Labour Party leadership election 2015

[Zanas]

We had a similar contest here in France, the PS primary leading to the Presidential race of 2012. Concerns of entryism were expressed as well at the time, as you could pay 2€, sign a "vaguely left-wing values charter" and vote. The press were all "right-wing and/or extreme-left supporters will sign up en masse to skew the vote !!!1!1!".

In the end, it seems the people who actually voted were in fact pretty close to the PS line, no real trace of entryism or skewing could be found. I must admit that at the time I had paid those bloody 2€ to vote for Montebourg in the first round, just to show the other candidates that there were a few of us who still expected some vaguely left-wing things from them. Deception and disappointment ensued. No need to say I didn't bother choosing between Aubry and Hollande in the runoff.

And that was with quite a portion of the population confessing hard-left stances, in comparison to the UK. So that's that for your concerns of skewing. And remember that Tories love their money. 3£ can be invested and speculated... or bet, it seems, by the looks of this forum.

[Zanas]

We had a similar contest here in France, the PS primary leading to the Presidential race of 2012. Concerns of entryism were expressed as well at the time, as you could pay 2€, sign a "vaguely left-wing values charter" and vote. The press were all "right-wing and/or extreme-left supporters will sign up en masse to skew the vote !!!1!1!".

In the end, it seems the people who actually voted were in fact pretty close to the PS line, no real trace of entryism or skewing could be found. I must admit that at the time I had paid those bloody 2€ to vote for Montebourg in the first round, just to show the other candidates that there were a few of us who still expected some vaguely left-wing things from them. Deception and disappointment ensued. No need to say I didn't bother choosing between Aubry and Hollande in the runoff.

And that was with quite a portion of the population confessing hard-left stances, in comparison to the UK. So that's that for your concerns of skewing. And remember that Tories love their money. 3£ can be invested and speculated... or bet, it seems, by the looks of this forum.

[Zanas]

How can a land value tax possibly replace the income tax? How would this work? The rates needed to generate revenue on the scale of income tax would presumably have to be so high that I imagine that land ownership would become a dicey proposition financially very quickly. Is there not a property tax in the UK at the moment?

Or does he think it's 1915, and wants to break up the estates?

Moreover, isn't there a peculiarity that, in reality, no one really owns their land in the UK, since the Crown really owns everything ?

[Zanas]

The problem looking at Corbyn is that he has the most baggage because he's got links to the weird peace school of socialism. I mean sure be against Iraq that's fair but he says we should leave NATO ideally, that Northern Ireland should be part of Ireland and that all military force is wrong. I mean this is the battles that Labour had in the 1950's.

I don't see anything wrong with those statements, and surely quite a number of Labour supporters do not either, or he would not be the front-runner in this.

[Zanas]

Burnham has come out in favour of rail re-nationalization.

And in doing so, looks every inch the opportunist his critics say he is

At the same time this isn't a radical position to take up. Rail services are a natural monopoly. Even liberalism 101 advocates this. I think we can give Burnham the benefit of the doubt, and acknowledge instead that Corbyn could have a positive effect on British society by actually debating these issues.

I'm just trying to stay positive as the entire centre-left tears itself apart in Europe. Speaking of which, I believe it is the EU that encourage rail privatisation IIRC.

I would be hesitating between laughing my ass off or crying a river if the Brits were to re-nationalize all rail service into a monopoly at the same time we Frogs open it to competition...

[Zanas]

Corbyn left his wife over what?

The press report was that he left his wife because she wanted to send their kids to a grammar school, which is a state ran school that's often only open to higher ability students. For some reason our political class obsess about where our MP's send their kids

Just to finish on this topic, I hope the most reasonable among you are able to picture that the matter was probably a little more complicated than what the press likes to report. Conjugal feuds tend to drag on for a while, and to affect a number of varied topics in a couple's life. Even if there's one tipping point, there probably was a bit of a stacked pile of resentment before it came to that.

[Zanas]

Ohnoes! If we elect somebody vaguely left-wing and willing to believe in a few things and change a few things, the evil right-wing media and politicians will destroy him in the media and in politics! Let's rather elect somebody who doesn't stand for any change at all so we can win the election and... do what exactly?

At some point you gotta ask yourselves: what's Labour for ?

[Zanas]

My point was, a Labour leader ought to be attacked by the right-wing media and politicians who serve the "plutocracy/oligarchy (pick one)", that's who he is supposed to be fighting. More worrying is when such a leader isn't attacked by those guys... But I guess I'm having blind hopes. Is anybody wanting to increase the power of the weak a little and decrease the power of the big guys a little having blind hopes ? Then I suppose we just need to jump off a cliff.

Oh and I don't think Ed Miliband ever qualified as having a genuine sincere left-wing stance on anything, but maybe that's just me.

[Zanas]

I was responding to the statement that the 60s was a better decade than the current one (which seems to have now been retracted, in fairness).

That the Wilson government fixed some of those things towards the end of the 60s is irrelevant to that claim.

Anyway, social policy aside, look at any decent metric of welfare and obviously people are better off now. Leftist radical nostalgia for poverty is annoying. I guess if you like poverty supporting Corbyn makes sense though.

There are some long term happiness studies showing that the 60s were the decade when most of Western Europe reached the level where higher material wealth stopped making us happier. Since then material progress has not made the average person feel better.

When you are poor increased material wealth makes you feel a lot better, but this effect decrease when you reach higher levels and at some point more stuff and better living conditions stop adding to most peoples feeling of satisfaction with life.

The nostalgia is also not completely unfounded: Society was a lot more safe and sustainable back then. Local communities functioned better, crime was lower, unemployment lower, outsourcing unheard of etc. Farming was closer to being organic, traffic congestion lower etc. At the same time it was a culturally much more vibrant and exciting era than today.

So as a decade it had an adequate level of material wealth for most people, was culturally interesting and a lot of social and economic changes since then have simply not benefitted ordinary people.

^ This, more or less exactly. Not to mention the fact that the people did actually have some kind of an influence and a choice at the moment, you know, democratically speaking. That's all over now, of course.

[Zanas]

I was responding to the statement that the 60s was a better decade than the current one (which seems to have now been retracted, in fairness).

That the Wilson government fixed some of those things towards the end of the 60s is irrelevant to that claim.

Anyway, social policy aside, look at any decent metric of welfare and obviously people are better off now. Leftist radical nostalgia for poverty is annoying. I guess if you like poverty supporting Corbyn makes sense though.

There are some long term happiness studies showing that the 60s were the decade when most of Western Europe reached the level where higher material wealth stopped making us happier. Since then material progress has not made the average person feel better.

When you are poor increased material wealth makes you feel a lot better, but this effect decrease when you reach higher levels and at some point more stuff and better living conditions stop adding to most peoples feeling of satisfaction with life.

The nostalgia is also not completely unfounded: Society was a lot more safe and sustainable back then. Local communities functioned better, crime was lower, unemployment lower, outsourcing unheard of etc. Farming was closer to being organic, traffic congestion lower etc. At the same time it was a culturally much more vibrant and exciting era than today.

So as a decade it had an adequate level of material wealth for most people, was culturally interesting and a lot of social and economic changes since then have simply not benefitted ordinary people.

^ This, more or less exactly. Not to mention the fact that the people did actually have some kind of an influence and a choice at the moment, you know, democratically speaking. That's all over now, of course.

There also no immigrants/non-whites. You really can't deal with English 1960s nostalgia without the racial aspect. It is buried beneath every single one of those points. Democracy was real before the foreigners corrupted it, there was less traffic before all the immigrants came, housing was nicer and now look at East London etc

Maybe you can't. A vast majority can. Unless there is something very specific to Britain regarding nostalgia towards that era.