Keir Starmer at it again..

[prawnking]

As a start, you wouldn't just "implement them", it would be a progress towards a different model. It may take a generation or more but our relatively recent history has shown that different political economic models can rise and then establish themselves as the orthodoxy. Pre and post WW2 politics and economics were very different, in a period of great financial challenges the UK established universal healthcare and developed a welfare state. Things changed again in the 60s and 70s as issues of equality came to the fore and then as the 70s closed and the 80s appeared we saw the growth of neo-liberal capitalism as a very opposite form of the politics/economics of the authoritarian communist countries.

The political/economic model of Reagan and Thatcher has prevailed ever since and it developed and took hold within their economic constraints. They won the argument then and are winning the argument now. So portraying it as "implementing within the current economic constraints" is not how you go about it. There would need to be a force, likely political, that can make the case for change...look across the Atlantic Ocean for a more recent example of a political force ripping up the neo-liberal consensus (within current economic constraints).

A universal health and welfare system that reduces inequality. A greater involvement of the state of providing essential services like transport, utilities, education. Greater power to communities to have say in their own lives. It isn't the current economic constraints that prevent these ideas from becoming realities, it is political leaders who run their countries like technocrats managing capitalism. 2008, capitalism bailed out the financial system and the workers paid the bill...2020 capitalism bailed out businesses and it is the workers who are paying the bill. It is not the current economic climate that prevents the implementation of a different economic and political paradigm it is those who manage the status quo and their self imposed rules.

Simply sitting back and saying we can't have something different because our leaders tell us we can't ignore centuries of political, economic and cultural change that has all come about when the leaders of the time resisted to some extent or another.

If this is to be implemented Democratically then it has be a 'force' I can vote for in 2029. Where does that force currently lie?

 

[Tredman]

As a start, you wouldn't just "implement them", it would be a progress towards a different model. It may take a generation or more but our relatively recent history has shown that different political economic models can rise and then establish themselves as the orthodoxy. Pre and post WW2 politics and economics were very different, in a period of great financial challenges the UK established universal healthcare and developed a welfare state. Things changed again in the 60s and 70s as issues of equality came to the fore and then as the 70s closed and the 80s appeared we saw the growth of neo-liberal capitalism as a very opposite form of the politics/economics of the authoritarian communist countries.

The political/economic model of Reagan and Thatcher has prevailed ever since and it developed and took hold within their economic constraints. They won the argument then and are winning the argument now. So portraying it as "implementing within the current economic constraints" is not how you go about it. There would need to be a force, likely political, that can make the case for change...look across the Atlantic Ocean for a more recent example of a political force ripping up the neo-liberal consensus (within current economic constraints).

A universal health and welfare system that reduces inequality. A greater involvement of the state of providing essential services like transport, utilities, education. Greater power to communities to have say in their own lives. It isn't the current economic constraints that prevent these ideas from becoming realities, it is political leaders who run their countries like technocrats managing capitalism. 2008, capitalism bailed out the financial system and the workers paid the bill...2020 capitalism bailed out businesses and it is the workers who are paying the bill. It is not the current economic climate that prevents the implementation of a different economic and political paradigm it is those who manage the status quo and their self imposed rules.

Simply sitting back and saying we can't have something different because our leaders tell us we can't ignore centuries of political, economic and cultural change that has all come about when the leaders of the time resisted to some extent or another.

I don't disagree with most of that but it does seem very much like what we had in the 60/70s and that didn't go too well by the end of that period.

 

[Templeton Peck]

Naive but yet another case of Labour having to be whiter than snow whereas tories can do this in the tens and hundreds of thousands and nothing is said by such critics.

I mean she could have just said no. It ain't difficult.

 

[Templeton Peck]

Debunked myth. The rich don't move if you tax them, at least not in significant numbers. Definitely not enough leave to justify not even attempting to tax them more. It's something perniciousy spread by the wealthy to convince enough people to say "Well there's no point trying to tax them". And people buy it, peddle it and so the wealthy continue to avoid paying a fair tax burden and that burden falls on the poor, the disabled and the vulnerable.

‘Wealth taxes will cause the rich to flee’: 12 wealth tax myths debunked - Tax Justice UK

Wealth taxes have huge popular support: 78% of people in the UK support higher taxes on those who own assets worth over £10 million. When it comes to convincing politicians, however, the issue of wealth taxes can become more contentious. We asked our readers to send a message to their MP...

taxjustice.uk

Not that you need taxes to spend anyway, but avoidance tends to kick in at about 65%.

 

[Templeton Peck]

Isn't there room for Democratic Socialists within Labour?

No.

 

[The Saturday Boy]

I don't disagree with most of that but it does seem very much like what we had in the 60/70s and that didn't go too well by the end of that period.

How well is the status quo faring? Capitalism in its neo-liberalism coat has failed on numerous occasions on a much greater scale than anything that happened in the 60s and 70s but has been rescued and we have paid the price. Worth saying that leaders in the 69s and 70s also tried to maintain the status quo, we paid for that too.

 

[The Saturday Boy]

If this is to be implemented Democratically then it has be a 'force' I can vote for in 2029. Where does that force currently lie?

Nowhere in the UK. It should be in the Labour Party.

 

[Tredman]

How well is the status quo faring? Capitalism in its neo-liberalism coat has failed on numerous occasions on a much greater scale than anything that happened in the 60s and 70s but has been rescued and we have paid the price. Worth saying that leaders in the 69s and 70s also tried to maintain the status quo, we paid for that too.

It is indisputable that living standards in the UK are better now than the 70s. Up until 2008 living standards seemed to be heading up and up.

 

[Templeton Peck]

It is indisputable that living standards in the UK are better now than the 70s. Up until 2008 living standards seemed to be heading up and up.

Poverty went up hugely under Thatcher though. Wasn't really addressed until Blair got in.

 

[The Saturday Boy]

It is indisputable that living standards in the UK are better now than the 70s. Up until 2008 living standards seemed to be heading up and up.

I am sure if you compare 1970s living standards to the 1920s the same could be said. It’s not really relevant

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

I am sure if you compare 1970s living standards to the 1920s the same could be said. It’s not really relevant

Also note that it's 17 years since 2008..

 

[Dire Wolf]

It is indisputable that living standards in the UK are better now than the 70s. Up until 2008 living standards seemed to be heading up and up.

Depends on your measurement. In the 60s and 70s real wage rises for most were at around 4-6% so people were better off year on year. Since the 2000s real wage rises have been at about 1.5-1.7%, so people aren't getting more better off than they were in the 1970s. Since the 2000s real wage rises for the very rich have been significantly higher, so if you want to measure living standards by the success of the top 10%, yeah living standards are better. If you want to measure on for instance, house affordability, rent, general cost of living, I think it's extraordinarily inaccurate to say living standards are better today.

Yes, people can buy more 'stuff', but the fact that vast swathes of people are 3 missed pay slips from absolute disaster is not a ringing endorsement of standard of living.

 

[Tredman]

Depends on your measurement. In the 60s and 70s real wage rises for most were at around 4-6% so people were better off year on year. Since the 2000s real wage rises have been at about 1.5-1.7%, so people aren't getting more better off than they were in the 1970s. Since the 2000s real wage rises for the very rich have been significantly higher, so if you want to measure living standards by the success of the top 10%, yeah living standards are better. If you want to measure on for instance, house affordability, rent, general cost of living, I think it's extraordinarily inaccurate to say living standards are better today.

Yes, people can buy more 'stuff', but the fact that vast swathes of people are 3 missed pay slips from absolute disaster is not a ringing endorsement of standard of living.

Fair point, but I think the start of that change is probably late 2000s. That’s probably the point at which life expectancy started to stagnate too.

 

[EdgeOfTheAlps]

Read somewhere a couple of weeks ago that things what were once considered luxuries have become cheap and readily available, while the actual necessities are becoming increasingly unaffordable.

 

[Wilf Wolf]

Read somewhere a couple of weeks ago that things what were once considered luxuries have become cheap and readily available, while the actual necessities are becoming increasingly unaffordable.

My immediate thought is that’s because the margin on luxuries was always high - think reassuringly expensive - so there’s plenty of scope to cut the price to maintain sales.

 

[Dire Wolf]

All UK families ‘to be worse off by 2030’ as poor bear the brunt, new data warns

Keir Starmer has been dealt a fresh blow to his living standards pledge in advance of the spring statement

www.theguardian.com

This is fucking shameful for a Labour Government.

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

"We jUsT nEeD tO gEt tHe ToRiEs oUt"

 

[Tredman]

Yes we did.

Edit - also the patronising typing & tone is a great example of why many people think the left look down on people.

 

[Elephant Pyjamas]

Oh contrare the patronising was off the scale in the run up to the election from people who were just saying the above and weren't (and still arent) willing to acknowledge how awful "Labour's policing making is.

What's patronising is this belief that getting the Tories out is all that matters, fuck everything else. It's also dangerous.

 

[The Saturday Boy]

Yes we did.

Edit - also the patronising typing & tone is a great example of why many people think the left look down on people.

What is definitely patronising is saying that “the left” is one homogenous group that all think, act and speak in the same way.