shit sherlock.

Not so very long ago it would not have been remotely surprising to see such a piece here.

I have not expressed myself anywhere near as adequately here as I do above.

Once upon a time there was a tavern..

As Wardy and someone else nearly said, its the cycle dear boy, the cycle. We haven’t worked out a better way without democracy stultifying and becoming corrupt. Only question is whether Labour has entrenched enough of its programme to be as irreversible as Thatcher’s was.

Altogether now:

Lai lai lai lai la la

What *is* it that makes you a “Decent”?

Well I don’t really think I am a very decent “decent”. But yes of course Ben is right (and he is the future) a Tory government (of any stripe) is a return to the past and something which will not matter to 90% of people whoc comment on blogs for whom it all it will amount to is “we don’t like the government but at least Nigella is still getting the best schooling available…”

But then some of us will remember our own (superflous) youths when, under Thatcher, we sat and listened to John Peel playing the Nightingales

>> It seems almost certain that we are to lose the next general election by a landslide to a party run by the historically privileged elite of this nation. <<

The Liberal Democrats (Whigs, as was)??? Never!!!

(Whoops pressed “submit” to early)

Anyway carry on:

We sat(without electricity but only a battery operated radio) and listened to the Nightinglales singing about “Urban Ospreys” whilst outside kids with no hope stabbed each other in the heads with screwdrivers and realised that there were two kinds of people in the world: those with hope and those without it and that to be decent was to aspire to give hope where there was none and to tell those who want to fob us off with some kind of cyclical version of history to stick it in their osprey nest because you either believe in progress or you beleive in your own comfort.

Altogether now:

Lai lai lai lai la la

My sharia law, lovely as a summer day
My sharia law, distant as the milky way
My sharia law, pretty little one that I adore
You’re the only girl my heart beats for
How I wish that you were mine

I’m not really trying to make a point about anything here.

Sorry Ben, that did sound smug and flippant- you are right- it is all very well for people like me/us to take the long view, as we are insulated, and you have brought home that apathy could result in a long time in the wilderness beyond the natural cycle.

I thought the whole Les Dobrovolski incident was made up?

“We are about to let go of the finest government with the best anti-poverty track record in history.”

The first thing they did was raid the pension funds, now this will cause poverty for the next 3-5 decades.
Then they looked at the facts on spending on health, social security and education. They realized that what they were doing was wrong, they knew the course they were stearing was wrong, they knew they were causing long term damage, so what to do? Sack Frank Field and hide the data.
We are now in the position were the government does not know how much debt it has, nor how many people it must provide pensions for, given there are an extra 12 million NI numbers in the system than there are people paying tax.

What is this “progressive” label?

We hear it bandied about a lot but what does it mean.

Look around Western Europe and you can see that historically there have been parties of the left and right in power. But when you get down to it living standards are more or less the same, working hours are pretty standard, individual human rights are similar and the structure of society is pretty similar.

One has to query whether it really does make that much difference having a “progressive” party in power.

Seems to me that a really progressive party would get to grips with issues of political and economic power. Only the Swiss people in Western Europe actually have any real political power on a day to day basis - otherwise oligarchies rule in all of Western Europe. Other countries have done better also in getting workforce representation on boardrooms and on common ownership.

However our wonderfully “progressive” party is completely scared of both referenda and common ownership.

I think any progressive party should be committed to:-

(a) Redistribution of economic and political power through common ownership and referenda.

(b) Reducing the working week to three days over 20 years, so that people can begin to lead civilised lives with a proper work-life balance.

(c) Ensuring everyone has access to decent housing rather than the rabbit hutch accommodation that passes for acceptable in the UK.

This Government has come close to the end of its natural life. It happens to Governments. It doesn’t mean they’re destroyed as a political force.

Isn’t it rather that Brown has all the charisma of a turbot?

And that he does that really annoying open mouth thing at the end of every sentence?

Not to get all superficial or anything.

I agree with Tim that getting rid of Tony Blair in favour of Gordon Brown was the worst thing the Labour Party has done other than (a) tolerating Galloway as long as it did and (b) embracing Livingstone and welcoming him back into the party, and continuing to embrace him when he was clearly following more or less the Respect agenda.

The electorate never loved old Labour, however much they felt disillusioned with Tony Blair, and so many of the old Labour brigade (plus both the radical and the rustbelt trade unions) clearly deluded themselves that replacing Blair with Brown would firmly put the clock back.

All this helped to divert the Labour Party from continuing to develop as a party with wide appeal to the whole country (as it was in 1997) and nothing was done to counter the series of individual scandals and downfalls that hit the various Labour grandees like Blunkett over the last seven years by promoting the development of young and fresh thinking new blood. It seems the Tory Party has done some of this– I always thought they would go to any lengths to get back into power– after all, they even made a woman PM when Labour has never come anywhere near it.

Gordon Brown was allowed to make the fight to get his feet under the PM’s desk the core ongoing story of where the Labour Party was going for years; the whole phalanx of people helping him to do that such as Ed Balls are now in key positions of power, and are almost as intensely disliked as Brown himself.

And Labour has taken its eye off the ball of feelgood stuff which people need in all sorts of ways…so it’s appeared to have been obsessed with promoting forms of organization (trusts, foundation hospitals, academies) as opposed to finding out and delivering what people most want–for example, medical appointments when you want them, the right to choose your doctor and your child’s school, and to get the treatment you need before it’s too late. It’s still far too wedded to local authority oligarchies and power structures– which have done a huge part in undermining so many educational and health reforms. And it’s given a very clear vision of an old age which no one can look forward to: inadequate care, and having to use up any savings plus turn in your house to pay for it into the bargain. Armed forces? Whatever your view on the Iraq war and Afghanistan (and I support both) it seems rather obvious that there’s a catalogue of poor resourcing and limited leadership which seems to make us rather less successful than the US forces even in the quite limited roles that we’ve taken on.

You wouldn’t think that the UK has some of the most imaginative and lively media, internet, arts and music industries-Tony Blair seemed to devote quite some energy when he first became PM to associating their achievements with those of the Labour Party. Over the last few years, it all seems to have been allowed to dissolve into a series of associations with at best dull and embarrassing funders and at worst with dodgy loan sources.

What got categorized and sneered at as spin was in my view a shift to the sort of relationship a modern government has to have with a modern electorate. Labour seems to me to have retreated into shame and old style political discourse, when it should have retained the courage of its convictions. Ironically, it’s the Tories who now seem to be reaping the rewards of relentless spin and control of what its politicians put out.

The number of really dire analyses of why Livingstone lost (especially the ones about the ignoble voters of outer London) makes me feel that as Ben says, the chances are that Labour is in one of its many historical watch-me-lose moods.

Oh Ami, really don’t worry. I didn’t take your first comment in a bad way (and of course it wouldn’t matter if I did). I am quite sure the world would be a much better place if it had more people like you in it! However, I do much more agree with your second comment…

“you either believe in progress or you beleive in your own comfort” Yep. Succint. Accurate. Beautiful.

“I thought the whole Les Dobrovolski incident was made up?” Heh. Sue me Herman. But check out the news reports first. And then talk to him. And then maybe don’t sue me. Twat. (Actually, if that was a genuine question, then you’re not at all and you can have a copious apology from me later. Otherwise, yes. Twat.)

Actually, to be honest (and I suppose I ought to be), I know people talk about “cycles”, and that’s the received wisdom, isn’t it? But I’d rather have fifty years of moderate government than 18 years of vicious red-in-tooth-and-claw Thatcherism.

And I’d even more prefer 50 years of progressive government.

50 years of Labour would be great. If only you could avoid the likely corruption and patronage. But it would really stick it to the Arabellas of this world, wouldn’t it? Smoking? Fuck that. It’s all about banning the ownership of ponies in an indoor space. (Actually, my younger sister had a pony for a brief while - perhaps I should reconsider…)

the worst “progressive” defeat

A fairly typical example of the hijacking of a self-evidently positive sentiment by the Left. Progressivism is merely the latest term that Marxism/Socialism has assumed as its previous euphemisms have been caught up with and debunked - one thinks of Structuralism, Post-structuralism, Post-modermism, etc. Now you will have to invent a new term, one that does not have the stink of failure about it. Just as the rarely defined term “social justice” was appropriated by ZanuLabor as a portmanteau word for what must be an unbridled good - after all we are all “social” and in favour of “justice”, aren’t we? The trouble comes when social justice becomes stealing from those who actually earn their living and giving it to those who don’t. Then it becomes a travesty of justice, and those who have lost their pensions, are in danger of losing their homes, have seen council tax double in this administration have worked that out, and have worked out that Brown is very definitely not on their side.

Look at your snide “a party run by the historically privileged elite”. What the hell does it matter what their background is, if they can actually make things better, without clobbering those they despise? Can you even honestly say that Tories “despise” anybody? Labour has far too often been populated by the vindictive, whose primary motivation is hatred of your … historically privileged elite. The country should be run by an elite - who the hell else should run it, a bunch of Neets from Sunderland or hacks from the Graun? Who should run Amstrad: Alan Sugar or a dunce like John Prescott, who would take it down the tubes in no time flat?

So, Ben, you know where you can stick your “progressive” politics, because it does not look like progress to those who booted “us” (include me out) out. Get ready for a generation in the wilderness, as yet another period of class politics; meddling with institutions; brainless and pervasive targets; persistent intervention; driving a horse and cart through our Constitution; riding over political regulators; building a massive client state and populating it with bureaucrats who have no incentive to succeed; creating a Byzantine and confusing tax system; wrecking our schools and stopping social mobility in its tracks: is consigned to the vast landfill of failed Socialist ideas.

Labour had the best chance to make a difference it is ever likely to get in 1997 - an economy that worked, thanks to Thatcher, a country of pride and confidence - and what has it done? Blown it, comprehensively, and the country knows it.

Love it.

“Can you even honestly say that Tories “despise” anybody?”

Yep. Women. Gays. Ethnics. The working class. All of whom have been shat on by the Tories at some point in the last 50 years. You don’t even have to go pre-War.

“ZanuLabor”

Hahahahaha! You loony cunt. I guess you are the face of disgusting reaction that that nice Mr Cameron is trying to keep hidden away.

If you were at all cognisant of the views of you beloved business-class, Alcuin, you would know that there was a debate about whether Alan Sugar is a good businessman or not. It is suggested by some that, though he is certainly a canny celebrity, he has failed over his career to create shareholder value. Amstrad is not a world-class company, is it? Capitalisation is down from the 90s onwards. But I’ve worked in areas where I would be expected to be aware of those kind of views. But perhaps you haven’t. So fuck off. Really. And then don’t come back. :)

(Note to others - apologies for the distinctly 1950s terminolgy in my first para, but it was succinct, and I think it helped Alcuin to get what I was saying.)

The number of really dire analyses of why Livingstone lost (especially the ones about the ignoble voters of outer London)

Ah yes - otherwise known as ” the inconvenient truth”

This is plain scare mongering. None of us know what a future Tory government will look like, just as few if any people knew what a labour government was going to look like before 1997.

This labour government has in many ways acted the way you would have historically expected a Tory government to act - certainly the financial sector, the major driver of the UK economy today, are happy with the status quo and the amount of influence they have with the government (non-dom debacle). Think of think of the implementation of Tory proposals on IHT, labour’s aggressive international interventionism, the effective privatization of parts of the health service, ASBOs (not a Tory policy per se but who would have been surprised if Margaret Thatcher had introduced them?) and so on.

A number of things that Labour have done and continue to do hurt lower income people. Apart from the obvious 10p tax debacle, there was the raids on the pension funds (it wasn’t just rich peoples pensions that were raided), increases in petrol duty (gone up what? 30%+ since 1997), vehicle tax (completely regressive tax that the government keep increasing), below inflation pay rises for large parts of the public sector etc. Now I’m not saying that any of these policies are wrong. It’s just that I’m not sure they will be any worse under a Tory government. Does anyone really think that Cameron will suddenly change things if he became PM? He is a pragmatist, not an ideologist.

ag. Your view is the classic “don’t vote for Livingstone because look at how not left wing he is” gambit.

But we can see that, as with some who took the above view, you are a charlatan.

I am quite sure that your heart bleeds for the masses and you yearn to lead them in the ultimate uprising which will doom capitalism and put all the heads of horrid Blairites like me on spikes outside the People’s Court of Justice.

Or not. Vehicle excise duty. Poor people don’t own cars (nor do I - it’s not some kind of stigma). Petrol taxes?!?! This is exactly the sort of Daily Mail nonsense that talks about people like those who read their disgusting rag being victimised. No. These are the middle classes. I am not saying they are comfortable, because times are difficult. And I would never seek to belittle the problems of middle class people, who have helped keep us in office. But they are not the salt of the earth, as it were.

ASBOs. ASBOs are an example of the state intervening where it previously didn’t in order to protect working class people. And that is why Liberals are scum. Because they think everything can be solved by inviting the neighbours around for tea and crumpets. No.

Public sector workers have done really well out of Labour in the last 11 years. Really well. One of my dear, dear friends is a teacher. She struck (because she is not a scab), but is very much of the view that the NUT is being selfish and reckless and putting at risk the future of the govt which has done so much to make teaching a “profession” again. Public sector pay, and public sector levels of employment, are both massively up under Labour.

Pension funds? That hit (and yes it did, I accept) the better off in the middle classes. Not the poor.

IHT - Labour didn’t do what the Tories wanted. It’s a little bit complicated, but basically what they did is make a tax loophole available to those married couples who could employ a professional (ie the waelthy) avaiable to everyone. Disgusting, I know.

Interventionism? Really right wing. Yeah. Talk to the IFTU.

Basically, I can take anything you throw at me, because, judging from your comment, you are either a Tory or a Trot (interesting they can sound so similar, isn’t it?), and both are especially bovine species.

Interesting Post Ben, though I would say that the challenge in making a national economy based on the tericery sector work ‘harmoniously’ that New Labour attempted is being subsumed by larger factors, i.e. resource scacity, environment, the ‘rise’ of India/China etc. It seemed to me that much of the new Labour project as well as much of the left stopped thinking in May 1997 (the hard left having stopped in November 1917). New concepts are required and i have now doubt that the traditions of the left, be it Painite Liberalism or Social Democracy contain many fertile seams to mine. Get thinking

As for Alcuin, his parroting of Pareto elite nonsense is no surprise, I hazard a guess the fella is a big fan of Heidigger and Junger. Meh

The brave new democratic Iraq and the “flowering of trade unions” - this is worthy of Private Eye. But do sleep easy, Ben. I really wouldn’t worry to much about being “forever tarred” by going on an anti-war march; you’re unlikely to be lynched in the street by outraged passers-by. I would worry about your evident hysteria though. Have you considered valium?

Well, that was sickening to read. If it will cheer you up the people in Iraq are probably not as cut up about the departure of Blair and your Decent crowd as you are.

Ben, I don’t live in London and have no real position on Livingstone. I don’t know why you think I have.

Poor people do own cars. Not very expensive ones possibly but many, many of them do own cars. If you live in a city and one you work in maybe you can live without a car. Live in the country or love somewhere 10 miles from where you work and there’s no suitable public transport, guess what? You own a car.

Go talk to factory workers whose pensions are a fraction of what they expected. Their funds got raided too.

The point about IHT was that the government only did it to prevent the Tories getting on the front foot. I do understand it by the way. It’s not complicated at all. It’s a lot simpler than having to set up trusts, dividing ownership of property etc. I have kids so IHT is something I’ve planned for for several years now.

I wasn’t criticising the policies. I think some of them were necessary. All I was saying is that they aren’t ones you’d necessarily expect from the Labour party. Of course if you went to Oxford in 1999 I imagine that you won’t actually have much experience of the old Labour party, the one from the pre-Blair days so maybe my expectations are different from yours.

Yes some public sector workers have done quite well (particularly Doctors:-) ). Although they’ve possibly done better than previously that’s a) a low bar and b) largely irrelevant. If they’ve done better than before but their pay rises are less than the rise in their cost of living they’re losing out. My wife is a nurse and I see what goes into her bank account each month. I also know colleages of hers who are single/divorced and I know how hard they find it and how little help they feel (rightly or wrongly) they get from this government. By the way, most of them own cars. I work in the private sector and my pay has done a sight better than hers over the last 10 years. That is true of most private sector workers I know, though I accept that this is only anecdotal evidence and there may be all sorts and kinds of stats that show how poorly the private sector has done in comparison to the public.

Decent (boom boom) post, Ben, plus with Zin - the Thatcherite headhunter - and Robertus effortlessly proving at least one of your points.

So you are not only ‘progressive’ but ‘decent’ too? What a pity you have committed yourself to a mob of chancers motivated by spite, envy and class hatred.

“decents” & “stoppers”

Tempted to write ‘cheeks of the same arse. Wait up . . .just did.

“I was not a Stopper in the “We are all Hezbollah” sense”

See, for Harry’s Place, there is no other kind of “Stopper”, as you call them. In the Decentoverse, there is only Glorious pro-liberationists - who don’t mind a few depleted uranium and white phosphorous rough edges, the total destruction of the fabric of a society (as bad as it was before), a price tag of anywhere between 200,000 to a million dead, precipitation of ethnic cleansing and a few more rough edges - and then there are FASCISTS! In the Decentoverse, the fascists are anyone who strays from the party line and anyone who questions the glorious war.

Oh, it gets better! Thank you Robertus, for drowning out the remaining whimpers of the Black Dog which visited me in the wee hours.

I was not a Stopper in the “We are all Hezbollah” sense, but I was a Stopper in that I had a very strong sense of the wrongness of the Iraq War. I had watched the first bombardments of Baghdad in the early hours of that morning in March 2003 and had been terribly upset.

In that case Ben, you were no different to the large majority of us who opposed the war, including those of us who attended the “vile and reactionary counter-revolutionary demonstration” and have no regrets about it. Of course it was no such thing, and it was mostly made up of normal, decent (but not “Decent”) people. Really, that kind of language (and it’s not the only example) does your argument no favours at all.

What seems odd to me is that as far as I can tell you changed your views the war not because you decided your position was wrong in principle but because you discovered that certain people who you didn’t like opposed it for what you considered unprincipled reasons. Or have I got that wrong?

you loony cunt

And I am supposed to be the one who despises others. Such erudition, such scholarly wit, such pathetically bankrupt bile - surely you can do better than these pathetic smears, old chap? The Left have come to believe all the smears that they and their ilk have thrown at the hated Tories since you were in short trousers. That Hezbollabor hates Tories like Hezbollah hates Jews is a weakness that will always misinform any serious strategy for winning.

Meanwhile the Tories just continue to win all the intellectual arguments, like they did in the 1980s: Council house sales - Labour would have preferred to have kept these people’s aspirations down by keeping them imprisoned tenants to Socialism; Nuclear weapons - remember Michael Foot’s longest suicide note in history, which would have left us open to nuclear blackmail; privatisation - whatever happened to clause 4 and the rusty unions; Tax levels - remember 33% basic, 83% higher under Jenkins? You, Ben, would have been arguing against all these 20 years ago. What will you be saying 20 years hence?

Women: a few examples would be nice, though if you speak of Tessa Jowell, Yvette Cooper and Claire Short, I get your point. Perhaps you believe Maggie was really a cross-dresser, eh? Gays, Ethnics. Well if you had watched Rageh Omaar’s series on Powell’s speech, you would find few who seriously considered Powell’s history and his actual words thought him to be a racist - even Omaar himself. It was always just a convenient word to shut down serious debate, and Ken thinks it still works.

As for my “beloved business-class”, who the hell do you think NuLabor is in thrall to - teachers? Blair and Brown have bent over for the City of London, and its wad wielding, million bonus high rollers. While these guys bring in a third of Britain’s income through their high class casino, I think NuLabor has become far too mesmerised by them, and now that taxes are rising and the high rollers are muttering about taking their circus elsewhere, the whole flawed and surely for a Socialist, immoral, strategy is unravelling, like the rest of Blair’s carefully constructed hologram.

Now that the Pied Piper has moved on to be replaced by Mr Punch, we can all see the whole enterprise of the last 11 years for what it always was - a cynical exercise in spin, and the crocodile is not far away - watch out for the baby. Laugh it up while you can, Ben, because soon you will be sucking it up.

“No regrets at all”, Andrew? A: we were unsuccessful. B: we, and I’m assuming you weren’t one of those vile and reactionary counter-revolutionaries either, then retired and allowed said vile and reactionary counter-revolutionaries to take over. Nothing necessarily reprehensible about B as most of us had our own lives to lead, but to be proud of it?

certain people who you didn’t like opposed it for what you considered [love the ambiguity!] unprincipled reasons.

IHT - Labour didn’t do what the Tories wanted. It’s a little bit complicated, but basically what they did is make a tax loophole available to those married couples who could employ a professional (ie the waelthy) avaiable to everyone. Disgusting, I know.

Ben, there had been an ongoing campaign against IHT by sections of the media and the Tories. Any progressive government worthy of the name should have been able to make a principled defence of IHT and countered the bogus arguments used against it. Instead they gave in and came out with this measure specifically intended to “wrong foot” the Tories and win favourable headlines and it made them look cynical, weak and unprincipled. Which they were.

Alec,

“No regrets at all”, Andrew? A: we were unsuccessful. B: we, and I’m assuming you weren’t one of those vile and reactionary counter-revolutionaries either, then retired and allowed said vile and reactionary counter-revolutionaries to take over. Nothing necessarily reprehensible about B as most of us had our own lives to lead, but to be proud of it?

I said I don’t regret going on the march and no, I still don’t. It was always likely (and with hindsight absolutely certain) to be unsuccessful but I don’t see why that is an argument against it - should we only ever support causes which are likely to succeed? As for your point B, once the war went ahead anyway most of saw no point in continuing to demonstrate against something which had already happened, and I wasn’t going to campaign for troops to be immediately withdrawn because I didn’t think that was neccessarily the best course of action. If others wanted to do so that was up to them, I’m not responsible for their actions.

poor people don’t own cars

This demonstrates just how far removed the left is from reality.

No, Andrew, but we were responsible for letting them do those actions. If you were as committed to opposing the invasion as you say, you would have seen that day in February to be more important than saving and may, even, have worked to prevent it having *previously* been taken over by a bunch of political freaks, racists and generally vile and reactionary counter-revolutionaries.

Just a thought, it could have turned the tide.

If the poor owned cars, could they not have driven to the polling stations on 1 May?

“(a) Redistribution of economic and political power through common ownership and referenda.
(b) Reducing the working week to three days over 20 years, so that people can begin to lead civilised lives with a proper work-life balance.
(c) Ensuring everyone has access to decent housing rather than the rabbit hutch accommodation that passes for acceptable in the UK.”

This isn’t progressive at all, but age-old socialism.

Biggest gift to the Tories was the 10p tax band thing. What were they thinking?

OT: huge earthquake in China- no hard news yet- Is Benjamin out there?

If the poor owned cars, could they not have driven to the polling stations on 1 May?

I know one poor person who owns a car and who voted for Boris.

AID -

You quote me:

“(a) Redistribution of economic and political power through common ownership and referenda.
(b) Reducing the working week to three days over 20 years, so that people can begin to lead civilised lives with a proper work-life balance.
(c) Ensuring everyone has access to decent housing rather than the rabbit hutch accommodation that passes for acceptable in the UK.”

and say:

“This isn’t progressive at all, but age-old socialism.

Biggest gift to the Tories was the 10p tax band thing. What were they thinking?”

Not sure if you mean it’s age old socialism in a good way or a bad way.

I’m not sure I would necessarily call it socialism. Catholic democrats have pursued decent housing and reductions in the working week as have many conservatives in their own way. Referenda have never been much associated with socialist parties.

Wherever you put these policies on the left-right scale, they appear to me to be highly relevant and should be pursued more rigorously.

Since you mention tax, I would also like to see radical tax reform with a move away from so called progressive income tax. We need a simplification of the tax and benefits system. I’d certainly go with some sort of basic income plus flat rate income tax, allied to higher property taxes. This would cut out huge amounts of bureaucracy.

We also need to dismantle the welfare dependency system and ensure that nobody who can work receives benefit without working.

Anyway, I think the time is fast approaching when any party that can put forward a realistic quality of life agenda can make real progress with the electorate. A centrepiece of a the radical agenda should be the reduction in the working week. It is absurd that despite numerous technological innovations we have seen no reduction in the working week for about 30 years. We should proceed in stages until we can get down to a three day 27 hour week for most.

We also need to think in terms of restructuring people’s working to allow for full time parenting. (Of course a 3 day week would actually allow many couples to do that while remaining in full time work.)

How to pay for all this I hear you ask…

No. 1 priority is dismantling the welfare state and putting an end to irresponsible single parenthood.

God, no, Ami, they’re suffering enough.

Alec,

Sorry, I just don’t think the anti-war protests would have been any more successful if they had been organised by you and me.

They couldn’t have been any more ineffectual or obscene, Andrew. Yet, I was not referring to you and me a two individuals, but to “to the large majority of us who opposed the war”, many of whom, if your comments are anything to go by, saw the march as an outing on a brisk spring day and then back to the pub for a congratulatory drink. I know this is probably unfair on you as you have dedicated decades to your home-grown socialist-inclined politics, but you could show a glimmer of contrition.

poor people don’t own cars

They most certainly do, and they’ve just seen their car tax doubled or tripled in a typical sneaky-underhand Broon-tax-grab. That is why McBean et al are fucked at the next election.

Ben says:

“I was not a Stopper in the “We are all Hezbollah” sense”

Robertus replies (quoting Ben’s line above):

See, for Harry’s Place, there is no other kind of “Stopper”, as you call them.

You couldn’t write this stuff, but they do.

Labour opting for BNP tactics in Crewe and Nantwich

http://tonysharp.blogspot.com/2008/05/tamsin-dunwoody-new-bnp-candidate.html

many of whom, if your comments are anything to go by, saw the march as an outing on a brisk spring day and then back to the pub for a congratulatory drink.

Well exactly. It was akin to attending a music festival for many. My brother doesn’t have a political bone in his body and I’m not sure he’s ever voted in his puff. He and his hippy girlfriend went for a day out, simple as.

Blimey, I agree with a lot of what Field says. I think a true radical left wing agenda could easily include freeing people from dependancy on the Government by means of measures such as the basic income and a simplification of the tax system.

Historically a reduction in the length of the working week should definitely be on the to do list of any left wing party, and would free up more time for things which are socially productive not just economically productive.

Of course, both the basic income and reduction of the working week would encourage exactly the kind of creativity and independance which are required in today’s economy of intellectual and cultural products.

I think if Labour gets trounced in the general election they could easily bounce back with this kind of radical agenda which really would change the political landscape forever.

Oh, gawd, Brownie’s citing me as an authority. And we all know what their colleagues did to the Stakhanovites.

Surely there isn’t anyone in the country who hasn’t claimed their free Mercedes from the jobcentre yet?

I think a true radical left wing agenda could easily include freeing people from dependancy on the Government by means of measures such as the basic income and a simplification of the tax system.

It wouldn’t be a “true left-wing agenda” it would be a whiggish/liberal agenda following the lead of Cobden and Bright. As such it wouldn’t be at all surprising if a lot of those supposed “left wingers” who have never met a working-class person in their lives signed up to it on their route to becoming one-nation Tories.

*Graham re-emphasises the need to maintain a class system in this country

Graham’s spotting what I’m spotting in the comment he’s citing, however, I do think a radical overhaul of the tax system would be a vote winner, including the introduction of local taxation to replace council tax.

And national service, of course.

We also need to think in terms of restructuring people’s working to allow for full time parenting. (Of course a 3 day week would actually allow many couples to do that while remaining in full time work.)

While I am not sure whether the 3 day week would work (surely it would have to be done multilaterally, across all of Europe at the very least, and you’ll never get the Americans to agree to it), we do need to move away from the notion that women must or should lose out financially because they look after children - there needs to be recognition that men benefit greatly from more time with their offspring. We still live in a society where female lawyers are explicitly informed that having children will scupper their chances of a partnership. A complete change in attitude and working practices needs to be made, because we are currently losing a huge and valuable chunk of our workforce while we refuse to accept that high achievers can work part-time.

Ben - to say that poor people in Britain don’t own cars is just surreally stupid. It reveals a mental universe of fable and fantasy in which the downtrodden urban poor are the perpetual victims of the evil Tory boss class. By your own admission, you got involved in socialism and Labour Party politics after being brought up in Jersey and winning a place at Oxford, which makes me think you were a naive young fresher with little experience of the real world on which to base your ideological assumptions. Sounds like you still are.

Why don’t you take a month off to travel around Britain and actually meet the people you’re simultaneously valourising, patronising and mythologising? They’re not who you think they are.

What Judy said really.

Trouble is Gordo has poured money into the public sector, and much of it has been mismanaged and misspent by the various trusts and governing bodies set up to monitor it. Look at all the money pinched from the public sector under the guise of pfi for hospitals, (there is even a building cartel if recent reports are to be believed). And we still have the worst record for MRSA in Europe.

Where did the money poured into the Health sector go? largely into the pockets of GPs, many of whom now seem to work part time. And you still can’t get a doctor’s appointment when you want one. Elsewhere in the NHS the recruitment of young doctors has been totally mismanaged.

Many of these potential problems were pointed out when the schemes were first mooted, and brushed aside, by Labour politicians who chose to believe that everything could be managed by targets. Well it can’t. If you don’t know the background to setting the targets in the first place, as the policy makers in Labour quangos and government departments clearly do not.

Brown for example apparently thought that petrol tanker drivers were employed by the oil companies who could order them back to work when they went on strike. Wrong. Defra as it then was, clearly had no idea how food was transported to the abbatoir and round the country when foot and mouth broke out. The Health Service employers had no idea what work GPs were doing and how much night work, so were bamboozled into a settlement which stunned even the doctors reps themselves at its generosity.

The Olympic bid budget did not include any provision for VAT. The Home office told us 13,000 Poles a year would come to the UK and then not stay very long. Gordo’s advisors “overlooked” all the people who would be hit by the 10p tax removal, like 500,000 women between 60-65, all the early retired, all those young people on low incomes. The list goes on. Often you think they are making it up as they go along.

Those public bodies set up to provide additional benefits either managed a hopelessly complex system (Income support) or mismanaged it (Child Tax Credits). Meanwhile old people have to sell their houses to get basic health care in many areas; our solidiers die overseas from lack of proper equipment.

This is why the public is fed up with New Labour.

“Where did the money poured into the Health sector go? largely into the pockets of GPs, many of whom now seem to work part time.”

Theres no need to be silly

I do think a radical overhaul of the tax system would be a vote winner, including the introduction of local taxation to replace council tax.

Brownie’s on to something there. I would add, specifially, that tax credits should be massively simplified, if not abolished elsewhere. I can absolutely see the thinking behind them - target help so that only those who need it get it, but the micro-management and lack of common sense behind they way they work is one of the reasons why Brown is in such trouble. Most people don’t understand/want to understand financial detail.

(Is it too much of a stretch to blame Brown’s puritanism here? The fact that he cannot bear the thought that someone, somewhere who doesn’t need it might benefit from a tax/welfare reform and if he has to make the system insanely complicated to prevent that, then that’s what he’ll do).

Worse, we now have a tax system in which hundreds of thousands of low-paid people miss out on help they really need because they don’t understand how the tax system works, whereas the rich and/or financially savvy are able to benefit massively from the loopholes and dodges Brown has provided to keep them onside. It is a huge own goal.

The fact that Brown likes to do things in the most complex manner fashionable, simply to score political points against the Tories is worst of all. The 10p blunder is emblematic of this. (He robbed the poor to help the not-especially poor and not badly off, set up an over-complex and ineffective way of compensating the poor and then reacted with angry denial when confronted with this fact. Contrast this to the response from the City when it was suggested they might contribute a bit more. The fact his supine backbenches went along with it - most of them - is what’s really damaged Labour as a party).

There is a whiff of arrogance and total lack of understanding how most people (whatever their social-economic background) perceive these things that compounds the problem.

*Graham re-emphasises the need to maintain a class system in this country

When the alternative is to enter a self-deluding middle-class which can maintain apparently without irony that poor people own cars then yes, please sign me up to the retention of good old working-class honesty and bluntness.

Brownie - Well exactly. It was akin to attending a music festival for many. My brother doesn’t have a political bone in his body and I’m not sure he’s ever voted in his puff. He and his hippy girlfriend went for a day out, simple as.

So are they also vile and reactionary counter-revolutionary scum who, according to Alec, should now be showing their contrition? And is it their fault too it was both ineffectual and obscene?

One of the problems for New Labour is the fear and loathing which disciples like Ben hold for basically the rest of the population; the Far Left, the Hard Left and even the Soft Left are all a threat to his values, Tories and Trots are bovine species, Liberals are scum, and articulate right-wingers like Alcuin are loony cunts. Then there are disgusting communalists and pathetic peacnick (sic) hippy shits. What happened to your Big Tent, Oxbridge Boy?

Poor people don’t own cars

You sad, stupid, little man.

Alec,

The point is that whoever had organised the march it wouldn’t have made the slightest difference to the outcome. I don’t claim to be any better or worse than the rest of the demomstrators and I certainly don’t claim to have dedicated decades to my home-grown socialist-inclined politics (nor was I aware that this was a neccessary qualification for going on a demonstration). It’s always easy to sneer at any kind of demonstration and accuse those taking part of doing so for their own self-gratification. This may have been true of a few of the anti-war protesters but no more so than of those at other demonstrations or who protest in other ways by, say, signing e-petitions or pontificating on blogs such as this.
And no, I’m not showing a glimmer of contrition because I still don’t get what I’m supposed to show contrition for.

Ben’s post reminded me of a Storyville Documentary on Oona King’s failure to get re-elected. The Respect campaign team came accross as goons. Galloway was his usual thuggish best. Oona however is clearly an airhead …. was really dissapointed by her … her whole campaign seemed to be based on trading off her mixed background. She came accoss as a nice but dim type. If she is one of NuLabs leading stars then no wonder they are intellectually bankrupt.

But some of us will fight. And fight hard. And for the very reasons that made us “Decents” in the first place. I invite you to join us.

Ben,

It’s all very well making a rallying call to fellow “Decents” but you will be addressing a relatively small constituency. If you really want to improve Labour’s chances then what you need to be doing is appealing to both “Decents” and others on the mainstream left to put aside their differences and recognise that they all have an interest in the continuation of a Labour government. However, when you come out with juvenile nonsense like “Liberals are scum” and abuse those who disagree with you it has the opposite effect.

I think we are also going to have to tackle health expenditure at some point as part of a radical agenda. The way things are going at present, the health sector could end up completely dominating the economy and strangling productivity.

We need to find a way of making people more responsible for their health expenditure. I think if we had some sort of health credit that might help. We need to positively encourage a healthy behaviour and non-accessing of the health system wherever possible.

I see a whole new profession - Health Credit Advisors - people who advise you how to preserve your health credit and avoid accessing the health service while remaining healthy.

Where did the money poured into the Health sector go? largely into the pockets of GPs, many of whom now seem to work part time. And you still can’t get a doctor’s appointment when you want one. Elsewhere in the NHS the recruitment of young doctors has been totally mismanaged.

A GP was interviewed on last week’s Saturday Live on Radio 4. Mostly it was the usual hand-wringing nonsense about how very difficult it is to be a GP, but then she said something that stopped me in my tracks.

“Of course profit is important…”

An NHS GP states that profit is important. A public-sector employee thinks profit is important. I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked, but I am. Being paid a fair wage for your job is one thing, but running a GP’s surgery for profit?

I don’t, unfortunately, have the link but maybe the clip can be found on Radio 4’s website somewhere.

Field/Short Order Cook
Who pays this basic income? Surely the Government? So you think that making most people dependent on Government handouts REDUCES dependence on Government handouts?

Eh?? Sorry not following this obvious toss!

It wouldn’t be a “true left-wing agenda” it would be a whiggish/liberal agenda following the lead of Cobden and Bright. As such it wouldn’t be at all surprising if a lot of those supposed “left wingers” who have never met a working-class person in their lives signed up to it on their route to becoming one-nation Tories.

I didn’t say it would be a true left-wing agenda, I said it could be part of a true left-wing agenda, much the same as New Labour’s left wing agenda has included privatising large parts of the public services and casualising a load of the public workforce.

I completely agree with what Bill said about the current tax and tax credit system, and have personal experience that the worst off in society often end up missing out on what they are entitled to because they don’t understand the system, and that the middle and upper classes end up scamming huge amounts of money in tax avoidance.

I am a fan of the basic income system, and if anyone can tell me in what way it’s not left wing, I’d be happy to listen.

Sorry, missed Roo’s comment. The reduced dependancy would be firstly from not having to prove you deserve whatever amount of tax credits/benefits/whatever from the Government, and secondly may in fact reduce financial dependance in a large number of cases due to the fact that the money would be independant of any money earned, so should reduce the number of people stuck in the so-called benefits trap.

You really are a silly-billy, Ben and a foul mouthed fool at that. Anyone who raises an objection to your infantile emotionalism is insulted with a stream of ignorant invective. Has it ever occurred to you that YOU are exactly what is wrong with the ‘modern’ Labour Party?

Ben,

Trully you are an idiot and a know it all idiot at that.

“We are about to let go of the finest government with the best anti-poverty track record in history. I could insult you by giving you a list of achievements. But I think you’re tired of that. ”

You dont think thats stretching it a bit?

Go on then, list the achievments, some for sure, but the damage done far, far outweighs the plusses.

You also seem to imply that only Labour supporters can be decents - well heres a little factoid for you not all labour supporters are decents and likewise not all decents are labour supporters.

As for your comment about car ownership - LMFAO and you expect to be taken seriously?

You know the really sad thing, the people that have been hurt the most by this government arent the richest (actually they seem to be doing rather well dont they?) but the hard working “decent” average man and woman who pays their taxes and try their best to get by.

The fact is this Government DESERVES to lose power, you talked about 50 years in power, this Country couldn’t afford it.

You really are a silly-billy, Ben and a foul mouthed fool at that. Anyone who raises an objection to your infantile emotionalism is insulted with a stream of ignorant invective. Has it ever occurred to you that YOU are exactly what is wrong with the ‘modern’ Labour Party?

Oh I don’t know about that. Ben seems to have attracted out of the woodwork the very people he would have been expecting (including one or two attempting to post the same right-wing tosh - complete with really childish insults) under different names.

Cost of running a modest car (according to the AA) is £972 a year. Basic Jobseekers allowance is about 57 quid a week so it is unlikely “the poor” run cars as it would take about a third of their income even before factoring in the cost of buying the vehicle. As I said above I know one poor person running a car and trust me that is out of an enormous amount of poor people round here who don’t!

For Tim:

Report in Guardian August 2007:

“The NHS work of the average GP in England has been cut by about seven hours a week since the government introduced a new contract in 2004, official figures revealed yesterday.

“The contract, which removed GPs responsibility for treating patients outside normal office hours, increased their earnings by 25% in the first year, raising the average for a dispensing partner in a GP practice to £117,000. Many doctors boosted earnings by selling out-of-hours services to their primary care trust that they used to provide for free.

“A report from the government’s information centre for health and social care showed the average GP worked 36.3 hours a week for the NHS in 2006-07, compared with 43.5 hours in 1992-93. The reduction was due to more part-time working and fewer out-of-hours responsibilities.

“The latest figures showed only 62% of GP partners and 22% of salaried GPs work full-time.”

Graham: I believe you live in Brixton, so I’m not surprised that naot many people round your way don’t have cars, but in other areas, less well served by public transport, they are a necessity. People need them to get to work, school or hospital. People need lots of things that they can’t really afford, which is why they borrow vast sums of money from money-lenders. But, I’ve noticed, there are quite a few rats leaving the sinking ship of Labour. What’s the betting that Ben decides that the working-class aren’t worthy of him and his Oxford degree? (Just read a snippet from Cherie Blair’s memoirs from the Times. Pretty vacuous, but what made me smile was when introduced to Princess Anne she said, ‘Just call me Cherie,’. Princess Anne replied, rather coldly, ‘I’d rather not. It’s not the way I was brought up.’. Hahaha. Does Ben think that is an example of New Labours ‘classlessness’? As one of the comentators wrote on the website, ‘Fancy meeting the Princess Royal and saying that.’)

Graham: I believe you live in Brixton

Nah Deptford (I’m a refugee from Brixton - ethnically cleansed by the trustifarians- or something.)

I am not denying that someone who lives in the middle of nowhere “needs” a car (although it has to be said that even Norman Tebbit never said people should get in their Ford Fiestas and look for work.) However, if you are poor and live in the middle of nowhere then you will remain poor. As a city-dweller who is supposed to move whenever some apparatchik has a brainwave about “regeneration” I have little sympathy.

What’s the betting that Ben decides that the working-class aren’t worthy of him and his Oxford degree?

can’t see it myself.

Ben,

Either you’re a cross-between Boris Johnson and Vinnie Jones wearing a “New Fuckin Labour F.C” footie strip or you’ve been “partaking” in a little too much pink champagne with your investment banker friends, again:

“Heh. Sue me Herman. But check out the news reports first. And then talk to him. And then maybe don’t sue me. Twat. (Actually, if that was a genuine question, then you’re not at all and you can have a copious apology from me later. Otherwise, yes. Twat.)”

“But it would really stick it to the Arabellas of this world, wouldn’t it? Smoking? Fuck that. It’s all about banning the ownership of ponies in an indoor space. (Actually, my younger sister had a pony for a brief while - perhaps I should reconsider…)”

You do realize you wrote all that don’t you?

If you really want to improve Labour’s chances then what you need to be doing is appealing to both “Decents” and others on the mainstream left to put aside their differences and recognise that they all have an interest in the continuation of a Labour government. However, when you come out with juvenile nonsense like “Liberals are scum” and abuse those who disagree with you it has the opposite effect.

Amen to that.

There are a large number of people on the left who opposed the Iraq war, and did so for entirely honourable reasons. By spending years smearing and insulting these people as reactionaries and fascists, “Decents” in general, and this blog in particular, have played a minor role in bringing New Labour to its current isolated and hated position. So take a bow, Ben.

Mrs Ben.
How much did the GPs Contact (which I agree with you was over generous) additionally cost? £300million?

How much extra has gone into the NHS? £70 Billion?

“Where did the money poured into the Health sector go? largely into the pockets of GPs, many of whom now seem to work part time.”

Hardly.

There are a large number of people on the left who opposed the Iraq war, and did so for entirely honourable reasons.

There were a large number in the Labour party.

By spending years smearing and insulting these people as reactionaries and fascists, “Decents” in general, and this blog in particular, have played a minor role in bringing New Labour to its current isolated and hated position.

You couldn’t make it up. Gordy’s in trouble because a blog slagged some weirdies off.

Oh look over there! That must be the real world where all those people who couldn’t give a shit about any invasions are losing faith in the government.

You missed this bit: a minor role. So yes, you did “make it up”, Littlejohn.

You felt the need to tell us that this blog had played “a minor role” in the demise of New Labour after 11 years did you?

Well thanks for that prized bit of information. What else did the blog play a minor role in? Chelsea not winning the league perhaps?

You just couldn’t invent your sort couldja?

It’s quite a simple point, Eeza.

1. The government have alienated many of its traditional supporters, *in various ways*.

2. *One of those ways* is the foul treatment that the apostles of St Tone have dished out to that various portions of the wider left, especially that which opposed the Iraq war.

3. *A good example* of that is right here at harry’s place, and is conveniently exemplified in this post (e.g “pathetic peacnick hippy shit”).

Now which of those are you struggling with?

So maybe you think other issues are more important, and maybe you’re right. But have another read of the post - it was Ben who took this angle to the question, I’m just responding to him.

And my point is that Project Decency has, over several years, been damaging to the government’s popularity, *even if* there are plenty of other factors to consider too.

even Norman Tebbit never said people should get in their Ford Fiestas and look for work: Graham- did you not hear Tebbit telling Rage Omaar on the programme about immigrants the other day that nowadays what with the EU and globalization, in order to get work folk had to get on Easyjet, and - these were his strange but exact words- “go man go” (he didn’t add, daddyo.)

Which of those am I struggling with?

*A good example* of that is right here at harry’s place,

Are you suggesting all the posters at harry’s Place are Blairites then?

You missed my first point didn’t you; that many on the anti-war march were members of the Labour party.

And who or what runs “project decency”?

Isn’t it the case that you are justy inventing stuff as you go along? (I think it is.)

There are a large number of people on the left who opposed the Iraq war, and did so for entirely honourable reasons.

Yes some used to come here and argue very well even while the war went on (and others used to come and say “Bliar, we blame this blog for all the bad things in the world” and get laughed at) Guess which you sound most like.

By spending years smearing and insulting these people as reactionaries and fascists

Hang on. I don’t remember Alex Higgins or anybody who wanted to have a proper debate being called a “reactionary or fascist.” You must mean that childish people who thought that in this blog they had found a daddy substitute at which they could sling all their simplistic crap about Iraq were sometimes called “reactionaries or fascists.” So by calling eejits reactionaries and fascists

“Decents” in general, and this blog in particular, have played a minor role in bringing New Labour to its current isolated and hated position.

Excellent, I think what we have hear is an admission that Ratty was once called a “reactionary or fascist” because he behaved like a complete tit on this blog and now he wants to claim that in some manichean overturning of the established order Labour’s failure in the local elections was down to the insults hurled at him!

So take a bow, Ben.

Ha - even better - it was all Ben’s fault.

in order to get work folk had to get on Easyjet

Blimey. So international jet travel is a necessity now?

Are you suggesting all the posters at harry’s Place are Blairites then?

Are you denying that this blog has, by and large, a strongly Blairite slant? Have a look at the picture at the top of this page then! You couldn’t make it up!

Are you denying that this blog has, by and large, a strongly Blairite slant? Have a look at the picture at the top of this page then! You couldn’t make it up!

It was a pic of Ken Livingstone last week…

Graham, none so blind as those who will not see, eh?

Here’s just one quote from Harry of his place:

But is it really fair or useful to keep sticking the boot into the anti-war left and right as Gove does?

Of course it is… It would be damaging to the credibility of the debate not to remind the war critics of how utterly wrong they were - yet again.

And there’s plenty more where that came from.

…childish people who thought that in this blog they had found a daddy substitute…

Woa there - that’s a bit further into your subconscious than I wanna go!

And there’s plenty more where that came from.

You sound as if you have kept a detailed record. Are rats not rodents?

Jeez one (context-free) quote from Harry eh? You are easily pleased! And are you claiming as well that nobody should be “sticking the boot into” the anti-war right (the BNP?) Sometimes during the Iraq war this blog became the focus of heated debates and slanging matches but you would have to be suffering from tunnel vision to an enormous degree to be making the linkage that because of such debates the Labour party is unpopular. You remind me of Nick Cohen and co last week patting themselves on the back for getting rid of Livingstone when everyone else in the world could see they made not the slightest bit of difference to the result.

Woa there - that’s a bit further into your subconscious than I wanna go!

That isn’t a sunbconcious thought at all. At times during the Iraq war it was impossible not to feel that some of the people you were arguing with were spoilt schoolchildren who were using this blog as a parent substitute (possibly because they couldn’t get at Blair or Bush.) You can as little blame the object of such weird fantasies as you can a rape victim - all the lunacy was in the minds of those looking for an outlet.

Chap talking on the news this afternoon said that with the price of oil being what it is, then it becomes uneconomic to make things in China and bring them over here, so the factories might come back to Europe. So, no-one will have to go anywhere on Easyjet.

Ben

I am sorry for the sheer venom, spite and venality of the majority of comments to your post.

I am relieved by your passion, your heartfelt concerns and your campaigning for Labour.

I may not agree with all your views at to what has gone wrong with labour, but with honourable exceptions most commenters have just engaged in reactive and reactionary posturing, rather than suggest any remotely left of centre revitalisation for the Labour party.

The comments pretty much fall into ‘confucian’ mystical obfuscation about natural cycles, quasi religious leaderism, and pining for the Golden age of Blair, obnoxious right wing triumphalism (Alcuin is really showing what a spite filled colostomy bag he really is), antiwar vengeance, and demands for even more ne0-liberalism under the Tories, who won’t really be any different (so don’t tell me I wasn’t left wing for voting for them).

All of this is larded with the worst kind of sniping upstairs downstairs exceedingly English class hatred of the most pointless kind.

Pointless because the middle classes are not the priviliged elite that either they looking down or some ‘downstairs’ spitting up think they are.

Social republican raised the larger macro political issues of globalised market liberalism.

These forces have effected all western Social Democracies in similar ways.

Some however have been more robust in defending Social Democracy than new Labour which ultimately has simply succeeded in shifting the ‘centre’ (ie the consensual shared ground of politics) to the right.

As the world enters a fairly major recession we will see that the social democracies that have preserved greater levels of social protection and redistribution will survive rather better than highly ‘flexxible’ Anglo-American systems.

You see the big lie is that the Middle classes are the product of Capitalism.

In fact the middle classes are a marginal and unstable minority social class in highly deregulated laissez faire economies that are squeezed almost to extinction in ultra neo-liberal globally integrated economies (Argentina is the classic example).

I don’t want to talk about Briatin anymore as the conversation is to parochial.

here however is a little wiki story from Sweden.

The Swedish Social Democratic Party got between 40%-55% of the votes in all elections between 1940 and 1988 making it one of the most successful political parties in the world. The voter base consists of a diverse swath of people throughout society, although it is particularly strong amongst organized blue-collar workers.

The Social Democratic Party is generally recognized as the main architect of the progressive taxation, free trade, low-unemployment, Active Labor Market Policies (ALMP)-based Swedish welfare state that was developed in the years after World War II.
The 1980s were a very turbulent time in Sweden that initiated the occasional decline of Social Democratic Party rule.

Swedish capital was increasingly moving Swedish investment into other European countries as the European Union coalesced, and a hegemonic consensus was forming among the elite financial community: progressive taxation and pro-egalitarian redistribution became economic heresy.[36]

With the capitalist confederation’s defection from the 1938 Saltsjöbaden Agreement and Swedish capital investing in other European countries rather than Sweden, as well as the global rise of neoliberal political-economic hegemony, the Social Democratic Party backed away from the progressive Meidner reform.. [a profit sharing proposal for workers]
The economic crisis in the 1990s has been widely cited in the Anglo-American press as a social democratic failure, but it is important to note not only did profit rates begin to fall world-wide after the 1960s,[39] also this period saw neoliberal ascendance in Social Democratic ideology and policies as well as the rise of bourgeois coalition rule in place of the Social Democrats.

1980s Social Democratic neoliberal measures–such as depressing and deregulating the currency to prop up Swedish exports during the economic restructuring transition, dropping corporate taxation and taxation on high income-earners, and switching from anti-unemployment policies to anti-inflationary policies–were exacerbated by international recession, unchecked currency speculation, and a centre-right government led by Carl Bildt (1991-1994), creating the fiscal crisis of the early 1990s
When the Social Democrats returned to power in 1994, they responded to the fiscal crisis[41] by stabilizing the currency–and by reducing the welfare state and privatizing public services and goods, as governments did in many countries influenced by Milton Friedman, the Chicago Schools of political and economic thought, and the neoliberal movement

Bourgeois leader Lars Leijonborg at his 2007 retirement could recall the 1990s as a golden age of liberalism in which the Social Democrats were under the expanding influence of the Liberal Party and its partners in the bourgeois political coalition. Leijonborg recounted neoliberal victories such as the growth of private schooling and the proliferation of private, for-profit radio and television.[

However, many of the aspects of the social democratic welfare state continued to function at a high level, due in no small part to the high rate of unionization in Sweden, the independence of unions in wage-setting, and the exemplary competency of the feminized public sector workforce,[43] as well as widespread public support.

The Social Democrats initiated studies on the effects of the neoliberal changes, and the dismally-regressive picture that emerged from those findings allowed the party to reduce many tax expenditures, slightly increase taxes on high income-earners, and significantly reduce taxes on food.

The Social Democratic Finance Minister increased spending on child support and continued to pay down the public debt.[44]

By 1998 the Swedish macro-economy recovered from the 1980s industrial restructuring and the currency policy excesses.[45] At the turn of the twenty-first century, Sweden has a well-regarded, generally robust economy, and the average quality of life, after government transfers, is very high, inequality is low (the Gini coefficient is .28), and social mobility is high (compared to the affluent Anglo-American and Catholic countries).[46]
The Social Democratic Party pursues environmentalist and feminist policies which promote healthful and humane conditions. Feminist policies formed and implemented by the Social Democratic Party and the Left Party and the Greens (which made an arrangement with the Social democrats to support the government, while not forming a coalition), include paid maternity and paternity leave, high employment for women in the public sector, combining flexible work with living wages and benefits, providing public support (still to an insufficient degree) for women in their traditional responsibilities for care giving, and policies to stimulate women’s political participation and leadership.
Reviewing policies and institutional practices for their impact on women had become common in social democratic governance.[47]
The legacy of Social Democratic Party governance in Sweden is widely regarded as increasing the quality of life, naturally among those who benefit directly from an affluent, low-inequality society, but even among the wealthy.
One Volvo executive admitted that a strong social welfare state, like the Swedish, helps finance a quality of life that low individual taxes cannot.
When faced with the question, “Why don’t you leave (Sweden)? Certainly, you would pay a lot lower taxes and probably also have a higher salary in the U.S.”, he responded,
“Yes, of course, I would have a lot more money in my pocket. But I would also almost never get home before 7 o’clock and I certainly would not have the vacations everyone has a right to here… and you know what else, I would have to spend a lot more money on insurance, college for my kids, and travel back home to my family. In the end, I’m not really sure I would be any better off.”[48]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Social_Democratic_Party

So the news for those who feel they will be insulated during a Tory Government is;

Well you might be, but it will cost you more than you know and more than you really have just to stay in the same place.

Try not to get mean and angry and frightened and blame the scroungers or freeloaders or the helpless or the feckless or the gormless;

Because contrary to what venichka has said a Cameronite Etonian leadership will not end the politics of fear, it will be so wedded to Capital that, though it might endulge in some ‘bread and circus’ anaesthesia for the plebs, will really have nothing to offer the middle classes but fear itself.

The point is that whoever had organised the march it wouldn’t have made the slightest difference to the outcome.

Of course it could have.

Mrs Trellis, GPs are not public sector employees, they are self-employed contractors. Rather like sub-postmasters…..

Ben, Social Republican,

anyone interested in how ‘Labour born again’ might break the ‘cycle’ of British politics from;

entrenched privilege,

to the odd hiccup of genuine reform, to restoration,

to a mild flirtation with liberal reform,

back to the Ancien Regime in a new suit

This is a very interesting tale of how Swedish Social Democracy was always ‘third way’ since its inception;

oops here;

Among the prime ideological assets of the Swedish Social Democratic Party in the first two-thirds of the twentieth century was its redefinition of “socialization” from “common ownership of the means of production”

to increasing “democratic influence over the economy.” [17] Starting out in a socialist-liberal coalition fighting for the vote, the Swedish Social Democratic Party (SAP) defined socialism as the development of democracy—political, and economic. [18]

On that basis they could form coalitions, innovate, and govern where other European social democratic parties became crippled and crumbled under Right-wing regimes.

The Swedish Social Democrats could count the middle class among their solidaristic working class constituency by recognizing the middle class as “economically dependent”, “working people”, or among the “progressive citizens”, rather than as sub-capitalists.[19]

“The party does not aim to support and help [one] working class at the expense of the others,” the Social Democratic congress of 1932 established.

In fact, with social democratic policies that refrained from supporting inefficient and low-profit businesses in favor of cultivating higher-quality working conditions, as well as a strong commitment to public education, the middle class in Sweden became so large that the capitalist class has remained concentrated.[20]

Not only did the SAP fuse the growing middle class into their constituency, they also ingeniously forged periodic coalitions with small-scale farmers (members of the “exploited classes”) to great strategic effect. [21]

The SAP version of socialist ideology allowed them to maintain a prescient view of the working class: “

[The SAP] does not question…whether those who have become capitalism’s victims…are industrial workers, farmers, agricultural laborers, forestry workers, store clerks, civil servants or intellectuals,” asserted the party’s 1932 election manifesto.[22]

Even more creatively, the Social Democrats commandeered selected, transcendental images from such nationalists as Rudolf Kjellen (1912), very effectively undercutting fascism’s appeal in Sweden. [23]

In this way, Per Albin Hansson declared that “there is no more patriotic party than the [SAP since] the most patriotic act is to create a land in which all feel at home,” famously igniting Swedes’ innermost longing for transcendence with the idea of the Folkhem (1928), or People’s Home.

The Social Democratic Party promoted Folkhemmet as a socialist home at a point in which the party turned its back on working class struggle and the policy tool of nationalization.
“The basis of the home is community and togetherness.

The good home does not recognize any privileged or neglected members, nor any favorite or stepchildren. In the good home there is equality, consideration, co-operation, and helpfulness.

Applied to the great people’s and citizens’ home this would mean the breaking down of all the social and economic barriers that now separate citizens into the privileged and the neglected, into the rulers and the dependents, into the rich and the poor, the propertied and the impoverished, the plunderers and the plundered.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_Social_Democratic_Party

Are rats not rodents?

Yes. I am not the Flying Rodent.

Graham,

You can as little blame the object of such weird fantasies as you can a rape victim

Utterly bizarre.

because of such debates the Labour party is unpopular

I’ve already said, several times, that it’s minor factor.

Ben asks, in repect of Labour’s unpopularity, “What’s a “Decent” to do?” I’m simply pointing out that what the Decents have done so far, in terms of
(a) their absolute lack of humility for a foreign policy catastrophe, and
(b) endlessly ferreting around the left desparately searching for fascists,
probably hasn’t been of enormous help so far. And I’m not saying it’s the only, or even a major factor. For. The. Fiftieth. Time.

By the way you really need to stop talking about the Iraq war in the past tense.

Blairite, as in most of the posters here are Blairites, since when have I been a Blairite, have I ever written anything at all which could be conceived as Blairite? If so it was a mistake. (Where are you Old Peculiar?)

GPs may be self employed but they largely draw their income from piece work for the government and are paid out of our taxes.

I thought the Eastern Europeans who are here have been arriving by bus at Victoria coach station. At least that is what the leader of Westminster council claims.

The problem for the traditional socialist is surely that there is not a large enough, coherently organised working class anymore to take over the levers of power on its own. So their numbers have to be supplemented with the upwardly mobile members (at least financially) of the traditional working classes e.g firemen, train drivers, policemen) and the disaffected middle classes e.g. teachers. This was where Blairism succeeded and were Cameroonism is regaining ground.

Brown’s main contribution seems to be to try to appeal to our better nature with calls to tackle child proverty - while making it fiendishly difficult for those affected to claim the benefits offered -which are in turn to be paid for by taxes levied from the working class in low paid jobs and younger pensioners.

Finally looking at the doughnut theory on why Ken Livingstone lost -that he was booted out by the ungrateful voters of London’s outer suburbs. Would a Ken supporter like to explain exactly what incentive the voters of Bexley and Bromley had to vote for him. To read some of the comments you would think they should be deprived of votes in the first place if they can’t use them in the way the left thinks they should.

Finally old lefties, all is not lost, Lee Jasper intends to challenge Kate Hoey for her parliamentary seat. He is apparently being egged on by members of Vauxhall Labour party who think he is just what they and the elctorate need. (Andrew Gilligan must be even now sharpening his pencil). And beyond that he has ambitions to be London Mayor. No doubt Lee and Ken are even now plotting to be London Mayor and PM……….

Roo -

I basically agree with Short Order Cook’s response.

Basic income is essentially a way of providing a platform for independent productive living.

I wouldn’t view it as a handout. I think there should be a legal requirement to support yourself, if capable, and a legal requirement to offer work to everyone. I think the basic income would be an earned right.

It is certainly favourable to the complex and demoralising mess that is our tax/benefits system.

The next conservative government …will cost you more than you know and more than you really have just to stay in the same place.

So same as New Labour then, eh?

Jeesh… I’m not quick sure if “smuckish” has a particularly Brit connotation, but in my native village Brooklyn, acknowledged global epicenter of dreadful cynicism, a shmuck is what we’d sure consider Mr Ben the Decent. Fortunately the Brits don’t have to sink to Yiddishisms for the bon mot here, you have “wanker” for that.

Utterly bizarre.

But not quite as bizarre as suggesting that a blog is even in a minor way responsible for Gordon Brown’s trouble’s before going on to suggest that it should “show some humility for a foriegn policy catastrophe.” (Not some “minor humility” then?) :-)

By the way you really need to stop talking about the Iraq war in the past tense.

Why? The enemy leader was captured and now is as dead as Napoleon. His army has been destroyed. The government are completely different. It would be obsession to a crazy degree to insist against all evidence that the same war was still going on.

But if you want to show how you can only view the world through the lens of Iraq (again) please carry on.

Alec, the decision to invade Iraq had already been made when the march took place.

Mrs Ben

Alternatively those who draw a salary and can be fired (as opposed to those who make a living entirely from profits accruing from things they own);

could realise that actually they have more to gain from shared political coalition with all others who may end up on the rough end of capital.

The middle classes would then have a political party that actually represents them, as their ability to sell proffessional services to Capital or to the Government is entirely dependent on the discretionary choice of the purchasers in a buyers market.

Then the middle classes could relax and develop some genuine aspiration for their own human development instead of connstantly wittering about the clawing of the aspirational graspers beneath them.

These vulnerable middle classes, as they pull up the ladder and slam the trap door down on the fingers of those below, might then be able to look up and see that the reason for the trap door, through which they have recently scrambled, being there;

is explained by the noose, swinging expectantly from the gibbet above their heads.

it’s rare that i learn anything from a piece on Harry’s Place.

But I have in this instance - I’ve learned that writing comments on a blog piece one has written, while drunk, is a very, very bad idea.

Looks as we have two of ewes, then, Ratty.

Alec, the decision to invade Iraq had already been made when the march took place.

So? We could have changed it. John Major’s government had no doubt made many decisions before the 1997 General Election, but these came to nowt.

Andrew, this is simply post hoc justification of our complete lack of effectiveness due to our placing personal vanity ahead of the matter in hand or allowing said vile and reactionary counter-revolutionaries to make a mockery of the concept of ‘anti-war’. The belief at the time was no more that we were simply marching to save our souls and that nothing could be done to reverse the decision than it was that a dirty and bestial local civil war would erupt with minor spill-over to neighbouring countries and further afield.

May I suggest you become a monk? This is no comment against the monastic tradition; merely an observation is that it’s better suited for such spiritual considerations and saving of souls.

Pl-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-ase can we have a preview? The second paragraph was supposed to be italicized.

Alec, the decision to invade Iraq had already been made when the march took place.

Why then wasn’t your march called “We know the decision to invade Iraq has been taken and we can’t do anything to change it because we have picked the wrong people to lead our organisation when it needed mainstream credibility but we will still go around carrying placards saying STOP THE WAR march anyway”?

You were trying to mislead the public weren’t you? You naughty boy.

Tim - The Guardian reported details of a Kings Fund report in 207 which said that

the GPs’ contract alone cost £300m more than expected, AND there were also above-budget deals with consultants and other NHS staff. One PAC member, Labour MP Don Touhig, said that ministers and NHS leaders had simply ‘caved in’ as if they ‘had their own mint’.

The author of the King’s Fund study, economist John Appleby, said the figures showed why hopes had been dashed that tens of billions of extra NHS spending would mean major improvements in frontline care.

His research disclosed that 34 per cent of the £19bn which the government has put directly into hospital and community health services in England since 2003 went on more pay for clinical staff.

However, productivity levels among GPs, consultants and nurses have nowhere near matched the scale of the increase in the NHS’s funding in England, which has gone up from £35bn in 1997 to £92bn in 2007-08.

While consultants have seen their pay scales go up by 70 per cent under Labour, their productivity had actually fallen by 20 per cent over the same period, judged by the number of in-patients admitted per consultant, said Appleby.

Similarly, the number of in-patient admissions per nurse fell by 15 per cent, and GPs are not markedly more productive than before they got hefty pay rises in 2004, he added.

Appleby’s analysis shows that of the £19bn:

· £6.6bn went on pay

· £2.2bn on the rising cost of drugs, and implementing recommendations by the National Institute of Clinical Excellence treatment advisors

· £1.6bn on hiring more doctors to comply with new EU employment laws on number of hours worked

· £1.1bn on new buildings and equipment

· £1bn on medical equipment and £600m on negligence lawsuits.

After all that, just £5.9bn was left for direct improvements, which include reduced waiting lists, much greater use of day surgery, larger numbers of doctors, nurses and consultants, and elderly patients spending far less time in hospital, he said.

‘The NHS could have got more for its money, and could have used all that extra money more efficiently for patient benefit,’ he said. ‘For example, it could have ensured a productivity clause was inserted in the consultants’ contracts.’

Still waiting for a Ken supporter to explain to me what he had done to incentivise the voters of Bromley, Bexley and the rest of the despised outer ring of the London “do’nut”, to vote for him, apart from a last minute cobbled together coalition with the Greens.

He made their city more civilised Mrs B. However that isn’t much of an incentive to curtain-twitchers who never visit the city and spend their days in bexley and Bromley whining about immigrants and congestion charges. I didn’t answer because I have no idea why I am supposed to think these people “ignoble.” Boris and his supporters got them out in great numbers to defend the interests of metroland and suburbia. One wonders when he will move city-hall to Crayford.

Good old Ratty.

He pops up to complain about how smearing has brought about the current predicament of the left.

Yet in the very same post he manages to insinuate that this blog ‘in particular’ describes honourable opponents of the Iraq war as ‘reactionaries and fascists’.

What a pillock.

So? We could have changed it. John Major’s government had no doubt made many decisions before the 1997 General Election, but these came to nowt.

Alec, but the next General Election was at least two years away. My remark about it being too late to make a difference was made with the benefit of hindsight - at the time the government was still pretending that no decision had been made and we did believe there was a chance, however small, that we could make a difference. In the absence of an election though the only ways to influence the government’s decision (as I see it) were to make rational arguments in the hope that they had some influence and to show the government that there was sizeable, and vocal, public opposition to the war. The latter was obviously achieved by the demonstrations - the headlines were all about the biggest peaceful protest in this country’s history, no-one cared about who had organised it. As for the former, well I seem to remember plenty of rational debate at the time and many sensible arguments being put forward by people on the mainstream left (and others).
In short, Blair was not in any doubt about the rational case against the war, nor that there was widespread and strongly felt public opposition. But rightly or wrongly he went ahead anyway.
So yes, I was disappointed that we failed, but no, I don’t feel any personal culpability.

His research disclosed that 34 per cent of the £19bn which the government has put directly into hospital and community health services in England since 2003 went on more pay for clinical staff.

However, productivity levels among GPs, consultants and nurses have nowhere near matched the scale of the increase in the NHS’s funding in England, which has gone up from £35bn in 1997 to £92bn in 2007-08.

I’m not sure why you would logically expect them to. Before the increases in spending the NHS was extremely short of doctors and nurses and existing staff were very stretched. A lot of the extra money rightly went on recruiting new staff and increasing salary levels in order to retain existing staff. If you think about this you will see that productivity, as measured by number of treatments or patients per member of clinical staff would not be expected to rise, rather the opposite in fact. That doesn’t neccessarily mean the money was badly spent.
The problem with just using “productivity” as a measure of success is that it does not take into account the quality of the treatment received by the patient, which is of course of rather fundamental importance.
That doesn’t mean that money has not been squandered - far from it. The NPFIT is turning into a monetary black hole, millions have been squandered on management consultants, independent treatment centres, the junior doctors fiasco, abandioned PFI projects (and some which have actually been built) and general mismanagement. Yes, the GP contracts, and those for consultants to an extent, were mismanaged but really there are much better targets for your outrage.

He made their city more civilised Mrs B.

Did he?
I live in zone one, by the way, so no “metroland” bias.

London seems no more, though no less, civilised than in 2000.

Graham - do you have any grasp of the counterfactual?
Or do you genuinely believe that London would be notably different/worse had someone other than Ken been mayor?

do you have any grasp of the counterfactual?

Do you mean in the sense of an alternative history or in the sense of a counterfactual conditional statement (which I had better mention in case Jeff Ketland is watching.) Either way I am not sure what you are getting at.

Or do you genuinely believe that London would be notably different/worse had someone other than Ken been mayor?

Oh most certainly (although there is the possibility that the city might be even better as well as worse) I don’t think anyone is arguing with the fact that Ken’s first election as an independent allowed him to do things which a party apparatchik (one just has to look at the new fettered Boris) would not have been able to do. The place is far friendlier than in 2000 I find - less of an atmosphere of tension (and as a Londoner for 46 years now one does get a feeling for these things.)

Field/Short Order Cook
Who pays for it? Surely it would involve a massive tax hike? How much would it be? How would it interact with wages and other income? Would everyone be able to draw it? Even millionaires?

As you say it would only be payable to workers, what system would be in place for non-workers? Won’t it still then be the case that there are other ‘complex’ benefits systems too?

If it needs to replace the benefits sytem then surely it would need to be high enough to support & accomodate a large family, so not terribly ‘basic’. Or would you means test it so that people with no kids got less than those with 12? So not so straight forward…?

Would it be a flat rate across the country or would you weight it? How will you deal with the issues this will generate across boundaries?

What if I was ill? Would I still get it? Who would know & what would happen? What if I was always ill? Who would know & what would happen? Or would there be another simple benefit to do away wioth all those complicated benefits that we hate.

How would the self-employed be dealt with? What would stop me saying I’m self-employed, drawing this complicated benefit and never getting out of bed? Would there be an inspectorate to stop that sort of behaviour? Surely it’d be a great way for doleys to up their income and cut out having to sign on? Unless of course you’d need to take time of work to sign on as being at work…

Brown is a terror for setting up Byzantine systems, but one reason that the benefits system is complicated may be that it has to cover all of the circumstances of everyone living in the whole country. That’s a lot of people, all of them in different economic situations! Your system will have to cope with all of these variables and many more (Disability? Retirement? Maternity? Paternity? Long term illness? Holidays? Bank holidays? Days to let the plumber in? Etc…)

Governments are really bad at setting up schemes like this! Who’d do the IT? Who’d fix the mess that the guys that did the IT left? And who’d pay for it once it was all canned?

I think this might be genuinely left-wing in the sense that it sounds great when you first hear about it when you’re 18, but then 20 years later when someone mentions it again, you realise that no further work on fleshing out these crucial details has been done at all! Oh dear…

Ken has made London more “civilised” in the last 8 years? This is an intriguing concept. Especially in a week when someone has been stabbed in broad daylight in Oxford Street.

I will discount my bit of south west London as having been pretty civilised to start with but looking at some other areas I know quite well; Lewisham where Mr Ben’s parents have lived for over 40 years), Peckham and Haringey where I have worked on assignments in the last few years, these all seem no better and indeed in some ways worse than they used to be - if you regard feral youths roaming the streets and racial no-go areas as a sign of being uncivilised.

But I don’t blame Ken entirely for this - my view about Sir Iain Blair are well known. On second thoughts maybe I do hold Ken partly to blame. The papers reported that as soon as Boris took over, Sir Iain was in his office with a check list of things he could do to help Boris achieve his zero tolerance agenda.

So I assume Sir Iain took his cue from Ken who apparently had no interest in tasking the police to exercise any control over said youths. Ken seemed more interested a lot of the time in grandstanding: oiling up the likes of al-Qaradawi and other militant Moslems and in promoting the divisions between communities, egged on by the unspeakable Lee Jasper. This approach does not seem to me to have given us a more civilised London.

I know you disagree Graham and have said that when it came to the elections, most voters are not interested in these issues. I am not convinced of that either, but in any case the control of street life vermin (the human kind) looms big for many of us. Boris’s promise to tackle crime, however hollow it may turn out to be, was at least heart felt and got him some votes (even if I did vote for Brian Paddick). And if he halfway succeeds, that will indeed take a step towards making London more civilised.

WTF? Our only option to shape government policy comes once every five years? This is gibberish, Andrew. Poll tax mean anything?

If opposition to a major geopolitical move discipates in just two years, it can be asked just how principled it was.
And culpability is not the same as contrition, although I’m wondering if it also applies.

Especially in a week when someone has been stabbed in broad daylight in Oxford Street.

Well that’s the sort of thing that starts happening when you elect a Tory mayor.

Lewisham (where I live) is certainly a friendlier place than a few years ago (though that isn’t to say that it isn’t still gritty at times) I’d say Peckham is changing for the better slowly as the big monstrous estates come down (although it is just the sort of place which may soon return to hoplessness under a Mayor with few reasons to visit the inner city. I hesistate to call any youth “feral” firstly because it dehumanises people and secondly because it pre-supposes people to have become wild from a previous state of cultivation. But if you mean gangs of kids getting loud and violent then they have been around for a lot longer than the tenure of Mayor Livingstone! And certainly some of the more thought out policing improvements under Blair would seem to have blunted the edge of many hooligan types (20 years ago it was not possible to go out around here in an England football scarf lest Millwall fans think you were supporting palace.) I think Boris may have good intentions but will end up making things worse and Paddick (who gave his second-pref to Lindsay German lets not forget when we are talking about “weird and nasty” would have been even worse.)

Roo,

As it is usually envisaged, it would be payable to every citizen, including children and pensioners. It would be weighted by age, weighting it by anything else would increase the bureaucracy, the lack of which is one of the advantages of the scheme.

Plenty of work has been done on it, including costings for US and UK using up to date figures. There’s a PDF here, but the gist of it is that you could give everyone an income of about £3k per year for working age adults with no increases in costs.

The numbers are fairly solid, but I think the main factor against is that no one is quite sure what the effects on the economy will be, ie will people just laze around, will it become difficult to fill crappy jobs etc.

WTF? Our only option to shape government policy comes once every five years? This is gibberish, Andrew. Poll tax mean anything?

No, I didn’t say that. I was just responding to your mention of Major and the 1997 election. Of course governments change policies due to public pressure and yes, the poll tax is a good example. However, just because it worked with the poll tax it doesn’t mean it was going to work with the war.

If opposition to a major geopolitical move discipates in just two years, it can be asked just how principled it was.

I would have thought a cursory glance at any forum such as this one would show that most people feel just as strongly about it now as they did then. Perhaps more so given that the outcome was worse than even the most pessimistic of us feared. However, we lost - the war happened. Continuing with “stop the war” protests once the war was over anyway would seem to be a rather futile exercise.

Field/Short Order Cook
£3k/annum is still poverty. This says it goes to all citizens (including children and the unemployed) - so no link to work as suggested by Field.

Essentially everyone gets the dole, whether they work or not. So vast numbers of kids would get paid to stay in bed from the age of 16. I doubt very many of them would ever get up again!

Asylum requests would also go through the roof! Spend a few years in the UK, then the world’s your oyster - £3k/year for the rest of your life - no questions asked!

It isn’t weighted regionally so it would be worth vastly more in the North than the South.

It doesn’t cover housing benefit either - the most useless and corrupting benefit of all!

How this actually interacts with income tax is going to be crucial - who’s going to pay for it?

This is purest pipe dream…

Whatever mate. There’s probably not much point talking to you about it but there’s been a fair bit of discussion at places like Liberal Conspiracy recently and plenty of studies like the one I linked to if you can be bothered.

No, I didn’t say that. I was just responding to your mention of Major and the 1997 election.

I did initially assume you were referring to that, but it makes even less sense. What in buggery’s name are you talking about?

However, just because it worked with the poll tax it doesn’t mean it was going to work with the war.

Did say it would have. You, however, are insisting it wouldn’t have.

I would have thought a cursory glance at any forum such as this one would show that most people feel just as strongly about it now as they did then.

As before, so? The Eastern Orthodox Church still feels strongly about Constantinople 1204. At the risk of upping the hyperbole, the more likely someone is to “feel strongly” about the invasion [in the negative] the more likely they are to “feel strongly” about the foundation of Israel [in the negative]. So?

You have Graham speaking of it in the past tense and narcissists like Ratty ranting on about it. I know who is the more balanced. (Articles about *current* events ain’t the same, by the way.)

Perhaps more so given that the outcome was worse than even the most pessimistic of us feared.

Continuing with “stop the war” protests once the war was over anyway would seem to be a rather futile exercise.

What precisely is the difference between your comments here and Brownie’s?

Oh, for goodness sake, get us a Preview button.

Well, I’m glad there have been some comments disagreeing in a sensible manner, as well as those that have agreed, that have not gone off on one about ZanuLab or how the Tories will liberate the less well off from the yoke of authoritarian oppression and web of taxes that us evil nuLab types use to hold them back.

Graham is quite right about the type I expected to start bollocking on. And, you know, a lot of it without any argument to it. A lot of “ooh posh boy swears, thinks he’s working class, hahahah go and get a real life” stuff. Well, what a load of utter shit. And demonstrably obviously stupid shit at that. It is frankly taxing to feel the need to have to keep refuting this sort of casual Daily Mail-esque world view. But it is so starkly built upon a pile of sand (and what an ugly edifice it is) that it needs pointing up. And frankly, my personal view is that polite conversation, with idiots, is not always the best way to do that. So sue me.

If you want to be selfish, and argue for a re-evaulation of the tax burden in this country, then do it, but have the intellectual honesty not to make the case that it is somehow altruistic or enlightened to do so. That this is somehow in the “national” interest. Because it just isn’t. It is that simple.

Andrew Adams, your point about the article applealing to a narrow constituency is certainly true. And I knew that when I wrote it.

The point being made (and perhaps I haven’t made it clearly enough, and apologies if so) is in part a very gentle chiding of those of similar views to me (and actually me as well). Because, as I say, it was very easy to attack the left for being wrong-headed and disgraceful. But that was easy to do in the context of broad hegemony for the moderate left in the form of the Labour government. And that some of us (including me, to a certain extent) really forgot where the necesary focus should be. And that was on the Tories. And the reason I voted for Livingstone in the end is that, though I think he is dreadful, you have to balance your views and look at the situation. And, right now (and maybe not always and forever), the right thing to do is to focus on the Tories.

But what I am trying to do, certainly ineffectually, is to ask some people who have some quite similar assumptions to me, but won’t fight for Labour because they think it in some way contaminated, or because they have drifted to the right over time partly in antagonism to some of the arrant nonsense spouted in parts of the left, to think again. For the same reasons that I did and that a not entirely insubstantial number of people I know have also done.

I thought that was clear in terms of where the gist of the argument was from. And yes it is polemical. And it is meant to be.

Anyway, if you’re going to form a view simply based on stuff you don’t like from people on your side of the spectrum, then, if you do go over to the other side, there’s an awful lot of vile filth over there which is worse.

>>A lot of “ooh posh boy swears, thinks he’s working class, hahahah go and get a real life” stuff. Well, what a load of utter shit. And demonstrably obviously stupid shit at that.<>I thought that was clear in terms of where the gist of the argument was from.<<

as clear as mud. and from the amount you swear at people who have the temerity to disagree with you, I’d say that you’re not exactly one to talk about ‘polite conversation’.

“Interesting Post Ben, though I would say that the challenge in making a national economy based on the tericery sector work ‘harmoniously’ that New Labour attempted is being subsumed by larger factors, i.e. resource scacity, environment, the ‘rise’ of India/China etc. ”

There is a lot in this. The “skills agenda” stuff is still quite relevant, especially in a situation where India and China continue to take manufacturing jobs. But it is open (very much) to question as to whether you can run an entire economy effectively based upon services.

There may be some surprising views to be taken, to both the left and the right. For the former, a lot of the challenges facing us do in the end suggest more rather than less intervention from the state. But, at the same time, free trade and globalisation have, thus far, resulted in “winners” in all continents other than sub-saharan Africa. But I wonder whether, unless the Chinese can be persuaded not to turn their entire society into a deregulated sweat shop, we will see increasing social unrest in parts of the globe, maybe including here in the long term. International minimum labour standards with teeth seem very necessary, to me, at least. The ILO should be as listened-to a body as the World Bank or the IMF. How to get there? I don’t know. But the answer it seems to me is not a step back from globalisation in itself. We should certainly scrap the CAP and allow African farmers to compete on a level playing field with our own.

Very interesting sketch of the Swedish approach from Metta there. One of the things it seems to me is that an Anglo-Saxon model is inherently more unstable, in both good and bad ways. On the one hand, there is a high inherent ability to attract international capital in good times (and I do believe, to a certain extent, that a rising tide floats all boats in this context, given minor tinkering by the state to achieve a more equitable distribution of these gains), but people will rapidly see their living standards diminished in the context of global recession (because of that inherent flexibility). If one does believe in social solidarity, and I do, then there may be some difficult decisions to be made regarding how to deal with the consequences of this over the next few years, depedning on how bad it gets. Interestingly, a number of friends in the City are predicting doom and gloom, whilst a mate of mine who is an academic economist (currently teaching undergrads whilst he completes his PhD) is of the view that it will be much less bad, and that the City boys are merely articulating their own pains into wider relevance. I have no idea which is true, and I don’t pretend to be clever enough to grasp the economics of why the latter says what he does, without sitting in a darkened room for some months! (But I shouldn’t say that, because I’m a horribly arrogant know-it-all. Must remember not to let that slip.)

>A lot of “ooh posh boy swears, thinks he’s working class, hahahah go and get a real life” stuff. Well, what a load of utter shit. And demonstrably obviously stupid shit at that.

I’m not sure what is ‘demonstrably stupid’ - the idea that you’re not that well-informed about the working classes, or your idea that nobody who is poor owns a car…

as clear as mud. and from the amount you swear at people who have the temerity to disagree with you, I’d say that you’re not exactly one to talk about ‘polite conversation’.

Heh. Well, “Demonstrative”, you are a, ah, demonstrative, example of why talking to snide wankers in earnest and polite terms is not always sensible. Because, indeed, quite often you end up with the sort of stuff you’ve just written in response.

Because I will tell you what, I don’t actually feel any compunction about calling, for example, a racist some names, or, indeed, someone who tells me my politics are equivalent to those of Robert Mugabe.

It really depends how you define “poor”.

A lot of “ooh posh boy swears, thinks he’s working class, hahahah go and get a real life” stuff.

Rather unlikely to be emanating from anybody who has actually seen the poor end of the scale themselves either…

Alec is right that it does depend on how you define poor.

I’m afraid the best I can find (and I’m not prepared to spend more than five mins on it) from going over to the National Statistics website and searching by topic on vehicle ownership is this pithy abstract:

“Car ownership is related to household income. Three-fifths of households in the bottom quintile of the income distribution in 1996-1998 did not have a car, while almost half of those in the top quintile had two or more cars.”

I think this makes the point. And, even if I had been wrong, I am surprised that one comment is deserving of such raking over. Nice bit of attempted character assination, guys. Unfortunately, you were wrong. Both on the material point, and (if I may say so) the character point.

The very idea (though I should say that I thought ag’s second post was more engaged and less reading from a particular hymn sheet) that vehicle taxes are some sort of poll tax designed to hit the poor is clearly nonsense. Just read that abstract again.

Assination? Leave the Saint Helier donkeys alone.

The point being made (and perhaps I haven’t made it clearly enough, and apologies if so) is in part a very gentle chiding of those of similar views to me (and actually me as well). Because, as I say, it was very easy to attack the left for being wrong-headed and disgraceful. But that was easy to do in the context of broad hegemony for the moderate left in the form of the Labour government. And that some of us (including me, to a certain extent) really forgot where the necesary focus should be.

Well waddya know? Ben and I agree! Except that I’d go for a boot up the jacksie, in place of “very gentle chiding”.

Alec,

I did initially assume you were referring to that, but it makes even less sense. What in buggery’s name are you talking about?

I was pointing out the means we have of changing government policy in the absence of an imminent election.

As before, so?

You said opposition to the war had dissipated. And I’m really not interested in discussing Israel.

What was being predicted by the public case against ain’t happening now. Or have I missed the use of nuclear weapons, and invasions of Iran and Syria?

OK, I think the outcome was worse than most rational predictions.

What I am saying, and which you are studiously ignoring as demonstrated by the subtle changes of tact in your previous post, is that maybe if we hadn’t been such directionless and ignorant twats, something could (note the use of the conditional) have been done.

I haven’t ignored this - I have been saying all along that I disagree. Both that we were “directionless twats” and that if we had done things differently the war might not have gone ahead. Everything I have read and heard regarding the decision making process in the run up to the war leads me to believe that Blair’s mind had long been absolutely made up and the only way the invasion would have gone ahead would have been if he had lost the vote in parliament. But even if I’m wrong on that, what I haven’t heard from you is what you think we (not just you and me but people who opposed the war in general) could have done other than what we did. And setting up some alternative to the STWC is not the answer. It’s not as though Blair did not understand our arguments or was unaware of the strength of public feeling. So what else would actually have made him change his mind?

What I am objecting to are those who want congratulations for attending one march on a fine spring day and then leaving to let a bunch of vile and reactionary counter-revolutionaries take over.

I haven’t heard anyone ask for congratulations. The point of the march was to demonstrate that there was large and strongly felt public opposition to the war. That’s really all that any public protest can achieve and so in that sense it was massively successful. A lot of people did nothing at all so I’m not going to sneer at the ones who at least made some small effort.

What precisely is the difference between your comments here and Brownie’s?
In some ways very little. We both had strong feelings about the war. We both on balance still believe we were right. I disagree with him but I don’t doubt his motives are genuine, as I believe are mine. And no, I don’t feel any contrition because I still don’t understand what I’m supposed to feel contrition for.

I was pointing out the means we have of changing government policy in the absence of an imminent election.

So, you *were* suggesting that we should expect no more than changing it once every five years? What the fuck are you talking about?

You said opposition to the war had dissipated.

Compared to the one and a half million strong plus march that day, the handful just a few months later certainly suggest that. Never mind that it had already been launched, where was the smeddum? The fact the Vietnam War was in progress didn’t halt protesters. Iraq went in reverse; start big, whither away in weeks.

And I’m really not interested in discussing Israel.

You don’t have to. Just the point that “strong feelings” on a subject do not automatically give the speaker any authority. They could be obsessional nuts.

But even if I’m wrong on that, what I haven’t heard from you is what you think we (not just you and me but people who opposed the war in general) could have done other than what we did.

That’s reasonable. Starters, though, would have been not tacking on too many side issues - Israel or anti-capitalism to name two - and joining an umbrella body which had been formed in response to the threat of war in Iraq, and not the mass killing of thousands of American civilians. Distancing ourselves from said bunch of political freaks and racists and fascists, AS I AND OTHERS WERE VAGUELY AWARE OF AT THE TIME, may have helped paint the opposition as accessible to the mainstream.

Then again, I was just a puppy at the time. Others such as you (or am I thinking of Coatsy?) supposedly had years of experience in political campaigning. And I am not the one who is exculpating himself in faux fatalism by saying nothing could have been done.

OK, I think the outcome was worse than most rational predictions.

Such as? This is a genuine question, as I cannot remember that many of what you’d call rational predictions. The opposition was that ill-formed. Those I do remember from the likes of Alex Higgins, whilst not giving specific numbers of dead and dates of mosque bombings, *did* warn of unpredictable events. And did British intelligence not warn it would “hypercharge” international jihadism?

I haven’t heard anyone ask for congratulations.

A still in production postcard at sale in all Oxfam shops shows the London march and a single arrow saying “Me”. Yeah, well, you were useless. What do you want? Congratulations?

The point of the march was to demonstrate that there was large and strongly felt public opposition to the war.

No. The groundswell of opinion were “strongly felt”, there would have been coherent arguments and the political freaks told to naff off and, if opposition had been maintained afterwards, it would have shown a glimmer of realization that many Iraqis felt differently or, a la Harry Barnes, that regardless of the invasion - which you say we then could have done nowt about - the time was to work with Iraqis.

It didn’t happen. Either this “strongly felt” opposition dried up like hot spittle, or a lot of people suffered severe narcissistic injuries and wanted to utterly destroy those who’d rejected them.

Everything I have read and heard regarding the decision making process in the run up to the war leads me to believe that Blair’s mind had long been absolutely made up

You know that now. Not then. So, why did you give up so easily?

and the only way the invasion would have gone ahead would have been if he had lost the vote in parliament.

This stands in contrast to your previous statement that the only guaranteed way of changing government policy is a General Election. Do you not think it would have been a good idea to target MPs’ opinion in a rational and considered manner, then, and not pinned it all on one march?

And no, I don’t feel any contrition because I still don’t understand what I’m supposed to feel contrition for.

Failure. Failing to take the largest peacetime marches and actually do something with it. This certainly ain’t the Clare Short position of amorality, but it sure as heck ain’t anywhere close to Robin Cook.

>“Car ownership is related to household income. Three-fifths of households in the bottom quintile of the income distribution in 1996-1998 did not have a car, while almost half of those in the top quintile had two or more cars.”

so almost half of bottom quintile households have a car.

>I think this makes the point.

And you’d be wrong to think that. relying on staistics that don’t really support your claims is hardly ‘making your point’.

>And, even if I had been wrong, I am surprised that one comment is deserving of such raking over. Nice bit of attempted character assination, guys.

I think that your cavalier approach to statistics, debate and politeness is doing the ‘character assination’ for you Ben.

so almost half of bottom quintile households have a car.

No. Two fifths do. Less than half. Poor people can’t afford cars. Get it?

Meanwhile in the top quarter more than half have two cars.

Talking about cavialier approaches to statistics as you were.

More than half in the top quintile do *not* half two cars. Demonstrative is still a tit.

“A massive defeat, the like of which will result in a generational change of political values” would be what the public seem to intend, yes. They have the choice, and rather tend to carry more weight than someone speaking on behalf of social groups he has little or no experience of. If 11 years is a generation (15 years would have been nearer the mark between mother and child where I grew up, and I was worried by that!), then just because it is intended to change them doesn’t mean values change much, however great the loss at an election. Other than that I don’t disagree with most of your views, but leaving one point behind to tirade on people who use the same space as you does not help – rather, going on the defensive makes you look like a sniveling little flunky rather than someone capable of thinking for yourself and taking a lead. It is not encouraging anyone to rally behind you, which was surely the point?

“So fuck off. Really. And then don’t come back”

That’s how most people view Labour and your seven years of rejoicing,.Ben. It isn’t that Brown and the end of Blair caused all of the problems, nor can this be pinned on the outrageous behaviour that reflected so poorly on us in the international community (agree with the war or not – it doesn’t mean “we” handled matters well). No, the resulst at local councils reflect such matters reaching critical mass at a time when the PM happens to be a cold lump of rancid meat. The vilification of Brown that cuts so deep into every other Labour member and supporter began in earnest when he did not call a general election last year. He didn’t have to, but blanking out the very suggestion and letting Blair make the most of his departure - rather than communicating more of his own arrival - was foolish. Brown, assuming it was deserved that he move in without a support base in the public, looked more than a little arrogant. Surprise! He is now unpopular with the public, his every move is questioned in the media and he works without trust from outside the party. He needs to remind people what has gone well rather than firefighting areas party members can and should be dealing with, but his shaky moves at refusal to separate his record from that of the party means he will not defend himself when the party he leads is attacked nor humbly allow the party to speak when he is being criticized. Blair did the same thing – but with personality (admittedly, a hugely thumpable personality, but that never does Vernon Kaye any harm).

Some of the populace (those that needed the help the Tories so arrogantly will not provide) are better off at the expense of huge risks for the majority. The middle classes can cope just fine if they learn to manage their finances in ways that offer protection in times of personal crisis, but when has effort on the part of the then middle classes ever really been likely? Is that not what politicians have been for over the last few decades? Ben, your point of fairer lives is fine, but it would be easier for the majority of the populace to get over recent moves by Labour if it were not for the fact that everything the government has been pushing out for a decade are short-term solution with long-term debts, in the hope someone thinks up some unbelievable solutions in the future. Why should people feel good about being stuffed for thinking the same way? Maybe it is the fact that you have gotten so involved that blinds you to it, but this might be why the majority of your piece is getting most people so worked up on a blog that you thought (well done for standing corrected) could yet be more supportive. Perhaps it is the Arrabellas you want to stick it to feeling slightly aggrieved at the suggestion they need to both support Labour and shut up at the same time. That was how Thatcher thought. It was a mistake then and it is a mistake now?

If the party itself wanted to defend their record on women and homosexuals, they could get their female and gay MPs to do so. There are far fewer of them, and rather more boring straight men in their late forties, than there were as Labour MPs in that now apparently disposable line up of over a decade ago, but it could work. Why not call up good old Jane Griffiths and see if she would like to comment on the way some men in the party treat women? Maybe call Thatcher and see how she coped in such a male dominated party? Not being stuck under Thatcher means that the precious little being done toward equality and valuing diversity was shouted about more under Blair than during Major’s tired little reign, but I can say that, the end of section 28 and the start of civil partnerships aside, it would be ill-advised to talk up Labour over the other parties. Get Harman to do it if you must – that should be a laugh (no stab proof vest in recent visit to the boundary of the halves of Reading either – she picked the right week, obviously).

“We are about to let go of the finest government with the best anti-poverty track record in history. I could insult you by giving you a list of achievements. But I think you’re tired of that. ” Nope – so go on. Others have asked. List them. People don’t think you know as much as you claim, so prove them wrong. And why not get a job in the wonderful public sector you speak of? It is still a shambles (lord knows I’m losing patience with working in it and being considered for outsourcing every few weeks, where ever I go), but if you don’t like it there you can always go back to the consultancy group that probably gets you in there and ask for a change. People who work in the public sector are being paid more though, so things must be going well? Not good, not smart, not an achievement to boast about and you are not as informed as you want people to believe. Why stop other people ranting when you can so ignorantly do so?

YOU say goodbye to the world you thought you lived in. I think it would be “perfectly proper” to accept that factions have existed longer than democracy – and for a reason – and move on to defending what has worked, rather than faking a confessional. If your way of fighting apathy is to try to find a solitary weak point, bully people into corners and present one side of a single argument as if it solves every problem that comes along, I should point out that the voting age might be a little too high for most of your apparent target audience. Look at what you think has worked, and begin expanding out from that. Taking general terms around one point, applying it to 11 years of governance, then bitching at whoever disagrees marks you out as a hopeless sycophant and you have already lost at then.

Ag - if you and Ben could get together to put his argument across in your words, it might produce something which achieves it’s purpose (as opposed to calling someone a “loony c**t” and saying the majority of the country are liars for pointing out what they don’t like and getting cross at not being listened, obviously).

And no offence Graham but…actually big offence, since that piece about being “as dead as Napoleon” refuses to address the initial point, was part of some infantile attempt to bully another blogger, and steadfastly turned it’s head away with fingers in the ears to the suggestion that the problems in Iraq may not be over and that the middle east has carried on bubbling over. The army is clearly not destroyed, the government are completely different in that they are now the blind being led by the blind, .to insist against all evidence that the same war was still going on suggesting you only look at half the evidence. But if you want to show how you can only view the world through the lens of a twat (constantly) please carry on.

Oh, and Mettaculte – “spite filled colostomy bag” – ahem? Thank god for Labour, since we would never got those under the Tories, etc etc. And the working classes would be rather unlikely to be caught “spitting up” - since they are short of privilege and opportunity, not gravity.

I was understanding, if bored, of the initial entry that started this. Reading the responses was what made me go mad. I was seconds away from gnawing my knuckles off until I started typing. I’m a nice enough, gentle bloke really, but most of you lot really needed a smack as children. It’s like a gaggle of schoolgirls on the top deck of a bus. But skankier.

Sorry Ben, you may have matriculated in 1999, but you come across as a pompous sixth former. Their opposition – with no hyperbole – to our very way of life, and to the way of life we wanted others to be able to enjoy And you guys takes this juvenilia seriously!