Is it possible that Corbyn has no real aspirations to be PM but loves being the opposition leader? Loves being able to criticise everything yet having to do nothing.
It has always been much easier to sit in the corner and do nothing yet complain about the outcomes of everyone else's efforts.
That would have made some sense if the recent manifesto hadn't been full of things to do.
Would it not be more plausible to say, based on the evidence,that Theresa May has no real aspirations to be an inclusive PM who listens to her cabinet and party but loves being the absolute leader? Loves being able to criticise everybody else's ideas yet having none of her own?
I don't think so, but I don't see the relevance of the question either.
It might be more plausible to say that when the sun goes down it will be dark but that has little relevance to my question about Corbyn as well.
The relevance is that it is easy to pose questions that confirm ones political prejudice.
When the sun goes down we turn on lights.
Fair enough but my comment had nothing to do with prejudce. I just have an aversion to people that sit on the sidelines and snipe at those trying to get on with it. I have worked in offices that are full of people that always know what went wrong, and why, but seem to, completely, lose their mouth when they are asked to take the lead and show how it should be done.
I'm sure it also applies to Tories in opposition too, but Corbyn seems, to me, to be more than happy to be the Labour leader. I was, genuinely, floating the idea (looking for comment) that maybe he is happy where he is - as leader of the opposition.
For the record I think Teresa May is the worst PM we have had. I think your question about her missed the real crux of the problem. She is good for nothing once she is forced out of Downing Street. She is toxic. I can't see her on the Lecture Circuit like Tony Blair or, I presume, David Cameron. She has to cling on to power because once she loses it she has,virtually, nothing. Without getting into the unreasonable questioning of her life choices, she doesn't have children or grandchildren to spend her retirement with. Her sole focus/goal (from what I can see) has been her political career. That is why she will fight tooth and nail (and at the expense of the Conservatives) to hold on to power, and that is why she shouldn't be allowed to. The decisions she is making now are in her best interests, not the UKs!
Good reply @kings hill addick. I think we are in the place where we know May is not up to it but Corbyn just might be. I don't think he is just happy to be leader of the opposition as he has had a hellish two years which has left me questioning the PLP far more than him. Surely it would be much better (under your premise) to sit on a comfortable majority in Islington occasionally pissing into the tent?
Corbyn has of course, yet to prove he can lead the country and just maybe got super lucky with the last election. Although I think he is either cleverer than he looks or has a clever team around him his difficulty will not be persuading people to vote for him but it will be persuading enough people not to vote Tory and keeping him out. By that I mean a lot of Thatcher's and Blair's wins were as much down to the opposition inadequacies which meant people voted to keep them out.
If I were a Tory I would be cross with both May and Cameron who put themselves before the party and then the party before the country, it has been noticeable that some of the dyed-in-the-wool Tories on here (that I bother to read) have noticeably moved away from the party, many still vote for them but not with the same enthusiasm. Rather like Blair and Brown for traditional Labour voters, things just lapse over time until one day you wake up and the Greens have got 1.5 million votes, UKIP has 5 million and Scotland is lost to the SNP.
The Tories have always been better at doing what is right for them and of course there isn't really anywhere else for disaffected Tories to go (they always get their vote out) but could this be the beginning of the end for the Tory party in its current guise? Cameron started the detoxification but didn't finish it, do you need a radically different figure like Heidi Allen or Ruth Davidson to finish it? I would welcome a one nation Tory party as we have to stop lurching to the right and seeing unbridled capitalism as the only answer.
Wish Chuka would nut up and actually put together a credible leadership bid or stop pissing everyone about. His half in half out approach is in no way helpful to anyone except the Tories.
He is all about himself, not any better than the others.
As a staunch Corbyn supporter I cannot understand his stance on Brexit. He hates the beauracracy but it is better changed from within. Labour voters in poor areas now realise that austerity wasn't caused by East Europeans but by funding cuts. Many exiters now realise the error of their ways plus the million new young voters are highly likely to have registered in dismay at the refendum vote. A new poll would have an overwhelming Remain decision.
Since the election people are starting to wake up to the fact that there are now only two shows in town: the blue Brexit circus which is entertaining if a tad disconcerting as they limp on week by week over the next 12 months... and the red party.
What we should all recognise is that the seven week election campaign has changed the landscape. It now points towards a Labour win whenever the next election is called. The polls and the demographics suggest this... and the weekly horror show can only tip another few percent towards the red party every month.
Tory centrists such as Heseltine hope their party will come to its senses when threatened with political reality.... but the current crowd are the ones who walked the country into this mess. No, May said it herself and she sees herself as the one to deliver!
So now we watch the blue party hack each other to death! People have a pop at Corbyn but he walks the streets in Kensington and Finsbury Park and he addresses hundreds of thousands at Glastonbury. Some decry his socialism and that he wants to spend money on nationalising trains and utilities.
Many are concerned about Brexit - it's a train wreck constructed by the Tories. Take a look at Chuka and his centrist chums with their brave amendment - facking Liberals! Just political indiscipline securing around 100 votes. The reality right now is that an all out campaign against it is political suicide - ask the Lib Dems!
The reality for 2017 and 2018 is that the Tories are going to tear themselves apart over the Brexit implementation.
So why would Corbyn and McDonnell intervene as the blue party fight over the corpse of who gets to implement this nonsense. Why defuse the Brexit time bomb when it is one of the levers which will assist in tipping the blue party into opposition for a long, long time.
Patience my friends!
One can but agree that "Labour voters in poor areas now realise that austerity wasn't caused by East Europeans but by funding cuts." The manifesto proved this and the polls are testament to the fact that Labour is continuing to communicate this message. But this is a journey and so we must observe the development of this crazy high risk pantomime for another year or two. The job is not yet complete.
Plenty more appearances by cabinet Brexiteers telling us that a straight binary Leave/Remain decision actually meant a whole load of "stuff".
Meanwhile, the penny will drop that 65% of our exports go to the EU or to countries with Free Trade Agreements with the EU.
To hear that Jeremy Corbyn is pro Brexit and has been anti EU for a long time is a real shock to me.
It really speaks volumes when even the leader of the Labour party can be brainwashed by the right wing press.... Either that or he is racist or just plain stupid, what were the other reasons for voting brexit again?
Sorry. Couldn't resist.
And I think Muttley said that Corbyn favours a soft Brexit, clearly not based on what we have seen with him sacking people who were told not to vote for Umunna's amendment which was a soft Brexit basically... I previously thought Muttley was right until that happened...
For me though, this is a bad thing, everyone is trying to outBrexit each other.
As a (reluctant) remainer I do think that Umunna is trying to do the right thing. We seem to be flying towards the most extreme Brexit possible. In my opinion everyone who has any opinion, be they in a position of power or in the public, now has the equivalent of a huge microphone with things like the internet, and as a result we see a race to the extremes which tends to leave the majority behind. Politicians think they are responding to public will when in reality they are responding to the loudest shouters.
That may or may not be true @Huskaris (although the racist/right wing press bit is clearly nonsense) but Corbyn sacked them because they were cabinet members who were undisciplined right at the time when the Tories are being squeezed. Their acts took some of the pressure of the government and put the spotlight on to Labour.
I think Chukka is pushing himself forward for leadership, something he should have done one or two years ago, but now it is just self serving and divisive. Brexit is now a long game, see the post above yours.
Wish Chuka would nut up and actually put together a credible leadership bid or stop pissing everyone about. His half in half out approach is in no way helpful to anyone except the Tories.
I agree but it's certain that at this point in time and for some time to come that any labour politician with any aspirations to lead the party knows full well that they just can't beat Corbyn. The leadership election rules that the Labour Party have adopted and the massive hijacking of the membership by momentum in giving a home to all kinds of left wing extremists, guarantee that Corbyn or at least a left wing leader will triumph in any contest.
Umunna and others of the centre left are hamstrung in either fighting and losing badly or keep their powder dryish. I'm of the opinion that prior to the shock and unexpected resurgence of Labour at the last general election many like Umunna and Cooper were expecting there to be a glimmer of light had Labour bombed badly. The hung parliament and Corbyn's new found status as darling of the young and hip have kicked any plans for a centre left coup well into the long grass.
Any prospect of forming a new centre left party which might have gained traction had labour been decimated and to circumnavigate momentum and the leadership rules of The Labour Party are also at best on hold given the prospect of another general election within a year or so and Labours new found popularity in the polls.
For what it's worth I believe May will be allowed to continue until the dust has settled at Conservative HQ and then she will be replaced in a blaze of spin and right wing media coverage. The Tories at present have nowhere else to run. Brexit negotiations going badly will damage them further. There is a point sometime before March 2019 where they have to act.
At that point I think it's fair to say no one has any idea where that election will leave us.
I should have added that with all predictions and indications of the Brexit negotiations going badly the Tories can't afford to wait until the negotiations are over before calling an election. They have to jump before then. We then have the prospect that two years of conservative Brexit negotiations are virtually meaningless if Corbyn sweeps into number 10 either before March 19 or even just after.
The Conservative party and Cameron in particular have really fucked this country over. Once the grim reality of years of mayhem and economic decline becomes obvious to the widest part of the electorate they really will pay the price. You can add the changing demographics of age in the voting public and the Tories could well find themselves out of office for a generation.
All this mess because Cameron put party over country and bombed out on his gamble.
Wish Chuka would nut up and actually put together a credible leadership bid or stop pissing everyone about. His half in half out approach is in no way helpful to anyone except the Tories.
I agree but it's certain that at this point in time and for some time to come that any labour politician with any aspirations to lead the party knows full well that they just can't beat Corbyn. The leadership election rules that the Labour Party have adopted and the massive hijacking of the membership by momentum in giving a home to all kinds of left wing extremists, guarantee that Corbyn or at least a left wing leader will triumph in any contest.
Umunna and others of the centre left are hamstrung in either fighting and losing badly or keep their powder dryish. I'm of the opinion that prior to the shock and unexpected resurgence of Labour at the last general election many like Umunna and Cooper were expecting there to be a glimmer of light had Labour bombed badly. The hung parliament and Corbyn's new found status as darling of the young and hip have kicked any plans for a centre left coup well into the long grass.
Any prospect of forming a new centre left party which might have gained traction had labour been decimated and to circumnavigate momentum and the leadership rules of The Labour Party are also at best on hold given the prospect of another general election within a year or so and Labours new found popularity in the polls.
For what it's worth I believe May will be allowed to continue until the dust has settled at Conservative HQ and then she will be replaced in a blaze of spin and right wing media coverage. The Tories at present have nowhere else to run. Brexit negotiations going badly will damage them further. There is a point sometime before March 2019 where they have to act.
At that point I think it's fair to say no one has any idea where that election will leave us.
I'd wondered that myself, I think there is a real possibility in the future of a defection from Labours left centralists breaking away and forming a new style 'Labour' party. Problem with that is it would make both unelectable I suspect.
Wish Chuka would nut up and actually put together a credible leadership bid or stop pissing everyone about. His half in half out approach is in no way helpful to anyone except the Tories.
I agree but it's certain that at this point in time and for some time to come that any labour politician with any aspirations to lead the party knows full well that they just can't beat Corbyn. The leadership election rules that the Labour Party have adopted and the massive hijacking of the membership by momentum in giving a home to all kinds of left wing extremists, guarantee that Corbyn or at least a left wing leader will triumph in any contest.
Umunna and others of the centre left are hamstrung in either fighting and losing badly or keep their powder dryish. I'm of the opinion that prior to the shock and unexpected resurgence of Labour at the last general election many like Umunna and Cooper were expecting there to be a glimmer of light had Labour bombed badly. The hung parliament and Corbyn's new found status as darling of the young and hip have kicked any plans for a centre left coup well into the long grass.
Any prospect of forming a new centre left party which might have gained traction had labour been decimated and to circumnavigate momentum and the leadership rules of The Labour Party are also at best on hold given the prospect of another general election within a year or so and Labours new found popularity in the polls.
For what it's worth I believe May will be allowed to continue until the dust has settled at Conservative HQ and then she will be replaced in a blaze of spin and right wing media coverage. The Tories at present have nowhere else to run. Brexit negotiations going badly will damage them further. There is a point sometime before March 2019 where they have to act.
At that point I think it's fair to say no one has any idea where that election will leave us.
I agree with most things you say on politics @ShootersHillGuru but I think this premise is false, from what I understand most recent members are young people, old members coming back and newly enthused people (like Muttley). I don't have figures though but somebody will.
I am happy with the new membership it has allowed Labour to actually offer a centre left alternative which they haven't given us for at least 20 years.
Wish Chuka would nut up and actually put together a credible leadership bid or stop pissing everyone about. His half in half out approach is in no way helpful to anyone except the Tories.
I agree but it's certain that at this point in time and for some time to come that any labour politician with any aspirations to lead the party knows full well that they just can't beat Corbyn. The leadership election rules that the Labour Party have adopted and the massive hijacking of the membership by momentum in giving a home to all kinds of left wing extremists, guarantee that Corbyn or at least a left wing leader will triumph in any contest.
Umunna and others of the centre left are hamstrung in either fighting and losing badly or keep their powder dryish. I'm of the opinion that prior to the shock and unexpected resurgence of Labour at the last general election many like Umunna and Cooper were expecting there to be a glimmer of light had Labour bombed badly. The hung parliament and Corbyn's new found status as darling of the young and hip have kicked any plans for a centre left coup well into the long grass.
Any prospect of forming a new centre left party which might have gained traction had labour been decimated and to circumnavigate momentum and the leadership rules of The Labour Party are also at best on hold given the prospect of another general election within a year or so and Labours new found popularity in the polls.
For what it's worth I believe May will be allowed to continue until the dust has settled at Conservative HQ and then she will be replaced in a blaze of spin and right wing media coverage. The Tories at present have nowhere else to run. Brexit negotiations going badly will damage them further. There is a point sometime before March 2019 where they have to act.
At that point I think it's fair to say no one has any idea where that election will leave us.
I agree with most things you say on politics @ShootersHillGuru but I think this premise is false, from what I understand most recent members are young people, old members coming back and newly enthused people (like Muttley). I don't have figures though but somebody will.
I am happy with the new membership it has allowed Labour to actually offer a centre left alternative which they haven't given us for at least 20 years.
I take your point that the new membership is certainly in the younger age group and that might go up again because we now know it's become fashionable for young people to find their voice and vote. Everything suggests that the young are favouring Labour and are left of centre.
What I still believe though is that when the Labour Party changed the way it voted in its leader under Ed Milliband the new system left a door open for the membership to be hijacked. There have been a multitude of left factions that have never had a hook to hang their hat on but the Labour Party suddenly became that hook.
The vast bulk of the membership joined simply because they saw the door opening to a real platform for the first time. They are far left of centre ground politics and the system is skewed to allow them to always now have a left leader. The old style labour membership including by the way the majority of the PLP are now marginalised.
I was a Labour Party member for years but not now because I don't believe the Labour Party as is represents my view of and here are the key words modern liberal socialism.
I voted labour because I wanted my local MP to retain his seat. Am I a fan of Corbyn and his Trots. No I'm not.
Quite how the Tories have allowed themselves to become less popular than what Labour has to offer is simply unbelievable.
The country is split with no prospect of any healing for many many years. It's a disaster by any measure.
That may or may not be true @Huskaris (although the racist/right wing press bit is clearly nonsense) but Corbyn sacked them because they were cabinet members who were undisciplined right at the time when the Tories are being squeezed. Their acts took some of the pressure of the government and put the spotlight on to Labour.
I think Chukka is pushing himself forward for leadership, something he should have done one or two years ago, but now it is just self serving and divisive. Brexit is now a long game, see the post above yours.
Agree with this, however, if soft Brexit was an option, why put a whip on that vote, when if there wasn't a whip on Labour, I reckon you would have a chance of getting enough Conservative rebels to potentially have won that amendment, that's all I'm saying, and they had a Labour old boy (name escapes me) on LBC last night saying as much.
I just find it a bit strange that many on here deplore any form of Brexit, let alone a hard Brexit, but if Jeremy Corbyn supports it...
I'm not criticising, as I understand many are blinded by the messiah, I just find it something that's hard to reconcile when Umunna actually seems to share the opinion of many on here...
I suppose the alternative is to wait and hope the Conservatives unravel, the question is
a) Will they? Probably b) When? c) What does that then mean? An election presumably.
Presumably the Conservatives will be damaged electorally by the infighting, and then lose...
Occam's Razor in action there I guess, Labour just need to remain united.
So the real question then becomes, if we believe that the Conservatives will completely unravel soon and Corbyn win, what will HE then do with Brexit? How will it be better than the Conservative's views? And how "hard" will it be?
Wish Chuka would nut up and actually put together a credible leadership bid or stop pissing everyone about. His half in half out approach is in no way helpful to anyone except the Tories.
I agree but it's certain that at this point in time and for some time to come that any labour politician with any aspirations to lead the party knows full well that they just can't beat Corbyn. The leadership election rules that the Labour Party have adopted and the massive hijacking of the membership by momentum in giving a home to all kinds of left wing extremists, guarantee that Corbyn or at least a left wing leader will triumph in any contest.
Umunna and others of the centre left are hamstrung in either fighting and losing badly or keep their powder dryish. I'm of the opinion that prior to the shock and unexpected resurgence of Labour at the last general election many like Umunna and Cooper were expecting there to be a glimmer of light had Labour bombed badly. The hung parliament and Corbyn's new found status as darling of the young and hip have kicked any plans for a centre left coup well into the long grass.
Any prospect of forming a new centre left party which might have gained traction had labour been decimated and to circumnavigate momentum and the leadership rules of The Labour Party are also at best on hold given the prospect of another general election within a year or so and Labours new found popularity in the polls.
For what it's worth I believe May will be allowed to continue until the dust has settled at Conservative HQ and then she will be replaced in a blaze of spin and right wing media coverage. The Tories at present have nowhere else to run. Brexit negotiations going badly will damage them further. There is a point sometime before March 2019 where they have to act.
At that point I think it's fair to say no one has any idea where that election will leave us.
I agree with most things you say on politics @ShootersHillGuru but I think this premise is false, from what I understand most recent members are young people, old members coming back and newly enthused people (like Muttley). I don't have figures though but somebody will.
I am happy with the new membership it has allowed Labour to actually offer a centre left alternative which they haven't given us for at least 20 years.
I take your point that the new membership is certainly in the younger age group and that might go up again because we now know it's become fashionable for young people to find their voice and vote. Everything suggests that the young are favouring Labour and are left of centre.
What I still believe though is that when the Labour Party changed the way it voted in its leader under Ed Milliband the new system left a door open for the membership to be hijacked. There have been a multitude of left factions that have never had a hook to hang their hat on but the Labour Party suddenly became that hook.
The vast bulk of the membership joined simply because they saw the door opening to a real platform for the first time. They are far left of centre ground politics and the system is skewed to allow them to always now have a left leader. The old style labour membership including by the way the majority of the PLP are now marginalised.
I was a Labour Party member for years but not now because I don't believe the Labour Party as is represents my view of and here are the key words modern liberal socialism.
I voted labour because I wanted my local MP to retain his seat. Am I a fan of Corbyn and his Trots. No I'm not.
Quite how the Tories have allowed themselves to become less popular than what Labour has to offer is simply unbelievable.
The country is split with no prospect of any healing for many many years. It's a disaster by any measure.
As I’ve posted before the fact is that the Labour Party now has over 500,000 members – more than two and a half times the 201,293 members on May 6th 2015 (the day before the 2015 general election).
The membership of the organised 'far-left' in the UK - including every would-be party and group - almost certainly does not amount to more than 5000 - 10000 people (and is probably closer to the lower figure).
To suggest that some of this small number (a fair number of whom wouldn’t touch the Labour Party with a barge pole) are in some way responsible for the surge in party membership and support for Corbyn is extremely flattering to the powers of persuasion of these tiny numbers of supposed ‘entryists’
Plus of course if they had such persuasive powers they wouldn’t be the tiny groups that they are.
Labour is split on the Tory brexot crisis. I wish Labour were for remain. At least my MP was part of this weeks vote against the Labour whip. A lot of Labour left wingers are against the EU seeing it as a big business club. Tony Benn was anti the EU. Not enough to push me towards Lib Dems or Greens as they both accept the referendum but only want a vote on the final deal. My only comfort is my Irish passport.
@ShootersHillGuru & @Huskaris I think the Labour and Brexit thing is complicated and both Muttley and Seriously Red have had a go at explaining. I am probably (big guesstimate here) somewhere between you and them on this so perhaps can accept it/go along with it a bit more although some of it is wishful thinking on my behalf.
To try and explain it from where I sit politically and socially is:-
Brexit is really bad for the country. The Tories are really bad for the country. The Tories have been proposing an extreme view of Brexit, including the laughable "No deal is better than a bad deal". With the Tories in power we will almost certainly get a bad Brexit and probably be despised/ridiculed by Europe for a generation. The Tories will conduct opaque negotiations. With the Tories in power it is highly unlikely that we will ever get a second referendum and unlikely that we will get to democratically decide if the deal they get is what we, as a country, want. The latter being a minimum that a modern parliamentary democracy should expect. Labour will get a better Brexit, we will also retain friendships with Europe and might be able to leave with our heads held high. Labour will conduct transparent negotiations. It is probable that any deal Labour make will be democratically accountable in some way, at a minimum it will be better than none at all (which is what you will get under the Tories). Whilst unlikely at the moment I believe that there is, at least, more of a chance that some kind of second referendum would take place with a Labour Govt. In the election the anti-Brexit parties (SNP & LD) did less well than expected. This of course could have been for a number of reasons, but must be taken into consideration. It has been reported that Brexit was just not seen as a major issue at the election.
My wishful thinking and sense tell me that Labour are playing a long game and that a number of battles need to be won before we can revisit a referendum. Those battles might not be won so we then have to settle on the least damaging Brexit we can get, and for me that is the one that protects jobs and markets. Having false battles and internal squabbles will only add to the length of time that we have to endure the Tories messing things up and Chukka has started a false battle and an internal squabble.
I do really struggle with the need to make this a whip vote and particularly the Article 50 one where it would have been far better to say this is Labour's position, vote with your conscience. But having said that it could be argued that supporting Article 50 significantly helped shore up the Labour vote in traditional areas that voted heavily for Brexit. That of course is very difficult to prove or disprove.
As a staunch Corbyn supporter I cannot understand his stance on Brexit. He hates the beauracracy but it is better changed from within. Labour voters in poor areas now realise that austerity wasn't caused by East Europeans but by funding cuts. Many exiters now realise the error of their ways plus the million new young voters are highly likely to have registered in dismay at the refendum vote. A new poll would have an overwhelming Remain decision.
I think his position stems from the view that the single market - whilst a good thing, has aspects that can work against the poor. Austerity is not only a British illness for instance. If it was, it might perversely be more effective as an economic tool. He wants to keep the benefits but lose the disadvantages. Whether that is possible is another question, but he is pragmatic enough not to throw the baby out with the dishwater.
@Rob7Lee here is a report that shows that real income has fallen since 2008 in the under 40's, this is a far better measure of pay standards than net income. It might also go some way to explain the effectiveness of Corbyn's anti-elitism/wealth distribution campaigning within that same demographic.
@Rob7Lee here is a report that shows that real income has fallen since 2008 in the under 40's, this is a far better measure of pay standards than net income. It might also go some way to explain the effectiveness of Corbyn's anti-elitism/wealth distribution campaigning within that same demographic.
According to some posters on here though, there is no generational wealth gap and under 40s have it much better because they all have iPads.
Not often I agree with Vince Cable, but I do on this occasion.
Sir Vince Cable claims scrapping university tuition fees would be "very dangerous and stupid". The Lib Dem leadership favourite told Sophy Ridge on Sunday that the "cheap populist gesture" would create an unfair system. He said: "If you don't have any form of fees, I mean who pays for universities? "How do you end this discrimination between the 40% of students who go to university and would be subsided as opposed to the 60% who don't? That would be highly inequitable."
Sir Vince acknowledged Labour's 2017 manifesto pledge to scrap fees had proved popular with voters.
He said university funding should be looked at, but that schools should be the priority as they are "horribly underfunded". "We're getting teachers, teaching assistants being laid off. I mean that's where the real priority is at the moment," Sir Vince said. "Yes, by all means let's look at universities, but universities are about the only bit of the publicly financed sector which are flourishing.
For goodness sake with some cheap populist gesture, killing that off would be a very dangerous and stupid thing to do."
Not often I agree with Vince Cable, but I do on this occasion.
Sir Vince Cable claims scrapping university tuition fees would be "very dangerous and stupid". The Lib Dem leadership favourite told Sophy Ridge on Sunday that the "cheap populist gesture" would create an unfair system. He said: "If you don't have any form of fees, I mean who pays for universities? "How do you end this discrimination between the 40% of students who go to university and would be subsided as opposed to the 60% who don't? That would be highly inequitable."
Sir Vince acknowledged Labour's 2017 manifesto pledge to scrap fees had proved popular with voters.
He said university funding should be looked at, but that schools should be the priority as they are "horribly underfunded". "We're getting teachers, teaching assistants being laid off. I mean that's where the real priority is at the moment," Sir Vince said. "Yes, by all means let's look at universities, but universities are about the only bit of the publicly financed sector which are flourishing.
For goodness sake with some cheap populist gesture, killing that off would be a very dangerous and stupid thing to do."
Except nearly every other country comparable to ours recognises that having a highly skilled and qualified workforce means future gains. The amount we would lose from free tuition would be more than gained back by future profits and from not having to pay over the odds for desperately needed foreign skilled labour, especially in the NHS.
Vince represents a generation that had free tuition, benefited from it, and now wants to pull the ladder up in the face of all evidence. Hopefully he and the rest of the fogeys who have this backwards attitude will shuffle off sooner rather than later and stopping holding this country back.
Not often I agree with Vince Cable, but I do on this occasion.
Sir Vince Cable claims scrapping university tuition fees would be "very dangerous and stupid". The Lib Dem leadership favourite told Sophy Ridge on Sunday that the "cheap populist gesture" would create an unfair system. He said: "If you don't have any form of fees, I mean who pays for universities? "How do you end this discrimination between the 40% of students who go to university and would be subsided as opposed to the 60% who don't? That would be highly inequitable."
Sir Vince acknowledged Labour's 2017 manifesto pledge to scrap fees had proved popular with voters.
He said university funding should be looked at, but that schools should be the priority as they are "horribly underfunded". "We're getting teachers, teaching assistants being laid off. I mean that's where the real priority is at the moment," Sir Vince said. "Yes, by all means let's look at universities, but universities are about the only bit of the publicly financed sector which are flourishing.
For goodness sake with some cheap populist gesture, killing that off would be a very dangerous and stupid thing to do."
Except nearly every other country comparable to ours recognises that having a highly skilled and qualified workforce means future gains. The amount we would lose from free tuition would be more than gained back by future profits and from not having to pay over the odds for desperately needed foreign skilled labour, especially in the NHS.
Vince represents a generation that had free tuition, benefited from it, and now wants to pull the ladder up in the face of all evidence. Hopefully he and the rest of the fogeys who have this backwards attitude will shuffle off sooner rather than later and stopping holding this country back.
So why should the non-Uni attending 60% pay for the attending 40%?
Incidentally I never 'benefited from it' as my family couldn't afford for me to go to university for three years, even back in the 70's.
Both my kids went but the loan amount they have to pay back is not exactly punitive as their salaries are not that high. In fact I doubt my daughter will ever have to pay her loan back as she has children herself and only works part time.
I personally believe there needs to be a debate about an educated population. We benefit for example from education systems overseas when Doctors arrive and help the NHS, and even the private sector. Then there is the notion that University education is about vocation and earning power for individuals once they graduate, as if the purpose of going to University is for entry into the job market. Vince Cable rightly talks of a crisis in school funding but in schools there exists an approach to education that says we want people to know stuff, to be able to read and write and do sums, to have an understanding about how society works, to look inside themselves for those creative juices. Society does not seem to see schooling as preparation for the job market, but many sectors seem to think University Education is a kind of preparation for the job market. A population, widely educated, has a habit of raising the attainment of many areas of society almost without noticing. Vince Cable talks of the 60% as if they are somehow victims rather than beneficiaries, as we all are, by a society generally decently educated. I once knew somebody whose University Education made him a world expert on European primroses. I have no idea if that level of education was in any way job specific, but as a person he had gained and grown from the study. Similar to a 16 year old leaving compulsory education having grown in skills knowledge and confidence. It might be worth viewing Education (especially creative education) as pharmaceutical research. There may not be a direct pay off from years of work and processes, but eventually there may well be one so the general investment has been worth while. Some years ago there was work at Thames Poly in Woolwich on getting light from chemicals, I believe it is now called Chemiluminescence. There was a struggle to fund and sustain this work, as initially it seemed to result in trivialities such as glow sticks. Now it turns out to have several applications, in the field of forensics for example. Humble Thames Poly was part of the knowledge pool that has led to Chemiluminescence development in ways that weren't predicted at the time.
Not often I agree with Vince Cable, but I do on this occasion.
Sir Vince Cable claims scrapping university tuition fees would be "very dangerous and stupid". The Lib Dem leadership favourite told Sophy Ridge on Sunday that the "cheap populist gesture" would create an unfair system. He said: "If you don't have any form of fees, I mean who pays for universities? "How do you end this discrimination between the 40% of students who go to university and would be subsided as opposed to the 60% who don't? That would be highly inequitable."
Sir Vince acknowledged Labour's 2017 manifesto pledge to scrap fees had proved popular with voters.
He said university funding should be looked at, but that schools should be the priority as they are "horribly underfunded". "We're getting teachers, teaching assistants being laid off. I mean that's where the real priority is at the moment," Sir Vince said. "Yes, by all means let's look at universities, but universities are about the only bit of the publicly financed sector which are flourishing.
For goodness sake with some cheap populist gesture, killing that off would be a very dangerous and stupid thing to do."
Except nearly every other country comparable to ours recognises that having a highly skilled and qualified workforce means future gains. The amount we would lose from free tuition would be more than gained back by future profits and from not having to pay over the odds for desperately needed foreign skilled labour, especially in the NHS.
Vince represents a generation that had free tuition, benefited from it, and now wants to pull the ladder up in the face of all evidence. Hopefully he and the rest of the fogeys who have this backwards attitude will shuffle off sooner rather than later and stopping holding this country back.
So why should the non-Uni attending 60% pay for the attending 40%?
Incidentally I never 'benefited from it' as my family couldn't afford for me to go to university for three years, even back in the 70's.
Both my kids went but the loan amount they have to pay back is not exactly punitive as their salaries are not that high. In fact I doubt my daughter will ever have to pay her loan back as she has children herself and only works part time.
Why should the uni-attending population pay higher taxes (generally speaking as degree holders generally make more money than non-degree holders)? It is generally accepted (by most other countries at least) that educating one's population means higher tax revenues in the future. So it pays for itself. You could use the 'why should I have to pay' argument for literally any public spending that you do not directly benefit from. It is such a fallacious point I'm surprised to see you of all people invoke it.
And when I say benefit, I mean as a generation. Even if you did not personally go to university, the country as a whole would have benefited from a wholesale investment in the country's education and skills.
And your last point proves why the tuition/student loan system is total bollocks and ought to be scrapped: too many people don't even pay back what they supposedly owe, yet we spend millions administrating a pointless system when it would be far cheaper and effective just to directly fund tuition just like we do for schools.
Not often I agree with Vince Cable, but I do on this occasion.
Sir Vince Cable claims scrapping university tuition fees would be "very dangerous and stupid". The Lib Dem leadership favourite told Sophy Ridge on Sunday that the "cheap populist gesture" would create an unfair system. He said: "If you don't have any form of fees, I mean who pays for universities? "How do you end this discrimination between the 40% of students who go to university and would be subsided as opposed to the 60% who don't? That would be highly inequitable."
Sir Vince acknowledged Labour's 2017 manifesto pledge to scrap fees had proved popular with voters.
He said university funding should be looked at, but that schools should be the priority as they are "horribly underfunded". "We're getting teachers, teaching assistants being laid off. I mean that's where the real priority is at the moment," Sir Vince said. "Yes, by all means let's look at universities, but universities are about the only bit of the publicly financed sector which are flourishing.
For goodness sake with some cheap populist gesture, killing that off would be a very dangerous and stupid thing to do."
Except nearly every other country comparable to ours recognises that having a highly skilled and qualified workforce means future gains. The amount we would lose from free tuition would be more than gained back by future profits and from not having to pay over the odds for desperately needed foreign skilled labour, especially in the NHS.
Vince represents a generation that had free tuition, benefited from it, and now wants to pull the ladder up in the face of all evidence. Hopefully he and the rest of the fogeys who have this backwards attitude will shuffle off sooner rather than later and stopping holding this country back.
So why should the non-Uni attending 60% pay for the attending 40%?
Incidentally I never 'benefited from it' as my family couldn't afford for me to go to university for three years, even back in the 70's.
Both my kids went but the loan amount they have to pay back is not exactly punitive as their salaries are not that high. In fact I doubt my daughter will ever have to pay her loan back as she has children herself and only works part time.
Why should the uni-attending population pay higher taxes (generally speaking as degree holders generally make more money than non-degree holders)? It is generally accepted (by most other countries at least) that educating one's population means higher tax revenues in the future. So it pays for itself. You could use the 'why should I have to pay' argument for literally any public spending that you do not directly benefit from. It is such a fallacious point I'm surprised to see you of all people invoke it.
And when I say benefit, I mean as a generation. Even if you did not personally go to university, the country as a whole would have benefited from a wholesale investment in the country's education and skills.
And your last point proves why the tuition/student loan system is total bollocks and ought to be scrapped: too many people don't even pay back what they supposedly owe, yet we spend millions administrating a pointless system when it would be far cheaper and effective just to directly fund tuition just like we do for schools.
Those who don't earn enough never have to pay it back, those who earn enough can pay it back. What's the problem?
Not often I agree with Vince Cable, but I do on this occasion.
Sir Vince Cable claims scrapping university tuition fees would be "very dangerous and stupid". The Lib Dem leadership favourite told Sophy Ridge on Sunday that the "cheap populist gesture" would create an unfair system. He said: "If you don't have any form of fees, I mean who pays for universities? "How do you end this discrimination between the 40% of students who go to university and would be subsided as opposed to the 60% who don't? That would be highly inequitable."
Sir Vince acknowledged Labour's 2017 manifesto pledge to scrap fees had proved popular with voters.
He said university funding should be looked at, but that schools should be the priority as they are "horribly underfunded". "We're getting teachers, teaching assistants being laid off. I mean that's where the real priority is at the moment," Sir Vince said. "Yes, by all means let's look at universities, but universities are about the only bit of the publicly financed sector which are flourishing.
For goodness sake with some cheap populist gesture, killing that off would be a very dangerous and stupid thing to do."
The irony is that it isn't cheap and that it is only populist on the surface.
It will cost an estimated £11Bn and that is approximately double the anual cost of triple lock on pensions - Note that pensions are the biggest single expenditure for the government.
And the real sophistication is that the policy challenges the divisive policies developed and delivered in these pseudo austerity times.
Graduates tend to earn more so they have always paid more taxes in any event. Under the loans scheme many graduates would not pay back the entire amount and it is simply creating another bureaucracy... plus an off balance sheet Enron scheme where the write off occurs down the line. It's one thing to saddle them with £20 grand in debt but the current average is £45K
This thinking is divisive and not just for graduates. We have the same thing for immigration where people from other countries fill skills shortages and yet they are accused of stealing jobs, services and housing. And then we had the "dementia tax" which was hopefully the tipping point:
A tax whereby a random set of old people are selected based upon medical condition to surrender their property rather than leave it to their estate. Next on the agenda will be all pensioners who will have to surrender their wealth to pay for treatment because as May stated "the country cannot afford to offer free care in the future". NB one of the flagship UKIP policies which was gently dropped is private insurance for healthcare.
One might suggest I digress but hopefully we can see a theme?
So please let's stop doing a cost benefit analysis for certain segments of society and, as @seth plum suggests let us grow up and look at the bigger picture. With his comment above let us look at the very poor record in the UK and Europe of monetising academic excellence - by looking at the whole value chain and determine what is needed to turn academic research into patents and then off to the market with real sales. Virtually every aspect of the iPhone from GPS to web was developed by government or academic research here in the UK (possibly some in the US?)
And let's look at the whole labour market for today and 2025 and then determine where the skilled/trained employees will originate. We have 750,000 vacancies every quarter and yet public policy is to restrict immigration and charge students full wack. And play that back as policy.
The most constructive way to change matters today is to join Labour and contribute to their policy discussions as they develop approaches to different parts of their manaifesto for the next election. That is not because many of us are life long supporters of Corbyn but because he has a positive rating with the country at large and the Labour Party has consoidated a 45% rating in the polls.
So the question is for @seth plum@ShootersHillGuru@MuttleyCAFC@Cordoban Addick and others: This is a long game and Labour are today set to win the next election. This in turn means the Conservatives simply will not call it until the government falls over. Corbyn is unassailable so are we now all "Corbonystas" if we want a change of government? For there is no Macron and no Lib Dem resurgence.
Not often I agree with Vince Cable, but I do on this occasion.
Sir Vince Cable claims scrapping university tuition fees would be "very dangerous and stupid". The Lib Dem leadership favourite told Sophy Ridge on Sunday that the "cheap populist gesture" would create an unfair system. He said: "If you don't have any form of fees, I mean who pays for universities? "How do you end this discrimination between the 40% of students who go to university and would be subsided as opposed to the 60% who don't? That would be highly inequitable."
Sir Vince acknowledged Labour's 2017 manifesto pledge to scrap fees had proved popular with voters.
He said university funding should be looked at, but that schools should be the priority as they are "horribly underfunded". "We're getting teachers, teaching assistants being laid off. I mean that's where the real priority is at the moment," Sir Vince said. "Yes, by all means let's look at universities, but universities are about the only bit of the publicly financed sector which are flourishing.
For goodness sake with some cheap populist gesture, killing that off would be a very dangerous and stupid thing to do."
Except nearly every other country comparable to ours recognises that having a highly skilled and qualified workforce means future gains. The amount we would lose from free tuition would be more than gained back by future profits and from not having to pay over the odds for desperately needed foreign skilled labour, especially in the NHS.
Vince represents a generation that had free tuition, benefited from it, and now wants to pull the ladder up in the face of all evidence. Hopefully he and the rest of the fogeys who have this backwards attitude will shuffle off sooner rather than later and stopping holding this country back.
So why should the non-Uni attending 60% pay for the attending 40%?
Incidentally I never 'benefited from it' as my family couldn't afford for me to go to university for three years, even back in the 70's.
Both my kids went but the loan amount they have to pay back is not exactly punitive as their salaries are not that high. In fact I doubt my daughter will ever have to pay her loan back as she has children herself and only works part time.
Why should the uni-attending population pay higher taxes (generally speaking as degree holders generally make more money than non-degree holders)? It is generally accepted (by most other countries at least) that educating one's population means higher tax revenues in the future. So it pays for itself. You could use the 'why should I have to pay' argument for literally any public spending that you do not directly benefit from. It is such a fallacious point I'm surprised to see you of all people invoke it.
And when I say benefit, I mean as a generation. Even if you did not personally go to university, the country as a whole would have benefited from a wholesale investment in the country's education and skills.
And your last point proves why the tuition/student loan system is total bollocks and ought to be scrapped: too many people don't even pay back what they supposedly owe, yet we spend millions administrating a pointless system when it would be far cheaper and effective just to directly fund tuition just like we do for schools.
Those who don't earn enough never have to pay it back, those who earn enough can pay it back. What's the problem?
Did you miss the point about the millions spent administrating the system in the first place? And those who do start paying it back pay it off at the time in their lives when they have the least money?
Not often I agree with Vince Cable, but I do on this occasion.
Sir Vince Cable claims scrapping university tuition fees would be "very dangerous and stupid". The Lib Dem leadership favourite told Sophy Ridge on Sunday that the "cheap populist gesture" would create an unfair system. He said: "If you don't have any form of fees, I mean who pays for universities? "How do you end this discrimination between the 40% of students who go to university and would be subsided as opposed to the 60% who don't? That would be highly inequitable."
Sir Vince acknowledged Labour's 2017 manifesto pledge to scrap fees had proved popular with voters.
He said university funding should be looked at, but that schools should be the priority as they are "horribly underfunded". "We're getting teachers, teaching assistants being laid off. I mean that's where the real priority is at the moment," Sir Vince said. "Yes, by all means let's look at universities, but universities are about the only bit of the publicly financed sector which are flourishing.
For goodness sake with some cheap populist gesture, killing that off would be a very dangerous and stupid thing to do."
Except nearly every other country comparable to ours recognises that having a highly skilled and qualified workforce means future gains. The amount we would lose from free tuition would be more than gained back by future profits and from not having to pay over the odds for desperately needed foreign skilled labour, especially in the NHS.
Vince represents a generation that had free tuition, benefited from it, and now wants to pull the ladder up in the face of all evidence. Hopefully he and the rest of the fogeys who have this backwards attitude will shuffle off sooner rather than later and stopping holding this country back.
So why should the non-Uni attending 60% pay for the attending 40%?
Incidentally I never 'benefited from it' as my family couldn't afford for me to go to university for three years, even back in the 70's.
Both my kids went but the loan amount they have to pay back is not exactly punitive as their salaries are not that high. In fact I doubt my daughter will ever have to pay her loan back as she has children herself and only works part time.
Why should the uni-attending population pay higher taxes (generally speaking as degree holders generally make more money than non-degree holders)? It is generally accepted (by most other countries at least) that educating one's population means higher tax revenues in the future. So it pays for itself. You could use the 'why should I have to pay' argument for literally any public spending that you do not directly benefit from. It is such a fallacious point I'm surprised to see you of all people invoke it.
And when I say benefit, I mean as a generation. Even if you did not personally go to university, the country as a whole would have benefited from a wholesale investment in the country's education and skills.
And your last point proves why the tuition/student loan system is total bollocks and ought to be scrapped: too many people don't even pay back what they supposedly owe, yet we spend millions administrating a pointless system when it would be far cheaper and effective just to directly fund tuition just like we do for schools.
Those who don't earn enough never have to pay it back, those who earn enough can pay it back. What's the problem?
Did you miss the point about the millions spent administrating the system in the first place? And those who do start paying it back pay it off at the time in their lives when they have the least money?
Of course I didn't miss the point mate, I can read even though I didn't go to Uni
When they earn the least, they pay the least. I can assure you that the repayment levels have never been a problem for my kids and neither of them earnt/earn much.
Not often I agree with Vince Cable, but I do on this occasion.
Sir Vince Cable claims scrapping university tuition fees would be "very dangerous and stupid". The Lib Dem leadership favourite told Sophy Ridge on Sunday that the "cheap populist gesture" would create an unfair system. He said: "If you don't have any form of fees, I mean who pays for universities? "How do you end this discrimination between the 40% of students who go to university and would be subsided as opposed to the 60% who don't? That would be highly inequitable."
Sir Vince acknowledged Labour's 2017 manifesto pledge to scrap fees had proved popular with voters.
He said university funding should be looked at, but that schools should be the priority as they are "horribly underfunded". "We're getting teachers, teaching assistants being laid off. I mean that's where the real priority is at the moment," Sir Vince said. "Yes, by all means let's look at universities, but universities are about the only bit of the publicly financed sector which are flourishing.
For goodness sake with some cheap populist gesture, killing that off would be a very dangerous and stupid thing to do."
Except nearly every other country comparable to ours recognises that having a highly skilled and qualified workforce means future gains. The amount we would lose from free tuition would be more than gained back by future profits and from not having to pay over the odds for desperately needed foreign skilled labour, especially in the NHS.
Vince represents a generation that had free tuition, benefited from it, and now wants to pull the ladder up in the face of all evidence. Hopefully he and the rest of the fogeys who have this backwards attitude will shuffle off sooner rather than later and stopping holding this country back.
So why should the non-Uni attending 60% pay for the attending 40%?
Incidentally I never 'benefited from it' as my family couldn't afford for me to go to university for three years, even back in the 70's.
Both my kids went but the loan amount they have to pay back is not exactly punitive as their salaries are not that high. In fact I doubt my daughter will ever have to pay her loan back as she has children herself and only works part time.
Why should the uni-attending population pay higher taxes (generally speaking as degree holders generally make more money than non-degree holders)? It is generally accepted (by most other countries at least) that educating one's population means higher tax revenues in the future. So it pays for itself. You could use the 'why should I have to pay' argument for literally any public spending that you do not directly benefit from. It is such a fallacious point I'm surprised to see you of all people invoke it.
And when I say benefit, I mean as a generation. Even if you did not personally go to university, the country as a whole would have benefited from a wholesale investment in the country's education and skills.
And your last point proves why the tuition/student loan system is total bollocks and ought to be scrapped: too many people don't even pay back what they supposedly owe, yet we spend millions administrating a pointless system when it would be far cheaper and effective just to directly fund tuition just like we do for schools.
Those who don't earn enough never have to pay it back, those who earn enough can pay it back. What's the problem?
Did you miss the point about the millions spent administrating the system in the first place? And those who do start paying it back pay it off at the time in their lives when they have the least money?
Of course I didn't miss the point mate, I can read even though I didn't go to Uni
When they earn the least, they pay the least. I can assure you that the repayment levels have never been a problem for my kids and neither of them earnt/earn much.
And you see absolutely no problem with the government racking up masses of debt that will never be meaningfully repaid, yet the taxpayers as a whole keep writing off debt each year and are paying millions to administer this insane system when it would be, overall, easier and cheaper to just fund it at source than to run what is nothing better than a glorified ponzi scheme with the taxpayer underwriting it all?
Comments
Corbyn has of course, yet to prove he can lead the country and just maybe got super lucky with the last election. Although I think he is either cleverer than he looks or has a clever team around him his difficulty will not be persuading people to vote for him but it will be persuading enough people not to vote Tory and keeping him out. By that I mean a lot of Thatcher's and Blair's wins were as much down to the opposition inadequacies which meant people voted to keep them out.
If I were a Tory I would be cross with both May and Cameron who put themselves before the party and then the party before the country, it has been noticeable that some of the dyed-in-the-wool Tories on here (that I bother to read) have noticeably moved away from the party, many still vote for them but not with the same enthusiasm. Rather like Blair and Brown for traditional Labour voters, things just lapse over time until one day you wake up and the Greens have got 1.5 million votes, UKIP has 5 million and Scotland is lost to the SNP.
The Tories have always been better at doing what is right for them and of course there isn't really anywhere else for disaffected Tories to go (they always get their vote out) but could this be the beginning of the end for the Tory party in its current guise? Cameron started the detoxification but didn't finish it, do you need a radically different figure like Heidi Allen or Ruth Davidson to finish it? I would welcome a one nation Tory party as we have to stop lurching to the right and seeing unbridled capitalism as the only answer.
What we should all recognise is that the seven week election campaign has changed the landscape. It now points towards a Labour win whenever the next election is called. The polls and the demographics suggest this... and the weekly horror show can only tip another few percent towards the red party every month.
Tory centrists such as Heseltine hope their party will come to its senses when threatened with political reality.... but the current crowd are the ones who walked the country into this mess. No, May said it herself and she sees herself as the one to deliver!
So now we watch the blue party hack each other to death! People have a pop at Corbyn but he walks the streets in Kensington and Finsbury Park and he addresses hundreds of thousands at Glastonbury. Some decry his socialism and that he wants to spend money on nationalising trains and utilities.
Many are concerned about Brexit - it's a train wreck constructed by the Tories. Take a look at Chuka and his centrist chums with their brave amendment - facking Liberals! Just political indiscipline securing around 100 votes. The reality right now is that an all out campaign against it is political suicide - ask the Lib Dems!
The reality for 2017 and 2018 is that the Tories are going to tear themselves apart over the Brexit implementation.
So why would Corbyn and McDonnell intervene as the blue party fight over the corpse of who gets to implement this nonsense. Why defuse the Brexit time bomb when it is one of the levers which will assist in tipping the blue party into opposition for a long, long time.
Patience my friends!
One can but agree that "Labour voters in poor areas now realise that austerity wasn't caused by East Europeans but by funding cuts." The manifesto proved this and the polls are testament to the fact that Labour is continuing to communicate this message. But this is a journey and so we must observe the development of this crazy high risk pantomime for another year or two. The job is not yet complete.
Plenty more appearances by cabinet Brexiteers telling us that a straight binary Leave/Remain decision actually meant a whole load of "stuff".
Meanwhile, the penny will drop that 65% of our exports go to the EU or to countries with Free Trade Agreements with the EU.
Again, why would Corbyn and co. intervene?
It really speaks volumes when even the leader of the Labour party can be brainwashed by the right wing press.... Either that or he is racist or just plain stupid, what were the other reasons for voting brexit again?
Sorry. Couldn't resist.
And I think Muttley said that Corbyn favours a soft Brexit, clearly not based on what we have seen with him sacking people who were told not to vote for Umunna's amendment which was a soft Brexit basically... I previously thought Muttley was right until that happened...
For me though, this is a bad thing, everyone is trying to outBrexit each other.
As a (reluctant) remainer I do think that Umunna is trying to do the right thing. We seem to be flying towards the most extreme Brexit possible. In my opinion everyone who has any opinion, be they in a position of power or in the public, now has the equivalent of a huge microphone with things like the internet, and as a result we see a race to the extremes which tends to leave the majority behind. Politicians think they are responding to public will when in reality they are responding to the loudest shouters.
Cool heads prevail, not anymore.
I think Chukka is pushing himself forward for leadership, something he should have done one or two years ago, but now it is just self serving and divisive. Brexit is now a long game, see the post above yours.
Umunna and others of the centre left are hamstrung in either fighting and losing badly or keep their powder dryish. I'm of the opinion that prior to the shock and unexpected resurgence of Labour at the last general election many like Umunna and Cooper were expecting there to be a glimmer of light had Labour bombed badly. The hung parliament and Corbyn's new found status as darling of the young and hip have kicked any plans for a centre left coup well into the long grass.
Any prospect of forming a new centre left party which might have gained traction had labour been decimated and to circumnavigate momentum and the leadership rules of The Labour Party are also at best on hold given the prospect of another general election within a year or so and Labours new found popularity in the polls.
For what it's worth I believe May will be allowed to continue until the dust has settled at Conservative HQ and then she will be replaced in a blaze of spin and right wing media coverage. The Tories at present have nowhere else to run. Brexit negotiations going badly will damage them further. There is a point sometime before March 2019 where they have to act.
At that point I think it's fair to say no one has any idea where that election will leave us.
The Conservative party and Cameron in particular have really fucked this country over. Once the grim reality of years of mayhem and economic decline becomes obvious to the widest part of the electorate they really will pay the price. You can add the changing demographics of age in the voting public and the Tories could well find themselves out of office for a generation.
All this mess because Cameron put party over country and bombed out on his gamble.
EDIT: I think @bobmunro @cabbles are working on this
I am happy with the new membership it has allowed Labour to actually offer a centre left alternative which they haven't given us for at least 20 years.
What I still believe though is that when the Labour Party changed the way it voted in its leader under Ed Milliband the new system left a door open for the membership to be hijacked. There have been a multitude of left factions that have never had a hook to hang their hat on but the Labour Party suddenly became that hook.
The vast bulk of the membership joined simply because they saw the door opening to a real platform for the first time. They are far left of centre ground politics and the system is skewed to allow them to always now have a left leader. The old style labour membership including by the way the majority of the PLP are now marginalised.
I was a Labour Party member for years but not now because I don't believe the Labour Party as is represents my view of and here are the key words modern liberal socialism.
I voted labour because I wanted my local MP to retain his seat. Am I a fan of Corbyn and his Trots. No I'm not.
Quite how the Tories have allowed themselves to become less popular than what Labour has to offer is simply unbelievable.
The country is split with no prospect of any healing for many many years. It's a disaster by any measure.
I just find it a bit strange that many on here deplore any form of Brexit, let alone a hard Brexit, but if Jeremy Corbyn supports it...
I'm not criticising, as I understand many are blinded by the messiah, I just find it something that's hard to reconcile when Umunna actually seems to share the opinion of many on here...
I suppose the alternative is to wait and hope the Conservatives unravel, the question is
a) Will they? Probably
b) When?
c) What does that then mean? An election presumably.
Presumably the Conservatives will be damaged electorally by the infighting, and then lose...
Occam's Razor in action there I guess, Labour just need to remain united.
So the real question then becomes, if we believe that the Conservatives will completely unravel soon and Corbyn win, what will HE then do with Brexit? How will it be better than the Conservative's views? And how "hard" will it be?
The membership of the organised 'far-left' in the UK - including every would-be party and group - almost certainly does not amount to more than 5000 - 10000 people (and is probably closer to the lower figure).
To suggest that some of this small number (a fair number of whom wouldn’t touch the Labour Party with a barge pole) are in some way responsible for the surge in party membership and support for Corbyn is extremely flattering to the powers of persuasion of these tiny numbers of supposed ‘entryists’
Plus of course if they had such persuasive powers they wouldn’t be the tiny groups that they are.
A lot of Labour left wingers are against the EU seeing it as a big business club. Tony Benn was anti the EU.
Not enough to push me towards Lib Dems or Greens as they both accept the referendum but only want a vote on the final deal.
My only comfort is my Irish passport.
To try and explain it from where I sit politically and socially is:-
Brexit is really bad for the country.
The Tories are really bad for the country.
The Tories have been proposing an extreme view of Brexit, including the laughable "No deal is better than a bad deal".
With the Tories in power we will almost certainly get a bad Brexit and probably be despised/ridiculed by Europe for a generation.
The Tories will conduct opaque negotiations.
With the Tories in power it is highly unlikely that we will ever get a second referendum and unlikely that we will get to democratically decide if the deal they get is what we, as a country, want. The latter being a minimum that a modern parliamentary democracy should expect.
Labour will get a better Brexit, we will also retain friendships with Europe and might be able to leave with our heads held high.
Labour will conduct transparent negotiations.
It is probable that any deal Labour make will be democratically accountable in some way, at a minimum it will be better than none at all (which is what you will get under the Tories).
Whilst unlikely at the moment I believe that there is, at least, more of a chance that some kind of second referendum would take place with a Labour Govt.
In the election the anti-Brexit parties (SNP & LD) did less well than expected. This of course could have been for a number of reasons, but must be taken into consideration. It has been reported that Brexit was just not seen as a major issue at the election.
My wishful thinking and sense tell me that Labour are playing a long game and that a number of battles need to be won before we can revisit a referendum. Those battles might not be won so we then have to settle on the least damaging Brexit we can get, and for me that is the one that protects jobs and markets. Having false battles and internal squabbles will only add to the length of time that we have to endure the Tories messing things up and Chukka has started a false battle and an internal squabble.
I do really struggle with the need to make this a whip vote and particularly the Article 50 one where it would have been far better to say this is Labour's position, vote with your conscience. But having said that it could be argued that supporting Article 50 significantly helped shore up the Labour vote in traditional areas that voted heavily for Brexit. That of course is very difficult to prove or disprove.
@Rob7Lee here is a report that shows that real income has fallen since 2008 in the under 40's, this is a far better measure of pay standards than net income. It might also go some way to explain the effectiveness of Corbyn's anti-elitism/wealth distribution campaigning within that same demographic.
Sir Vince Cable claims scrapping university tuition fees would be "very dangerous and stupid".
The Lib Dem leadership favourite told Sophy Ridge on Sunday that the "cheap populist gesture" would create an unfair system.
He said: "If you don't have any form of fees, I mean who pays for universities?
"How do you end this discrimination between the 40% of students who go to university and would be subsided as opposed to the 60% who don't? That would be highly inequitable."
Sir Vince acknowledged Labour's 2017 manifesto pledge to scrap fees had proved popular with voters.
He said university funding should be looked at, but that schools should be the priority as they are "horribly underfunded".
"We're getting teachers, teaching assistants being laid off. I mean that's where the real priority is at the moment," Sir Vince said.
"Yes, by all means let's look at universities, but universities are about the only bit of the publicly financed sector which are flourishing.
For goodness sake with some cheap populist gesture, killing that off would be a very dangerous and stupid thing to do."
Vince represents a generation that had free tuition, benefited from it, and now wants to pull the ladder up in the face of all evidence. Hopefully he and the rest of the fogeys who have this backwards attitude will shuffle off sooner rather than later and stopping holding this country back.
Incidentally I never 'benefited from it' as my family couldn't afford for me to go to university for three years, even back in the 70's.
Both my kids went but the loan amount they have to pay back is not exactly punitive as their salaries are not that high. In fact I doubt my daughter will ever have to pay her loan back as she has children herself and only works part time.
We benefit for example from education systems overseas when Doctors arrive and help the NHS, and even the private sector.
Then there is the notion that University education is about vocation and earning power for individuals once they graduate, as if the purpose of going to University is for entry into the job market.
Vince Cable rightly talks of a crisis in school funding but in schools there exists an approach to education that says we want people to know stuff, to be able to read and write and do sums, to have an understanding about how society works, to look inside themselves for those creative juices. Society does not seem to see schooling as preparation for the job market, but many sectors seem to think University Education is a kind of preparation for the job market.
A population, widely educated, has a habit of raising the attainment of many areas of society almost without noticing. Vince Cable talks of the 60% as if they are somehow victims rather than beneficiaries, as we all are, by a society generally decently educated. I once knew somebody whose University Education made him a world expert on European primroses. I have no idea if that level of education was in any way job specific, but as a person he had gained and grown from the study. Similar to a 16 year old leaving compulsory education having grown in skills knowledge and confidence.
It might be worth viewing Education (especially creative education) as pharmaceutical research. There may not be a direct pay off from years of work and processes, but eventually there may well be one so the general investment has been worth while.
Some years ago there was work at Thames Poly in Woolwich on getting light from chemicals, I believe it is now called Chemiluminescence. There was a struggle to fund and sustain this work, as initially it seemed to result in trivialities such as glow sticks. Now it turns out to have several applications, in the field of forensics for example. Humble Thames Poly was part of the knowledge pool that has led to Chemiluminescence development in ways that weren't predicted at the time.
And when I say benefit, I mean as a generation. Even if you did not personally go to university, the country as a whole would have benefited from a wholesale investment in the country's education and skills.
And your last point proves why the tuition/student loan system is total bollocks and ought to be scrapped: too many people don't even pay back what they supposedly owe, yet we spend millions administrating a pointless system when it would be far cheaper and effective just to directly fund tuition just like we do for schools.
It will cost an estimated £11Bn and that is approximately double the anual cost of triple lock on pensions - Note that pensions are the biggest single expenditure for the government.
And the real sophistication is that the policy challenges the divisive policies developed and delivered in these pseudo austerity times.
Graduates tend to earn more so they have always paid more taxes in any event. Under the loans scheme many graduates would not pay back the entire amount and it is simply creating another bureaucracy... plus an off balance sheet Enron scheme where the write off occurs down the line. It's one thing to saddle them with £20 grand in debt but the current average is £45K
This thinking is divisive and not just for graduates. We have the same thing for immigration where people from other countries fill skills shortages and yet they are accused of stealing jobs, services and housing. And then we had the "dementia tax" which was hopefully the tipping point:
A tax whereby a random set of old people are selected based upon medical condition to surrender their property rather than leave it to their estate. Next on the agenda will be all pensioners who will have to surrender their wealth to pay for treatment because as May stated "the country cannot afford to offer free care in the future". NB one of the flagship UKIP policies which was gently dropped is private insurance for healthcare.
One might suggest I digress but hopefully we can see a theme?
So please let's stop doing a cost benefit analysis for certain segments of society and, as @seth plum suggests let us grow up and look at the bigger picture. With his comment above let us look at the very poor record in the UK and Europe of monetising academic excellence - by looking at the whole value chain and determine what is needed to turn academic research into patents and then off to the market with real sales. Virtually every aspect of the iPhone from GPS to web was developed by government or academic research here in the UK (possibly some in the US?)
And let's look at the whole labour market for today and 2025 and then determine where the skilled/trained employees will originate. We have 750,000 vacancies every quarter and yet public policy is to restrict immigration and charge students full wack. And play that back as policy.
The most constructive way to change matters today is to join Labour and contribute to their policy discussions as they develop approaches to different parts of their manaifesto for the next election. That is not because many of us are life long supporters of Corbyn but because he has a positive rating with the country at large and the Labour Party has consoidated a 45% rating in the polls.
So the question is for @seth plum @ShootersHillGuru @MuttleyCAFC @Cordoban Addick and others:
This is a long game and Labour are today set to win the next election. This in turn means the Conservatives simply will not call it until the government falls over. Corbyn is unassailable so are we now all "Corbonystas" if we want a change of government? For there is no Macron and no Lib Dem resurgence.
When they earn the least, they pay the least. I can assure you that the repayment levels have never been a problem for my kids and neither of them earnt/earn much.