Keir Starmer

[metalblue]

I don’t think it’s mostly the policies though. Well, it isn’t for me. It’s the hateful rhetoric that put me off them hugely. “If youre not one of us, your a racist ****” etc.

Theres never been a better time to campaign for re-nationalisation of our power companies.

Trains are on their arse again. They too could prosper under national rule. We just need a competent government to implement this and stop it being sold of for X years to allow it to create profits when run well. (One can dream)

If this country had a guaranteed cheap, green way of heating all houses and a cheap, green way of getting around on public transport, then we have a solid base to build everything else from.

Whilst we’re at it, make the NHS have the largest R&D department in the world. Create and make drugs for cost price for us and sell round the world to fund our health service while creating loads of jobs.

Your last idea got my attention the most. I look at it slightly differently and think no sense competing or reinventing the wheel but we could buy the top 10 pharma companies for about $2tr, and they would generated $380bn a year in profit, less $100bn to service the debt that leaves best part of $300bn to spend. It’s not the worst idea.

 

[metalblue]

Withdrawl of ones labour is one of the only tools that the working class have to fight the capitalist class.

It is a fact that both the US and the UK had economies at their strongest when Union power was at its zenith. There are reason for that as Union power shrank inequality, they ensured that wages were paid properly and the working class who have the highest propensity to spend kept the economy growing. They did though at the cost of profit to the capitalist class and there is nothing as greedy as a Capitalist.

Blair said he would repeal the Thatcherite union reforms and never did as he was in hoc with the neo liberal orthodoxy. That was his biggest mistake, he paved the way for todays Tories, Cameron saw himself as the heir to Blair. That is how far to the right the Labour party became and Keith in his stupidity wants to carry on that legacy and that means whoever is in power the owners of Capital are happy and the working class are downtrodden, unrepresented and exploited at every turn.

We need a Labour party that is back to its true roots of working class advancement, a party that aims to reduce inequality and increase opportunity, a party that is not of equal outcomes as the RW media claim, but of equal opportunity for all.

The Labour Party should be a Democratic Socialist party, Socialism though through a mix of poor education and RW propaganda is seen as a dirty word, yet Socialism has helped shape the country and given us as a nation so much. Sadly that legacy is continually debased. the NHS is undermined, the Welfare state is being slowly reduced to a scroungers charter, the Nationalised industries were sold for pennies to corporate interests and democracy is now as centralised as it has ever been. Localism is on its knee's, the power of the state curtailed all so the Libertarian fuckwits can claim to be free. Freedom is having good health, good education, good job prospects not having the ability to hoard money for self interest.

Corbyn for all his faults saw this and although he failed he scared the Capitalist class to death and they unleashed all their power to undermine him and the Labour party so that they could have a Keith as leader who would not threaten their hegemony. Until their hegemony is challenged then we are stuck with capitalist stooges and eternal Tory misrule. The Tories do not rule for the people, they rule for their friends with money and we need a Labour Party that will rule for the working class interests, because we the working class outnumber the capitalist class. Sadly though one of the greatest con tricks of my lifetime is that the Tories have always managed to get people to vote against their own interests.

Its time it stopped.

Your problem Russ is your stuck in the 1970s mate. Times have changed. Today, although about half the population believe in working class values, only 25% are actually working class - so you’re campaigning to replace a party that doesn’t govern for the people with a party that doesn’t govern for the people. Real vote winner that one!

 

[Rascal]

Your problem Russ is your stuck in the 1970s mate. Times have changed. Today, although about half the population believe in working class values, only 25% are actually working class - so you’re campaigning to replace a party that doesn’t govern for the people with a party that doesn’t govern for the people. Real vote winner that one!

So we have 74% of people in the UK who are middle class?

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

So we have 74% of people in the UK who are middle class?

They think they are just because they have two cars and a mortgage they can barely afford.

 

[metalblue]

So we have 74% of people in the UK who are middle class?

Approximately 9m of the 35m people employed in UK workforce have jobs that define them as working class.

The UK has a highly skilled workforce compared to the last time your type of politics were in power mate, back in the 70s over 40% of the workforce were in roles that defined them as working class - put another way social mobility has verifiably happened for millions of people.

The road to salvation is that over half the country still identify themselves as working class. Although in surveys over the years the number that immediately jump to being working class, without being prompted to pick working or middle, have declined to some extent.

So I’m afraid mate whilst your campaign to fight a class war may get plenty of “hear hear’s” down the social club or on here when push comes to shove turkeys don’t vote for Christmas so its time to find a different tune that taps into working class values but leaves that class war shite in the past where it belongs. Until then we will never get a socially just system.

Out of interest did you take the Great British class calculator the bbc ran a few years back? I know it had critics so it’s a bit of fun - but if you fancy it answer honestly and let us know if you scored above traditional working class ;)

The Great British class calculator

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[metalblue]

They think they are just because they have two cars and a mortgage they can barely afford.

No they don’t think they are, they just have jobs that mean they aren’t. I don’t make up the rules or the definitions ;)

But I agree personal debt is a problem, we’ve had a couple of decades of historically cheap money - god forbid that should ever change. Our system needs people to continue to buy tat they don’t need whether they can afford it (cash) or not (credit)

 

[Rascal]

Approximately 9m of the 35m people employed in UK workforce have jobs that define them as working class.

The UK has a highly skilled workforce compared to the last time your type of politics were in power mate, back in the 70s over 40% of the workforce were in roles that defined them as working class - put another way social mobility has verifiably happened for millions of people.

The road to salvation is that over half the country still identify themselves as working class. Although in surveys over the years the number that immediately jump to being working class, without being prompted to pick working or middle, have declined to some extent.

So I’m afraid mate whilst your campaign to fight a class war may get plenty of “hear hear’s” down the social club or on here when push comes to shove turkeys don’t vote for Christmas so its time to find a different tune that taps into working class values but leaves that class war shite in the past where it belongs. Until then we will never get a socially just system.

Out of interest did you take the Great British class calculator the bbc ran a few years back? I know it had critics so it’s a bit of fun - but if you fancy it answer honestly and let us know if you scored above traditional working class ;)

The Great British class calculator

www.bbc.co.uk

Done your game and I am traditional working class.

We actually have a skills shortage as many traditional roles have been lost due to deindustrialisation. There is a shortage of welders for instance. This governments apprentice scheme has been an abject failure and whilst T levels may help it is down the line. As long as we could import skilled labour from the EU we were under no pressure to produce our own, The people who fight the class war are the Capitalist class and they have been successful at it , neo-liberalism has ensured a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. I only rail against the class war fought from above and it is increasing in intensity. The working class pay for the mistakes of the ruling class time after time.

In 2017, 20% of workers in the UK were employed in ‘professional’ jobs, the highest percentage out of all types of occupation; 14% were employed in ‘associate professional and technical’ jobs, 11% in ‘elementary’ jobs, 11% as ‘managers, directors and senior officials’, 11% in ‘skilled trades’. Due to the move to a service economy there has been an increase in managers, an increase in office based work and they consider themselves white collar whilst receiving blue collar wages.

Ironically it was under Blair that the middle class grew and the number considering themselves middle class rather than working class was first achieved in the year 2000. Thinking you are middle class and being middle class are two different things though and as wages have stagnated since 2008 then the numbers of people classing themselves as middle class will actually fall into the C2DE cohort.

This is the great con of the Tory party, they actually get people to vote against their own interests time after time and because Britain, especially England is such a class based society people are reluctant to acknowledge they are in fact working class in wage terms, but cling to middle class status.

An anecdote for you.

The working class in the old slum areas of inner cities would polish their doorsteps because that made them feel better about themselves as the Upper class had welcoming entrances to their houses.

Ideally we would have classless society, but whilst the class system works in the interests of capital that is never going to happen.

 

[urban genie]

Starmer is the staus quo with a little bit more compassion and less greed.

Either in power won't mean much to the majority at the bottom

 

[metalblue]

Done your game and I am traditional working class.

We actually have a skills shortage as many traditional roles have been lost due to deindustrialisation. There is a shortage of welders for instance. This governments apprentice scheme has been an abject failure and whilst T levels may help it is down the line. As long as we could import skilled labour from the EU we were under no pressure to produce our own, The people who fight the class war are the Capitalist class and they have been successful at it , neo-liberalism has ensured a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. I only rail against the class war fought from above and it is increasing in intensity. The working class pay for the mistakes of the ruling class time after time.

In 2017, 20% of workers in the UK were employed in ‘professional’ jobs, the highest percentage out of all types of occupation; 14% were employed in ‘associate professional and technical’ jobs, 11% in ‘elementary’ jobs, 11% as ‘managers, directors and senior officials’, 11% in ‘skilled trades’. Due to the move to a service economy there has been an increase in managers, an increase in office based work and they consider themselves white collar whilst receiving blue collar wages.

Ironically it was under Blair that the middle class grew and the number considering themselves middle class rather than working class was first achieved in the year 2000. Thinking you are middle class and being middle class are two different things though and as wages have stagnated since 2008 then the numbers of people classing themselves as middle class will actually fall into the C2DE cohort.

This is the great con of the Tory party, they actually get people to vote against their own interests time after time and because Britain, especially England is such a class based society people are reluctant to acknowledge they are in fact working class in wage terms, but cling to middle class status.

An anecdote for you.

The working class in the old slum areas of inner cities would polish their doorsteps because that made them feel better about themselves as the Upper class had welcoming entrances to their houses.

Ideally we would have classless society, but whilst the class system works in the interests of capital that is never going to happen.

My social and cultural capital were traditional working class only my income stopped me getting the full house and being traditional working class in that test.

Would we call welders working class though mate? I couldn’t weld without training - It’s a skilled profession and the pay is pretty decent, my FIL was a welder on the rigs before retiring and made £60k a year working 2 weeks on and 2 off. He’s a traditional Labour man and would consider himself working class however - although wouldn’t vote for any of the current lot be they Labour, Tories or whoever, totally disillusioned with it all.

I do agree we shouldn’t have a class system at all - but that’s down to us; I take folk as I find them. I suppose when it comes to class for me you either have manners (class) or you don’t (no-class) and that’s the only “class” system that I judge people by. I hate rude people and a lot of them are what we would call rich - I subscribe to the notion that money and class are two different things as do many I think hence why there is a large gap between those who subscribe to working class values and those who are working class by definition.

 

[mat]

Keith should go for the Russian donors angle and threats to UK security in PMQs.