UK General Discussion: 2017 and onwards, Mayhem

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Wilson was from the Left himself originally - one issue he always had with sections of the PLP was that he had always been viewed by them as a factionalist schemer - and so were all of his real allies in Cabinet (Crossman, Castle, Greenwood, Thomas, etc) which complicates matters. But the Left of the 70s was quite different from the Left of the 50s - there had been a massive radicalisation in response to Heath's initially quite right-wing domestic agenda - and he didn't have firm links to them. But it was a lot easier for him than any alternative Leader to cheerfully accept the stridently Left programme adopted in opposition as the Manifesto and to promote it with apparent enthusiasm. Before, naturally, junking much of it in government with the difficult parliamentary position acting as a pretext.

[Barnes]

It's always amusing that Wilson marked himself out with Bevan in the walkout of 1951 and formed the great opposition to Gateskillism in the '50s but his entire record as leader is totally one of vascillating between factions. One of his greatest attributes was never allowing himself to be pinned down in one camp as leader and this not stoking coherent opposition from the other side.

Apparently, Tony Benn claimed that Wilson taught him that a bird "needs two wings to fly: a left wing and a right wing." I doubt ole Wedgie was that appreciative of that lesson at the time, but there you are!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

But its an error to conflate 'the Labour Left' with 'the political Left in general' and arguments like this start heading into No True Socialist territory pretty much immediately. Labour fought the 1997 election on a radical programme and implemented almost all of it in power; that it was not as radical as the programmes previous Labour governments had come to power on (which is true) does not mean it was not radical. E.g. although no attempt was made to renationalise the privatised utilities (on cost grounds mostly) a windfall tax on profits made during the privatisation process was imposed and was used to fund public services. The 1997 landslide was a backlash against the policies of the Thatcher/Major years more than it was anything else; really the whole point of New Labour was to make that happening as likely as possible by making Labour as fundamentally unthreatening as possible.

I think this all gets a bit confusing in part because the New Labour government was in power for a long time and was thoroughly captured by Whitehall managerialist mentalities (before then it was strongly influenced by Outside Experts, which was hilariously Wilsonian in retrospect), especially from the start of the second term onwards. Of course it serves the political agendas of both the harder Left and the soggiest parts of the political Centre to remember things differently. But e.g it is telling that Mr Tony - who has moved quite firmly rightwards in his politics in recent years - now disapproves of much of what his government did in its first term...

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

[Antonio the Sixth]

Yeah, I think it's possible to rightfully despise Blair as a person while at the same time recognizing that his first government actually did a lot of good things and can't be dismissed as a complete neoliberal sellout.

Still, I believe that there now is an opportunity for Labour to go above and beyond this legacy and propose bolder measures such as renationalization of utilities and support for workers' cooperatives in the private sector, which would be not just electorally viable but genuinely popular.

[Silent Hunter]

Were the nationalised utilities really that good?

[TheSaint250]

Just a quick question: I'm guessing after the election all talks of a split-off more centrist Labour movement are pretty much dead.  Am I right on this?

[Leftbehind]

The Blairite rump have went silent, but it remains to be seen how on board they are. Factional amendments scheduled for the conference are in the media today:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-jeremy-corbyn-conference-rule-changes-date-clp-nec-national-executive-committee-labour-first-a7817121.html

Were the nationalised utilities really that good?

I don't think it can get any worse than subsidising them to the tune of billions (for investment; to allow for full service; to shoulder pension liabilities etc) and then paying again, ever-increasing fees, to allow for their profit.

From my experience the Royal Mail, whilst never perfect, has royally went down the sh**tter since privatisation.

[parochial boy]

To elaborate a bit on my last post, the problem with Blair isnt just that he didnt renatioanlise anything (and its not just trains, compare Thames Water to the water you get anywhere else in europe and its hysterical, you would think it would be hard to mess up the stuff that comes out of taps, but there you go).

The problem with Blair is that he still signed up to the ideology that markets and competition are the best way of organising things.not just in a deregulate and prvatise sort of way, but in thr way public services were organised. Which is why for instance you have school league tables and a country which thinks it is acceptable to give standardised testing to 7 year olds.

That and, whether with the intent of redistributing or not, he still signed up to ideas about "flexible labour" and the idea that the London based financial sector could make up for the chronic neglect in the rest of the country (exceptin the odd feel good project to the North East).

[Hnv1]

There's some hindsight bias when discussing new lab as no one can forget Iraq and later years. But the 97-01 government was rather good and pushed Britain few steps forward after the stale major years. What happened afterwards though...I think an orderly transition to brown pre 05 would have saved the project.

[Hnv1]

Losing the repeal bill will surely finish May off

[Blair]

The Blairite rump have went silent, but it remains to be seen how on board they are. Factional amendments scheduled for the conference are in the media today:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-jeremy-corbyn-conference-rule-changes-date-clp-nec-national-executive-committee-labour-first-a7817121.html

I know this is an old post, but I couldn't help laughing at criticism of factional amendments from the right, when the major amendment for 2017 is the McDonnell amendment (which is now redundant)

[Leftbehind]

The Blairite rump have went silent, but it remains to be seen how on board they are. Factional amendments scheduled for the conference are in the media today:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-jeremy-corbyn-conference-rule-changes-date-clp-nec-national-executive-committee-labour-first-a7817121.html

I know this is an old post, but I couldn't help laughing at criticism of factional amendments from the right, when the major amendment for 2017 is the McDonnell amendment (which is now redundant)

It was directly related to the question asked whether the Blairites are on board, and that very day LF had announced a policy transparently to help deprive Corbynites of NEC control. It wasn't so much a criticism as answering the question asked. Personally I have to laugh at how up in the arms the Right has gotten over an amendment that stops future PLPs from screening out unpopular factions from a leadership, no matter how 'redundant' you think that now is.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Wales will lower its voting age for local elections to 16 and allow councils to move to STV if they want (I presume very few will).

[IceAgeComing]

It looks like the reason that they didn't mandate STV probably was because of the army of Labour councillors in safe wards that are almost guaranteed their seats under FPTP but not necessarily under STV; since it'd be all but impossible for Labour to take every seat in a larger, STV ward.  That's why I'd expect the councils to go for STV to be the ones where you have a lot more competition to begin with, which probably aren't the ones that actually need the thing.

[Phony Moderate]

Main news here today (well, other than the tragic events elsewhere) is the death of Sir Bruce Forsyth. 89, so he did well.

[Helsinkian]

The Guardian demands that the statue of Horatio Nelson be taken down: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/22/toppling-statues-nelsons-column-should-be-next-slavery?CMP=soc_3156

[MaxQue]

The Guardian demands that the statue of Horatio Nelson be taken down: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/22/toppling-statues-nelsons-column-should-be-next-slavery?CMP=soc_3156

No, rather, someone does. The "Comment is Free" section is an opinion zone, not endorsed by the Guardian. Some written by journalists, some by politicians, some by random people who applied and where selected.

[NewYorkExpress]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/scottish-labour-leader-kezia-dugdale-11078640

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So who replaces Dugdale as leader of Scottish Labour?

[Babeuf]

Neil Findlay would be a good choice IMO. No idea on if he wants to run or his odds of success if he does.

[Blair]

FWIW it looks like she jumped before she was pushed, even if it was going to be in 2018 or sometime later.

Will either be Neil Findlay, Alew Rowley (the acting leader) or Anas Sarwar.

The election will be 'one member, one vote' but I'm not sure how many members we have in Scotland now (it was down to 10,000 or something pitiful last summer) FWIW this leadership election will be interesting- Scottish members backed Owen Smith as well last summer, and even now they won't simply back whoever the leadership backs.

I'm not that upset about Kezia; people I know in Labour circles liked her but I never thought she was great. She should take credit for taking the job when no-one wanted it back in '15.

[Coldstream]

Probably going to be Anas Sarwar now since Findlay and Rowley have ruled themselves out. He's an interesting one, was once on the board of Progress but went out of his way to show his support for Corbyn in the 2017 election. Fun fact, his dad was the first Islamic MP elected and beat Nicola Sturgeon to do so in 1997.

[afleitch]

Please let it be Anas.

[Blair]

The fat men in the suits have already picked their choice.

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/labour-party/news/88576/ex-union-official-pole-position-succeed-kezia

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[NewYorkExpress]

The fat men in the suits have already picked their choice.

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/labour-party/news/88576/ex-union-official-pole-position-succeed-kezia

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Do either Leonard or Sarwar support Independence for Scotland?