The Conservative Party

[Ifwecouldjust.......]

I'll answer for him.

In life generally those most angry about something are those most likely to shout about it.

And so it is with the Labour Party. There's a small number of people like you who were upset that hard left political ideas were not being espoused by any of the main parties. They've latched on to Corbyn as the left-wing figurehead. And since the more moderate Labour voters (or indeed voters generally) are not so unhappy with moderate new-Labour thinking, or indeed they are pretty repulsed by what Corbyn is offering, then they have not joined the party in such large numbers.

Therefore the party has been hijacked by the hard left. And in taking an ever more dogmatic and inflexible hard left stance, they become less and less appealing to the moderate majority.

Please explain to me ..... what is 'Hard Left' as you put it about wanting

An NHS that is properly funded and free at the point of use?
An education system that is properly funded and provides opportunity for everyone
A social care system that will provide for the elderly and disabled who are unable to look after themselves without taking every penny off them
A transport system that works for everyone, reasonably priced, runs on time and profits are reinvested back into the infrastructure
Utilities such as water , mail, electricity and gas reasonably priced with profits reinvested back into infrastructure or used to reduce prices
A welfare system that provides the disabled who are unable to work a reasonable standard of living and not just a subsistence payment
A social security system that provides a safety net rather than making people walk a tightrope.
A police service that provides security and peace of mind for all.
A prison service that looks to train and rehabilitate its inmates so they don't reoffend
A country that doesn't sell arms to dictatorships so they can suppress weaker poorer nations.


Because if you actually think about it .... isn't this what everyone wants? Does that make us all 'Hard Left' ?

 

[Damocles]

Please explain to me ..... what is 'Hard Left' as you put it about wanting

An NHS that is properly funded and free at the point of use?
An education system that is properly funded and provides opportunity for everyone
A social care system that will provide for the elderly and disabled who are unable to look after themselves without taking every penny off them
A transport system that works for everyone, reasonably priced, runs on time and profits are reinvested back into the infrastructure
Utilities such as water , mail, electricity and gas reasonably priced with profits reinvested back into infrastructure or used to reduce prices
A welfare system that provides the disabled who are unable to work a reasonable standard of living and not just a subsistence payment
A social security system that provides a safety net rather than making people walk a tightrope.
A police service that provides security and peace of mind for all.
A prison service that looks to train and rehabilitate its inmates so they don't reoffend
A country that doesn't sell arms to dictatorships so they can suppress weaker poorer nations.


Because if you actually think about it .... isn't this what everyone wants? Does that make us all 'Hard Left' ?

Literally, almost every person in the country regardless of political party wants most of all of those things.

They're cliches not policies.

 

[bluethrunthru]

Literally, almost every person in the country regardless of political party wants most of all of those things.

They're cliches not policies.

both main parties would broadly support those aims and a lot of them will appear in upcoming manifesto's as policies - I am sure Mayday or whoever is leader at that stage isn't going to refer to their manifesto as just a list of cliche's.

 

[urban genie]

Literally, almost every person in the country regardless of political party wants most of all of those things.

They're cliches not policies.

No they are policies as some liberal and conservative minded people would not want all those things the way as stated in the post.

 

[CityStu]

No they are policies as some liberal and conservative minded people would not want all those things the way as stated in the post.

They would. You saying health and education should be properly funded is very cliche, as your version of properly of properly funded would be very different from someone else's. When you start applying figures and means of funding to those, you have policies.

 

[Scottyboi]

Literally, almost every person in the country regardless of political party wants most of all of those things.

They're cliches not policies.

If the hard left could provide all that then why are they not already in government? They would win by a landslide, the problem is it isn't feasible and like CityStu just said, they only become policies when it comes down to how you fund it all.

As a centrist I want food,shelter and fit women for all vote for me.

 

[inbetween]

Please explain to me ..... what is 'Hard Left' as you put it about wanting

An NHS that is properly funded and free at the point of use?

An education system that is properly funded and provides opportunity for everyone

A social care system that will provide for the elderly and disabled who are unable to look after themselves without taking every penny off them

A transport system that works for everyone, reasonably priced, runs on time and profits are reinvested back into the infrastructure

Utilities such as water , mail, electricity and gas reasonably priced with profits reinvested back into infrastructure or used to reduce prices

A welfare system that provides the disabled who are unable to work a reasonable standard of living and not just a subsistence payment

A social security system that provides a safety net rather than making people walk a tightrope.

A police service that provides security and peace of mind for all.

A prison service that looks to train and rehabilitate its inmates so they don't reoffend

A country that doesn't sell arms to dictatorships so they can suppress weaker poorer nations.

Because if you actually think about it .... isn't this what everyone wants? Does that make us all 'Hard Left' ?

These are social policies but they are cliches in the sense that they contain no detail. If you want all of the above then you must consider how it will be paid for, if you refuse then it has no credibility and can be ignored. The fact is Labour have the objective of moving to the hard left in how they will deliver all of this stuff.

They will move us to a high tax economy where the state takes as much as possible from businesses and your average joe to do as it sees fit. It is essentially imposed socialism so yes it is a hard left way of thinking.

All of this stuff may seem free and great but it isn't, they will take everything that is needed for this stuff from YOUR pocket. This is why most people are highly skeptical of it.

 

[Chippy_boy]

These are social policies but they are cliches in the sense that they contain no detail. If you want all of the above then you must consider how it will be paid for, if you refuse then it has no credibility and can be ignored. The fact is Labour have the objective of moving to the hard left in how they will deliver all of this stuff.

They will move us to a high tax economy where the state takes as much as possible from businesses and your average joe to do as it sees fit. It is essentially imposed socialism so yes it is a hard left way of thinking.

All of this stuff may seem free and great but it isn't, they will take everything that is needed for this stuff from YOUR pocket. This is why most people are highly skeptical of it.

Yes.

But it's slightly more subtle than that. When I go to parts of Europe and I see social infrastructure and hospitals etc which on face value are much better than ours, I could very easily be persuaded into thinking "Ok, I wouldn't mind paying a bit more in taxation in order to provide these sorts of benefits". You pays your money, takes your choice etc.

However, our track record of successfully running a piss up in a brewery is one of dirty glasses, cloudy eggy beer, and rude staff who turn in sick and bugger off half way through.

The worrying reality is just how much of the extra taxes that Labour would take, would actually end up delivering improved services? Versus how much of it would be eaten up with bureaucracy, red tape, pay rises (deserved or not, that's not the question), reduced efficiency? Labour are ideologically in favour of a big public sector where more of the things described in Ifwecouldjust's post are provided by the state. Now we can debate whether the state is better than the private sector or not, but that's a significant difference in the parties' ideologies.

I am told that the public sector work just as hard as people in the private sector, but honestly, I remain unconvinced. Personally I see much higher rates of sick days, reduced customer service, increased holidays and reduced productivity. Capitalism and its relentless pursuit of profits has its issues, but at least it provides an imperative to "get things done", which to me, seems relatively lacking in the public sector.

 

[robbieh]

These are social policies but they are cliches in the sense that they contain no detail. If you want all of the above then you must consider how it will be paid for, if you refuse then it has no credibility and can be ignored. The fact is Labour have the objective of moving to the hard left in how they will deliver all of this stuff.

They will move us to a high tax economy where the state takes as much as possible from businesses and your average joe to do as it sees fit. It is essentially imposed socialism so yes it is a hard left way of thinking.

All of this stuff may seem free and great but it isn't, they will take everything that is needed for this stuff from YOUR pocket. This is why most people are highly skeptical of it.

I was lucky enough to have a fully funded university education in the 80s.
The country is allegedly richer now but this gift is no longer available to the young.

So either tax revenues are less now or the money is being spent elsewhere.

By the way the UK is a not a high income tax economy. Only 16th in Europe.

Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Austria make up the 5 highest.

 

[Henkeman]

I was lucky enough to have a fully funded university education in the 80s.
The country is allegedly richer now but this gift is no longer available to the young.

So either tax revenues are less now or the money is being spent elsewhere.

By the way the UK is a not a high income tax economy. Only 16th in Europe.

Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, Austria make up the 5 highest.

Well that's because the scale of university entry is vastly higher than it was in the 80s when it was the preserve of a few. The debate around funding higher education is whether it ought to be funded from general taxation - in which cases taxes will have to go up significantly, or whether those go should fund it themselves. What has been abysmally handled is the idea of there being loans, when in effect they're really just a slightly higher rate of tax for university graduates, and should have been done that explicitly that way.

It isn't a matter at all of revenues being less, it's a matter of the number of students being vastly more.

Like anything, it's a choice, but all things do have to be paid for, and income tax alone is no kind of measure. The UK overall sits somewhere around the middle in European terms overall, so absolutely there could be scope for higher taxation if the electorate want it, or lower if they prefer that instead.

What is annoying is the way some try and paint this in moral terms, as though taxing and spending is inherently a matter of good versus evil. It's merely a question of trying to determine the most equitable and effective way of modest redistribution, nothing more.