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From the outside looking in, was the opposition worse? On the one hand, labour seem really similar to the Tories - disunited, dogma over common sense and oddly

From the outside looking in, was the opposition worse? On the one hand, labour seem really similar to the Tories - disunited, dogma over common sense and oddly out of touch. Their policies _were_ opposite to Tory policies but they are trying to be an opposition so… Yes Corbin was a leftie (corduroy elbow patches and all) but he’s a leader of a left wing party. It’s like complaining that Thatcher was a bit right-wing. It seems like the core issue is that the voters want something like Tory-lite. Blair did that and no one wants to go back to it. So this is what you’re left with

mytailorisrich 4y ago
Corbyn is a hardcore anticapitalist whose aim is a socialist society (soviet block style). He is in favour of Brexit, too, for this reason. Same goes for McDonnell, a Marxist. That's very far left and is opposed by most people including in the Labour Party. Basically, those guys were the Communist Party and unsurprisingly people did prefer to keep the Tories... It was the same in the 80s when Labour was essentially unelectable. Blair saw that the centre left was politically the best bet, and pragmatically that social policies needed the private economy to produce wealth.
- gghhzzgghhzz 4y ago
  The 2017 Corbyn manifesto was praised by Polly Toynbee of all people for goodness sake! https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/11/leaked-labour-manifesto-cornucopia-delights-tories-jeremy-corbyn-theresa-may https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/11/leaked...
- andrekandre 4y ago
  > Blair saw that the centre left was politically the best bet, and pragmatically that social policies needed the private economy to produce wealth. in the end, what happened to the produced wealth? is everyone doing much better now than then?
petesergeant 4y ago
> Corbyn was a leftie ... but he’s a leader of a left wing party Corbyn was hard left in a distinctly centrist country whose "Left Wing Party" is (despite its roots) very much left-leaning centrist, and who's only ever seen real success while occupying the middle-ground. > voters want something like Tory-lite. Blair did that and no one wants to go back to it If nobody wanted to go back to it then we'd have Rebecca Long-Bailey as Leader of His Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition, not another centrist.
- gghhzzgghhzz 4y ago
  The policies were popular. 2017 saw the reversal of decline in Labour votes that started under Blair. Labour got more votes than any Blair election other than 1997. There is a large constituency against the status quo in the UK. We have proof of that in the 2016 Brexit referendum, where 17 million people voted strongly against the establishment line and effectively against an economic model that we had had for 40 years. People voted in part to take back control, and what is nationalisation of basic aspects of our lives like water / housing / energy / drug manufacturing / transport etc if not taking back control? Since the pandemic, the implementation of a chaotic version of Brexit, and the cost of living crisis. The underlying aspects of the 2017 / 2019 Labour policies are even more starkly relevant. Everything has been laid bare, and for some reason the two main parties are now completely devoid of ideas or vision.
gghhzzgghhzz 4y ago
no it wasn't worse. There are massive systemic issues in the country. Lack of housing, regional inequality, geographical inequality, falling real terms wages, chronic underfunding of R&D. Basically everything is falling apart. 40 years of financialisation of public services and nearly every aspect of our lives (there's virtually nothing you can do as part of your daily routine that doesn't trigger a transfer of wealth from public or household money to the top). The Brexit vote itself was partially a reaction to these issues. These things need real solutions and real ideas. Any ideas that even start to address them let alone reverse the issues will look radical, and Labour 2017 / 2019 was barely doing that just offering a mild social democratic platform that would not be out of place in Northern Europe or indeed in the 1983 SDP-Liberal manifesto. Adding to that we would have had a planned and controlled Brexit, with certain Eu agreements being replaced with equivalent things with different names. All of this is mostly academic though as the first restrictions in the pandemic would have given the key to removing a Corbyn government by an effective establishment coup.

mytailorisrich 4y ago

Corbyn is a hardcore anticapitalist whose aim is a socialist society (soviet block style). He is in favour of Brexit, too, for this reason. Same goes for McDonnell, a Marxist. That's very far left and is opposed by most people including in the Labour Party. Basically, those guys were the Communist Party and unsurprisingly people did prefer to keep the Tories... It was the same in the 80s when Labour was essentially unelectable. Blair saw that the centre left was politically the best bet, and pragmatically that social policies needed the private economy to produce wealth.

gghhzzgghhzz 4y ago
The 2017 Corbyn manifesto was praised by Polly Toynbee of all people for goodness sake! https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/11/leaked-labour-manifesto-cornucopia-delights-tories-jeremy-corbyn-theresa-may https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/11/leaked...
andrekandre 4y ago
> Blair saw that the centre left was politically the best bet, and pragmatically that social policies needed the private economy to produce wealth. in the end, what happened to the produced wealth? is everyone doing much better now than then?

petesergeant 4y ago

> Corbyn was a leftie ... but he’s a leader of a left wing party Corbyn was hard left in a distinctly centrist country whose "Left Wing Party" is (despite its roots) very much left-leaning centrist, and who's only ever seen real success while occupying the middle-ground. > voters want something like Tory-lite. Blair did that and no one wants to go back to it If nobody wanted to go back to it then we'd have Rebecca Long-Bailey as Leader of His Majesty's Most Loyal Opposition, not another centrist.

gghhzzgghhzz 4y ago
The policies were popular. 2017 saw the reversal of decline in Labour votes that started under Blair. Labour got more votes than any Blair election other than 1997. There is a large constituency against the status quo in the UK. We have proof of that in the 2016 Brexit referendum, where 17 million people voted strongly against the establishment line and effectively against an economic model that we had had for 40 years. People voted in part to take back control, and what is nationalisation of basic aspects of our lives like water / housing / energy / drug manufacturing / transport etc if not taking back control? Since the pandemic, the implementation of a chaotic version of Brexit, and the cost of living crisis. The underlying aspects of the 2017 / 2019 Labour policies are even more starkly relevant. Everything has been laid bare, and for some reason the two main parties are now completely devoid of ideas or vision.

gghhzzgghhzz 4y ago

no it wasn't worse. There are massive systemic issues in the country. Lack of housing, regional inequality, geographical inequality, falling real terms wages, chronic underfunding of R&D. Basically everything is falling apart. 40 years of financialisation of public services and nearly every aspect of our lives (there's virtually nothing you can do as part of your daily routine that doesn't trigger a transfer of wealth from public or household money to the top). The Brexit vote itself was partially a reaction to these issues. These things need real solutions and real ideas. Any ideas that even start to address them let alone reverse the issues will look radical, and Labour 2017 / 2019 was barely doing that just offering a mild social democratic platform that would not be out of place in Northern Europe or indeed in the 1983 SDP-Liberal manifesto. Adding to that we would have had a planned and controlled Brexit, with certain Eu agreements being replaced with equivalent things with different names. All of this is mostly academic though as the first restrictions in the pandemic would have given the key to removing a Corbyn government by an effective establishment coup.