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namesake posted:A way of taking the heat out of the 'should socialists be in Labour' argument is to consider the theory of the state and the strategic consequences of it (any socialists arguing for independence also need to consider these things). The state is, regardless of the individual variations across space and time, the apparent co-ordinating body of the ruling class. Laws and customs are made and obeyed (to some extent) by it and disputes between the ruling class are concluded within it through its internal power structures, unless they find they cannot resolve it and then state finds itself illegitimate as violence, civil war and separatism break out. Does power come FROM the state though? No, it does not. The ruling class is created by their relationship to (usually control of) the economic forces in society which grants them the power to use as they wish and therefore the need to have a co-ordinating body such as the state - otherwise the sections of the ruling class would simply find themselves in open conflict with each other (as they do when a state collapses from other pressures). This is a highly legit post and something that every single leftist should be aware of, and indeed many are. I'd add two things, however. 1. The state and capital are inexorably intertwined, but a struggle that focuses solely on changing the deeper fabric of society, or changing society through changes to that fabric or extra to the mechanisms typical to the society will quickly exhaust its participants. It'll also suffer from limited success (more on that in point 2) and ultimately fail to engage enough people to sustain itself. I'm talking about things forms of direct action and mutual aid that circumvent the state, charity, and typical 'socially accepted' methods of protest and provision entirely - they are essential but cannot exist alone because not everyone is equipped or prepared to engage with them, and those who do engage with them rarely have the resources (or indeed the mentality a lot of the time, to be honest) to make them more accessible to more people. That's why, if we take food insecurity, we need people to campaign both within the bounds of the state (to improve government policy), with the permission of the state (through charity and the like), and entirely outside of state permission (mutual aid centres/networks, which often utilise sources of food and modes of provision and engagement that charities and the state, operating under the law, with all its various needs for things like insurance, cannot). Any shortfall for the left in any of these areas will result in people being missed and a narrowing of options for help. The state can reach the most people, but it doesn't reach everyone and often deliberately excludes people. Charity reaches others but is often co-opted by the state, fails to act in a spirit of solidarity, can be exclusionary, and has many other issues. Grassroots, outside-the-system provision is arduous to set up and maintain but can work wonders in a way that none of the above can, while also creating and exhibiting the alternatives to the current system we all want. Action at every level is important even from a simple 'helping as many people right now' perspective. 2. On a more strategic level, from experience in a wide variety of activist circles and a huge preference for outside-the-system, steering-clear-of-the-state stuff, I've come to think that none of the super grassroots 'revolutionary' stuff can operate sustainably without people at a state level creating a playing field that allows it to happen. Creating revolutionary solutions is essential but the state has such power in the 21st century that it can effectively shut down that form of organising. Take squatting for example. Some of the best examples of revolutionary praxis I've ever seen or been part of in the UK have been squatted social centres - squatted buildings run as social centres to provide mutual aid, food, activities, and space for people (not just activists) to use as they and the people who use the space see fit. Over the years it's become increasingly difficult to set one of these up. First residential squatting became illegal, and now they're about to pass a bill to make trespass a proper crime, effectively outlawing squatting. If the revolutionary left had more power, and more connections, and more individuals in power acting with sympathy towards it, that might now have happened, and those few laws dealing with just one activity could well have stamped out potentially hundreds of incredible projects over the last few years. Labour may not be the path to the ultimate goal of the end of capitalism, but some form of parliamentary power is an essential piece of it - a left wing Labour, even a somewhat left-wing Labour, would very likely not have made those changes. On the sharper end of things, facial recognition tech and increasingly draconian protest law have massively blunted protest - storming the Bastille would have been a much dicier prospect with far fewer people willing to join in if facial recognition and a very baton-happy police force who like battering in doors and have excellent record keeping and little care for privacy had been around. The point I'm making is that abandoning parliamentary politics entirely means those who don't abandon it, the right and the centre, now have free reign to make the left's life a loving nightmare. And they are doing that right now. I hope that's made sense, anyway. Essentially I agree with namesake but we do need to have at least some level of sympathy at the top, an amount to stop them ruthlessly cracking down on every single one of our tactics while killing and exhausting fellow members of the working class.
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Feb 27, 2021 01:32
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People who want to be in the labour partt and people who want to leave both have fair and valid arguments and I, the namtab, will judge neither for their sins
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Feb 27, 2021 02:05
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Or maybe they dont and you will?
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Feb 27, 2021 02:12
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House price must only go up https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1365572538227654657?s=20
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Feb 27, 2021 09:25
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peanut- posted:House price must only go up So, how is this going to benefit BTL landlords and not first time live-in buyers, and how long will it take us to find out?
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Feb 27, 2021 09:38
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The BBC report says it's not limited to first time buyers at all so I guess they could allow BTL landlords to buy under it. Though I'm not sure they will, the Tories have actually hammered taxes on BTL fairly heavily. Renters don't vote Tory, homeowners do - generation rent is a problem for them and a big part of why they're keen to shove endless government cash at getting people to buy a house.
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Feb 27, 2021 09:45
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It's not so much the deposit that's an issue. It's the salary multiplier. It's a problem if 4x my already over national average salary will literally not get anything near where I live. The average house price is 10x the average salary. That's the problem.
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Feb 27, 2021 09:50
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peanut- posted:The BBC report says it's not limited to first time buyers at all so I guess they could allow BTL landlords to buy under it. I mean, they could try building homes. That would mean prices going down so people can actually afford mortgages that their grandchildren won't still be paying off in 105 years time.
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Feb 27, 2021 09:51
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Well yeah but obviously the home ownership thing has to be counterbalanced against opposing tendencies of nimbyism and boomer enrichment. They need to get people into houses while also guaranteeing prices go up, so that means bigger loans.
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Feb 27, 2021 10:03
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They are proposing a similar thing in Ireland (government guarantees 30% of cost). Both the Irish version of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the left wing parties told them it was dumb and exactly why it was dumb. Think they're still gonna do it. It's a great one for the Tory playbook, a policy that looks populist on the outside but in the absence of a major increase in supply is only going to drive up prices, making their home-owning base happier. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with 95% mortgages when supply is high and life is stable, but I'm having some sort of flashback involving rising house prices, 95 or even 100% mortgages and a global crash and recession of some sort? I guess it didn't hit the UK as badly as other places last decade so it's good to have a go at it now.
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Feb 27, 2021 10:09
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Tsietisin posted:It's not so much the deposit that's an issue. It's the salary multiplier. The FCA's guidance on affordability actually requires mortgage lenders to assess income vs outgoings through alogorithms (say, net income vs outgoings, and taking into account the capacity for rates to likely increase over 30 years) rather than a simple salary cap nowadays, though most lenders do soft cap what they want to lend as well be percentages. The Help to Buy Guarantee used to exist within the last decade, all it does it tempt more lenders to offer 5% deposit mortgages so they don't have to worry about impact of repossessing because of negative equity. But yes, almost every single Help to buy Scheme they've run does nothing at all for affordability, particularly in high cost areas like London. The Equity Share Scheme is the worst, as it just allows people who would already be touch and go from affording to mortgages to then have to pay higher prices for the same houses, this one probably will only have a minor effect as just increasing the supply of people with low deposits and high income is unlikely to make massive increases to prices... but the ONLY thing that will ever solve this is to balance the supply/demand equation, or cap house prices through state intervention.
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Feb 27, 2021 10:13
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As someone who is saving to buy and is probably 4 years off from getting enough for a circa 20% deposit this should probably be good news. But in reality it will likely make prices go up up up so even if I did need less of a deposit, even the tiny 1 bed flats in my salary range will be taken out of it.
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Feb 27, 2021 10:14
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crispix posted:time to go full bolshevik imo I was listening to the latest episode of the Revolutions podcast and it actually was talking about how Lenin was actually in favour of participating in the Duma when material conditions weren't in favour of conventional revolutionary activity (this was circa 1906/07). His position wasn't that of the wider party, though, much like his support of bank robberies to raise funds (including giving the thumbs up to one Georgian guy who would start calling himself the 'Man of Steel' in later life to pull off some pretty elaborate ones), so I'm not sure how applicable this is to the present. In conclusion, Bolshevism is a land of contrasts. Edit: and the Revolutions podcast is cool and good.
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Feb 27, 2021 10:15
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jacksbrat posted:I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with 95% mortgages when supply is high and life is stable, but I'm having some sort of flashback involving rising house prices, 95 or even 100% mortgages and a global crash and recession of some sort? I guess it didn't hit the UK as badly as other places last decade so it's good to have a go at it now.
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Feb 27, 2021 10:15
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forkboy84 posted:I mean, they could try building homes. That would mean prices going down so people can actually afford mortgages that their grandchildren won't still be paying off in 105 years time. There isn't a shortage of houses though, there's a shortage of *available* because there are very few incentives to make people give up empty houses that are very lucrative investment assets.
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Feb 27, 2021 10:34
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MikeCrotch posted:There isn't a shortage of houses though, there's a shortage of *available* because there are very few incentives to make people give up empty houses that are very lucrative investment assets. But they're only lucrative investment assets because supply is low, at a certain point of property prices falling it makes sense to cash in that asset. Though of course if line went down that would be bad, so policies must perpetually help line go up.
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Feb 27, 2021 10:40
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deletebeepbeepbeep posted:As someone who is saving to buy and is probably 4 years off from getting enough for a circa 20% deposit this should probably be good news. But in reality it will likely make prices go up up up so even if I did need less of a deposit, even the tiny 1 bed flats in my salary range will be taken out of it. I recently got more serious about trying to buy a place as result of lockdown really hammering the issues with sharing with anyone else. One of the first things I've had to accept is I'm probably not buying in my home city any time soon. Hopefully my office will go a 'office 1 or 2 days week' route post pandemic and I can buy something half decent in a bit further out. But there's got to be knock on affects to a city if the only people that live in it are students and 50+ property owners?
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Feb 27, 2021 10:44
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Lol I've never seen a reference to the 2012 Olympics in the wild https://twitter.com/PrfChrisPainter/status/1365571636796260353?s=19 Adonis in the replies saying the only way to fix things is to bring back Blair lol Jose fucked around with this message at 10:50 on Feb 27, 2021 |
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Feb 27, 2021 10:47
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MikeCrotch posted:There isn't a shortage of houses though, there's a shortage of *available* because there are very few incentives to make people give up empty houses that are very lucrative investment assets. Build enough houses so that the average house price drops, and that would be a self-limiting problem. No-one hoards mobile phones.
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Feb 27, 2021 10:50
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I saw this and was going to joke that the government has found a solution to the housing crisis and it's super simple guys, but that actually is their solution isn't it   MikeCrotch posted:There isn't a shortage of houses though, there's a shortage of *available* because there are very few incentives to make people give up empty houses that are very lucrative investment assets. radmonger posted:Build enough houses so that the average house price drops, and that would be a self-limiting problem. No-one hoards mobile phones.
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Feb 27, 2021 10:59
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MikeCrotch posted:There isn't a shortage of houses though, there's a shortage of *available* because there are very few incentives to make people give up empty houses that are very lucrative investment assets. I'd suggest a punitive tax on holding empty properties, and then using the revenue generated to build social housing or summat. Alternatively just appropriate empty houses but that's getting into radical solutions.
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Feb 27, 2021 11:00
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Jose posted:Lol I've never seen a reference to the 2012 Olympics in the wild The 2012 Olympics opening ceremony was performed by unpaid workers in an arena they bulldozed a housing estate they forcibly evicted, in a capital that was kicking out long term renters to jack the prices to make cash grab Airbnbs for attendees, and the army were putting surface to air missiles on rooftops whether the building owners liked it or not. The only thing that's changed is people noticing now who's getting hosed over includes people they care about
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Feb 27, 2021 11:04
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I did not watch the Olympics ceremony, but everything I heard about it referenced one worn-out myth or another.
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Feb 27, 2021 11:06
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Isomermaid posted:The 2012 Olympics opening ceremony was performed by unpaid workers in an arena they bulldozed a housing estate they forcibly evicted, in a capital that was kicking out long term renters to jack the prices to make cash grab Airbnbs for attendees, and the army were putting surface to air missiles on rooftops whether the building owners liked it or not. West Ham are on for a Champions League place now though so who can really say if it was good or bad.
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Feb 27, 2021 11:07
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Don't forget the targeted abuse of homeless people and sex workers and sending the flying squad after anyone who even made jokes about interfering with it. But at least there was a parade and some fireworks!
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Feb 27, 2021 11:07
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MikeCrotch posted:There isn't a shortage of houses though, there's a shortage of *available* because there are very few incentives to make people give up empty houses that are very lucrative investment assets. Outside of certain areas this isn't really the case (that empty properties are having a significant effect on house prices) - there are about a quarter of a million long-term unoccupied dwellings in the UK which is a big number but a lot more of them are in places like Bolton where there is literally no demand than are in Kensington being used as a money-laundering vehicle. That's not to say there shouldn't be a very hard use-it-or-lose-it rule in areas where there is a massive demand for social housing, but that's pretty much a one-shot deal.
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Feb 27, 2021 11:09
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We've said it loads but 2012 was the last time that all eyes were on Britain for a "positive" reason. We did a nice opening ceremony that wasn't as good as China's but it did make us feel like we were still relevant. Everything since then has just been selling the car for petrol money and public humiliation. Liberals don't care about results so much as they care about the appearance of results and as such they've become grossly attached to 2012 because it was the last time they could be Proud 2 B British without having to acknowledge that they were sharing that feeling with hateful, spiteful little England cunts who wish only death and misery to anyone who isn't them. There's a big subset of the British Middle Class who don't want to come to terms with how depressingly awful Britain is and are starved for that feeling of being an important and decent country, even if it was always bollocks.
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Feb 27, 2021 11:28
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Are there no quiz shows? And the Gilbert and Sullivan societies? Are they still in operation?
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Feb 27, 2021 11:34
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goddamnedtwisto posted:there are about a quarter of a million long-term unoccupied dwellings in the UK which is a big number but a lot more of them are in places like Bolton where there is literally no demand than are in Kensington being used as a money-laundering vehicle. True, but in other places where there is demand there are also second or holiday homes, which just spread unoccupiedness around the houses.
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Feb 27, 2021 11:45
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I get the feeling my latent nationalism is showing by the fact I've spent the last half hour watching videos of Vulcan and Concorde flypasts, but a thought occurred to me while I was watching them about just how *hollow* the nationalism is these days. Both of these are products of a Britain that genuinely did believe it was a world leader (and in fact was in a lot of important ways - neither the Soviets nor the Americans could get their Concorde equivalents to work, but two tinpot ex-imperial powers managed it with a tenth the resources). Tony Benn didn't need to make sure there was always a flag behind him or that he wore his poppy in exactly the right way, he built poo poo like the Post Office Tower and Concorde, and unswervingly defended things like the NHS and the welfare state. He made the country something to be proud of, rather than being performatively proud of it while ripping the plumbing out of the walls. Coolcab look away for this bit, but if we have to have nationalism - and it seems like the fucker's here to stay no matter what - then a putative not-poo poo Labour would absolutely be banging the drum for the sort of things that actually are worth being proud of, and lambasting those who are deliberately destroying the good things in this country to fund their poo poo - because if they don't, eventually another iteration of the BNP *is* going to get the nationalist/socialist thing going and then we're really hosed.
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Feb 27, 2021 11:55
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Isomermaid posted:The 2012 Olympics opening ceremony was performed by unpaid workers in an arena they bulldozed a housing estate they forcibly evicted, in a capital that was kicking out long term renters to jack the prices to make cash grab Airbnbs for attendees, and the army were putting surface to air missiles on rooftops whether the building owners liked it or not.
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Feb 27, 2021 12:01
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Oh dear me posted:True, but in other places where there is demand there are also second or holiday homes, which just spread unoccupiedness around the houses. Oh yeah, that's definitely an issue in a lot of places and one that needs to be addressed, second homes are a double-whammy because not only do they whack the prices up, they also depress economic activity in an area because while that house is empty it's one less customer for local businesses, etc etc. The fact that almost nobody visits their holiday homes in the winter, when they're in areas that are already heavily seasonal economically, only makes things worse. One solution I've always liked the sound of (at least until the one involving guillotines is implemented) is a council tax surcharge for months where the home is unoccupied - while enforcement would be a little tricky it would definitely be a way of redressing the balance.
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Feb 27, 2021 12:03
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goddamnedtwisto posted:I get the feeling my latent nationalism is showing by the fact I've spent the last half hour watching videos of Vulcan and Concorde flypasts, but a thought occurred to me while I was watching them about just how *hollow* the nationalism is these days. Both of these are products of a Britain that genuinely did believe it was a world leader (and in fact was in a lot of important ways - neither the Soviets nor the Americans could get their Concorde equivalents to work, but two tinpot ex-imperial powers managed it with a tenth the resources). Tony Benn didn't need to make sure there was always a flag behind him or that he wore his poppy in exactly the right way, he built poo poo like the Post Office Tower and Concorde, and unswervingly defended things like the NHS and the welfare state. He made the country something to be proud of, rather than being performatively proud of it while ripping the plumbing out of the walls. Couldn’t agree more. It’s almost a reflex for leftists to, at any mention of Britain, immediately harp on at length about how poo poo and awful and irredeemable it is. Shockingly, to the vast majority of people, this is an enormous turn off. Flag loving is not the way, but neither is scoffing at the very idea of liking a lot of aspects of the place you live. Hell, the country you live in. Big up the good bits and make people proud of that. There has to be some carrot or we’re just a big ol stick of misery.
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Feb 27, 2021 12:08
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goddamnedtwisto posted:I get the feeling my latent nationalism is showing by the fact I've spent the last half hour watching videos of Vulcan and Concorde flypasts, but a thought occurred to me while I was watching them about just how *hollow* the nationalism is these days. Both of these are products of a Britain that genuinely did believe it was a world leader (and in fact was in a lot of important ways - neither the Soviets nor the Americans could get their Concorde equivalents to work, but two tinpot ex-imperial powers managed it with a tenth the resources). Tony Benn didn't need to make sure there was always a flag behind him or that he wore his poppy in exactly the right way, he built poo poo like the Post Office Tower and Concorde, and unswervingly defended things like the NHS and the welfare state. He made the country something to be proud of, rather than being performatively proud of it while ripping the plumbing out of the walls.
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Feb 27, 2021 12:12
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https://twitter.com/siennamarla/status/1365619640324481028 This guy literally tried to stop his own workers from unionising so this will be hilariously poo poo.
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Feb 27, 2021 12:13
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Jakabite posted:Couldn’t agree more. It’s almost a reflex for leftists to, at any mention of Britain, immediately harp on at length about how poo poo and awful and irredeemable it is. Shockingly, to the vast majority of people, this is an enormous turn off. Flag loving is not the way, but neither is scoffing at the very idea of liking a lot of aspects of the place you live. Hell, the country you live in. Big up the good bits and make people proud of that. There has to be some carrot or we’re just a big ol stick of misery. What are all the good bits to be proud of? The left are proud of the NHS, clearly. But what the gently caress else is there? We make nothing. We produce nothing.
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Feb 27, 2021 12:13
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Gonzo McFee posted:https://twitter.com/siennamarla/status/1365619640324481028 I like ScotLab's dedication to looking at Head Office & deciding "gosh, we can be worse than them!"
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Feb 27, 2021 12:14
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forkboy84 posted:What are all the good bits to be proud of? The left are proud of the NHS, clearly. But what the gently caress else is there? We make nothing. We produce nothing. The natural beauty, the sense of humour, pies, contribution to music, film and tv, Sunday roasts, pubs... like, as leftists we shouldn’t be having to have a conversation about how there’s more to life than what you make and produce. People like things about the country they live in. Hell, I like things about this place (mainly the above). I like the rural northern community I grew up in, for all its flaws. There are plenty of good things about Britain and being British that aren’t anything to do with great national accomplishments and more just like, part of being from here and living here. You might not like anything about being here and that’s fine but the vast, vast majority of people are deeply turned off by BRITAINS poo poo AND YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD FOR FEELING SONE FONDNESS TO YOUR HOME being blasted at them.
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Feb 27, 2021 12:19
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What actually is British nationalism these days? Like, I know what it's for - to distract from the existential dread caused by being a largely superfluous appendage of the City money laundering machine - but what does it look like? Eating a cream tea in a garden beneath Union Jack bunting? Blokes who look like glazed hams drinking pints at the footie? 50 year olds tearing up to Dvorak's 9th and pretending they were in the war? Maybe it's just that I don't "get" it but it's all so dreamlike and insubstantial Fake edit: the news coverage of Captain Sir Tom's funeral answers my question with leaden sincerity. It's got everything: flags, war, planes from the war, Her Maj, Michael Ball, the lot
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Feb 27, 2021 12:20
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forkboy84 posted:What are all the good bits to be proud of? The left are proud of the NHS, clearly. But what the gently caress else is there? We make nothing. We produce nothing. After the last year I'm not proud of the NHS anymore
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Feb 27, 2021 12:21
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