UK General Discussion: 2017 and onwards, Mayhem

[bore]

I just realized the UK hasn't had a left wing government in nearly 40 years.
That is all.

Wow, thanks for this blisteringly hot take, random american.

[Don Vito Corleone]

I just realized the UK hasn't had a left wing government in nearly 40 years.
That is all.

Wow, thanks for this blisteringly hot take, random american.

LOL

No but really, when I first realized this I was shocked.

[parochial boy]

No-one going to mention that the Tory-DUP deal basically amounts to a giant bung for Northern Ireland?

Pork barrel politics at its most blatant.

[Leftbehind]

I just realized the UK hasn't had a left wing government in nearly 40 years.
That is all.

Imagine a long-term splinter from the Democrats of Hillary allies when Sanders becomes their presidential nominee and how that'd enormously help the Republicans within the voting system.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I just realized the UK hasn't had a left wing government in nearly 40 years.
That is all.

Wow, thanks for this blisteringly hot take, random american.

LOL

No but really, when I first realized this I was shocked.

Weak hot take. If you wanted to go further you should have claimed Wilson's and Callaghan's governments were not left either, and a true hot take master would suggest the UK, in fact, has never had a left wing government.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I just realized the UK hasn't had a left wing government in nearly 40 years.
That is all.

Imagine a long-term splinter from the Democrats of Hillary allies when Sanders becomes their presidential nominee and how that'd enormously help the Republicans within the voting system.

Let's keep American garbage analysis out please. This is a thread for British rubbish analysis.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

I just realized the UK hasn't had a left wing government in nearly 40 years.
That is all.

Wow, thanks for this blisteringly hot take, random american.

LOL

No but really, when I first realized this I was shocked.

Weak hot take. If you wanted to go further you should have claimed Wilson's and Callaghan's governments were not left either, and a true hot take master would suggest the UK, in fact, has never had a left wing government.

Not even Attlee's government was left wing! He was very, very dedicated to the monarchy!

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I just realized the UK hasn't had a left wing government in nearly 40 years.
That is all.

Wow, thanks for this blisteringly hot take, random american.

LOL

No but really, when I first realized this I was shocked.

Weak hot take. If you wanted to go further you should have claimed Wilson's and Callaghan's governments were not left either, and a true hot take master would suggest the UK, in fact, has never had a left wing government.

Not even Attlee's government was left wing! He was very, very dedicated to the monarchy!

If I was trolling from the left (which I often do, if people are being particularly ahistorical in their "left wing Old Labour/Right wing NuLabour" screeds) it is very easy to suggest Attlee would today be on the centre-right of the party. He and his allies came to power in the party by defeating Lansbury and his pacifist idealogy, formed a national government with hated Imperialist/arch conservative former Chancellor Churchill, instituted a draft and various war measures that suppressed various freedoms, led a government characterized by austerity and rationing, rejected Bevan's ideas of a broad left coalition, suppressed strikes, developed the atomic bomb, joined the Korean war and the start of the cold war machinations and still had a very suspicious role in the declining Empire.

This is not to say I don't like him - he is almost certainly the best PMs we have ever had and his government one of the most important, and in terms of personality an amazing guy, but True Leftists who want to be honest to the historical record should really be honest with themelves.

[Kingpoleon]

I just realized the UK hasn't had a left wing government in nearly 40 years.
That is all.

This idea of Gordon Brown not being left wing is both bizarre and random.

[warandwar]

I just realized the UK hasn't had a left wing government in nearly 40 years.
That is all.

This idea of Gordon Brown not being left wing is both bizarre and random.

No it's not. It's in fact a very commonly held idea.

[Don Vito Corleone]

I just realized the UK hasn't had a left wing government in nearly 40 years.
That is all.

Wow, thanks for this blisteringly hot take, random american.

LOL

No but really, when I first realized this I was shocked.

Weak hot take. If you wanted to go further you should have claimed Wilson's and Callaghan's governments were not left either, and a true hot take master would suggest the UK, in fact, has never had a left wing government.

Not even Attlee's government was left wing! He was very, very dedicated to the monarchy!

If I was trolling from the left (which I often do, if people are being particularly ahistorical in their "left wing Old Labour/Right wing NuLabour" screeds) it is very easy to suggest Attlee would today be on the centre-right of the party. He and his allies came to power in the party by defeating Lansbury and his pacifist idealogy, formed a national government with hated Imperialist/arch conservative former Chancellor Churchill, instituted a draft and various war measures that suppressed various freedoms, led a government characterized by austerity and rationing, rejected Bevan's ideas of a broad left coalition, suppressed strikes, developed the atomic bomb, joined the Korean war and the start of the cold war machinations and still had a very suspicious role in the declining Empire.

This is not to say I don't like him - he is almost certainly the best PMs we have ever had and his government one of the most important, and in terms of personality an amazing guy, but True Leftists who want to be honest to the historical record should really be honest with themelves.

New Labour weren't right wing (and I never said they were), but they weren't left wing either, they were Centrists, which is why I didn't count them as left wing.

[Leftbehind]

The Pew survey over EU support has some interesting data on how Brexit has soured European public opinion on the UK, with most of the nine countries surveyed dropping between 5 and 10 between now and either their 2012 or 2007 figures. Most notably though is the stark drops in Spain to +5 (-30) & Germany +6 (-26) to barely net favourable. As ever, Greece being the exception where opinion on the UK has dramatically improved to +17 (+40).

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

New Labour was centre-left within ideological context of the 90s.

[Phony Moderate]

I just realized the UK hasn't had a left wing government in nearly 40 years.
That is all.

Wow, thanks for this blisteringly hot take, random american.

LOL

No but really, when I first realized this I was shocked.

Weak hot take. If you wanted to go further you should have claimed Wilson's and Callaghan's governments were not left either, and a true hot take master would suggest the UK, in fact, has never had a left wing government.

Not even Attlee's government was left wing! He was very, very dedicated to the monarchy!

If I was trolling from the left (which I often do, if people are being particularly ahistorical in their "left wing Old Labour/Right wing NuLabour" screeds) it is very easy to suggest Attlee would today be on the centre-right of the party. He and his allies came to power in the party by defeating Lansbury and his pacifist idealogy, formed a national government with hated Imperialist/arch conservative former Chancellor Churchill, instituted a draft and various war measures that suppressed various freedoms, led a government characterized by austerity and rationing, rejected Bevan's ideas of a broad left coalition, suppressed strikes, developed the atomic bomb, joined the Korean war and the start of the cold war machinations and still had a very suspicious role in the declining Empire.

This is not to say I don't like him - he is almost certainly the best PMs we have ever had and his government one of the most important, and in terms of personality an amazing guy, but True Leftists who want to be honest to the historical record should really be honest with themelves.

New Labour weren't right wing (and I never said they were), but they weren't left wing either, they were Centrists, which is why I didn't count them as left wing.

The Callaghan government was arguably fairly moderate for the context of its time.

[IceAgeComing]

The Callaghan government arguably started some of the things that Thatcher would take a lot, lot further - admittedly that's partially because it was one of the conditions of the IMF bailout, but interesting none the less.

Considering the narrow ideological differences in the 90s (a consensus that liberal economic policies were a good thing; limited state involvement in the economy, that sort of thing) Labour certainly were centre-left in the 90s - indeed, the Blair government did a few things which had been Labour policy for years but which they'd never managed especially in that first term (the Minimum Wage is a big one; they spent more money on basic services than the Tories ever would have; going more broadly than economics you have the Repeal of Section 48 and the equalisation of the age of consent; devolution for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; all sorts of radical stuff - and this becomes a lot clearer when you look at the 1997 Tory manifesto and some of the stuff they would have implemented had they somehow won that election).  Where the Blair government falls down in my eyes is after that: partially because of foreign policy but also because that's when I'd argue that they weren't really a party of the left in any significant way - certainly to the right of the Tories (as became clear VERY quickly) but willing to start some of the things that the Tories would later take further (I'm thinking especially of welfare reform here, especially for the disabled).

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I just realized the UK hasn't had a left wing government in nearly 40 years.
That is all.

Wow, thanks for this blisteringly hot take, random american.

LOL

No but really, when I first realized this I was shocked.

Weak hot take. If you wanted to go further you should have claimed Wilson's and Callaghan's governments were not left either, and a true hot take master would suggest the UK, in fact, has never had a left wing government.

Not even Attlee's government was left wing! He was very, very dedicated to the monarchy!

If I was trolling from the left (which I often do, if people are being particularly ahistorical in their "left wing Old Labour/Right wing NuLabour" screeds) it is very easy to suggest Attlee would today be on the centre-right of the party. He and his allies came to power in the party by defeating Lansbury and his pacifist idealogy, formed a national government with hated Imperialist/arch conservative former Chancellor Churchill, instituted a draft and various war measures that suppressed various freedoms, led a government characterized by austerity and rationing, rejected Bevan's ideas of a broad left coalition, suppressed strikes, developed the atomic bomb, joined the Korean war and the start of the cold war machinations and still had a very suspicious role in the declining Empire.

This is not to say I don't like him - he is almost certainly the best PMs we have ever had and his government one of the most important, and in terms of personality an amazing guy, but True Leftists who want to be honest to the historical record should really be honest with themelves.

New Labour weren't right wing (and I never said they were), but they weren't left wing either, they were Centrists, which is why I didn't count them as left wing.

Blair/Brown/Mandelson were right-wing in the context of Labour itself. Labour's leadership often comes from the right of the party, and even most Left Labour leaders (or right/centre leaders that gained power through an alliance with the Left) leaders have had rightist elements to their cabinets and administrations. Regardless of your personal feelings towards Blair and Corbyn, the latter is far more of an abhorration in the party's history.

The point is, that if you dismiss NuLab for being "centrists", there is no reason to call every Labour government (insert any social democratic party here) a bunch of centrists, especially given that they were responding to unique contexts (for example, the postwar command economy was a lot different to Britain in the 60's or late 90's).

[parochial boy]

Calling NuLab centre-left in the context of the 1990s is kind of a sop to cultural relativism though isn't it? Just because absolutely everyobody was totally convinced by the unshakeable superiority of free market economics, doesn't mean that signing up to a slightly softer version of it makes you left wing.

Blair did of course very deliberately move Labour towards the centre both in terms of actual policy:abandoning ideals such as nationalised rail (the whole saga with network rail nonwithstanding), openness towards privatisation (he wanted to sell of the Royal Mail), laissez-faire banking regulations, repackaging the dole as a conditional "jobseekers allowance" and so on. But he also moved them to the right/centre in terms of spirit or whatever you want to call it, with abandoning Clause IV and all that.

So yeah, that Labour government may have been left leaning in the context of the 90s, but they were still definitely on the right of Wilson or Attlee.

[Leftbehind]

Whilst you can pick apart Old Labour's ideological purity, I don't think it can be questioned that Labour were a broadly left-wing party then. New Labour distanced itself from that (and was openly critical of other countries left-wing parties at the time) and in doing so lost their left-wing label for either centre-left or centrist, enacting a mix of both left-wing and right-wing policies, and not departing radically from the Thatcherite consensus.

To me a "left-wing government" and a "centre-left government" are different kettle of fish.

[Blair]

This is when someone comes in the with Paxman's hot take that Corbyn's manifesto actually wasn't that left wing, and was simply Milibandism on steroids.

Worth Corbyn arguably has moved the party to the right on immigration, and has convinced an extremely pro-EU party to adopt a more euroskeptic tone. Of course the right of the party would have done the same.

My knowledge of pre-'79 Labour politics is shaky but wasn't the 1974-76 Wilson Government pretty on the left, at least before the recession really hit hard.

[Don Vito Corleone]

I just realized the UK hasn't had a left wing government in nearly 40 years.
That is all.

Wow, thanks for this blisteringly hot take, random american.

LOL

No but really, when I first realized this I was shocked.

Weak hot take. If you wanted to go further you should have claimed Wilson's and Callaghan's governments were not left either, and a true hot take master would suggest the UK, in fact, has never had a left wing government.

Not even Attlee's government was left wing! He was very, very dedicated to the monarchy!

If I was trolling from the left (which I often do, if people are being particularly ahistorical in their "left wing Old Labour/Right wing NuLabour" screeds) it is very easy to suggest Attlee would today be on the centre-right of the party. He and his allies came to power in the party by defeating Lansbury and his pacifist idealogy, formed a national government with hated Imperialist/arch conservative former Chancellor Churchill, instituted a draft and various war measures that suppressed various freedoms, led a government characterized by austerity and rationing, rejected Bevan's ideas of a broad left coalition, suppressed strikes, developed the atomic bomb, joined the Korean war and the start of the cold war machinations and still had a very suspicious role in the declining Empire.

This is not to say I don't like him - he is almost certainly the best PMs we have ever had and his government one of the most important, and in terms of personality an amazing guy, but True Leftists who want to be honest to the historical record should really be honest with themelves.

New Labour weren't right wing (and I never said they were), but they weren't left wing either, they were Centrists, which is why I didn't count them as left wing.

Blair/Brown/Mandelson were right-wing in the context of Labour itself. Labour's leadership often comes from the right of the party, and even most Left Labour leaders (or right/centre leaders that gained power through an alliance with the Left) leaders have had rightist elements to their cabinets and administrations. Regardless of your personal feelings towards Blair and Corbyn, the latter is far more of an abhorration in the party's history.

The point is, that if you dismiss NuLab for being "centrists", there is no reason to call every Labour government (insert any social democratic party here) a bunch of centrists, especially given that they were responding to unique contexts (for example, the postwar command economy was a lot different to Britain in the 60's or late 90's).

I never said New Labour were somehow worse then Old Labour because they were centrist, or that their achievements were hollow because of it (in fact, I probably line up with New Labour more then Old Labour myself), all I said was that I was shocked to realize the UK hasn't had a left wing government (as in, Centre-Left, Left or Far Left) in a generation, when plenty of Brits are left wingers.

[Blair]

I just realized the UK hasn't had a left wing government in nearly 40 years.
That is all.

Wow, thanks for this blisteringly hot take, random american.

LOL

No but really, when I first realized this I was shocked.

Weak hot take. If you wanted to go further you should have claimed Wilson's and Callaghan's governments were not left either, and a true hot take master would suggest the UK, in fact, has never had a left wing government.

Not even Attlee's government was left wing! He was very, very dedicated to the monarchy!

If I was trolling from the left (which I often do, if people are being particularly ahistorical in their "left wing Old Labour/Right wing NuLabour" screeds) it is very easy to suggest Attlee would today be on the centre-right of the party. He and his allies came to power in the party by defeating Lansbury and his pacifist idealogy, formed a national government with hated Imperialist/arch conservative former Chancellor Churchill, instituted a draft and various war measures that suppressed various freedoms, led a government characterized by austerity and rationing, rejected Bevan's ideas of a broad left coalition, suppressed strikes, developed the atomic bomb, joined the Korean war and the start of the cold war machinations and still had a very suspicious role in the declining Empire.

This is not to say I don't like him - he is almost certainly the best PMs we have ever had and his government one of the most important, and in terms of personality an amazing guy, but True Leftists who want to be honest to the historical record should really be honest with themelves.

New Labour weren't right wing (and I never said they were), but they weren't left wing either, they were Centrists, which is why I didn't count them as left wing.

Blair/Brown/Mandelson were right-wing in the context of Labour itself. Labour's leadership often comes from the right of the party, and even most Left Labour leaders (or right/centre leaders that gained power through an alliance with the Left) leaders have had rightist elements to their cabinets and administrations. Regardless of your personal feelings towards Blair and Corbyn, the latter is far more of an abhorration in the party's history.

The point is, that if you dismiss NuLab for being "centrists", there is no reason to call every Labour government (insert any social democratic party here) a bunch of centrists, especially given that they were responding to unique contexts (for example, the postwar command economy was a lot different to Britain in the 60's or late 90's).

I never said New Labour were somehow worse then Old Labour because they were centrist, or that their achievements were hollow because of it (in fact, I probably line up with New Labour more then Old Labour myself), all I said was that I was shocked to realize the UK hasn't had a left wing government (as in, Centre-Left, Left or Far Left) in a generation, when plenty of Brits are left wingers.

I mean I'd dispute the idea that we're a left wing country- sure you get polls showing that people want nationalised trains/better public services but on issues like taxation, immigration and welfare we're still very much not on the left

[Antonio the Sixth]

So I saw the full Question Time for the first time a couple days ago. It was great and I think it's a wonderful exercise of democratic debate, but one thing I found unbelievably silly are the majority MPs who will use their question to their own Prime Minister as an excuse to attack the other side, with the PM happy to oblige.

Stuff like "Madam Prime Minister, do you agree that the leader of the Opposition is a raving commie lunatic?" "I would like to thank the Right Honourable Gentleman from Bumblef**kshire East for his very thoughtful question. I do, in fact, agree that the leader of the Opposition is a raving commie lunatic, and would further add that he hates Britain and eats puppies."

Like, how pathetic is it? Like, I don't have anything against some old fashioned banter between parties - in fact I very much love it - but it's only banter if there is an actual exchange between two sides. This is the textbook definition of groupthink. How long have majority MPs done that, and PMs gone along with it?

[Lumine]

So I saw the full Question Time for the first time a couple days ago. It was great and I think it's a wonderful exercise of democratic debate, but one thing I found unbelievably silly are the majority MPs who will use their question to their own Prime Minister as an excuse to attack the other side, with the PM happy to oblige.

Stuff like "Madam Prime Minister, do you agree that the leader of the Opposition is a raving commie lunatic?" "I would like to thank the Right Honourable Gentleman from Bumblef**kshire East for his very thoughtful question. I do, in fact, agree that the leader of the Opposition is a raving commie lunatic, and would further add that he hates Britain and eats puppies."

Like, how pathetic is it? Like, I don't have anything against some old fashioned banter between parties - in fact I very much love it - but it's only banter if there is an actual exchange between two sides. This is the textbook definition of groupthink. How long have majority MPs done that, and PMs gone along with it?

I think that has happened for very, very long time, but I'm not entirely sure. Certainly some questions are rather pointless, I recall a recent joke going: "Prime Minister, could you look interested while I bring up some boring s___ about my constituency?"

[Barnes]

Ministers have taken questions in the Commons and Lords regularly for the better part of 200 years, but the formalized system of a specific question period based on portfolio only developed after the Second World War. Before then, ministers could be asked questions at any point during the day, which is why these now take place in the afternoon for the PM since the Conservatives agreed to help out Gladstone during his final premiership when he was in his eighties!

You will find that if you look at similar procedures in other Commonwealth countries, the level of "praise the leader" from Government backbenchers is really rather tame. The most egregious example is Australia where all questions from the Governemnt's side are basically written by the relevant minister and sent to that MPs office to ask. 

[Barnes]

This is when someone comes in the with Paxman's hot take that Corbyn's manifesto actually wasn't that left wing, and was simply Milibandism on steroids.

Worth Corbyn arguably has moved the party to the right on immigration, and has convinced an extremely pro-EU party to adopt a more euroskeptic tone. Of course the right of the party would have done the same.

My knowledge of pre-'79 Labour politics is shaky but wasn't the 1974-76 Wilson Government pretty on the left, at least before the recession really hit hard.

Rhetorically, absolutely, and there were some major condensations to the left--holding the 1975 referendum being one. Remember Healey's infamously mis-quoted promise to tax the rich until the "pips squeaked." This was pursued somewhat before '76 but there were still a raft of spending cuts.

The great u-turn--Healey Mark II--came in September '76 with the IMF bailout.