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Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2023 10:55:39 GMT
Ah-the leftie's favourite Tory leader -The Grocer -gets demoted by you . Still -your timeline lets you off the hook with the all time favourite of the left -The 1st Earl of Stockton.  MacMillan butters a few parsnips. The trad left tend to like him because he adopted the post-war settlement and tried to outdo Labour on housebuilding. The more liberal sort might like him because he wanted to take us into what became the EU. Yep-Supermac. Eton( expelled) & Oxford. Hero of The Left. A decent chap by all accounts. A sad end though -Profumo making him the " "failing representative of a decadent elite". |
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Post by pete on Jul 18, 2023 11:00:14 GMT
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Post by mercian on Jul 18, 2023 11:00:30 GMT
The National Policy Forum meets soon. It will be important what starts to emerge as the potential manifesto. Starmer appears to have been making policy up on the hoof. What happens if the National Policy Forum comes up with something different? Genuine question - is it just a talking shop or can it actually set policy? |
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Jul 18, 2023 11:02:10 GMT
Latest sky poll of polls tracker
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pjw1961
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Post by pjw1961 on Jul 18, 2023 11:04:41 GMT
I've said before I'm not a Heath fan. He is only as high as he is because all the ones below him are either incompetent, had dreadful policies or both. Macmillan on the other hand ... Ah-the Aristocracy wins eh ? Macmillan didn't inherit the title of Earl of Stockton, it was created for him by Thatcher, as I suspect you know. The key thing about Macmillan is he represented Stockton-on-Tess 1931-45 at a time of severe economic depression and had first hand experience of the effects of unemployment and poverty on working people. Therefore he accepted the Labour post-war settlement and even built on it in some respects (especially in house building). That's the reason why he enjoys a degree of respect from those on the left. I would still have preferred Labour to have been in power instead of him. |
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Jul 18, 2023 11:06:44 GMT
Agree, but the main point is even if you forego your foreign holiday you wouldn't be able to send your kids to private school It's nonsense, akin to those that say if you give up your smart phone you could buy a house |
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steve
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Post by steve on Jul 18, 2023 11:11:01 GMT
colin"And what makes you think that will stop them coming in boats?" Why on earth would someone risk death in a flimsy and unseaworthy dinghy when they could get on a 35000 tonne ferry instead? Asylum seekers don't use the small boats as an adventure they use them because the regime you support has cut off the safe routes.
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Jul 18, 2023 11:12:15 GMT
MacMillan butters a few parsnips. The trad left tend to like him because he adopted the post-war settlement and tried to outdo Labour on housebuilding. The more liberal sort might like him because he wanted to take us into what became the EU. Yep-Supermac. Eton( expelled) & Oxford. Hero of The Left. A decent chap by all accounts. A sad end though -Profumo making him the " "failing representative of a decadent elite". Macmillan, like other politicians of that era, fought along side everyday people in the war. Indeed he had to censor the letters home which gave him extra insight. (he came to our college for dinner once. I barely knew who he was. It took about a year at Uni to kindle an interest in politics…) |
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pjw1961
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Post by pjw1961 on Jul 18, 2023 11:13:25 GMT
The National Policy Forum meets soon. It will be important what starts to emerge as the potential manifesto. Starmer appears to have been making policy up on the hoof. What happens if the National Policy Forum comes up with something different? Genuine question - is it just a talking shop or can it actually set policy? In practical terms he can ignore Labour policy and write his own manifesto because it is hard to prevent that whatever the official position might be, but there is a practical political cost to not taking the party members, activists, donors and supporters with you. If he has any people with good political nous around him (and I'm not 100% certain he has), he will throw a bone or two the the soft left in policy terms. We shall see. |
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Post by graham on Jul 18, 2023 11:14:14 GMT
Ah-the Aristocracy wins eh ? Macmillan didn't inherit the title of Earl of Stockton, it was created for him by Thatcher, as I suspect you know. The key thing about Macmillan is he represented Stockton-on-Tess 1931-45 at a time of severe economic depression and had first hand experience of the effects of unemployment and poverty on working people. Therefore he accepted the Labour post-war settlement and even built on it in some respects (especially in house building). That's the reason why he enjoys a degree of respect from those on the left. I would still have preferred Labour to have been in power instead of him. Macmillan was Housing Minister under Churchill 1951 - 55. |
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steve
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Post by steve on Jul 18, 2023 11:17:09 GMT
neilj Everyone knows if you stopped your Netflix account you could afford a mansion in Kensington. Attachment Deleted
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Post by graham on Jul 18, 2023 11:18:46 GMT
Starmer appears to have been making policy up on the hoof. What happens if the National Policy Forum comes up with something different? Genuine question - is it just a talking shop or can it actually set policy? In practical terms he can ignore Labour policy and write his own manifesto because it is hard to prevent that whatever the official position might be, but there is a practical political cost to not taking the party members, activists, donors and supporters with you. If he has any people with good political nous around him (and I'm not 100% certain he has), he will throw a bone or two the the soft left in policy terms. We shall see. The Hartlepool by election debacle in Spring 2021 persuaded me that Starmer has very little political nous indeed. Although clearly very bright with a distinguished legal career behind him, I fear that politically he is pretty naive - sometimes close to being ignorant. |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jul 18, 2023 11:19:25 GMT
I gather maybe most schools nowadays are run by private sector organisations. Perhaps people need to rethink exactly what they mean by private schools? Dividing them into the ones the state subsidises, and the ones it doesnt? I'm surprised someone isnt complaining this is unfair competition against truly independent schools? |
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Post by shevii on Jul 18, 2023 11:33:50 GMT
colinYou may not have needed to worry about Afghanistan as much as you did! Wasn't Tobias Ellwood one the "good Tories"? To be fair I wouldn't want to mock this entirely because there are all sorts of compromises we have to make with less than ideal regimes but this reads way too much like state sponsored propaganda and he even uses the word "progressive":
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Jul 18, 2023 11:33:52 GMT
You know Neil, I nearly wrote a very similar post to yours. Then I thought maybe I should run it past my partner, the head teacher, just in case… She pointed out that some head teachers do something like that already. If they can’t make contact to sort out attendance in other ways via phone etc. then it’s policy at her school to call round the home. Apparently it rarely needs to get that far as the possibility of a visit from the Head is enough for most parents! Which is just as well because yes, there isn’t much time for that sort of thing |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2023 11:35:32 GMT
Ah-the Aristocracy wins eh ? Macmillan didn't inherit the title of Earl of Stockton, it was created for him by Thatcher, as I suspect you know. The key thing about Macmillan is he represented Stockton-on-Tess 1931-45 at a time of severe economic depression and had first hand experience of the effects of unemployment and poverty on working people. Therefore he accepted the Labour post-war settlement and even built on it in some respects (especially in house building). That's the reason why he enjoys a degree of respect from those on the left. I would still have preferred Labour to have been in power instead of him. I remember him from childhood. So have had to do some reading on the politics of the time , which was not top of my interests then. This is an interesting review of Stop Go Economics and the "Golden Age":- www.studysmarter.co.uk/explanations/history/modern-britain/stop-go-economics/Mac's "never had it so good" speech came with a dire warning -about inflation and wage awards. Reading through his 1957 Conference speech the passages on the Iron Curtain, Russia and NATO are weirdly relevant today. He didnt have much time for Labour though-not much consensus here ! :- "In 1951 we took over this country in a state of extreme - almost desperate - crisis. The Socialist Government was so frightened of the situation that they did not even try to deal with it." "It is easy to forget how we had to take a bit of margarine with us when we went to tea with a friend, how eagerly we queued for what I think was called a bit of off-ration offal, or that strange part of bureaucratic thinking - bananas on green books only. People in those days could not buy nylons except under the counter or from the spivs; we had to dash round looking for candles every time there was a power cut. And even after six years of enlightened Socialism - six years of this Utopia - the Minister of Fuel and Power proudly made this statement. He said: ‘Electric fires are a major cause of power cuts. We have imposed a purchase tax on them, and the Area Boards no longer display them in showrooms. I am told that in many parts of the country it is becoming really difficult to buy an electric fire.’ What a boast! What a triumph of planning! That was in October 1951. It was in that same month that the Socialist Prime Minister said: ‘If rationing is good for the people in wartime, surely it must be good for them in peacetime.’ All these things are part and parcel of Socialism. But - and I must be serious - these things are not just a glimpse of the past. They are an awful warning for the future." "There has been a great ideological dispute as to precisely which form of nationalisation was to be preferred, the old or the new. I think the supporters of the new felt that the word nationalisation was not very popular. They came to Brighton not to praise it but to bury it. But really it has all amounted, as far as I can see, to a distinction without a difference. They are using the oldest trick in the world - if the goods do not sell - try them with another label. I read in a Socialist magazine the following account of this dispute: ‘The real choice’ it says, ‘is whether the Government is to use public ownership to take a cut in the swag or to use public enterprise to cut the swag itself.’ This is an elegant way of describing these two proposals which have caused such a furore in the Labour Party. All the same, it seems that a compromise was reached, and it was decided to use both methods. There is to be a short list who are to have their throats cut, and a longer list who are to be bled slowly to death." |
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steve
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Post by steve on Jul 18, 2023 11:36:18 GMT
"Former Labour leader says ‘even the Blair government’ helped lift children out of poverty"
Typical of Corbyn sour grapes crusty old socialist , what he should have said is the socially reforming Blair government lifted hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty.
Hundreds of thousands more than he ever achieved.
He's right about Starmer though.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2023 11:37:25 GMT
colin "And what makes you think that will stop them coming in boats?" Why on earth would someone risk death in a flimsy and unseaworthy dinghy when they could get on a 35000 tonne ferry instead? Asylum seekers don't use the small boats as an adventure they use them because the regime you support has cut off the safe routes. Your ferries are going to be crammed with migrants-and the rest wont wait. |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jul 18, 2023 11:38:22 GMT
My fear is that Starmer has forgotten that to win he has to build a sufficiently large voting coalition, which means offering something to all parts of that coalition. There needs to be something for the socially conservative, economically left working class, something for middle class liberals and something for the 'across-the-board' leftists. Corbyn failed because he repelled significant parts of the first two groups. Starmer is doing well in attracting them, but needs to also offer something to the last group. If 'big ticket' spending pledges are out, then Labour could at least promise some of the low cost constitution reforms. This all seesm a bit revisionist. 2015, 17 and 19 elections were clearly dcided on the issue of Brexit. Arguably so was 2010. For most of those it was the one thing which matters to most people. Ok, all parties are refusing to talk about brexit now, even though it will dominate the Uk economy until we rejoin in some form. And that does mean the second rank issues have come to the fore. So in that respect its worth looking back how they did in recent past elections. The mainstay of conservative moveable suport by now must surely be leavers who still believe. Labour is simply not willing to take them on and argue how bad brexit has been for the UK. Its not going to win over traditional tories who believe in redistribution of wealth to the rich. Interesting little piece on R4 this morning where they pitted a pensioner against a youth to argue who should be taxed more. The pensioner argued many pensioners are poor. Its interesting that this debate has become framed the wrong way. It isnt either tax poor pensioners or youth, its those with high incomes and amassed wealth. Although its obviously iniquitous that a low income pensioner sitting in a vey valuable home should escape without eventually paying any tax towards state care they receive. We have the absurd situation that people who generally are very wealthy dead still receive very high care spending from government, with the assurance they will never pay it back. Students nowadays are saddled with some very big loans which they are expected to repay |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 18, 2023 11:40:27 GMT
colin You may not have needed to worry about Afghanistan as much as you did! Wasn't Tobias Ellwood one the "good Tories"? To be fair I wouldn't want to mock this entirely because there are all sorts of compromises we have to make with less than ideal regimes but this reads way too much like state sponsored propaganda and he even uses the word "progressive": Thanks sheviiI am shocked and depressed by this. I had admired him. |
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Post by Danny on Jul 18, 2023 11:43:29 GMT
Ok - let me rephrase that . I say this as someone who utterly detests Johnson for other reasons, but in terms of economic policy he was the most left wing PM since Callaghan - as reflected in his willingness to increase state intervention and to allow Public Borrowing to rise when the national interest required it. If only Blair had done the same with his big majorities! Johnson was rather Heseltinian in his Industrial policy - despite their massive differences on Brexit etc. Nonsense. Johnson had no choice regarding furloughs or the economy would've crashed. The real Johnson was his 'levelling up agenda' where he did sod all as it was obvious bull to con the red wall (along with his 'get brexit done' 'oven ready deal'). furlough was essential as part of a lockdown policy, otherwise civil disobedience would have made it unworkable. The real question is whether the entire policy of lockdown created any real health benefit, and the evidence is that it did not. As to levelling up, all conservative prime ministers from thatcher onwards have claimed to be levelling up, when their policies have brought about the opposite. |
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Jul 18, 2023 11:44:57 GMT
I gather maybe most schools nowadays are run by private sector organisations. Perhaps people need to rethink exactly what they mean by private schools? Dividing them into the ones the state subsidises, and the ones it doesnt? I'm surprised someone isnt complaining this is unfair competition against truly independent schools? Pluswhich, even if the school isn’t part of an academy chain, there can still be a significant “ability-to-pay” selection process going on, it’s just that it’s the ability to purchase a house in the catchment you want, rather than ability to pay fees. |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jul 18, 2023 11:50:01 GMT
The Tories ruined this country for short term gain and they happily do it time and time again. No idea how people fall for it over and over again. Well its simple. you only need about 1/4 of the country to vote for you to win. You can therefore do what you like to the other 3/4. |
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on Jul 18, 2023 11:57:53 GMT
One approach to poverty is to do the right-wing sticking plaster thing of just taking them slightly above the threshold, which can give you some nice stats, while still leaving them struggling on zero hours with high rents and bills etc., and still preserving significant inequality. The more left-wing thing, is to instead create opportunities to get way beyond that. Able to support a family on a single wage etc.
If Starmer really means it about good jobs, that’s more like it. But there could be this great huge fly in the ointment, if the rise of AI means a lot of jobs go.
I have come across a couple of things inhibiting AI progress lately however. People have been complaining that the quality of AI responses has dropped, and a couple of potential explanations have been proffered.
One is that they have been splitting the AI up into modules to save on processing power as more people use it. Another, is something they call “cannibalisation”. The AI learns from data provided by humans on the net. As AI use grows, more and more of the data on the net which is sampled by the AI, is data not written by a human, but by another AI…
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Post by alec on Jul 18, 2023 12:04:55 GMT
Missing the weekend already, so here's a reminder of what we're longing for. The price of a pint in a pub in 2023 shows far greater variation in 2023 than it did in 2010.
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Post by johntel on Jul 18, 2023 12:04:58 GMT
Either a step change in productivity via new technology -or increased tax % x GDP are required. Blimey, I wouldn't have had you down as a Bennite colin |
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Post by johntel on Jul 18, 2023 12:14:25 GMT
neilj - very unfashionable to give Blair credit for anything, but yes, everyone knows that overall, life just got better for millions of people under New Labour. Far from perfect, and in many ways a missed opportunity to lock in something far more radical, but a very positive list of achievements. You missed out probably one of the biggest though, in terms of the numbers who benefit; The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 was a landmark. In a way it epitomizes so much of New Labour. Really rather radical, with major, long lasting benefits for millions, but it could have been so much bolder. That said, the access to the English countryside was really opened up by this act, and the spending that went with it meant that the public footpath network improved by an astonishing rate after 2000. Of course, since 2010 the network has degraded once more, but this was a great and lifechanging bit of legislation that almost no-one registers now. I'd also like to regale the board with my classic NHS tale from the dark days, as an illustration of what New Labour achieved. In summer 1984 I had an issue with a wart on my finger. It kept getting knocked off and bleeding, and as I worked in catering at the time it was a pain. Saw the GP, who sorted a hospital appointment to have it removed. OK - treatments have evolved since then, but in those days it was an outpatient appointment, which came six weeks later, by post, with the appointment scheduled for....December 1992. By that time I had moved house, changed jobs and had been wart free for six years, but I tell this story just to remind people how absolutely shit the NHS was back then, and how our expectations of reasonably good and timely service all date from the New Labour years, when massive advances were made. But feel free to continue claiming Blair was just the same as the Tories. See where that gets you. Blair had the huge advantage of fast world economic growth due to the internet and globalisation which was in part created by Reaganism and Thatcherism being rolled out worldwide. No other PM has enjoyed such an advantageous backdrop. On the whole he played a good hand reasonably well, while making the mistake of thinking it was all due to his own skill. |
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steve
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Post by steve on Jul 18, 2023 12:17:32 GMT
colinNearly 14 million people use cross channel ferries yearly. The number using small boat crossings is around 20,000 Stop talking bollocks.
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Post by Mark on Jul 18, 2023 12:26:51 GMT
Re-Sunak & university courses.
Populist and wrong.
While it is true that many see university as a direct path to a well paying job - and for many, it is, that is not the whole rationale.
There is such a thing as love of learning...and certainly love of learning a subject you are passionate about.
Then, there is the learning of critical and anylitical skills that can surely be applied to life in general.
Added to this, for many, life skills are learned, away from home, fending for yourself for the first time, as well as a journey of self discovery - finding out who you are.
The government could end tuition fees tomorrow if it wanted so that students wouldn't be saddled with (as much) debt.
In my own case, I did computer studies, something that Sunak would likely consider worthwhile.
I have, in more recent years, said that if I had my time over, I'd do something else. Somthing I've changed my mind about. Now I would certainly do it again.
The reason that, for many years, I said I wouldn't is that much of what I learned is eithor out of date, depreciated or stuff that nobody uses anymore. Had I got a job relevant to my course, I would have eithor been made reduundant or faced with a long, continuous learning curve long after my course had ended....far more than in most jobs.
Nowadays, I would have still done the same course, but, not wanted or applied for a relevant job afterwards. My income would be made from something far, fr away from computers as possible.
The skills I learned (and yes, there would be the same learning curve over time) be put to use writing Userstyles, or writing software (I would love to be able to write something like "Get_Iplayer", for example) - the sort of thing where the renumeration is pure satisfaction (yes, there are links on these sort of things to donate, often labelled 'buy me a coffee/pint', but, hardly anybody ever does).
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Jul 18, 2023 12:29:08 GMT
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