As far as i’m concerned, politicians shouldn’t try and play to the populus - they should have their standpoints and people should align with them. For a political party/institution to completely change its ethos to appear to be more popular is completely dishonest. That’s what happened when Blair took over as Labour leader and he was very successful at making them popular, but there was always going to be a backlash from those like Corbyn within the party who stood firm.
In an ideal world you should be able to plot all of our politicians views on a scale, but we seem to have such a bunch of flip-floppers representing us now that we can never be sure exactly what we’re voting for - THAT is why I think Corbyn has got the support that he has in this race.
The Monbiot article draws comparisons with Margaret Thatcher’s leadership campaign, believe it or not. Seen as an extremist within her own party at the time. No one thought she’d be able to capture the centre. Turned out that she didn’t need to. The public voted for her and she dragged the country to the right.
There are definitely parallels between them, or on their perception at least. She was very successful at changing the political landscape and establishing free market ideology as the dominant school of thought in modern politics - who’s to say that Corbyn couldn’t do the same and bring the country over to the left more? I think overall we’re a pretty tolerant nation, but people espouse the views of their politicians and our more influential politicians are very much centrist/right-wing as a whole, with a few notable exceptions.
This all brings me back to a part in the SNP MP Mhairi Black’s maiden speech at the Commons a few months ago, where she mentioned Tony Benn’s quote on “weathercocks and signposts” (link below for those who haven’t seen it, starts at 6:32) - Corbyn seems to be a signpost, the other 3 seem to be cut/paste weathercocks - people don’t want to be represented by weathercocks anymore.
The Monbiot article draws comparisons with Margaret Thatcher’s leadership campaign, believe it or not. Seen as an extremist within her own party at the time. No one thought she’d be able to capture the centre. Turned out that she didn’t need to. The public voted for her and she dragged the country to the right.
Monbiot is making a false analogy. The huge difference between Thatcherism and Corbyn-mania is that the former was gestated over a number of years, with new ideas, by Keith Joseph and the Centre for Policy Studies. It was his and their radical and new blend of social conservatism and monetarism that created many of the neo-liberal orthodoxies that has characterised political power in Britain ever since, regardless of who’s in power.
There is no thinking of new ideas with Corbyn: the whole underlying mood of Corbyn-mania is a return to old, comfortable ideas about the railways and the energy companies being ours. As SM put it earlier, it’s about nationalisation and the big state (as if size is a measure of goodness).
It’s precisely because Corbyn mania forestalls such re-thinking that it’s a bad thing. And it’s all the worse because there really will be an opportunity, in alliance with others like the SNP, to wrest power from the Tories in 2020. They will be torn to pieces by the fall out from the EU referendum, and I can’t believe there won’t be equivalents of the poll tax civil unrest once the scale of the cuts dig into entire communities, destabilising whole cities.
While Joseph ripped into the existing fabric of British politics and constructed a programme that Thatcher merely adopted (she contributed zilch intellectually), Corbyn is about sinking into old working-class chapel values.
The worst of it is Corbyn is the Tories’ useful idiot – no wonder there’s a “Tories for Corbyn” campaign.
There’s nothing wrong in returning to nationalised industries. If the likes of France can make billions in profits by using their nationally owned energy companies to cream huge profits from the private energy sector in Britain, then that rather scotches the myth that national industry doesn’t work. I’d sooner have that money go into our exchequer than theirs. That’s a view that’ll chime with many.
More than anything else though, private industry cannot be trusted to police itself, so where we don’t nationalise, we will need regulation with sharp enough teeth to ensure that corporate malpractice is kept to a minimum.
We tried privatising everything. It was shit, which is why there is such support for bringing industries that have either become monopolies, or a big fish in a small cartel, back into public ownership. They had their chance, took the piss, and I’d expect there to be a lot of sympathy for Corbyn’s views within the electorate.
So private industry can’t be trusted to police itself? Well done, pap, on reaching the 1860s.
No one is saying public ownership (which you meant to say, rather nationalisation) is in itself a bad thing. But even nationalisng the railways by letting franchises expire won’t work for a putative Corbyn government. Almost of all the existing rail franchises will expire during the present Tory regime, and will be renewed for another seven years, so won’t expire again until presumably the next Tory regime. So the only way out of this conundrum is to actually shell out billions to take the railways into public ownership. Ditto the energy companies. Try selling that as a priority to the electorate.
First off, you’re taking stuff down a hostile path again. I was actually amazed that you had the front to call me out for ad hominem attacks, given your performance in the thread to date, but didn’t raise it because I wanted it ended there. Every Corbyn supporter is a fantasist, or as dysfunctional as the Free People of Gallilee in the funniest film of all time. I’m a bullshitter or now, some throwback that has just realised an essential truth after crawling, blinking into the light, out of my cave. Please stop it.
Second, I don’t accept the “has to be done this way”. In the event that Corbyn gets elected as Labour leader, those franchises aren’t going to look quite as attractive to the private sector. A Labour general election win would transform long term monopolies into short term concerns, and could involve legislation that makes private ownership even less attractive. If Corbyn is up for rent controls on housing, I can’t imagine that price controls on inflation-busting fares are going to be utterly alien to him. Those businesses could end up being more trouble than they’re worth.
And then the Sea of Galilee didn’t part and the train companies used TTIP (signed into law by the Tories) to sue the British taxpayers to hell. That’s what I mean: it’s just a bunch of pat, old-hat ideas untested not just by reality but any kind of actual scrutiny at all. Hiding in the parliamentary shadows for 30 years and representing the most caricatured hippy-dip constituency in the country isn’t going to be the best of preparations for Corbyn. And we’ll all be the losers for it.
Here’s a nasty little zinger – another consitutional mess left by Miliband. For all its obvious failings, the electoral college ensured practically that the leader elected by it was also the leader of the parliamentary party.
However, the parliamentary Labour Party can now elect whomever they wish as their leader in the Commons, regardless of the outcome of the leadership election. And one place where Corbyn has scant support is in the PLP.
So while Corbyn may be the leader of the party, he may not be the Leader of the Opposition in the Commons.
If only there were such a thing as time out to put this party back together again… My strong suspicion, though, is that we’ll be asking about the strange death of Labour Britain, just as people were asking about the strange death of Liberal England with the withering away of the Liberals after the First World War.
Surely the Labour party won’t be daft enough to elect Corbyn leader of the party, then elect someone else to represent them in parliament. They will completely piss off everyone of their party members who are voting for Corbyn to stand at the dispatch box opposite Cameron.
The Labour Party doesn’t elect the leader of the party - individual members do in a one-member-one vote system. Members do not elect the leader of the PLP - only MPs do that. Completely different constituencies.
So now you’re going down the forced-nationalisation route, rather than the franchises expiring.
If you think that’s cost-free you’re in for a nasty shock. And just as Corbyn has backed off on full tilt nationalisation of the energy companies because of cost, this new strategy of yours might unsettle him for exactly the same reason. That, as I say, is quite aside from the likelihood that TTIP will be in place by the time a supposed Corbyn government will come to power.
The thing about reality is you have to confront it. That way you make headway.
For me, nationalisation is the point at which something passes into public ownership, not a specific means by which it happens. Corbyn said he’s going to wait for the franchises to expire. Beyond suggesting he could legislate to make those businesses fairer for the commuter (and therefore less attractive to the private sector), I haven’t suggested full nationalisation.
The point stands however we get there. Franchise expires. Contract bought out. Nationalisation is the end, not the means.
At that point, however we get there, those countries won’t be making an earner from whatever has just been nationalised.
Okay, so you’re opting for franchises expiring. Neat steal from the Green Party, by the way. Except as I’ve already said, for the most part they won’t expire! A Corbyn Labour government in 2020 will see barely any franchises come up for renewal during its term in office. The only major one wil be the East Coast Line. Most of the rest will have been renewed between now and 2020.
So nationalisation WON’T solve it on your new plan.
I understand, however if the party membership elect Corbyn and the MPs refuse to back him as the parliamentary leader, then those MPs still have to answer to their consituencies who get to decide who their parliamentary candidate wil be for the next election.
My point is if the MPs go against the wishes of their membership then they completely open themselves to accusations of being undemocratic.
