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(14,734 posts)For starters, even though I disagree with Labour on Fox hunting, mocking those who disagree with you on that issue is a sure fire way to alienate those people who are Labour's most passionate supporters. And Westminster knobs mistreating grassroots supporters is a core issue behind Britain's current democratic crisis.
Secondly, Labour has been trying the Blairite "triangulation" approach to immigration for some time now and it's failed badly.Labour are far better off pointing out that UKIP's immigration policy is wildly unrealistic. Among many other faults that UKIP's terrible policies have.
As someone who lives near Rotherham, I can tell you that Labour is in no position whatsoever to properly address concerns about grooming gangs. The best thing they could do on this issue is just to hold their hands up and admitted that they were much too complacent.
And if you think that David f**king Blunkett is in any way suitable to be the next South Yorkshire PCC then you really are a massive knobhead.
That author is a Blairite Westminster man and it's people like him who are the problem. The main reason why British democracy is in crisis right now. We need the 3 mainstream parties to be engaging with people at grassroots level. No more Westminster spads with no real life experience dictating how things should be done. It's people like the author of this article who are driving people away from the 3 main parties.
This article is pure Westminster bullshit and couldn't be less "spot on" if it tried.
Drew Peacock
(28 posts)"We talk about housing policies when people want a home. We talk about jobs as an end in themselves when people see them as the start of something the ability to make a downpayment on a dream. We see life as a set of problems to be solved by policies when people see life as something to be lived and enjoyed."
I can't see how anyone could argue with that.
How do you address the housing shortage without a housing policy? We can't all be property speculators like so many MP's
Nobody in real life talks about their job as being a "downpayment on a dream". That's typical evasive patronising Westminster bullshit.
Politicans are not going to help anyone to "enjoy life". Politics is about solving problems by enacting policies. The trouble is, mainstream parties all advocate bad policies tailored to their donors, not the voting public.
Drew Peacock
(28 posts)Well of course you must have a policy, but the focus should be on the houses, rather than the policy itself
Politicians of all parties have become too insular, too wrapped up in their own little bubble, too isolated from real people in the real world, and too bloody fond of the glamour and the (self awarded) perks of their positions.
Theirs is a mindset that to achieve something, all that they have to do is to debate, hold meetings, make rules and laws and regulations and write them down. Real life doesn't work like that.
It's precicely this sort of wonkish drivel that drives people away from the main parties I'm afraid. You talk about how politicians have become wrapped up in their own bubble, but it's statements like this that prove the assertion that politicians are living in ivory towers detached from the rest of us.
Like it or not that is a large part of politics, the question is, how do mainstream political parties get people to engage with all this outside of the SW1 bubble? Of course it doesn't help that all 3 main parties have let their grass roots operations wither. And also that too much power is held by the central offices of the 3 main parties.
Drew Peacock
(28 posts)I think we are singing from the same hymn sheet here, but in different keys and slightly out of synch.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,082 posts)This sounds as if the candidates should be working in architects' offices or on building sites, rather than looking at policy.
Drew Peacock
(28 posts)"the focus should be on the houses, rather than the policy makers"
What I mean is that, if there is a problem, such as the shortage of homes, then leaders should focus on making it possible for more homes to be built (by whatever means), rather than squabbling between themselves, trying to outdo each other and so on and so forth.
The people who need homes just want homes to be available, they don't care about the political process or who gets the credit.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,082 posts)and to do that, it has to talk about its policies. If it talks about housing policy, it hopes people will put it back into power.
Locally, councils are largely prevented from building houses themselves by national laws about council spending. Labour had the blame for that between 1997 and 2010; since then, it's the coalition.
LeftishBrit
(41,175 posts)We do not need the Labour Party to implode in such massive infighting that someone like Farage gets in (the equivalent to what happened in Australia).
There is some truth in what he's saying; but it cannot go beyond clichés, until and unless the Labour Party are prepared to grasp the real nettle: that whatever else they do, they have to go back to being a left-wing party on the economy and public services. Hell, I'd settle for their going back to being as left-wing on such issues as Heath or Macmillan. The postwar consensus, whatever its limitations, was a lot better than what they have now.
'the latte-sipping, chino-wearing, light Green, inner-city left.'
Sneering at the relatively few people who actually make an effort on behalf of the Labour Party is not going to help them.
'That latter point is really scary Ukip became ABL (Anyone But Labour).'
Actually UKIP was Anyone But the Main Parties. And let's note that the real by-election winner, with almost a 2/3 majority, was the Why-Bother-to-Vote Party. A problem in itself, of course.
'For Labour, this was a by-election about the NHS. That was what voters brought up on the doorstep. For voters, visitors and the casual observer it was a by-election about immigration. Even in politics a conversation isnt simply waiting for your turn to speak it has to be about engagement. There is a perfectly defensible line to take on Labours record on immigration and its plans. It just doesnt involve not mentioning it. And there is a blindingly obvious link to the NHS a service that would stop tomorrow without immigrant workers.'
Well, THAT much is true (that immigrants keep the NHS going, a point that is often ignored).
'So too was our response to Ukip raising the grooming and rape of young women in Rochdale. You could see we were outraged. But not by the rapes, instead by the fact the issue was raised. Id have loved a Labour candidate who could say Thats right, it was disgusting. Those young women were betrayed. I want to be your MP to work with Simon Danczuk and Tom Watson to tackle historic abuse and to make sure it never happens again. '
That's just accepting the UKIP framing of the issue. Labour do NOT condone child sexual abuse; the author himself mentions two well-known campaigners.
'The voice that David Blunkett would bring if he stood for South Yorkshire police and crime commissioner. The voice of working-class morality and outrage channelled politically to achieve change.'
David Blunkett? No thanks!!!
'...New Zealand Labour leader and prime minister Norman Kirk who said: New Zealanders dont ask for much: someone to love, somewhere to live, somewhere to work and something to hope for. ..'
New Zealand has not, I believe, suffered as badly in the recession as the UK or Europe; nor, according to the NZ-ers whom I know, has even their current Conservative government been nearly as destructive as ours. Thus, the NZ voters can 'not ask for much'. The Brits, however, do need 'much' at this stage.
'We talk about housing policies when people want a home. We talk about jobs as an end in themselves when people see them as the start of something the ability to make a downpayment on a dream. We see life as a set of problems to be solved by policies when people see life as something to be lived and enjoyed.'
The point is that homelessness is largely due to the wrong housing policies; and increasingly, to the wrong economic policies in general. And while this may be regrettable in some ways, for most people, and especially for the people whom Labour supposedly most represents, jobs are largely an end in themselves. People need their jobs in order to pay the bills; and moreover, they need their jobs to be sufficiently secure to be able to pay the bills not just today but tomorrow! And life can be 'lived and enjoyed' most easily when policies relieve them from their worst worries about poverty, insecurity, and lack of necessary public services.
Anarcho-Socialist
(9,601 posts)A "party within in a party" which advocates a return to the neoliberal Blairist-Thatcherite policies which caused the financial crisis.
Progress is hostile to the twin pillars of the historical Labour Party, Fabian social democracy and the trade union movement.
If neoliberal forces like Progress hadn't hijacked the Labour Party in the 2000s, Labour would be polling 38-42% of the vote instead of 33-36%.
Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)The author says "we failed in three ways and succeeded in one".
The one think they count as a success is "we kept our share of the vote"; that is, something meaningful, objective, measurable and important.
The three they list as failures are... well, it's so badly written that it's not quite clear which they're meant to be, but I think they're "We have lost the power of hearing", "lack of courage" and "a campaign with no vision" - all of which mean precisely nothing, they're just totally empty, vacuous verbiage.