The key difference being (I was a remainer but accept the result) that vote went to everybody whereas the labour leader vote goes to its membership, a membership swelled by dick-ed Millibands drive to increase membership by offering it to spotty students at a 25th of what I paid, yet my vote wasn't worth 25x more weight than theirs, so what you get is tantamount to a hijackingYou won't find much love from me towards Corbyn or his party. (And I'm sure they can live without it.) Nevertheless, it's a perfectly tenable position for the Corbynistas to fight on under his banner when he has just been elected, not once but twice.
It's reminiscent of our friends on the Brexit thread moaning that people made the wrong decision, or were asked the wrong question, or that the system is bolloxed.
The key difference being (I was a remainer but accept the result) that vote went to everybody whereas the labour leader vote goes to its membership, a membership swelled by dick-ed Millibands drive to increase membership by offering it to spotty students at a 25th of what I paid, yet my vote wasn't worth 25x more weight than theirs, so what you get is tantamount to a hijacking
Didn't he and his mate also come up with PFI? A spiffing wheeze to spend even more money, while leaving the bill to future generations.
My abiding impression of Blair, other than Iraq, is his sheer cynicism. It outstripped that of any other leader in modern times in any party. My belief is it grew the longer he was in power.
You need to check yours. Of course throwing vast amounts of cash at bailing out a banking catastrophe (that Labour presided over), made matters much worse.
However after a short period of budget surplus (due to spending restraint) in the late 1990s, the UK went into budget deficit under Labour of 2-3% of GDP between 2002-2007. A bloody disgrace considering the economy was growing by between 2% and 3% for much of the period.
Basically they spent more than we could afford, as usual.
Chances are though, that the votes would be cast quite differently. There would be no need to vote for the nearest challenger to try and effect a result and people might be much more inclined to vote how they wanted to. Could make for some interesting politics.I used to think the same but my view has changed, or at least been moderated, over the years. One reason is that Israel has a PR system and this has led to the extreme elements in the inevitable coalitions holding the whip hand. That's not democratic. Alternatively, there are coalitions in other countries where very little that needs to be done can get done because the parties can't agree on radical changes.
I've done a projection of the 2015 General Election based on the fairly simplistic basis of percentage of the total vote translating directly into the number of seats won. That would be as follows:
Conservatives: 232
Labour: 192
UKIP: 80
LibDem: 50
SNP: 30
Green: 24
DUP/UUP: 7
Sinn Fein: 4
Plaid Cymru: 3
Others: 8
On this basis, Conservative, UKIP and the Unionist NI parties would command 319 seats out o the 631, giving them an overall majority. UKIP therefore would effectively control the government. I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing by the way but it's the result of a basic PR system.
What's more staggering is how all opposition parties line up to tell us how disastrous and costly PFI schemes are, only to completely recant once in power and expand their usage exponentially. The private sector just take he piss by wanting cast iron guarantees from the government, whilst taking a massive profit. It's akin to you or me going into the bookies every day, having £10k worth of bets and then demanding, on every day we lose, the bookie gives us back our money. In reality, of course, the bookie actually offers us £15k if we lose, so we will sign the contract......Brown was the main exponent of PFI - he changed governance within Public Sector procurements that essentially mandated a PFI deal structure. The level to which bidding companies could transfer risk back to government departments was staggering
What's more staggering is how all opposition parties line up to tell us how disastrous and costly PFI schemes are, only to completely recant once in power and expand their usage exponentially. The private sector just take he piss by wanting cast iron guarantees from the government, whilst taking a massive profit. It's akin to you or me going into the bookies every day, having £10k worth of bets and then demanding, on every day we lose, the bookie gives us back our money. In reality, of course, the bookie actually offers us £15k if we lose, so we will sign the contract......
What's more staggering is how all opposition parties line up to tell us how disastrous and costly PFI schemes are, only to completely recant once in power and expand their usage exponentially. The private sector just take he piss by wanting cast iron guarantees from the government, whilst taking a massive profit. It's akin to you or me going into the bookies every day, having £10k worth of bets and then demanding, on every day we lose, the bookie gives us back our money. In reality, of course, the bookie actually offers us £15k if we lose, so we will sign the contract......
Exactly this. It's very easy to be the caring, sharing do-gooder, finding the money to sustain this is, as you say,It's never the best option for the country because it doesn't work.
I understand why people want the social benefits that this sort of agenda talks to. It's *the decent thing* tm to want to look after our sick and needy, to want everyone to have a decent job with good pay, to have excellent schools, to look after our pensioners and our ex servicemen and women, to properly fund our police and indeed all public sector workers etc etc etc.
I get that. We ALL want that. The question therefore is not, which party wants this. It's which party can actually deliver it!
And the answer to this question lies with money, as so many things always do. To have these things on a sustainable basis - not some short term transient botch job - requires money and lots of it. This can *only* be sustainably provided by a strong economy. And that needs a low burden of taxation, flexibility and dynamism - reduced red tape etc. Whacking up taxes has the opposite effect - it's like driving with your foot on the brake pedal. Taking money off people so that they have less to spend, wasting half of it in Whitehall and then spending what's left on badly run initiatives, where another half of the cash goes down the pan, is a completely bonkers strategy.
(Here in Bristol, the total arseholes on the council are wasting £200m on a fucking bus lane no-one wants nor voted for. We haven't got a pot to piss in and they are wasting £200m on this shite.)
The problem is very few Labour governments get this. Or at least if they do, they try to forget about it, lest funding concerns get in the way. So they just spend, spend, spend money the nation does not have and which we cannot afford. They always do this, and the upshot is that in so doing, they wreck the economy. It spirals down in a vicious circle of increasing taxes, slowing growth and then recession, reducing tax revenues and increasing debt and more tax increases... Until they get kicked out.
This is not a long term solution to providing the public services you want. It never has been and never will. This is the inconvenient truth that Labour supporters - and even Labour ministers - cannot bear to hear.