Friday 31st.July

ephemerid · Post by **ephemerid** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 6:44 am

Good morning, everyone.

After the discussions here yesterday on the Labour leadership contest - all very interesting - I am even more determined to support Jeremy Corbyn.

Hugo has (not infrequently) made his point that Corbyn, like Miliband, is "unelectable". Miliband was rendered so by a very hostile media in my opinion. Robert has asked why there seems to have been no in-depth analysis of why Miliband lost; this is a good point, because the assumption by many is that his policies were either too left-wing or too wishy-washy to gain any traction with voters.
The thing is that he DID have policies - lots of them - but for some reason they didn't get across. I'm not sure that Miliband himself is at fault here; he had the unenviable tasks of trying to keep the party united, trying to get a more inclusive message across, and trying to get rid of the brother-backstabbing, dad-was-a-Marxist, talks funny, policy wonk, geek etc.etc. image manufactured for him by others.

Labour enjoyed a landslide in 1997. This was not entirely due to the gifts of Blair - it would have happened whoever was leader at that time, thanks to years of Tory neglect in our public services and the sleaze-ridden successive conservative governments.
After that, Labour lost 4 Million voters over the next 13 years. It's easy to blame Miliband for the loss of a million voters this time, but the biggest loss of seats happened in Scotland, with the loss of 300,000 voters; in fact, the vote share everywhere else went up by 1.4 points. The Tories' share across the UK increased by just 0.8 points - it's FPTP that has led to their (very narrow) success.
The truth is that, despite all the lionising of Blair and his election success, his and Brown's governments lost 4 million Labour voters.

This is why, IMHO, many people are now wondering why the other candidates are still hanging on to Blairism, why they're still insistent that they must stick to the same old stuff about electability, when it simply isn't an alternative and it isn't an opposition.
It seems to me that the whole landscape is changing. The "grey" vote is losing some of its power; Corbyn is getting younger people, who are being hit very hard by the policies of this and the last government, engaged and interested. This is good news, because they could be the deciding factor in the next GE. Corbyn has energised the whole debate, and that cannot be a bad thing.

I disagree with Hugo and those who think that the likes of Cooper would be the right choice - the electorate need and deserve a principled opposition, not a few vague soundbites and business-as-usual from what is essentially no longer a left-wing party.
I disagree that someone like Burnham is more electable - he had dithered too much, to the point I'm not sure what he stands for.
I definitely disagree that Kendall is electable - she is arrogant, has no principles, and changes policy ideas to suit whoever asks.

If all Corbyn manages to do is get Labour seriously debating the issues we face rather than giving us more of the same and not much effective opposition, then he will have done a good job. If he wins, he will change the whole ballgame. I hope he does.

rebeccariots2 · Post by **rebeccariots2** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 8:25 am

Morning.

Green groups express 'major concern' over Tory policies in letter to Cameron
Heads of 10 groups, including National Trust, Greenpeace and RSPB, call the cutting or watering-down of 10 key environmental policies woeful and shocking
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... to-cameron" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

... The heads of the 10 groups, which include the National Trust, Greenpeace and the RSPB, said they were shocked and worried at the changes, and rated the Conservative government’s track record on nature and climate change as woeful.

Since May, the government has ended subsidies for wind and solar power, increased taxes on renewable energy, axed plans for zero carbon homes, and closed its flagship energy efficiency scheme without a replacement. It also made a u-turn on banning fracking in Britain’s most important nature sites, and lifted a ban in some parts of the country on pesticides linked to bee declines.

Stephanie Hilborne OBE, chief executive of The Wildlife Trusts which represents 47 local wildlife groups across the UK, said: “This list of recent policy reversals is shocking, and shows disregard for the health and wellbeing of current and future generations, as well as for the environment we all depend on.”...

rebeccariots2 · Post by **rebeccariots2** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 9:00 am

Chris Williamson ‏@ChriswMP 14m14 minutes ago
Here's another reason to vote @Corbyn4Leader as new research proves academies are more likely to remain 'inadequate' http://schoolsweek.co.uk/secondary-scho ... d-academy/ …

Can't find anything on the BBC website on this new research although Radio 4 has just done an item on it. The bloke supporting academies didn't really have an answer. In fact - he more or less agreed that there shouldn't be an assumption in the legislation the government are putting through that becoming academies is the answer for 'inadequate' schools and therefore they will be forced to do so. He said academies aren't necessarily the answer for all schools .....

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 9:07 am

ephemerid wrote:Good morning, everyone.

After the discussions here yesterday on the Labour leadership contest - all very interesting - I am even more determined to support Jeremy Corbyn.

Hugo has (not infrequently) made his point that Corbyn, like Miliband, is "unelectable". Miliband was rendered so by a very hostile media in my opinion. Robert has asked why there seems to have been no in-depth analysis of why Miliband lost; this is a good point, because the assumption by many is that his policies were either too left-wing or too wishy-washy to gain any traction with voters.
The thing is that he DID have policies - lots of them - but for some reason they didn't get across. I'm not sure that Miliband himself is at fault here; he had the unenviable tasks of trying to keep the party united, trying to get a more inclusive message across, and trying to get rid of the brother-backstabbing, dad-was-a-Marxist, talks funny, policy wonk, geek etc.etc. image manufactured for him by others.

Labour enjoyed a landslide in 1997. This was not entirely due to the gifts of Blair - it would have happened whoever was leader at that time, thanks to years of Tory neglect in our public services and the sleaze-ridden successive conservative governments.
After that, Labour lost 4 Million voters over the next 13 years. It's easy to blame Miliband for the loss of a million voters this time, but the biggest loss of seats happened in Scotland, with the loss of 300,000 voters; in fact, the vote share everywhere else went up by 1.4 points. The Tories' share across the UK increased by just 0.8 points - it's FPTP that has led to their (very narrow) success.
The truth is that, despite all the lionising of Blair and his election success, his and Brown's governments lost 4 million Labour voters.

This is why, IMHO, many people are now wondering why the other candidates are still hanging on to Blairism, why they're still insistent that they must stick to the same old stuff about electability, when it simply isn't an alternative and it isn't an opposition.
It seems to me that the whole landscape is changing. The "grey" vote is losing some of its power; Corbyn is getting younger people, who are being hit very hard by the policies of this and the last government, engaged and interested. This is good news, because they could be the deciding factor in the next GE. Corbyn has energised the whole debate, and that cannot be a bad thing.

I disagree with Hugo and those who think that the likes of Cooper would be the right choice - the electorate need and deserve a principled opposition, not a few vague soundbites and business-as-usual from what is essentially no longer a left-wing party.
I disagree that someone like Burnham is more electable - he had dithered too much, to the point I'm not sure what he stands for.
I definitely disagree that Kendall is electable - she is arrogant, has no principles, and changes policy ideas to suit whoever asks.

If all Corbyn manages to do is get Labour seriously debating the issues we face rather than giving us more of the same and not much effective opposition, then he will have done a good job. If he wins, he will change the whole ballgame. I hope he does.

Hear! Hear!
Well, said, Ephemerid.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 9:08 am

Good-morning, everyone.

yahyah · Post by **yahyah** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 9:11 am

I can't find a link on the BBC webite for this.
Today reported this morning that survivors of child abuse are having their compensation partially or completely cut if they have any convictions for crime.
One woman interviewed was fed drugs and alcohol as part of the grooming for abuse, no surprising she later had problems dealing with substance abuse. She was a major witness in an abuse trial yet received no compensation because she had a conviction.

The figures quoted were obtained under FOI, and from 2010.
So am unclear as to whether this punitive approach was introduced by the Coalition or already existed, or whether the rules are being more forcefully applied.

The government deem that alchohol/drug/theft/violence crimes caused by people who suffered child abuse trauma cause expense to the public purse and therefore they must forgo all or part of their statutory compensation.

& how many of the same group of people may end up [if Tory ideas prevail] having benefits cut because they suffer ongoing substance abuse or eating disorders as a result of their original traumas ?

Cameron weeps crocodile tears in public about child abuse, shows little concern for the often life long results for those abused.

Today, if the Telegraph are to be believed, he'll be Cobra-ing and feeding right wing stiffy fantasies about sending the army to Calais.

HindleA · Post by **HindleA** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 9:21 am

Morning.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015 ... -unethical" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

UK proposals to strip obese claimants of benefits 'flawed and unethical'
Experts say evidence shows that psychological treatment doesn’t work if patients are coerced into accepting treatment

FWIW Main disabling condition tells you little,vast majority have more than one.

RogerOThornhill · Post by **RogerOThornhill** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 9:23 am

Morning all.

Thetford Free School set to go into special measures

http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/education/t ... _1_4175886

The school opened with 19 pupils in September 2013, and Ms Truss unveiled a plaque at the school’s official opening ceremony in June 2014, when she said: “You have blazed a trail that others will want to follow and know about.”

She was not available for comment this week.

Or...perhaps not.

Nobody connected with the DfE can ever admit that they might be wrong about anything.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 9:33 am

Private rental prices paid by tenants in Great Britain rose by 2.5% in the 12 months to June 2015.
Private rental prices grew by 2.5% in England, 2.1% in Scotland and 0.8% in Wales in the 12 months to June 2015.
Rental prices increased in all the English regions over the year to June 2015, with rental prices increasing the most in London (3.8%).

ONS - Index of Private Housing Rental Prices, April to June 2015
31 July 2015
http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/hpi/index ... ain-points" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

RogerOThornhill · Post by **RogerOThornhill** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 9:34 am

This might be of interest from the House of Commons Library - answers a question I wondered about yesterday - how many LibDem seats went Tory.

General Election 2015

http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ ... y/CBP-7186

The answer's 27 as against 12 Lab and 10 SNP...pages 45 et seq for the seats changing hands to/from which party.

In all of the analysis of why Labour didn't win or even have Miliband in No 10 in coalition, this tends to be forgotten.

SpinningHugo · Post by **SpinningHugo** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 10:02 am

Ephemeris

What is the evidence for the grey votes loss of power? The over 65s is easily the fastest growing demographic.

Don't confuse the enthusiasm of a handful of young activists, too young to remember 83, with the electorate.

What is interesting is how much emphasis you place on Corbyn providing opposition. I think that is revealing. It is unimaginable that he could be in government.

Labour enters new territory with Corbyn. This isn't a return to 83.
-he has no significant PLP support
-he has no experience
-his economic plans are from the kindergarten with numbers with no credibility whatsoever (£93bn)
-he has consistently wanted us out of NATO and the EU (the latter until the last week)
- he wants a future Labour government to waste its energy and resources renationalising BT
-he has always been an enthusiastic backer of Galloway

This is the politics of oblivion.

The Tories are laughing at us. And no, as with Miliband that is not the nervous laugh of fear you can hear.

frightful_oik · Post by **frightful_oik** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 10:03 am

Cobra meeting this morning. Got to make it look like something's being done. Then a stern-faced statement from outside No 10. Is my guess.

Lonewolfie · Post by **Lonewolfie** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 10:11 am

@SpinningHugo - I see. So you are proposing some kind of revolution to overturn the state, thereby rendering the Tory majority in Parliament irrelevant?

That, Hugo, depends on your definition of 'revolution'...and I'm not so sure I propose 'overturning the state'....however, rendering the Tories irrelevant isn't enough for someone like me (an 'unrepresented' voter for the last 35+ years) - as I've said many times, the 'public' need a full enquiry into all decisions made since 1979 (and possibly as far back as the McKinsey/NHS Report) - the evidence of corruption, lies and manipulation of the 'media message' in the favour of the union, society and community destroyers is now all around us...just one of many instances...

'We were fed lies about the violence at Orgreave. Now we need the truth'

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... ers-strike

Once again, as with Hillsborough, police officers are apparently confessing that they were instructed to fabricate statements in connection with Orgreave and the policing of the miners' strike. I see no difference between that and attempting to pervert the course of justice.
We need to know to what extent agent provocateurs were used by the authorities at Orgreave and who authorised it. Two miners, David Jones and Joe Green, were killed in suspicious circumstances on the picket lines during the strike. We need to know if those deaths were ever properly investigated. If not, we deserve to be told why not.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... ners-truth

...and I'm glad to see Zelo Street picking up Gitty F***ks connection to David Hart....

http://zelo-street.blogspot.co.uk/2015/ ... crisy.html

..., who, whilst being, to quote Zelo Street, 'a deeply unpleasant individual', was also described thusly in a book about stains...

"Generation Ecstasy : Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture" by Simon Reynolds describes him as "a Libertarian Conservative whose day job was as assistant to rabid freemarket ideologue David Hart, one of Thatcher's favorite advisors." David Hart[2] masterminded the breaking of the miner's strike and was a favourite courtier of Thatcher. She would ask multi-millionaire Hart to make suggestions for her speeches. Staines as aides-de-camp was reputed to come up with the jokes. Hart and Staines shared a right-wing hippy libertarian outlook.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Paul_Staines

This is an interesting list of names too...

Paul Staines is a former member of the Committee for a Free Britain, a shadowy organisation which was funded by Sir James Goldsmith, Rupert Murdoch and David Hart. His self described role with the organisation was as "a foreign policy analyst".

...were all three financiers and Thatcher favourites present at President Ray-Guns presentation about the 'Successor Generation' in the early '80s?...two of them were...

This is the British-American Project for the Successor Generation (BAP), set up in 1985 with money from a Philadelphia trust with a long history of supporting right-wing causes. Although the BAP does not publicly acknowledge this origin, the source of its inspiration was a call by President Reagan in 1983 for "successor generations" on both sides of the Atlantic to "work together in the future on defence and security matters". He made numerous references to "shared values". Attending this ceremony in the White House Situation Room were the ideologues Rupert Murdoch and the late James Goldsmith.

http://johnpilger.com/articles/how-the- ... ts-values-

You may believe(TM) that all is fair in politics, and that even if the real power hides itself away, manipulates behind the scenes, destroys the reputations of anyone 'not like them', implements policies in direct contradiction to the Post-War Settlement, continues to lie and obfuscate about their own actions and those of others, organises 'politics' to suit themselves and their agenda, against all sensible rational analysis (or even just basic criticism of policy) . You may believe(TM) that all this is OK. I, however, do not...and for the first time in a very long time, there is a candidate and politician who at least sees some things in the way as me (and many many of our fellow citizens)...this piece shows (I believe(TM)) that Red Ed was nowhere near red enough...

His unremarkable support for a 50p tax rate (recall that Margaret Thatcher retained a top rate of 60p for nine years of her premiership) is shared by 68% of voters, while 48% favour a rate 10p higher. A similar proportion (69%) back his pledge to introduce a mansion tax on property values above £2m and his commitment to workers' rights. According to polling by Populus, 69% agree that "it is important Labour retains its strong links with the Trade Unions because they represent many hard working people in Britain". His promise to repeal the bedroom tax is supported by 59% (it turns out that you can be too tough on welfare). In fact, in several respects, Miliband presently lies to the right of the British public. While he deliberates over whether to renationalise the railways, 70% of voters have already sided against privatisation. Almost as many (69%) would like to see the energy companies taken back into public ownership. A majority (60%) want the minimum wage to be raised to the level of the living wage and a full ban on zero-hour contracts.

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/20 ... ost-public

Ummm....evenmoraft all...and again, Hugo - apologies if this ramble comes over as against you - I hope (which is also where I live, still just north of Peterborough) it comes across as an attempt to play the 'ball' rather than the 'man'....and apologies to all for the length of this rant

TTFN

Lonewolfie · Post by **Lonewolfie** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 10:14 am

SpinningHugo wrote:Ephemeris

What is the evidence for the grey votes loss of power? The over 65s is easily the fastest growing demographic.

Don't confuse the enthusiasm of a handful of young activists, too young to remember 83, with the electorate.

What is interesting is how much emphasis you place on Corbyn providing opposition. I think that is revealing. It is unimaginable that he could be in government.

Labour enters new territory with Corbyn. This isn't a return to 83.
-he has no significant PLP support
-he has no experience
-his economic plans are from the kindergarten with numbers with no credibility whatsoever (£93bn)
-he has consistently wanted us out of NATO and the EU (the latter until the last week)
- he wants a future Labour government to waste its energy and resources renationalising BT
-he has always been an enthusiastic backer of Galloway

This is the politics of oblivion.

The Tories are laughing at us. And no, as with Miliband that is not the nervous laugh of fear you can hear.

'Kin ada, Hugo - if you thought the Tories were scared of Mr Ed, why didn't you back him?

SpinningHugo · Post by **SpinningHugo** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 10:25 am

Of course they weren't scared of him. They were (rightly) delighted he was leader. Their three themes were

1. Miliband is useless
2. Long term economic plan
3. Scotland

We gave them 1&2 through incompetence.

pk1 · Post by **pk1** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 10:28 am

yahyah wrote:I can't find a link on the BBC webite for this.
Today reported this morning that survivors of child abuse are having their compensation partially or completely cut if they have any convictions for crime.
One woman interviewed was fed drugs and alcohol as part of the grooming for abuse, no surprising she later had problems dealing with substance abuse. She was a major witness in an abuse trial yet received no compensation because she had a conviction.

The figures quoted were obtained under FOI, and from 2010.
So am unclear as to whether this punitive approach was introduced by the Coalition or already existed, or whether the rules are being more forcefully applied.

The government deem that alchohol/drug/theft/violence crimes caused by people who suffered child abuse trauma cause expense to the public purse and therefore they must forgo all or part of their statutory compensation.

& how many of the same group of people may end up [if Tory ideas prevail] having benefits cut because they suffer ongoing substance abuse or eating disorders as a result of their original traumas ?

Cameron weeps crocodile tears in public about child abuse, shows little concern for the often life long results for those abused.

Today, if the Telegraph are to be believed, he'll be Cobra-ing and feeding right wing stiffy fantasies about sending the army to Calais.

Here you go:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33707529" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Since 2010, CICA - an executive agency sponsored by the Ministry of Justice - has awarded compensation to 12,665 people who were sexually abused as children, or as adults lacking mental capacity.

But some 438 people have had their government-funded compensation reduced because they had committed criminal offences themselves, the BBC learned after a series of Freedom of Information requests.

Of the 27 cases where compensation was reduced between June 2014 and June 2015, half were for drink, drugs, theft or property offences. Eight involved violence against people.

CICA would not say how many applications by such victims had been rejected.

"The Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme has always asked that awards are reduced or refused if the victim had unspent convictions," it said in a statement.

The Ministry of Justice said the refusal or reduction of an awarded payment reflected the fact the individual "may have caused distress, loss or injury to another person, and cost the taxpayer money through a police investigation or court proceedings".

It said there were no plans to review the scheme.

(thanks for the message at Omni x)

TechnicalEphemera · Post by **TechnicalEphemera** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 10:32 am

Lonewolfie wrote:
SpinningHugo wrote:Ephemeris

What is the evidence for the grey votes loss of power? The over 65s is easily the fastest growing demographic.

Don't confuse the enthusiasm of a handful of young activists, too young to remember 83, with the electorate.

What is interesting is how much emphasis you place on Corbyn providing opposition. I think that is revealing. It is unimaginable that he could be in government.

Labour enters new territory with Corbyn. This isn't a return to 83.
-he has no significant PLP support
-he has no experience
-his economic plans are from the kindergarten with numbers with no credibility whatsoever (£93bn)
-he has consistently wanted us out of NATO and the EU (the latter until the last week)
- he wants a future Labour government to waste its energy and resources renationalising BT
-he has always been an enthusiastic backer of Galloway

This is the politics of oblivion.

The Tories are laughing at us. And no, as with Miliband that is not the nervous laugh of fear you can hear.
'Kin ada, Hugo - if you thought the Tories were scared of Mr Ed, why didn't you back him?

Not withstanding the Ed thing, Hugo's analysis above is devastatingly accurate. To the wider population Corbyn is, and will remain, a joke. Electing him gives the Tories the green light to trample over everybody and anything because they will have zero electoral consequences to face.

It is simply bonkers, parties need to look outside themselves when electing a leader. And no I am not a Blairite. However if he wins Labours best hope is to ditch him in a year and find somebody on the centre left with some charisma.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 10:34 am

RogerOThornhill wrote:This might be of interest from the House of Commons Library - answers a question I wondered about yesterday - how many LibDem seats went Tory.

General Election 2015

http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ ... y/CBP-7186

The answer's 27 as against 12 Lab and 10 SNP...pages 45 et seq for the seats changing hands to/from which party.

In all of the analysis of why Labour didn't win or even have Miliband in No 10 in coalition, this tends to be forgotten.

Why did LibDem voters go Tory in more seats than Labour in the 2015 GE?
Straight question to anyone.
Graphics on pages 45-52 of the pdf document available from the website posted above.

DonutHingeParty · Post by **DonutHingeParty** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 10:43 am

So, I went to a meeting of new Labour members the other night - a bit frustrating as we wanted to have a good debate about purity vs pragmatism, but the agenda of the organisers obviously had a brief to look at these as focus groups and wanted us to come up with marketable strategies for growth.

However, it calcified my belief that Corbyn should be supported for leader for a myriad of reasons.

1. He hasn't said a single thing I don't believe.
2. I pay my subscription because I want the party to be a voice for my beliefs in Parliament.
3. He doesn't care about being Prime Minister for its own sake.
4. He doesn't apologise for the past or capitulate to the right wing press or UKIP on subjects like welfare and immigration (see 1.)
5. If he wins, it will establish a moral base for the party, which we can then look at with a pragmatic eye. At the moment, the approach seems to be looking at what the Tories are doing and seeing how much we can slightly tweak it so it's not quite as bad, which is lazy and cowardly politics.
6. If he wins, he'll probably step down anyway, but Corbyn will be able to keep Burnham honest now that he has delivered him a mandate from a will of the party. Burnham also said that he would offer Corbyn a Shadow post if he wanted it, although I doubt that JC would take it.
7. It'll put the nail into the Blairite wing of the party - we have a Blairite party in place now, they're called the Conservatives.

utopiandreams · Post by **utopiandreams** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 10:50 am

Excuse a bit of a ramble (not even read to see if makes sense, let alone proof reading). Stuff to do so posting anyway...

I'm feeling a little disheartened by all things politic at present. Tory governance, be it in coalition or by majority, has destroyed consensus politics, not that New Labour were much better in that regard. My frustration since 2010 and the decimation of my erstwhile support (Orange Bookers are merely another manifestation of Maggie's legacy, neoliberalism or whatever you will) of a party that thought Tories could compromise. 'And therein llies the problem. Tories don't do compromise they may speak of it but only impose it by design in the jeopardy sense. I'm doubly disappointed having put some faith in Miliband's sincerity, which was destroyed by scaremongering and a hostile media, notwithstanding Cameron and Osborne's political games.

Added to the scaremongering were the electoral lies. Take the follwing from Green groups express 'major concern' over Tory policies in letter to Cameron: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... to-cameron

“We would encourage you to resolve some of the contradictions that have emerged between the stated intentions of government and the actions of your ministers in its first period in office,” the groups said in the letter...

Firstly the politeness of formal language, 'contradictions' where lies are meant. Parties, Tories in particular, simply lie in manifestos put before the electorate and secondly, apart from mouthing off on the internet we just are that polite; a mixture of apathy, or the peaceful life, and plain decency.

As for the Labour leadership, albeit not participating in a vote I am coming around to Corbyn having initially favoured Burnham. Consensus politics means cooperation not compromise, although Burnham does seem to have grasped this, he sometimes comes across as a leaf in the wind. Cameron on the other hand is a piece of litter, a filthy plastic bag. On occasion I would liken him to one full of shit, mysteriously dangling from a tree; nobody knows how he got there. 2015 needs strong opposition with the potential to bring down this government; only then should we concern ourselves with governing.

I appreciate the partisan nature of a leadership election but a unified left is the only way. Labour may be best placed to offer consensus politics but only if they look to the left. The trouble is that main stream media shall continue to belittle and mock. Whoever leads Labour has to look beyond their core support and as I said before that means cooperation, not compromise. Corbyn may be wrong on some things but show me a leader that isn't. Personally I favour someone who can reach out to other views both with and without the party and of course PR as opposed to FPTP. Wishful thinking perhaps.

mikems · Post by **mikems** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 10:55 am

To the wider population Corbyn is, and will remain, a joke.

Says who? Oh, yeah, tories, that's who.

Willow904 · Post by **Willow904** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 10:57 am

RogerOThornhill wrote:This might be of interest from the House of Commons Library - answers a question I wondered about yesterday - how many LibDem seats went Tory.

General Election 2015

http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ ... y/CBP-7186

The answer's 27 as against 12 Lab and 10 SNP...pages 45 et seq for the seats changing hands to/from which party.

In all of the analysis of why Labour didn't win or even have Miliband in No 10 in coalition, this tends to be forgotten.

When Graham Watson, the popular Libdem MEP for the South West, lost his seat in the EU elections last year I began to worry just how big a collapse of the Libdems there would be. If I could see how such a collapse in the South West would favour the Tories and make Labour's job that much harder, surely those in the party must have seen it coming as well. And absolutely nothing Labour could do, either, as these were predominantly seats that had never been won by Labour, ever. They were blue throughout the 80s, turning yellow in 1992 and staying yellow, thus denying the Tories many naturally conservative seats, throughout the Blair years. Without the Libdem effect, would Blair even have won in 2005?
The longstanding tactical voting arrangement between Labour and Libdem supporters that collapsed as a direct result of the Libdem decision to go into Coalition with the Tories is a crucial element in Labour's defeat but has barely got a mention. Why? Because it makes it harder to blame Ed personally, to put it on him and his policies? It seems to me the Libdems left this country with a double whammy. They broke the trust of left wing tactical voters that gave them so many Tory marginals, whilst making the Tories appear more acceptable to those on the right of their party by restraining them in government, leading to them voting Tory again for the first time in decades. As a result, I'm once again living in a sea of blue from Bath to Penzance. So don't blame Ed for our current predicament, blame Nick Clegg. He destroyed our fragile left of centre progressive alliance that gave us many years of positive public investment and re-distribution of wealth. Ed didn't lose the election. Nick did.

LadyCentauria · Post by **LadyCentauria** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 11:13 am

HindleA wrote:Morning.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015 ... -unethical" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

UK proposals to strip obese claimants of benefits 'flawed and unethical'
Experts say evidence shows that psychological treatment doesn’t work if patients are coerced into accepting treatment

FWIW Main disabling condition tells you little,vast majority have more than one.

(My bold)
Especially where the 'main disabling condition' (where people list more than one disabling condition) is taken to be the one at the top of the list as written by the claimant, which might not actually be the one that has the most effect. As far as I remember, the instruction on the form does not ask that multiple conditions be written in order of seriousness with the most serious at the top...

Thanks for the link!

AnatolyKasparov · Post by **AnatolyKasparov** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 11:15 am

Yes, its hard to underestimate how much the LibDems helped the Tories in the last parliament.

They gave them "respectability", gave the Tories somebody else to blame for whatever went wrong, and legitimised them by obediently repeating their "attack lines" on Labour/Ed.

At least this time round, the Tories have virtually no "useful idiots" whatsoever (even the NI Unionists aren't that keen)

onebuttonmonkey · Post by **onebuttonmonkey** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 11:52 am

Glad to hear it, Ephie.

For me, the most damage that’s been done to Corbyn’s campaign is the sudden and typically self-serving proclamations of support from one George Galloway. He can’t see a bandwagon setting off without claiming to be one of its drivers, can he? Galloway is more offputting than anything any of Jeremy’s opponents have mustered, but I’m just ignoring the horrible toad in the hope that he’ll end up trapped in front of his only true love: any and all mirrors.

More seriously – and saddeningly, given they’re talking about the quality of the debate rather than there being any substance to it – the media coverage of Corbyn's popularity has boiled down to two very reductive sides:

1) He can’t win. We have to win to do something. Therefore you mustn’t vote for him because we can’t win.

Varieties of this include “you’re indulging yourself”, “what comfort will your principles be for all the people not winning will screw?”, false comparisons with 1983 from people who fail to contextualise 1997, and so forth. They're appeals to hypothetical consequences that use their own premises as conclusions and that blame everyone else for the fact that an outcome they've imposed on the discussion is apparently a universal and unchangeable truth. They claim their own inability to discern what happened in the past is a failing in your perception of the present.

I think all of these approaches are patronising, crass and - as I said yesterday - focused on the basis of confusing a cart with a horse. And it's not just me who thinks that - none of these messages of doom, condescension and damnation are hurting Corbyn - they just convince people that he really is different to that lot.

We have to have something worth winning for – and one political lesson of late is that appearing to be solely interested in winning makes Labour look like cynical, principle-bereft game-players of the lowest and most unelectable order. I know this isn’t entirely true of the party, but it’s not entirely groundless, either, and is just as damaging as the perception that Miliband was weird. Why? Because it’s a “self-serving politicians” malaise that the public are more than capable of discerning, are increasingly sick of seeing (hence the last election having the highest proportion of people voting outside the central parties, a huge change that has been ignored in the narratives about where anyone is on the axis) and gets us nowhere.

It’s also predicated on perpetuating the same misdefinition of the centre that’s held sway for years. I don’t disagree that electability is a concern, but the constant loss of votes since 1997 of Blair – as well as the fact that it wasn’t his place on the axis that got him elected in 1997 – is exactly a sign of that misdefinition's legacy.

The reason for the lack of support for Liz Kendall was blatantly apparent in her Newsnight interview last night. She quite honestly can’t see the difference between saying “we need an antidote to the Tories” and actually being an antidote to them. This isn’t to say she's a Tory – it’s to say that all she had were adjectives about the kind of party she thought Labour should be, as if saying we were like that was performative and magically made us become it, just like that. The opposite of credible, that. It’s the other way round, Liz, i half-heartedly grumbled at my telly – you start with the principles and that makes you into an [insert appropriate adjective depending on the principles chosen] kind of party. In the case of Kendall, then, it would make us a bland, vacuous, idea-bereft, cravenly-begging-for-approval, trend-following party of absolutely no worth.

And what's more unelectable than that?

2) He’s popular and different and has principles! Only a change can make us different!

It’s certainly the case that he speaks clearly and openly and is abundantly different to his opponents. It’s not without some problems in policy and, given the attacks he’ll face, doesn’t solve The Media Problem. And it is true – however uncomfortable it is to recognise it – that (a) the kind of people who are drawn to politics are by definition not like ordinary voters; (b) he's not as different as he seems, really, and; (c) his current popularity is certain not to transfer to some areas. But then, Nuneaton and Reading are the oft-cited reasons for change that neglect the fact that we can't necessarily keep winning elsewhere - or win back many other disenfranchised voters - by mistaking those two constituencies for our entire future. We're not a party formed to win those two seats - we're a party that should be fighting for people everywhere and winning back the kind of people our years of focusing on a handful of marginals has nauseated into apathy.

This rejection of the lack of change is where I am, of continuity-blandness, whatever Corbyn’s flaws (some of which are undeniable). I'm voting for him and I think it’s exactly the opposition that’s needed - and given we're in opposition, how is that a bad thing? - and, rather than tell everyone now how they already have voted five years from now, I think it’s time for some critics to stop trying to bring about their own doom-filled prophecy. The very people who tell you now that Corbyn will be a disaster in 2020 are the same ones who have told everyone to hold their nose and vote for Blair in the past. It seems they consider their own noses above being held, doesn’t it?

Labour need to provide an alternative that people can have hope in. It clearly works for swathes of young people across the country, as big or small a deal as that might turn out to be. If those in Labour who should know their history better would stop treating Corbyn like a furious, hard line lefty and recognise his position now has more in common with Blair in 1994 than Foot in 1983, who knows? It might be a difference the whole party can help to frame. After all, if we can’t oppose well, we can’t get elected either – as the Welfare Bill debacle shows.

I don't expect the Hugos of this world to agree with me; nor am I demanding they like it - but I think Corbyn's popularity demands that they respect it and listen to it. And that means not dismissing us by talking down to us about pol-i-tics, trying to guilt us into their own pessimistic idea of 2020 with a soi-disant pragmatism blind to its own manifold flaws or treating people like they're naive for not sharing the certainty of their own conclusions.

Maybe that way we across the left could debate the principles and the content more?

Edit(s): many, many typos.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 12:09 pm

Apologies if this was posted earlier.
I thought the entire article excellent.

Amartya Sen: The economic consequences of austerity
The judgements of our financial and political leaders are breathtakingly narrow.
extract from the Newstatesman
4 June 2015

"The Tories did get a clear majority of seats on their own (and have good reason to celebrate that outcome), but this achievement came with only 37 per cent of the votes. Before we start getting our economic theories from the reading of election results, we have to scrutinise a bit more the message that comes through from the votes and the seats in the constituency-based electoral systems....

What is not in doubt, however, is that the general public in the UK, following the crisis of 2008, has become increasingly nervous about the size of the public debt and also about the ratio of public debt to GDP. What is overlooked here is that while a national debt may have many costs (and it is not paranoiac to keep tracking it), it is not quite like an individual person’s debt, which is owed to someone else (someone quite different). An internal national debt is mainly owed to another person in the same economy.

Figures of seemingly large public debt may be handy enough to frighten a population with imagined stories of ruining the future generations, but the analysis of public debt demands more critical thinking than that, rather than drawing on a misleading analogy with private indebtedness.

There are two distinct issues here.
First, even if we want to reduce public debt quickly, austerity is not a particularly effective way of achieving this (which the European and British experiences confirm). For that, we need economic growth; and austerity, as Keynes noted, is essentially anti-growth.

Second, what is also important to note is that while panic may be easy to generate, the existence of panic does not show that there is reason for panic. No less importantly, the public has not always been scared stiff by the size of the public debt."

Amartya Sen is professor of economics and philosophy at Harvard...
...edited version of a lecture delivered by Amartya Sen at the Charleston Festival in Firle, East Sussex, on 23 May 2015

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/20 ... -austerity" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

(my bold)

AnatolyKasparov · Post by **AnatolyKasparov** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 12:18 pm

Galloway's "backing" will almost certainly not be welcomed by JC.

Add to that his idiot "supporters" who cheered Balls losing his seat earlier this week, and some of us have been reminded why we are reluctant to join the bandwagon.

ephemerid · Post by **ephemerid** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 12:20 pm

Good afternoon, all.

SpinningHugo - I do not agree that Corbyn is "unimaginable" in government. His accounting is no more in fantasy-land than Osborne's, frankly.
He has made it clear that he would, if elected as leader (we're a long way yet from 2020), look to forming a shadow cabinet via elections and have annual re-elections for leader. If he wins this contest, his policies as leader now will guarantee that he can only hope for re-election as leader if he carries the party with him. If he makes a mess of it, he's out.
NB - my user name is ephemerid with a "d".

TechnicalEphemera - I don't agree that Corbyn is a "joke". I think he has the ability to engage people, unlike his fellow contenders; none of the others have done much more than offer the same old stuff, dither, and in the case of the women, throw their toys out of the pram by refusing to work with him if he wins and accuse anyone who doesn't agree with them of sexism. Burnham's OK, but if anyone is a joke it's Cooper and Kendall - victimhood is not a good look in people who aspire to high office.

OneButtonMonkey and NonOxCol put it far better than I have (being more knowledgeable about these things).

I will be voting for Corbyn. I want that debate within the party - and if he wins fair and square, I hope the party as a whole can get behind him.
We need change in this country. We need strong opposition in Parliament.
The Blairites can't or won't deliver either. They've virtually said as much by not saying very much at all.

onebuttonmonkey · Post by **onebuttonmonkey** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 12:26 pm

AnatolyKasparov wrote:Galloway's "backing" will almost certainly not be welcomed by JC.

Add to that his idiot "supporters" who cheered Balls losing his seat earlier this week, and some of us have been reminded why we are reluctant to join the bandwagon.

Oh, I know. It really does get me down, that. And for all Ed Balls was deeply unpopular, I think we're worse off without him. No, really: this isn't an elaborate set-up for my normal snark.

Even with the Toad Galloway, I'm still far more comfortable with Corbyn than with any of the others. But that and the homeopathy comments don't exactly make it an unconflicted comfort. Still, I suppose that just goes to show I'm not the unthinking, naive, relentlessly idealistic dogmatist I've occasionally been accused of being elsewhere of late.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 12:37 pm

Calais migrant crisis to last through summer, says Cameron
PM says following Cobra meeting that situation at French end of Channel tunnel is ‘unacceptable’, and MoD land will be used to ease UK congestion

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015 ... ant-crisis" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Cameron has known about the people living in camps.
None of this is new.
Cameron has been in a position to effectively coordinate solutions long before now.
Deliberate cultivation of unnecessary, dangerous fear.

United Nations Refugee Agency:

2015 UNHCR subregional operations profile - Northern, Western, Central and Southern Europe

- The number of asylum applications received in 2014 in European Union (EU) Member States has risen by 25 per cent compared to the same period in 2013.
- A quarter of the applicants are of Afghan, Eritrean or Syrian origin, and a similar proportion are under 18 years of age.
- There have also been many more asylum applications from stateless people, with an estimated total of 436,000 people across the European Union.
- Germany continues to be the recipient of the largest number of asylum applications, followed by France, Sweden, Italy and the United Kingdom.

In the first seven months of 2014, more than 87,000 people arrived in Italy by sea, mainly from Eritrea and the Syrian Arab Republic (Syria). In an effort to reduce the risks linked to such journeys, in October 2013 the Italian Government launched the Mare Nostrum operation, which has rescued more than 100,000 people. Greece and Spain also recorded an increase in arrivals.

The economic situation in the region has had an impact on the capacity and readiness of many countries to strengthen their protection systems. Austerity measures have also hit civil-society organizations that provide services to asylum-seekers and refugees. Xenophobia and intolerance have led to incidents of discrimination and violence. States have responded by concentrating on curbing irregular movements, including through tighter border controls and detention, or penalization for illegal entry.

http://www.unhcr.org/pages/49e48e571e.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

onebuttonmonkey · Post by **onebuttonmonkey** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 12:37 pm

TechnicalEphemera wrote:
Lonewolfie wrote:
SpinningHugo wrote:Ephemeris

What is the evidence for the grey votes loss of power? The over 65s is easily the fastest growing demographic.

Don't confuse the enthusiasm of a handful of young activists, too young to remember 83, with the electorate.

What is interesting is how much emphasis you place on Corbyn providing opposition. I think that is revealing. It is unimaginable that he could be in government.

Labour enters new territory with Corbyn. This isn't a return to 83.
-he has no significant PLP support
-he has no experience
-his economic plans are from the kindergarten with numbers with no credibility whatsoever (£93bn)
-he has consistently wanted us out of NATO and the EU (the latter until the last week)
- he wants a future Labour government to waste its energy and resources renationalising BT
-he has always been an enthusiastic backer of Galloway

This is the politics of oblivion.

The Tories are laughing at us. And no, as with Miliband that is not the nervous laugh of fear you can hear.
'Kin ada, Hugo - if you thought the Tories were scared of Mr Ed, why didn't you back him?
Not withstanding the Ed thing, Hugo's analysis above is devastatingly accurate. To the wider population Corbyn is, and will remain, a joke. Electing him gives the Tories the green light to trample over everybody and anything because they will have zero electoral consequences to face.

It is simply bonkers, parties need to look outside themselves when electing a leader. And no I am not a Blairite. However if he wins Labours best hope is to ditch him in a year and find somebody on the centre left with some charisma.

Devastatingly accurate? Hmm. Let's have a lok at that with a few alternative nouns.

The Conservatives enter new territory with Cameron. This isn't a return to 1975.
-he has no significant PLP support - (oddly, he's popular with the younger members, though youth is relative in the Conservative party, I'll admit)
-he has no experience - yep
-his economic plans are from the kindergarten with numbers with no credibility whatsoever (£93bn) - yep (minus the £93bn)
-he has consistently wanted us out of ~~NATO and~~ the EU ~~(the latter until the last week)~~ - stood on the basis of opposing the EU, as I recall
- he wants a future ~~Labour~~ Conservative government to waste its energy and resources ~~renationalising BT~~ privatising everything it can get its hands on - equivalent, I'd say.
-he has always been an enthusiastic backer of Galloway - ok, this one is true.

Right, then. So Corbyn's clearly a disaster. FACT.

I admit to being facetious above, but really. "This is the politics of oblivion" is a line I like that I might steal, but what's brought us to our current proximity to oblivion is spending 20 years abstracting the party from any voices outside its own narrow circle of advisors, ignoring any voices it doesn't like, misdefining the centre and formulating a national approach around a hand full of swing seats at the cost of several million votes between 1997 and 2010 - and who knows how much more antipathy that got cashed in after.

Labour does need to look outside itself when it elects a leader. It needs to look outside the media and Tory framing. And it needs to recognise that the clothes it's chosen to wear are increasingly threadbare. Corbyn might be rumpled, but I don't find the upswell in support something to be ashamed of. The PLP might be better placed today had it not been so ashamed of one side of itself.

HindleA · Post by **HindleA** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 12:39 pm

For those interested

(Adhoc)

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistic ... -treatment" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Working age benefit recipients in drug or alcohol treatment
Analysis of data for financial year 2011 to 2012.

AnatolyKasparov · Post by **AnatolyKasparov** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 12:41 pm

The simple fact is that the "Blairite" candidate in this election is significantly to the right of where the man himself was winning a landslide in 1997.

That helps explain why she has a grand total of *six* CLP nominations outside London (which include her seat and Blair's old one)

Almost comically bad.

citizenJA · Post by **citizenJA** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 12:43 pm

For all the panic generated by the 5,000 camped in the so-called “jungle” at Calais, Europe has been only slightly touched. Running scared of the populist right, politicians have lost a sense of proportion. An estimated 150,000 people have crossed the Mediterranean and Aegean in the first half of this year. That is much more than in 2014, but it is to be measured against a population for the 28-nation EU of about 500m; and it remains a small fraction of the 4m who have fled the civil war in Syria. Up to 2m Syrians have fled to Turkey and, as Mr Guterres noted, fully one-third of the population of Lebanon now comprises Syrian or Palestinian refugees.

European governments argue about how to share out the “burden” of 40,000 asylum seekers — most of them young men, many highly skilled and all eager for work as well as sanctuary. Germany and Sweden, two nations more open than most to the migrants, will profit from their generosity.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5ebf2d16-360e ... 57852.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

SpinningHugo · Post by **SpinningHugo** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 12:46 pm

OBM

1. The problem is not Galloway's backing of Corbyn. But Corbyn's backing of Galloway http://t.co/ET23z3DLxr" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/londoner ... 24533.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Scroll down to the ofcom ruling on Press TV (a branch of Iranian state of v)that Galloway and Corbyn breached impartiality guidelines
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/enforc ... ns/obb170/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And here he is interviewing his "good friend" for Iranian TV

" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

2. Nuneaton and Reading are you he *kind* of seats we need to win. Many many more examples can be given. If nobody seriously thinks Corbyn could win in Reading (and he obviously won't) he won't win in the others either

onebuttonmonkey · Post by **onebuttonmonkey** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 1:01 pm

SpinningHugo wrote:OBM1. The problem is not Galloway's backing of Corbyn. But Corbyn's backing of Galloway http://t.co/ET23z3DLxr" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/londoner ... 24533.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yeah, I've acknowledged this above.

We've no shortage of politicians with dodgy bedfellows across all the parties right now. I can live with it, but it doesn't make me especially cheerful.

SpinningHugo wrote:2. Nuneaton and Reading are you he *kind* of seats we need to win. Many many more examples can be given. If nobody seriously thinks Corbyn could win in Reading (and he obviously won't) he won't win in the others either

This is a far more important point. Why do you think so many people gave up on Labour, Hugo? Seriously. The millions between 1997 and 2010. most of them never voted again, some of them went to the LibDems or Greens?

The cost of not listening to the left is, I'd say, at least equally as catastrophic. Around my way, all it took was a small number of people not to come back to Labour and it was a northern marginal lost. And I'll tell you this for free: it wasn't because the party wasn't right wing enough. It wasn't just because Miliband was a bit funny, either. Centrism wasn't a word used, but the criticisms of the party all linked to it in a way that Nuneaton and Reading-flavoured pandering would have only worsened.

There's an idea that Labour can be a coalition that encompasses the swathe of their traditional seats and stretch to include all the marginals they used to win. With the increase in people opting out of the main parties and with the many and complex changes in Scotland, I'm not sure if it's true but I'd like to hope it can be done. What i'm absolutely convinced of is that it cannot be done by (a) moving further to the right, because some people have already shown they won't go any further that way, or (b) explicitly targeting the kind of things most popular in Nuneaton and Reading, because that approach has had diminished returns in all the elections - except this year's 1% - since 1997.

You might be right that Corbyn can't win there. But they are not the be all and end all. And those who talk about them most never, ever acknowledge the risks involved in going more in that direction. The idea we'll win round loads of Tories is fantasy. The idea that there is no risk of people in their masses buggering off to the Greens or staying home on polling day is demonstrable. It's a busted flush to pretend the old strategy still works.

And you know what? Corbyn's the most popular of the leadership candidates with UKIP-voters right now, too.

The Blairite settlement is done. Corbyn may not be the answer, but the party - especially those who damn him loudest - haven't got a single clue what the answer is. Condemning him for not being it doesn't change that. And, as I've said before, given we are so much further to the right than Blair was in 1997, even, where else can an alternative like the one Blair seemed to offer come from, if not our left? The tragedy is there isn't any other prominent voice besides Corbyn's coming convincingly from that direction. And that's what genuinely signifies the death of the party as a meaningful force if the volume of support for Corbyn now is erased away with two constituencies used like a club by people who can't see it goes both ways.

SpinningHugo · Post by **SpinningHugo** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 1:09 pm

AnatolyKasparov wrote:The simple fact is that the "Blairite" candidate in this election is significantly to the right of where the man himself was winning a landslide in 1997.

That helps explain why she has a grand total of *six* CLP nominations outside London (which include her seat and Blair's old one)

Almost comically bad.

What part of Labour's 1997 platform has Kendall repudiated as too leftwing?

What are (is?) the examples of her rejecting positions adopted then as unworkable now?

Why do you think Kendall is now relevant? She isn't going to win and the only issue is whether Corbyn wins or one of the ultra bland safety candidates who have bombed so badly.

The rise of Corbyn is attributable to there not being any viable soft left candidate. Burnham was initially thought by some (eg you) to possibly be that person, but his CLP nominations stopped after people saw what he was really like.

I now suspect that if Miliband stood again he'd win easily. Hell, even I might have to vote for him to stop JC.

SpinningHugo · Post by **SpinningHugo** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 1:22 pm

OBM

Why did people give up on Labour? The answer is well known.

1. Iraq. I voted Lib Dem in 2005 (the one time I have not voted Labour) and marched against the war. My lawyer training won out over party loyalty. Iraq was the single biggest reason why the pragmatic wing of Labour (mine) now finds itself diminished and discredited.

2. The 2007 crash.

3. Unpopular leaders obviously unsuited to a management role, let alone to being PM (Brown, EM).

4. Almost all governments lose popularity from one election to the next. That was one reason why winning big in 97 was so important: it made 01and 05 possible. It was for that reason I thought that Miliband was the wrong leader. I thought he would win small in 2015 and then lose. I was wrong about that. One of Cameron's feats is he defied this rule that had held good since WW2.

But do I think that Labour lost votes because it didn't renationalise BT or wasn't tough enough on Israel (as Corbyn does)? No. I think that is crazy, and that with Corbyn or equivalent we would not even have won in 97, let alone subsequently.

Willow904 · Post by **Willow904** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 1:29 pm

SpinningHugo wrote:
AnatolyKasparov wrote:The simple fact is that the "Blairite" candidate in this election is significantly to the right of where the man himself was winning a landslide in 1997.

That helps explain why she has a grand total of *six* CLP nominations outside London (which include her seat and Blair's old one)

Almost comically bad.
What part of Labour's 1997 platform has Kendall repudiated as too leftwing?

What are (is?) the examples of her rejecting positions adopted then as unworkable now?

Why do you think Kendall is now relevant? She isn't going to win and the only issue is whether Corbyn wins or one of the ultra bland safety candidates who have bombed so badly.

The rise of Corbyn is attributable to there not being any viable soft left candidate. Burnham was initially thought by some (eg you) to possibly be that person, but his CLP nominations stopped after people saw what he was really like.

I now suspect that if Miliband stood again he'd win easily. Hell, even I might have to vote for him to stop JC.

Winning the leadership will put Corbyn's ideas under scrutiny. If they are as poor as you think they are, they will fall apart.
I'm not the least bit convinced by Corbyn myself but I'm not concerned by him winning because a) I believe in democracy and b) I'm in the the centre of Labour and have to stretch equally to encompass people like Kendall, Hunt and Umunna as I have to stretch to encompass Corbyn.
Ed Miliband lasted 5 years because Labour were ahead in the polls. If Corbyn can't even equal Ed's lows (and I'm doubtful he will) how long is his popularity likely to last? Labour needs this conversation, unfortunately. There are those who are on the extremes of both left and right of the party, but as OneButtonMonkey has so eloquently put it, we can't find the happy medium between those extremes if we dismiss the extreme to the left as irrelevant.

onebuttonmonkey · Post by **onebuttonmonkey** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 1:41 pm

SpinningHugo wrote:OBM

Why did people give up on Labour? The answer is well known.

1. Iraq. I voted Lib Dem in 2005 (the one time I have not voted Labour) and marched against the war. My lawyer training one out over party loyalty. Iraq was the single biggest reason why the pragmatic wing of Labour (mine) now finds itself diminished and discredited.

2. The 2007 crash.

3. Unpopular leaders obviously unsuited to a management role, let alone to being PM (Brown, EM).

4. Almost all governments lose popularity from one election to the next. That was one reason why winning big in 97 was so important: it made 01and 05 possible. It was for that reason I thought that Miliband was the wrong leader. I thought he would win small in 2015 and then lose. I was wrong about that. One of Cameron's feats is he defied this rule that had held good since WW2.

Well known? Or a well rehearsed half-truth told with full conviction?

1. Iraq explains the increased onset of a dissatisfaction that had already been growing since '97. It's undoubtedly huge - but it didn't start with Iraq. Iraq - epsecially his treatment of protest - was a catalyst that made it bloom.
2. I tend to think that the failure to be a proper opposition since 2010 has made the crash in 2007 more damaging now than it was then. An aside, but it seems true to me.
3 and 4. You ignore something you asked yesterday. You asked "do you think Miliband got criticised so much because he wasn't really up to it?" Do you not think that one of the reasons Blair became so unpopular was because he simply wasn't as popular as he imagined? Coming back to opposition - if the Tories had actually been one, he could have been challenged far harder or kept more honest. Even in 2010 the Tories struggled with the kind of weakness that guaranteed a woeful Blair ongoing power.

I don't disagree with these things as far as they go - I just don't think they're the only reasons or that they cover things anywhere near as completely as you declaim. You frame things to exclude the acres of manipulation in their apparent simplicity - it was a trick Blair was good at and, by the end, one people learned to see through. A case in point:

But do I think that Labour lost votes because it didn't renationalise BT or wasn't tough enough on Israel (as Corbyn does)? No. I think that is crazy, and that with Corbyn or equivalent we would not even have won in 97, let alone subsequently

You're picking two things he's supporting and then trying to insert them into an already constructed narrative to try and make it look like it's Corbyn - rather than your selection, choice of representation and falsification of context - who's argument is suspect. You're kind of doing the opposite of Owen Jones, who said, "if Blair had listened to Corbyn on Iraq, PFI [etc] Labour might still be in power." Nothing works quite like that, does it, except in stories? And Corbyn's far more in touch with the public mood on, say, rail franchises, challenging cuts [etc]. Your lack of shades of grey makes a nonsense of both black and white, and the frame around your picture has made any attempt to see all of it impossible.

As it happens, I agree that Labour lacks what you call a "soft left" - although I think your "soft-left" is probably the same as my "centre-slightly-right". Regardless, and maybe unlike you, I think that's probably because, over the years in amputating the left almost utterly, Blair cast moderates adrift at the same time as encouraging ambition rather than politicians. The new intake is less Blairite than ever - and may become a soft left in time. Equally, I think the backlash against the scum of residual distrust left by Blair doesn't just exist among activists. That's why the lost voters are just as - if not even more - important than the fantasy Tory voter hunt.

ohsocynical · Post by **ohsocynical** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 1:58 pm

Some good posts today. Can't do anything much about them yet because my computer is downloading Windows 10. And I have to mow the grass.

Later.....

PorFavor · Post by **PorFavor** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 2:06 pm

ohsocynical wrote:Some good posts today. Can't do anything much about them yet because my computer is downloading Windows 10. And I have to mow the grass.

Later.....

Impressive multi-tasking!

Good morfternoon, everyone.

ephemerid · Post by **ephemerid** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 2:13 pm

LadyCentauria wrote:
HindleA wrote:Morning.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015 ... -unethical" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

UK proposals to strip obese claimants of benefits 'flawed and unethical'
Experts say evidence shows that psychological treatment doesn’t work if patients are coerced into accepting treatment

FWIW Main disabling condition tells you little,vast majority have more than one.
(My bold)
Especially where the 'main disabling condition' (where people list more than one disabling condition) is taken to be the one at the top of the list as written by the claimant, which might not actually be the one that has the most effect. As far as I remember, the instruction on the form does not ask that multiple conditions be written in order of seriousness with the most serious at the top...

Thanks for the link!

Interesting.

The main disabling conditions for AA, DLA and PIP are - in order - arthritis, other joint, musculo-skeletal, or spinal problems at more than a million; next is learning disabilities of all kinds, at 390,000; then mental illness with a psychotic element at 250,000; other mental health disorders another 250,000; heart, other cardio-vascular (eg.Stroke), and chest 250,000.
Drug and/or alcohol and/or other addictions - 21,000. Out of a claimant count of more than 3 million.

The main illnesses in claimants of IB/ESA show a very similar proportion - 37% have a musculo-skeletal problem and 32% a mental health disorder. More than half of all ESA claimants are in work when they make their claim or immediately prior to it.
Long-term claimants are more likely not to have worked much - but many of them have learning difficulties or serious disabilities.
Drug and/or alcohol misuse as a presenting illness - 54,000. Out of a claimant count of 2.5 million.

The percentage rate of substance misuse/addiction is estimated to be 8% or so in the general population, but that's only self-declared or medically diagnosed.
The percentage rate of the above across all claimants of all sickness and disability benefits is 2.2% (as the presenting condition)

As far as obesity is concerned, and as I can attest from personal experience as well as observation over years in health care, it can often be the treatment that causes weight to rise. Arthritis not only leads to enforced immobility, it is frequently treated with steroids, as are many chest, skin, and inflammatory diseases; most anti-psychotic medication causes weight gain.
Punishing people for being fat when the treatment they are complying with is a causative factor is so stupid it beggars belief - and at the same time, punishment will be meted out to people who don't comply with treatment, whether ordered by the claimant's own doctors or by some unqualified moron at the jobcentre or working for one of the quacks they employ.

The woman chairing the enquiry into all this is Carol Black. Zero experience in the issues concerned in clinical terms; some experience in rheumatology, but none in addiction; but plenty of time served on committees, boards, and in academia.
She is responsible for the "fit note" which in her view didn't go far enough. She opined that as so many people were found fit for work by the WCA, the assessment phase should be abolished and the WCA done before the claim is processed - her view appears to be that people found fit for work actually are fit for work, when all the evidence suggests many of them are not.
She is also responsible for the government's Health and Work Service, run by a subsidiary of Maximus, in which people in work but off sick get phoned at home to determine their fitness to return to work, irrespective of what their clinicians say.

This is policy-based evidence in government at work yet again. Government tells X that Y must be done; X sets up a board to discuss it; the result of the deliberations is a recommendation that government gets Y. This is how social security works now. Shameful.

HindleA · Post by **HindleA** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 2:22 pm

Quite clear,using indisputable logic,give benefits to lessen the prelavence of addiction and obesity.That'll be £100,000 plus a Lordship,cheers.

seeingclearly · Post by **seeingclearly** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 2:23 pm

HindleA wrote:Morning.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015 ... -unethical" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

UK proposals to strip obese claimants of benefits 'flawed and unethical'
Experts say evidence shows that psychological treatment doesn’t work if patients are coerced into accepting treatment

FWIW Main disabling condition tells you little,vast majority have more than one.

Good afternoon all. Some very interesting conversations here recently.

Posting on this topic as someone who has struggled with obesity for over half a century, ie well before the oft quoted causes of obesity, yet lived, even with Parkinson disease a pretty full active and interesting life, with largeness not affecting me in terms of activity or other forms of ill health till relatively recently when I developed a secondary meds related disorder. I have therefore included the second link that is referred to in the first, because for everyone who believes that obesity is only a matter of calories in and out its a must read from a source of expertise.

I'm incensed that obesity and addiction are being lumped together, from both ends of the equation. In neither case is the condition a matter of self indulgence, being a little overweight or sometime getting drunk is not the same thing, though perhaps that is clearer in addiction. These are disorders and illness, and while people who struggle with them can improve things only rarely are they 'cured'.

I have a lot of fear for young people who will be judged by these political declarations and feel the resulting bigotry. Or outright physical agression. These days anyone with a disability can find themselves at the end of a passive aggressive interrogation of their disorder from any number of self appointed 'experts'. At least those at the Lancet are the real thing.

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/landi ... 0/fulltext" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The Lancet on obesity and coercion. I will have to edit this as there are two relevant links.

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/landi ... S2213-8587(15" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)00009-1/abstract

rebeccariots2 · Post by **rebeccariots2** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 2:26 pm

onebuttonmonkey wrote:
The reason for the lack of support for Liz Kendall was blatantly apparent in her Newsnight interview last night. She quite honestly can’t see the difference between saying “we need an antidote to the Tories” and actually being an antidote to them. This isn’t to say she's a Tory – it’s to say that all she had were adjectives about the kind of party she thought Labour should be, as if saying we were like that was performative and magically made us become it, just like that. The opposite of credible, that. It’s the other way round, Liz, i half-heartedly grumbled at my telly – you start with the principles and that makes you into an [insert appropriate adjective depending on the principles chosen] kind of party. In the case of Kendall, then, it would make us a bland, vacuous, idea-bereft, cravenly-begging-for-approval, trend-following party of absolutely no worth.

And what's more unelectable than that?

A good description of that interview. I even have to give Kuenssberg some credit ... because she actually said to Liz Kendall after one of Kendall's I believe we have to combine values with the modern world and not go backwards statements (you can more or less stick together any of her phrases into a sentence and it is as vacuous as you like) 'but what does that actually mean?' She was trying to get Kendall to actually spell out what her vision for the country was - the kinds of things she felt people wanted and would make things better for them and the UK. She pointed out that whether you agreed with Corbyn or not people understood what it was he wanted to do, the changes that he thinks are necessary. Kendall pretty much blanked the question and trotted out another vacuous statement.

Her interviews are the most tedious bingo sheet filling experience ever ... if we go back to the politics of the 1980s we will get the same results. Yeah, yeah Liz ... we heard you, unfortunately.

SpinningHugo · Post by **SpinningHugo** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 2:45 pm

Corbyn now odds on to be leader with Ladbrokes.

But you can get him at 18/1 to be PM.

http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/bri ... e-minister" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

ohsocynical · Post by **ohsocynical** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 2:59 pm

frightful_oik wrote:Cobra meeting this morning. Got to make it look like something's being done. Then a stern-faced statement from outside No 10. Is my guess.

Hot day. Jacket off? Sleeves rolled up? We are passionate about -------

ohsocynical · Post by **ohsocynical** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 3:04 pm

SpinningHugo wrote:OBM

1. The problem is not Galloway's backing of Corbyn. But Corbyn's backing of Galloway http://t.co/ET23z3DLxr" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/londoner ... 24533.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Scroll down to the ofcom ruling on Press TV (a branch of Iranian state of v)that Galloway and Corbyn breached impartiality guidelines
http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/enforc ... ns/obb170/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And here he is interviewing his "good friend" for Iranian TV

" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

2. Nuneaton and Reading are you he *kind* of seats we need to win. Many many more examples can be given. If nobody seriously thinks Corbyn could win in Reading (and he obviously won't) he won't win in the others either

I was born in Reading and lived there until '99. Plan on going back there.
Friends who still live there to a man/woman, refused to vote for Labour because of Blair's involvement with Iraq. And they were and still are what you'd call natural Labour voters.

JustMom · Post by **JustMom** » Fri 31 Jul, 2015 3:13 pm

Afternoon all, just popped up from lurking to say I too will be voting corby. I don't worry about the tories mocking him if they liked him I would be thinking twice.
I can't even think of voting for the others,they are all scared of upsetting the red tops and the tories,plus the nastiness of what they say about corby is uncalled for.
Back to lurking for me.