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Maphis posted:I didn't see a single door knocker or leaflet from any of the parties. The polling station was equally as empty. Developing a campaigning organization takes time. I'm a 'new' Labour member (actually, like many others, an old member who rejoined). Accompanied by other 'new' members, I've done leafleting for these local elections. But we've had no support or encouragement from old members at any point, though we've sat through less active old members moaning on about the lack of action from new members while we were right there. We've talked about ways we can strengthen the local party - for example by making an effort to actually meet and talk to our new members at least once - but it cannot happen overnight. MikeCrotch posted:I don't think Corbyn is going to be leader by the time of the next general election but that doesn't mean he's going to step down immediately after. Changing the rules of a democratic party takes time (and Conferences). I wish the left had been a bit more on the ball against last year's 'The members elected lefties to the NEC so we'll just add two more places for right wingers' move, but we did fight off the Unite challenger so there is still hope we can get the McDonnell amendment through this summer. Corbyn can't just do whatever he likes. I thought I was an impatient person, but what with things like these and the reaction to election results where little has changed except for UKIP's collapse, I really wonder if short-termism isn't the left's biggest problem now. We need to put in years of work. It's not going to pay off immediately. Didn't we always know that?
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May 5, 2017 14:53
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mediadave posted:If Corbyn doesn't resign immediately after the General Election I think the party will split. It won't, because the right have nowhere to go and remember the fate of the SDP. If he does resign the party will 'split' in the way it did under Blair, i.e. by members leaving.
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May 5, 2017 16:01
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Taear posted:The idea of Libdem or Green voters making the Tories their second preference absolutely baffles me. It's like saying "I'll vote for Die Linke or I'll vote for the Nazis", it just doesn't make sense. It does make sense. LibDem support collapsed after they went into coalition with the Tories. The remaining rump is obviously going to be those most comfy with conservatism. The Greens slumped after Corbyn got elected and there was suddenly a left party with a better chance of winning seats. Their remaining support is likely to be those most comfy with conservatism. Obviously the need to vote tactically is a countervailing factor in some cases, but not a huge one, as the continuing poor LibDem performance shows.
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May 5, 2017 20:43
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goddamnedtwisto posted:I wouldn't be at all surprised - between workfare, housing benefit caps, and post-Brexit economic implosion - to see the triumphant return of the workhouse by 2022. I would be quite surprised to see the return of the workhouse, because they don't want to pay for us to be housed. Workfare is basically the workhouse without the shelter. Prisons with forced labour are an option for the troublesome. What would a workhouse add?
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May 7, 2017 18:26
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goddamnedtwisto posted:There are still people angry that cash-in-hand benefits exist at all. They want the poor to do no more than exist - no TV, no electronics, no food more flavourful or fulfilling than required to survive. End cash benefits (apart from the pension, of course!), slap some dorms up within an hour or so's walking distance of the centre of town (can't have them too nearby but can't have them asking for transport, can we?) and hey presto, a replacement army of cleaners, care workers, and assorted skivvies Food stamps or other ways to force benefit recipients to buy only basics and only from favoured companies have already been discussed, I can certainly see those coming. But workfare and prisons already provide skivvies, and Tories are the party of landlords. They get money already from housing the poor via housing benefit. Why would they want more houses built? And would they really be so stupid as to help the poor get together and organize?
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May 7, 2017 19:40
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Stabbatical posted:True. But how? What could possibly work, if nothing has before now? I forget the exact date, but at some time in the Labour Party's heyday, its MPs were asked which books had most influenced them, and the runaway winner (apart from the bible) was The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. What made that book different from all other books lamenting the plight of the poor? I think it was the 'great money trick' chapter where Owen demonstrated the extraction of surplus value from labour. We need to give such simple lessons, and attack the notion of 'wealth creators' at the root.
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May 10, 2017 20:27
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LemonDrizzle posted:the inheritor would have to take out a tiny mortgage of a few grand to secure the house. Since the cost of servicing that mortgage would be vastly lower than any rent they might realistically be paying pre-inheritance, they're still coming out miles ahead. If they've been living with their parents as carers they've probably not been paying any rent, and not everyone can get a mortgage you smug fucker.
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May 19, 2017 12:16
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LemonDrizzle posted:a few tens of pounds a month that would be trivially serviceable on the state pension or minimum wage alone. The minimum wage is not the minimum income. People on benefits, for example, may get 300 a month or less. A 'few tens' out of that are not trivial, you even smugger fucker than I thought before.
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May 19, 2017 13:09
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LemonDrizzle posted:Also, the median property wealth of all households is only £50k, and that of households where the head is above retirement age is below £100k, so if granny owns outright a property worth £150k, she is pretty deep into the top half of the property wealth range. Yes, but in a lot of families it is only the old people who own houses. It is their families, not the old people, this policy takes houses away from.
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May 19, 2017 18:38
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Huffpo focus group posted:Phil said the Tory plan seemed like “a fairer method”. He explained how his father had become a paraplegic late in life but was asked to contribute £9,000 to a special wheelchair simply because he had saved all his life and accumulated assets. “It leaves a sour taste in the mouth,” he said. Means testing seems fairer because means testing leaves sour taste in mouth. Labour really need to do some educational campaigns tackling basic concepts like means testing, tax thresholds and so on.
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May 20, 2017 11:14
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hakimashou posted:If people had rejected this view and voted Labour instead of lib dem in 2010 wouldn't that have prevented Cameron from forming a government and all the tragic consequences that have followed from it? No, it would have resulted in a Tory majority, as happened when people stopped tactically voting LibDem, because we have FPTP and most of the LibDems' 2010 seats were LibDem-Tory battlegrounds. My constituency was LibDem 2010, Tory 2015. Most websites advising people on how to vote tactically still argue that we should vote LibDem here, but they are currently polling in 3rd place behind Labour. There is no chance they will win, so I can happily vote Labour this time because this is our opportunity to establish Labour as the tactical anti-Tory vote in this constituency. But if the LibDems started doing better I might have to reconsider, painful though that would be.
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May 22, 2017 12:02
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Zalakwe posted:What constituency out of interest? Keen to look at the numbers. St Austell & Newquay.
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May 22, 2017 12:07
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Zalakwe posted:Steve GIlbert's old constituency, that is a really interesting one. I think the LDs will likely come second at least Could be. Certainly when canvassing for Labour our biggest obstacle is the belief that only LDs can beat the Tories. On the other hand, people remember what Stephen Gilbert actually did.
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May 22, 2017 12:31
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I liked William Morris's Signs of Change for basic socialism and the proper attitude to work. And it's a long time since I read it, but I remember Marion Shoard's This land is our land dispelled any foolish notions I had acquired about social mobility.
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May 25, 2017 13:49
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Miftan posted:Anyone who has a kindle or e-reader can probably get a lot of these books, especially the older ones for free from the gutenberg project. Google it. Some as free audiobooks from Librivox, as well.
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May 25, 2017 13:54
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Ratjaculation posted:Holy loving poo poo. This storm Where are you? I'm in Cornwall and there's been amazing continuous lightning and hardly any noise at all.
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May 27, 2017 01:43
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Angepain posted:we got that in Scotland today as well, it's called "the sun" apparently  It's starting to make booming noises though, I hope this isn't the end of the wo
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May 27, 2017 02:01
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LemonDrizzle posted:The bit about ending freedom of movement is a firm commitment - "freedom of movement will end" - and also the only thing that the UK government can do unilaterally. All the other stuff is "a negotiating priority". It's exactly the same 'have our cake and eat it' fantasy that the Tories were peddling last year - that we can end free movement but the EU will then magically go back on everything it's said about the four freedoms being indivisible, there being no cherrypicking of single market benefits/rights, no sectoral deals, and so on. The sun will rise tomorrow <-- not a policy commitment. The actual commitments in the manifesto generally start with 'Labour will', 'A Labour government will', 'We will'. The sentence you quote doesn't say this for a reason.
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May 28, 2017 09:51
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LemonDrizzle posted:It is very obviously a policy commitment if you have exclusive control over the rising of the sun, and the sun will not rise unless you specifically act to make it do so. The UK government has exclusive control over its policy on free movement. But it does not have control over the EU's policy on free movement. 'Freedom of movement will end' for British citizens. I think this is very obviously phrased deliberately to avoid commitment (and postpone the need for shadow cabinet unanimity).
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May 28, 2017 10:13
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learnincurve posted:There are plenty of people who go two weeks between bin collections quite happily, those people are not poor people. gently caress off. I have been on benefits a long time, and I can easily go a month between bin collections, because - being both poor and single - I don't have much stuff to throw out. (No doubt my habit of saving up for long-lasting lightbulbs has helped a little in this.) I know it would be different if I had children. Your experience of poverty is not universalizable either.
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May 29, 2017 18:32
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serious gaylord posted:Council tax reduction scheme means he'd qualify for 0 rating and as such won't have to pay anything towards it. Not where I live. Everyone has to pay at least 25%.
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May 29, 2017 19:35
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awesome-express posted:So if Labourt and the LibDems were to form a coalition, would that guarantee a win? No, because we have FPTP. If the LibDem vote were higher, an electoral pact would give a better chance - but as things are it's better for Labour to try to thrash them into 3rd place wherever they can.
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May 29, 2017 22:59
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Guavanaut posted:Really the worst part of the FTPA is that it allowed calling a snap election 'because everyone feels like it' rather than requiring the loss of confidence of the House. I see your point, because no opposition can vote against an election, so it needs to be hard for the government to call for one. Nevertheless I think the worst part of the FTPA is that it set on 5 years, which is too long and helps MPs get away with anything, knowing that it'll be water under the bridge by the election and that letting the other side in for 5 years is too awful to contemplate. The Chartist demand for annual parliaments made a lot of sense.
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May 30, 2017 14:16
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Oberleutnant posted:Christ can you imagine a progressive government trying to get anything done in a year? Nothing would get done, ever. Well yes I can actually, and then they would generally be reelected (as governments are). Governments don't do everything in their last years, indeed I'd have said they tended to run out of steam. I have no figures with which to support my argument, but: Human Rights Act 1998, National Minimum Wage Act 1998, National Health Service Act 1946, Sex Discrimination Act 1975...
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May 30, 2017 14:40
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Julio Cruz posted:Giving up a couple of months every year for a new election campaign would severely hamper any government's ability to legislate. There should be rules limiting campaigning anyway. Have the vote in their long summer recess.
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May 30, 2017 14:52
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