A man of principle.

[tek-monkey]

Lol. Labour leadership is as inept as it comes. Clueless, no backbone, no manifesto, confusing, blind, brain dead...etc etc etc, that is from someone who has voted mostly labour.

We have the worst government and leader in my lifetime, the opposition should be way ahead in the polls, but they do not strike where it hurts, because they have nothing to strike with. Politics is at its most embarrassing low

Polls are irrelevant if there is no election, and the tories will always pull together to stop a vote of no confidence (and the DUP, but they may start asking for more money soon). We've got this shitshow for a while yet.

I think the problem we have with Corbyn is that he doesn't want to be in the EU either, so the most obvious attacks on May he avoids. I'd rather have Labour in control of brexit than the tories though, funny how all EU laws will make it to the UK statute books apart from human rights. I'm sure a few more omissions will be noticed soon.

 

[Gramaisc]

General consensus I've had while travelling lately is that we're in a competition with the USA for worlds biggest dickheads.

I'm truly fed up of being grilled about it, it's like being some sort of international psychiatric consultant...

 

[tek-monkey]

I'm truly fed up of being grilled about it, it's like being some sort of international psychiatric consultant...

Every time I've been away lately at least one person has asked why we did it, and I have to say I have no idea.

On the plus side we have oil, so I'm sure we'll get liberated at some point.

 

[Tilly]

Lol. Labour leadership is as inept as it comes. Clueless, no backbone, no manifesto, confusing, blind, brain dead...etc etc etc, that is from someone who has voted mostly labour.

We have the worst government and leader in my lifetime, the opposition should be way ahead in the polls, but they do not strike where it hurts, because they have nothing to strike with. Politics is at its most embarrassing low

Embarrassing is an odd word to sum up your statement, of which it's hard to argue with

Shameful at the very least

Where's the anger?

Where's the determination?

Where are the demands?

Why is it merely embarrassing?

Because 'the people' are weaker than the political elite.

Acceptance is embarrassing

 

[RowanDraper]

My apologies. I've been away for a while and forgot to come back. I'll go through any outstanding replies today.

 

[RowanDraper]

Yet you agree with a short term fix that is guaranteed to exacerbate the issue further down the line? Each time something moves out of the NHS it is destined to never return, we often end up with the same staff in the same buildings doing the same jobs but now somebody takes a cut of the funding, why? It was always a knee jerk reaction, instant fix but means forever paying, refusing to invest in infrastructure seems at odds with trying to stabilise a system.

Let me put it another way, why do people buy houses rather than just rent?

I don't think that's an analogy that I'd agree with. What I'm talking about specifically is the use of private providers to deliver treatment when waiting lists are high. I want patients to be treated as quickly and efficiently as possible. As long as it is free at the point of use, like the NHS, then does it matter whether its a private or public provider?

I would invest in social care because I think a lot of the problems today we see with the Health Service are because of a lack of infrastructure within the community. We can't expect people to stay at home, or go home after a hospital visit, if we haven't got everything in place to make sure they're not going to return again with a related injury or condition that was preventable.

 

[RowanDraper]

I feel I need to go back to this. What exactly is Corbyn doing that is unrecognisable to the Labour partys founding principals? They were always socialists weren't they? Surely Blair betrayed the founding principals and those that supported his vision are now wondering where 'their' party went? Also, in your instance, not only would you have a party twice as powerful as the NRA but you are assuming that nobody already in the NRA preferred the new approach.

Labour are doing better under Corbyn than they have since they were last in power, correct? The conservatives had a majority before him, now they need the DUP to stay in government. The lib dems signed a death warrant in 2010, which certainly helped Labour votes, but that doesn't account for enough of the change. Austerity is biting, people are suddenly realising the poor bear the brunt, I believe we are experiencing a swing back to the left.

I don't agree with your assessment. It is a misrepresentation of Labour. It's founding principles were to organise a group in Parliament to advance the interests of working class people. In that endeavour it was never a truly Socialist party because its members also came from trade union's, the co-operative movement and included democratic socialists as well as social democrats. This is the broad church that is consistently ignored by the line that Labour is returning to 'socialist roots'.

Blair did not betray the founding principles because he formed three Labour majority governments. The New Labour governments delivered National Minimum Wage, Sure Start Centres, Working Tax Credits and many other policies that supported working people in a way that the Tories and the campaign group of the PLP were never able to deliver. Could Blair and New Labour have done more? Yes, of course.

You may believe that we are experiencing a swing back to the left but I can't agree with you. Evidence suggests that elections continue to be won in the centre ground and that there is support, although maybe premature, for a centrist party with the rise of The Independent Group.

 

[RowanDraper]

Hang on. In this thread my local councillor has supported tuition fees, NHS privatisation and called his own party members odd balls?

Yeah, no thanks. Good riddance.

I supported tuition fees that brought extra investment into Higher Education not to replace funding the Government had cut because of their austerity agenda. I supported pragmatic use of private providers to ensure that patients could be treated sooner rather than later and I didn't call my own party members odd balls. I said that everyone who joins a political party was, and I'd include myself in that, because you don't find a lot of people who are willing to join and be active for any political party, regardless of their colour.

Labour for example pre-2015 GE had under 300 members and maybe 10% of them were active. The last membership report I heard was around the 600 mark and this time only 5% were active. By active I'm talking about going to regular meetings, canvassing and campaigning. Not just having a membership. If you think that each political party roughly has around 30-50 active members in a constituency like Stafford, that's less than 300 people in a constituency of 65,000 voters plus.

 

[markpa12003]

I've never understood the need for party politics at a council level. Why can't councillors act in the best interests of their constituents without the need for political point scoring or party politics.

Why does it matter if you wear a red, blue or yellow hat when deciding whether somebody's extension should be refused or deciding other more important decisions?! Just do what is right.

I know I maybe asking too much from councillors that are too often self serving idiots but I live in hope.

 

[tek-monkey]

Locally party politics should be irrelevant, but as someone that went to uni before fees I'm at a massive loss as to why universities needed investment. They needed to not be used to mask unemployment figures, blairs idea of half the population going to uni just messed everything up. It worked when the top 10% at most went.

 

[WHarris]

I've never understood the need for party politics at a council level. Why can't councillors act in the best interests of their constituents without the need for political point scoring or party politics.

Why does it matter if you wear a red, blue or yellow hat when deciding whether somebody's extension should be refused or deciding other more important decisions?! Just do what is right.

I know I maybe asking too much from councillors that are too often self serving idiots but I live in hope.

Here here

 

[RobUSA]

I don't agree with your assessment. It is a misrepresentation of Labour. It's founding principles were to organise a group in Parliament to advance the interests of working class people. In that endeavour it was never a truly Socialist party because its members also came from trade union's, the co-operative movement and included democratic socialists as well as social democrats. This is the broad church that is consistently ignored by the line that Labour is returning to 'socialist roots'.

Blair did not betray the founding principles because he formed three Labour majority governments. The New Labour governments delivered National Minimum Wage, Sure Start Centres, Working Tax Credits and many other policies that supported working people in a way that the Tories and the campaign group of the PLP were never able to deliver. Could Blair and New Labour have done more? Yes, of course.

You may believe that we are experiencing a swing back to the left but I can't agree with you. Evidence suggests that elections continue to be won in the centre ground and that there is support, although maybe premature, for a centrist party with the rise of The Independent Group.

Clause IV always struck me as pretty socialist. Common ownership of the means of production and all.

Stealing shamelessly from Wikipedia

"
The original version of Clause IV was drafted by Sidney Webb in November 1917, and adopted by the party in 1918.It read, in part 4:

“ To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service"

 

[Withnail]

Why does it matter if you wear a red, blue or yellow hat when deciding whether somebody's extension should be refused or deciding other more important decisions?!

More important decisions like whether to build rugby pitches on nature reserves against the advice of the local wildlife trust and the council's own Biodiversity Officer?

 

[Pooryorick]

Only Lord Sta££ord and the rugby club director who happened to work for the council were in favour.

 

[Tilly]

More important decisions like whether to build rugby pitches on nature reserves against the advice of the local wildlife trust and the council's own Biodiversity Officer?

No wonder

It makes you wonder

Golden wonder

Don't push me

Because I'm close to the veg

 

[Tilly]

No wonder

It makes you wonder

Golden wonder

Don't push me

Because I'm close to the veg

B

 

[Withnail]

B

You disappoint me,

I thought you'd bring your A game.

Why hast thou forsaken us?

 

[Tilly]

You disappoint me,

I thought you'd bring your A game.

Why hast thou forsaken us?

I'm a foreign person now

So I am

 

[Withnail]

I'm a foreign person now

So I am

I live in a cluster of four people - only one of us can't claim an EU passport if necessary.

That person is me.

Whatever happens, i'm stuck here.

 

[Tilly]

I live in a cluster of four people - only one of us can't claim an EU passport if necessary.

That person is me.

Whatever happens, i'm stuck here.

You could of course by ill means purchase a non EU passport, a non UK passport, anon passport

A passport to your very own Pimlico

Or Jason Bourne

Matt or Lustre Bourne

The Bourne Bros Nation