People are going to think I’m a stuck record here but I’m going to say it again anyway. Labour needs someone socially right but economically left. I’m not talking extremes, the 2017 manifesto was good but they are too liberal socially for the working classes.
They need to mimic the SDP or the Blue Labour movement and they’ll get in.
If you put the SDP in charge of Labour in December they’d have won. The trouble is they don’t get off the ground because of the party machines.
Don't agree with that mate.
People see no sense nor value in wholesale nationalisations. They may be in favour of rail re-nationalisation but that is honestly because most people don't understand the core reasons as to why the train services are currently how they are. (it's because the subsidy the government puts in, is not enough (if we want cheap, high quality rail services) and because Network Rail - which is already government owned and run - is a shambles. Train companies being privately owned, or not, has fuck all to do with it - they only make 3% profit, so they are hardly "fat cats").
But renationalising the water companies? The electricity companies? People couldn't give a toss and those who do think about it, think what an enormous waste of money that would be and couldn't that money be much better spent.
Similaraly people are not in favour of whacking up tax rates, for the rich or for anyone else for that matter. The thinkers reaiise that there are not enough rich people to pay for everything and understand that huge public spending increases would either not be deliverable or would have to be funded by everyone paying more tax, not just a few. And people don't want to pay more tax. They have aspirations to be higher earners themselves one day, if they are not higher earners already.
They do not regard businesses - and most of all their employers - as "the enemy" against which we should try to get one over and punish with punitive taxes. They understand the need for thriving private sector businesses and want to see policies to encourage that, not the opposite.
Hard left, or even middle left, policies are no longer appealing to a majority of people in this country. That is why Labour keep losing. And as long as they keep on with their position - overt or otherwise - of wanting to tax more so they can spend more - then they will keep losing.
