It's a proper sad state we're in that you are correct.Swales would be a better option than the clowns in charge.
I agree with the thrust of this but your figures are not quite right, as the total number of 'never worked' is nearer to 3.5 million than a million. However, your assertion that the vast majority are under 24's and the overwhelming majority of those are in full time education are completely correct, as is the propaganda constantly spewed out about the feckless idlers.The power of propaganda, this is just untrue. It was made up bullshit by the right wing press who were intent on destroying the welfare state amidst stories of lazy feckless Brits and doleys having 20 mile wide TV screens.
The vast majority of those who had never worked are students or under the age of 23, but are counted as being of working age. There are also disabled, homemakers and retired to take into account and even then the figures just about hit a million, its certainly not huge and certainly not millions and millions of popular myth.
An eloquent riposte Chris, thank you.
Blair and Brown did do good, I have never doubted that, my issue was they never fulfilled their full potential or use the huge majority they were given to advance the cause even more. I was personally always more a fan of Brown rather than Blair, I saw Brown as an intellectual heavyweight whilst Blair relied on charisma and charm and it was a crying shame when Browns turn came the Labour government was sullied with the war in Iraq. Brown was superb during the financial crisis and his attention detail would have served the nation well during these difficult times, but it was not to be.
I will take the issue of tax credits, they were too easily discredited as "handouts" by the right wing media and I was always of the mind that they could and should have gone further and laid the ground work for UBI, the tax credit system could have evolved into that but sadly didn't. I did take issue though that the anti Union laws introduced by Thatcher et al were never repealed and the use of PFI was a disaster which will haunt every future Labour chancellor for decades. This was done to make Labour look fiscally responsible when they had no need to do so as they had an overwhelming mandate to go much further. This lack of ambition I believe lead to the party losing millions of voters because they failed in their promises or lacked ambition to carry them through. In my opinion Blair promised much but massively underachieved even though as a PM he was probably head and shoulders above any of those that I have witnessed in my lifetime. He was competent, but became arrogant and his followers hark back to times that no longer exist because they had their chance and failed, they failed miserably given the mandate they had and that saddens me. Starmer offers a return to those years and that to me means more years of pandering to the right wing media scared of doing what they should and that lack of hope in a Socialist future hurts because I don't believe he has the bottle or the ideological capacity to carry through an agenda that would make a real difference. Labour works best when it takes the best ideas from the left of the party and the best ideas from the right of the party and makes a cohesive message that attracts both wings of the party, at the moment I only see Starmer wanting to attract those on the right of the party and marginalising those of us on the left.
I would say to the left of the Labour Party don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The last labour leadership did an awful lot to marginalise the people without whom it cannot win an election, and you know what happens when labour cannot win. Starmer has already gone a long way towards winning back the people that just gave Boris an 80 seat majority.
All very true, the left constantly reference 'The Working Class,' it's done on here regularly,
as the ones that need perpetual help from government, where nowadays, there's no such class
anymore. The tradesmen you mention are as you say, all doing pretty well, whether they work
for themselves or companies, and it's them, and the vast majority like them, that gave the Conservatives
their massive majority recently. Labour is now seen as a middle class (another misnomer, ironically),
metropolitan party, and it hasn't realised that the demographic it keeps pointing at is looking the
other way.
What did it do?
It adopted a whole load of policies that were unattractive to people who would regard themselves as closer to the centre than to the left. Nationalisation of industries without compensation to shareholders springs to mind.
So why, with the same policies more or less, did it come so close in 2017?
Tories...
Popular vote: 13,636,684
Labour...
Popular vote: 12,878,460
Sorry, are you suggesting that Labour won in 2017?
Is "come so close" ambiguous?
That’s a long question. You should break it down into bite-size chunks.No, it’s a euphemism for ‘lost, but not as badly as on other occasions.’ Are you seriously suggesting that the same policies (more or less) that have twice been rejected at general elections, which are somewhat to the left of the Miliband manifesto that was also defeated in 2015, are actually deeply attractive to those who are much closer to the centre?
I am working class, if we're applying that now hackneyed term, raised on a council estate,If by this you mean that there are people using the phrase ‘the working class’ in the same sense that Marx used that phrase 150 years ago, I will take your word for it, though I haven’t read any myself. For my part, I take the phrase (and use the phrase myself) simply to refer to the overwhelming proportion of the population that earn average or below average amounts.
You by the way are very definitely working class by your own definition, sorry to tell you, because you need perpetual help from the state yourself. You’ve been helped by the government all your life: from the cradle to the grave, you might say. Our police are paid for by the state. They protect you and keep you safe. You were probably educated at the state’s expense at least part of your childhood. You are probably cared for by the NHS when you are ill. You drive on roads that are maintained by the state. You put the kettle on and you are accessing a power supply put in place by the state. Your rubbish is taken away every week by the state. You have a shit and you flush it away into drains provided by the state. Every day or your life you draw upon resources provided by the state. Perhaps all this makes you feel slightly disgusted with yourself for being a perpetual drain on the government.
Oh, and as for Labour being a middle class metropolitan party, perhaps you should ask Angela Raynor’s constituents in Ashton how middle class they are.
No, it’s a euphemism for ‘lost, but not as badly as on other occasions.’ Are you seriously suggesting that the same policies (more or less) that have twice been rejected at general elections, which are somewhat to the left of the Miliband manifesto that was also defeated in 2015, are actually deeply attractive to those who are much closer to the centre?
It (Labour) adopted a whole load of policies that were unattractive to people.
a whole load of policies that were unattractive to people
What do you think happened?You stated...
Yet these figures....
Tories...
Popular vote: 13,636,684
Labour...
Popular vote: 12,878,460
Show that less than three years ago, the Tories got 42.4% of the vote and Labour got 40%. That Labour performance was a marked improvement on the 2015 result, yet Labour's 2017 policies, as you say, were to the left of Miliband's.
Going left actually increased Labour's vote from 2015 to 2017.
Two years later that support crumbled, with the same leader and similar policies.
So something changed.
So your statement that....
Doesn't hold up.
You stated...
Yet these figures....
Tories...
Popular vote: 13,636,684
Labour...
Popular vote: 12,878,460
Show that less than three years ago, the Tories got 42.4% of the vote and Labour got 40%. That Labour performance was a marked improvement on the 2015 result, yet Labour's 2017 policies, as you say, were to the left of Miliband's.
Two years later that support crumbled, with the same leader and similar policies.
So something changed.
So your statement that....
Doesn't hold up.
Yes. You’re right. By not losing as badly in 2017 as in 2015 or 2019 Labour showed that it can win by marginalising people that it needs to win and I was in error to say otherwise.
The constant referencing of the 'Working class' is a feature of leftist politics,
I am working class,
This made me smile.
The only one losing here is you and you know it.
What do you think happened?
yes. Losing four general elections in a row is plainly a sign that Labour have got on board the very people it needs to win an election.