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The problem with Blair was that he lost the right on EU/immigration and lost the left on everything else. Brownites sound good but say nothing specific...often

The problem with Blair was that he lost the right on EU/immigration and lost the left on everything else. Brownites sound good but say nothing specific...often the specific stuff is bad too. I agree with you in that there is a route in the centre, but Labour aren't. The party is fundamentally broken. Starmer isn't it, Reeves isn't a leader, Streeting is a joke. Obviously, they have moved to the centre on immigration and crime but...the party are just mad, and it doesn't seem authentic at all (Starmer was a human rights lawyer, getting rid of ECHR is the only course...you would have to be an idiot to believe he would do that, it just isn't credible). The ambiguity of Labour is causing part of these problems. For example, their position of ambiguity on healthcare...clearly, it is broken...but they decide to be ambiguous (again, classic Brown) so their polling numbers stay up. There needs to be some kind of cross-party move towards reform but it is impossible when one side just wants to score points as the "protector of the NHS" (and it will end up with Labour winning, then finding out they are neck deep in trouble trying to do reforms that don't work...it will never be fixed).

mytailorisrich 4y ago
> The problem with Blair was that he lost the right on EU/immigration and lost the left on everything else Yes, that's a good point, but it's not only the right. All the traditionally Labour constituencies in the North (but not only) which voted for Brexit did so largely because of immigration. Immigration control is not traditionally right wing only. The left has also been in favour of control and restrictions in order to protect workers' wages.
- astrange 4y ago
  Their wages are low because they're British and live in a failing country. Immigration raises wages; more people = better economy. That's why every other Anglo country is doing better than them. And has food that isn't brown slop.
  - mytailorisrich 4y ago
    No, immigration has kept unskilled workers' wages low. That's why businesses have been keen and workers have had enough. That's not specific to the UK, and is the usual effect of large immigration.
    - astrange 4y ago
      Immigration doesn’t lower wages. Telling people this usually doesn’t convince them because they just want an excuse to complain about immigrants, but nevertheless it’s true. https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-immigration-doesnt-reduce-wages https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-immigration-doesnt-red... In particular Australia’s population is 1/3rd immigrants. Australia’s minimum and median wages are both significantly higher than the UK. Does that mean there are so many immigrants they’re taking each others jobs instead?
      - mytailorisrich 4y ago
        There's a very big assumption in your claim, which is that immigration is balanced among 'social classes', skills, jobs,etc. In that case, indeed overall demand grows along with overall supply. Australia has an immigration system aimed at achieving that. Things do not work out so great if immigration isn't balanced. In the UK there has been a huge influx of unskilled or low skilled workers from Eastern Europe that has put a big dampener on wages at the low end of the spectrum. One of the reasons the UK has a productivity issue is that cheap labour.
        astrange 4y ago
        The papers I linked are empirical evidence, not assumptions. There’s two specifically on the UK that find no evidence of this. They also find that skilled immigration systems don’t always work, because all immigrants tend to be unusually highly educated anyway, but also significantly downskill the jobs they choose after arriving. So you’d expect them to always compete with low end natives, but in fact they don’t because they mainly compete with other immigrants instead. And “compete” isn’t how labor works anyway, since all workers are also customers.
petesergeant 4y ago
> Blair ... lost the right on EU/immigration and lost the left on everything else Blair won three sizeable outright majorities in the three elections he lead Labour in
midasuni 4y ago
You can say a lot of things about Blair, but “Lost” isn’t one of them.
akiselev 4y ago
At this point UK government services don’t need reform, they need funding. Austerity has absolutely crippled everything.
- Silhouette 4y ago
  The problem with that argument is where the money comes from. If you look at government tax take relative to GDP we aren't paying in much less tax than at any other time in most of our living memories. If anything it is the other way around. We'd all like public services that do everything for everyone but few of us would be willing to pay what that would actually cost and many of us literally couldn't afford it. Meanwhile expectations of government services are rising and in many areas demographics are against us. If you rule out reform of government services then you don't have a lot of options left to square a lot of circles. It's important to consider that "reform" is not the same as "cutting standards". For example if we could redistribute the available resources for health and social care to focus more on prevention than cure then many problems might be detected and dealt with earlier resulting in lower overall costs and crucially also better outcomes for patients. Of course there is so much firefighting happening in the NHS now that it's hard to see how any radical reform could happen without a huge injection of both cash and trained medical staff over a period longer than a single electoral cycle and that makes it a political problem as much as an economic or healthcare one.
  - gghhzzgghhzz 4y ago
    The NHS has been in continuous reform. Thatcher / Blair / Brown / Lansley / Hunt. Most of these reforms have included injecting private sector and internal markets into the system. You may agree or disagree with these reforms, but it's difficult to argue that they don't incur overhead. Outsourced contracts need administration, legal frameworks; private parties take profit or else they wouldn't exist. I'd argue it is likely that most of the extra funding is seeping out through these reforms, plus the legacy of not nationalising the whole health system - GP surgeries, pharmacy, generic drug manufacturing - when the NHS was formed. I agree with you on the prevention aspect. but my thought is that a more joined up system including GPs, pharmacy and especially social care, would manage a lot of lifestyle related issues much better.

mytailorisrich 4y ago

> The problem with Blair was that he lost the right on EU/immigration and lost the left on everything else Yes, that's a good point, but it's not only the right. All the traditionally Labour constituencies in the North (but not only) which voted for Brexit did so largely because of immigration. Immigration control is not traditionally right wing only. The left has also been in favour of control and restrictions in order to protect workers' wages.

astrange 4y ago
Their wages are low because they're British and live in a failing country. Immigration raises wages; more people = better economy. That's why every other Anglo country is doing better than them. And has food that isn't brown slop.
- mytailorisrich 4y ago
  No, immigration has kept unskilled workers' wages low. That's why businesses have been keen and workers have had enough. That's not specific to the UK, and is the usual effect of large immigration.
  - astrange 4y ago
    Immigration doesn’t lower wages. Telling people this usually doesn’t convince them because they just want an excuse to complain about immigrants, but nevertheless it’s true. https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-immigration-doesnt-reduce-wages https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-immigration-doesnt-red... In particular Australia’s population is 1/3rd immigrants. Australia’s minimum and median wages are both significantly higher than the UK. Does that mean there are so many immigrants they’re taking each others jobs instead?
    - mytailorisrich 4y ago
      There's a very big assumption in your claim, which is that immigration is balanced among 'social classes', skills, jobs,etc. In that case, indeed overall demand grows along with overall supply. Australia has an immigration system aimed at achieving that. Things do not work out so great if immigration isn't balanced. In the UK there has been a huge influx of unskilled or low skilled workers from Eastern Europe that has put a big dampener on wages at the low end of the spectrum. One of the reasons the UK has a productivity issue is that cheap labour.
      - astrange 4y ago
        The papers I linked are empirical evidence, not assumptions. There’s two specifically on the UK that find no evidence of this. They also find that skilled immigration systems don’t always work, because all immigrants tend to be unusually highly educated anyway, but also significantly downskill the jobs they choose after arriving. So you’d expect them to always compete with low end natives, but in fact they don’t because they mainly compete with other immigrants instead. And “compete” isn’t how labor works anyway, since all workers are also customers.

petesergeant 4y ago

> Blair ... lost the right on EU/immigration and lost the left on everything else Blair won three sizeable outright majorities in the three elections he lead Labour in

midasuni 4y ago

You can say a lot of things about Blair, but “Lost” isn’t one of them.

akiselev 4y ago

At this point UK government services don’t need reform, they need funding. Austerity has absolutely crippled everything.

Silhouette 4y ago
The problem with that argument is where the money comes from. If you look at government tax take relative to GDP we aren't paying in much less tax than at any other time in most of our living memories. If anything it is the other way around. We'd all like public services that do everything for everyone but few of us would be willing to pay what that would actually cost and many of us literally couldn't afford it. Meanwhile expectations of government services are rising and in many areas demographics are against us. If you rule out reform of government services then you don't have a lot of options left to square a lot of circles. It's important to consider that "reform" is not the same as "cutting standards". For example if we could redistribute the available resources for health and social care to focus more on prevention than cure then many problems might be detected and dealt with earlier resulting in lower overall costs and crucially also better outcomes for patients. Of course there is so much firefighting happening in the NHS now that it's hard to see how any radical reform could happen without a huge injection of both cash and trained medical staff over a period longer than a single electoral cycle and that makes it a political problem as much as an economic or healthcare one.
- gghhzzgghhzz 4y ago
  The NHS has been in continuous reform. Thatcher / Blair / Brown / Lansley / Hunt. Most of these reforms have included injecting private sector and internal markets into the system. You may agree or disagree with these reforms, but it's difficult to argue that they don't incur overhead. Outsourced contracts need administration, legal frameworks; private parties take profit or else they wouldn't exist. I'd argue it is likely that most of the extra funding is seeping out through these reforms, plus the legacy of not nationalising the whole health system - GP surgeries, pharmacy, generic drug manufacturing - when the NHS was formed. I agree with you on the prevention aspect. but my thought is that a more joined up system including GPs, pharmacy and especially social care, would manage a lot of lifestyle related issues much better.