If the Labour Party didn't exist, would anyone today invent it?

antrobus

kinger101 wrote: »

The sad thing is that there are thousands of slaves working in the UK today. ...

Slavery is illegal in the UK. If you have evidence otherwise you should report it to the police.

Then this sort of thing happens
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/three-arrested-uk-over-modern-8928368

kinger101 wrote: »

...But if people can get their car washed for £5 they don't care.

I'm sure that there people who buy a t-shirt in Primark for a £1 and don't care either. What do you want done about it? Should we invade Bangladesh, or wherever?

kinger101

antrobus wrote: »

Slavery is illegal in the UK. If you have evidence otherwise you should report it to the police.

Then this sort of thing happens
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/three-arrested-uk-over-modern-8928368



I'm sure that there people who buy a t-shirt in Primark for a £1 and don't care either. What do you want done about it? Should we invade Bangladesh, or wherever?

No need to snap. Just pointing out that laws don't always offer people full protection, and it exists today even within our own country.

antrobus

kinger101 wrote: »

No need to snap. Just pointing out that laws don't always offer people full protection, and it exists today even within our own country.

Snap? What are you on about?

Slavery is illegal in the UK. Murder is also illegal in the UK; but murder still exists within our own country. What point are you trying to make?

mrginge

BobQ wrote: »

Corbyn and the modern militants that support him have nothing to offer.

Under the right leader, Labour could remind people that values of fairness, integrity and working for the common good have a place in a future Uk alongside the values of individual achievement. May talks the talk on this but rarely walks anywhere.

This is typical new labour !!!!!!!!.

Forget the policies, everything will be ok when we get a leader who people like.

Corbyn may be a dangerous nut job, but at least he believes in something.

westernpromise

Pol Pot believed in something too. Many of the same things as Corby.

kinger101

antrobus wrote: »

Snap? What are you on about?

Slavery is illegal in the UK. Murder is also illegal in the UK; but murder still exists within our own country. What point are you trying to make?

I was pointing out your propensity to launch into rants. But the bigger picture is that a society isn't made just by the laws it creates. Murder is also illegal in the United States, but they have a much higher homicide rate there.

Holding the UK up to a high moral standard because it has abolished slavery like practically every other nation on the planet doesn't mean we're an inherently righteous country.

kinger101

westernpromise wrote: »

Pol Pot believed in something too. Many of the same things as Corby.

I used to believe Corbyn believed in something, but I'm less convinced of it now. If he did, he'd allow a more articulate and charismatic person with similar beliefs to be leader. Though I'm struggling to see who that is. If Tony Benn couldn't sell this, he certainly can't. Corbyn amounts to much less than even one of Tony Benn's farts.

antrobus

kinger101 wrote: »

I was pointing out your propensity to launch into rants..

So making factual points is a "rant"? Slavery is illegal in the UK.

kinger101 wrote: »

...But the bigger picture is that a society isn't made just by the laws it creates....

I don't see anybody here making that claim. Certainly not me.

kinger101 wrote: »

..Murder is also illegal in the United States, but they have a much higher homicide rate there.

And?

kinger101 wrote: »

..Holding the UK up to a high moral standard because it has abolished slavery like practically every other nation on the planet doesn't mean we're an inherently righteous country.

As far as I'm aware no such claims have been made on this thread. Which is supposed to be about the Labour Party.

What is is that you are trying to say?

kabayiri

antrobus wrote: »

So making factual points is a "rant"? Slavery is illegal in the UK.
...

There is one step down from slavery.

My cousin used to have an interest in a food processing firm which offered workers accommodation nearby. This option was encouraged in fact.

When you took into account the living costs, the floor workers didn't really come out with that much at all.

It was profitable for the owners, and to be fair they did pay the production manager a decent whack.

Now, presumably, these workers are still better off than back in Eastern Europe? So, you could argue, they still benefit, especially if they can income support for children.

westernpromise

kinger101 wrote: »

I used to believe Corbyn believed in something, but I'm less convinced of it now. If he did, he'd allow a more articulate and charismatic person with similar beliefs to be leader. Though I'm struggling to see who that is. If Tony Benn couldn't sell this, he certainly can't. Corbyn amounts to much less than even one of Tony Benn's farts.

Yet 60% of those who voted in two Labour leadership elections voted for him. What does that say about what the Labour Party is for?

I think it has been generally tacitly agreed in this thread that there's nothing the Tories need interludes of Labour government to accomplish. If the Tories can legalise gay marriage, they can do anything. The reverse is not true. Labour has always needed the Tories in power to do things it knows are necessary but cannot bring itself to do, or is incompetent to do - fix the economy, sort out the unions, and so on. Once back in power it then fails to repeal any of the things it opposes because laws controlling unions are necessary, but it could never itself have passed any of them. Labour needs episodes of Tory government. It needs and wants to lose.

This is because Labour's structural, perhaps existential problem is that it exists ultimately to spend. Take away the underlying presumption that there are always people you can tax, and replace it with one that we're so structurally !!!! deep in debt we have no way forward, and what has it to say on anything?

So in 2010 and again in 2015 Labour had nothing to say - literally in Ed Miliband's case, when he forgot to mention the economy in his conference speech.

Labour now has a party leader in denial about this yet who apparently reflects the attitudes of 60% of the members. The 60% regard the other 40% as Tories, like to kid themselves Blair wasn't a Labour PM, and meanwhile most of the ground that 40% would like to occupy is owned by May's Tories.

It was always clear even in 1997 that the Tories would be back in power at some point because Labour would wreck the economy and would need them back in power to fix it. No such rescue seems likely for Labour.