# The next Labour leader - who will it be?



## ItWillNeverWork (Mar 18, 2012)

A simple question that will inevitably lead to criticism of the poll options. But what the fuck, here it is. After Ed Nanoband, who will be the next leader of the Labour party?


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## Libertad (Mar 18, 2012)

Will it matter? Parliamentary democracy is finished.


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## Maurice Picarda (Mar 18, 2012)

Smart money seems to be Cooper, doesn't it? Miliband frere for pref, of course.


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## ItWillNeverWork (Mar 18, 2012)

Libertad said:


> Will it matter? Parliamentary democracy is finished.


 
Really?


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## Maurice Picarda (Mar 18, 2012)

Libertad said:


> Will it matter? Parliamentary democracy is finished.


 
What's the difference between now and the last few hundred years? We've never had a parliamentary democracy in any  meaningful sense, and a good thing too.


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## coley (Mar 18, 2012)

Wont make a happorth of difference


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## Lo Siento. (Mar 18, 2012)

presumably when he goes it'll be assumed that his terribleness will be down to how "left-wing" he supposedly is. So it'd be a Blairite, right?


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## DotCommunist (Mar 18, 2012)

I'd like to see mandleson _openly_ pledge allegiance to Satan and then take the leadership role


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## dynamicbaddog (Mar 18, 2012)

Len Mccluskey?
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/d...and-len-mccluskey-is-preparing-a-silent-coup/


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## ViolentPanda (Mar 18, 2012)

The next Labour leader might as well be Richard fucking Littlejohn, for all the good he/she will do the working classes.


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## treelover (Mar 18, 2012)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> Really?


 

i think you will find more and more people are very very dissilusioned by the political process, for different, maybe contrasting reasons, but its there..


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## frogwoman (Mar 18, 2012)

articul8


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## ItWillNeverWork (Mar 18, 2012)

treelover said:


> i think you will find more and more people are very very dissilusioned by the political process, for different, maybe contrasting reasons, but its there..


 
Do people need to be illusioned (is that even a word?) with the system in order for it to continue?


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## Frances Lengel (Mar 18, 2012)

DotCommunist said:


> I'd like to see mandleson _openly_ pledge allegiance to Satan and then take the leadership role


 

This guy's a card.


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## London_Calling (Mar 18, 2012)

It was diff to imagine Cooper standing against Balls to begin with, but after Miliband vs. Miliband she might be even more circumspect - and we know Balls isn't going to stand aside for anyone.


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## ViolentPanda (Mar 18, 2012)

DotCommunist said:


> I'd like to see mandleson _openly_ pledge allegiance to Satan and then take the leadership role


 
TBF, wouldn't it be the other way round, with Satan pledging allegiance to Mandelscum?


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## belboid (Mar 18, 2012)

dynamicbaddog said:


> Len Mccluskey?
> http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/d...and-len-mccluskey-is-preparing-a-silent-coup/


what a bizarrely awfully written article. 'The Labour Party is tearing itself apart' claims the headline, but then has absolutely nothing, nothing at all, to substantiate that claim.  You'd almost think they were pushing a red menace scare to a chosen audience desperate to believe it


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## agricola (Mar 18, 2012)

London_Calling said:


> It was diff to imagine Cooper standing against Balls to begin with, but after Miliband vs. Miliband she might be even more circumspect - and we know Balls isn't going to stand aside for anyone.


 
I think even Balls knows what would happen if he became leader (ie: he would be eaten alive by a combination of renewed Toryism, a hostile media, his own incompetence and lack of any actual idea of how to fix a mess he helped to create, and of course the hatred of a lot of people in his own party) - he would probably prefer to sit moodily in the background behind a compromised figure like his wife, or the current incumbent, and mouth off or leak whenever he felt that he wasnt being listened to.


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## nino_savatte (Mar 18, 2012)

Typical of Dan "Hatchet Job" Hodges, I'd say.


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## London_Calling (Mar 18, 2012)

I guess have a diff view of Balls' ambition.


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## agricola (Mar 18, 2012)

London_Calling said:


> I guess have a diff view of Balls' ambition.


 
TBH we probably have the same view of his ambition, just different views as to whether he thinks he would be able to overcome his many failings to become a successful leader of that party.


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## savoloysam (Mar 18, 2012)

You missed Harriet Harman from your list


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## ItWillNeverWork (Mar 18, 2012)

savoloysam said:


> You missed Harriet Harman from your list


 
She has taken up managing the Jedwardites. Successfully it seems, because they appear to be winning the poll.


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## stavros (Mar 18, 2012)

I guess it depends how far along the cycle Ed goes. If it's before the next GE, then Balls or David would be the obvious ones. If it's after, and the Tories get a majority, Umunna possibly, although maybe he needs more teeth.


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## joevsimp (Mar 18, 2012)

stavros said:


> I guess it depends how far along the cycle Ed goes. If it's before the next GE, then Balls or David would be the obvious ones. If it's after, and the Tories get a majority, Umunna possibly, although maybe he needs more teeth.


 
He's quite wisely played down any speculation so far but he seems the type to go for it of what i've seen of him

John Cryer recently lost out to Dave Watts as chair of the PLP, not that I think he has any leadership ambitions really


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## frogwoman (Mar 18, 2012)

Seriously though, I think that ed might end up staying the labour leader for quite a while. He is completely shit but the labour party probably don't think that they need anyone better at this point because of what they're up against. they're probably wrong though.


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## JHE (Mar 18, 2012)

Perhaps I lack imagination, but I can't see any reason to think any of the people in that poll would do a better job than Ed M is doing.


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## frogwoman (Mar 18, 2012)

I think that a lot of top people in Labour will think he doesn't need to do a better job at all - because you don't vote for the PM you vote for MPs etc - and there's some degree of truth in it. to be honest you could probably put a dog in the position of Labour leader and some people (not all) would be so desperate to get rid of the tories they'd vote for it, just because it was not a tory. The same goes for the last labour government though - i know at leats one fairly left leaning person from my old job who voted Tory because of what Labour had done. 

im not saying everyone thinks like this though or that i agree with this but i reckon a lot of the top people in the leadership of Labour will have this analysis


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## coley (Mar 18, 2012)

Ed balls is definitely out of the running, at least until he gets a new rug, the current one is beyond a joke


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## Bernie Gunther (Mar 18, 2012)

'Mad' Frankie Field is probably most representative of the current Zeitgeist.


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## 8115 (Mar 19, 2012)

.


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## clandestino (Mar 19, 2012)

I reckon it's too early for a bid, but Chuka's definitely got his eye on the job. He needs a few more years experience though - he's too much gloss, too little substance right now.


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## articul8 (Mar 19, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> i know at leats one fairly left leaning person from my old job who voted Tory because of what Labour had done.


anyone who does this is either a) an adolescent Paul Weller or b) totally fucking insane.


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## JHE (Mar 19, 2012)

I remember a hairy anarchist at Marble Arch in 1979 telling me that he was going to vote Tory because it would hasten the revolution.  Even at the time I thought the strategy less than convincing.


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## audiotech (Mar 19, 2012)

Miliband's Putin moment didn't assist his future leadership chances I thought. Cooper has the makings.


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## Balbi (Mar 19, 2012)

Im not sure about Cooper. Labour need to topple Balls before 2015 somehow, get Reeves up to standard as well.


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## JHE (Mar 19, 2012)

audiotech said:


> Miliband's Putin moment didn't assist his future leadership chances I thought.


 
What was the 'Putin moment'?


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## audiotech (Mar 19, 2012)

JHE said:


> What was the 'Putin moment'?


 
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepag.../Miliband-predicts-Putin-will-be-toppled.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/201...adimir-putin-ruthless-dictator_n_1319204.html


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## JHE (Mar 19, 2012)

> DAVID Miliband has predicted Vladimir Putin will be toppled by people power in Russia – before he fulfils his dream of 12 more years in office.​​


​ 
I don't think that prediction will do him any harm.  Who's even going to remember it in 12 years' time?


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## butchersapron (Mar 19, 2012)

audiotech said:


> Miliband's Putin moment didn't assist his future leadership chances I thought. Cooper has the makings.


 How could that possibly impact on his leadership chances?


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## Balbi (Mar 19, 2012)

I suppose it depends if Vlad takes offence and Miliband ends up having a polonium sandwich.


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## ItWillNeverWork (Mar 19, 2012)

Balbi said:


> I suppose it depends if Vlad takes offence and Miliband ends up having a polonium sandwich.


 
Not a banana sandwich?







Any excuse. Sorry.

Whilst I'm at it;






Tee hee. 


eta: Now there is leadership material. Imagine DM versus Putin in a fight.


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## audiotech (Mar 19, 2012)

Putin and whoever succeeds him for a start. Then there's the fifty percent of Russians who voted for Putin. Funny "dictatorship" that. When was the last time a British Prime Minister got 50 percent of the vote? Was he attempting to be a male version of the "Iron Lady"? That's so last century. Cameron did the wise thing and limited his words to diplomatic niceties. There is afterall a lot of gas and oil contracts to consider. Miliband will also be remembered uttering those words by the Parliamentary Labour party, who I suspect most will not now be voting for him for a leadership position after those choice words. He's now slipped on that banana he once held before the press. He looked an idiot then.


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## butchersapron (Mar 19, 2012)

wtf are you waffling on about? How is that going to impact on the internal labour party vote for Miliband? You couldn't have picked a less relevant issue if you tried.


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## audiotech (Mar 19, 2012)

I've made my point perfectly clear.


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## butchersapron (Mar 19, 2012)

No you didn't. You posted a load of irrelevant waffle. Oh, maybe that _was_ your point?


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## JHE (Mar 19, 2012)

audiotech said:


> Cameron did the wise thing and limited his words to diplomatic niceties. There is afterall a lot of gas and oil contracts to consider.


 
Yup, I expect if DM had still been Foreign Sec, he would have done the same. But his current position is being a sort of young elder statesman and he is as free as the next talking head on the telly to predict that Putin will eventually come a cropper. It's not an unreasonable prediction.



> Miliband will also be remembered uttering those words by the Parliamentary Labour party, who I suspect most will not now be voting for him for a leadership position after those choice words. He's now slipped on that banana he once held before the press. He looked an idiot then.


 
Have you read of any Labour MPs objecting?


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## ayatollah (Mar 19, 2012)

audiotech said:


> I've made my point perfectly clear.


Humour us... we don't geddit. Why would the ghastly Dave Miliband predicting that the mafioso boss ,Putin, would be "overthrown by people power...." nobble his chances in the next Labour Leadership race ? Surely it's enough he's a right wing scumbag who has been hoovering up dodgy big cash from very dodgy corporations and middle East countries ever since he lost out to bruvver Ed ?


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## audiotech (Mar 19, 2012)

Surely even the Gypsy Rose Lee of these forums can see that I'm pointing out that Miliband is not Prime Minister material and I suspect that most now in the Labour party will also take that view.


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## butchersapron (Mar 19, 2012)

I can see you saying it - i can see no reason whatsovever for you to say it though - and i think it's a bizarre conclusion to reach that appears to be based on bizarre reasoning that you won't fully explain. Why on earth would his views on Putin effect his labour party support?


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## Spanky Longhorn (Mar 19, 2012)

audiotech said:


> Putin and whoever succeeds him for a start. Then there's the fifty percent of Russians who voted for Putin. Funny "dictatorship" that. When was the last time a British Prime Minister got 50 percent of the vote? Was he attempting to be a female version of the "Iron Lady"? That's so last century. Cameron did the wise thing and limited his words to diplomatic niceties. There is afterall a lot of gas and oil contracts to consider. Miliband will also be remembered uttering those words by the Parliamentary Labour party, who I suspect most will not now be voting for him for a leadership position after those choice words. He's now slipped on that banana he once held before the press. He looked an idiot then.


 
Bonkers Bruno


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## audiotech (Mar 19, 2012)

JHE said:


> Yup, I expect if DM had still been Foreign Sec, he would have done the same. But his current position is being a sort of young elder statesman and he is as free as the next talking head on the telly to predict that Putin will eventually come a cropper. It's not an unreasonable prediction.
> 
> Have you read of any Labour MPs objecting?


 
They are not likely to right now though are they.

Putin may come a cropper, but is it wise for someone to make such a prediction who wants the top job? What if he's wrong? Putin is not stupid and I believe he's wise enough to head off any challenge, with carefully crafted reforms and a crackdown on corruption.


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## audiotech (Mar 19, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> I can see you saying it - i can see no reason whatsovever for you to say it though - and i think it's a bizarre conclusion to reach that appears to be based on bizarre reasoning that you won't fully explain. Why on earth would his views on Putin effect his labour party support?


 
Why would they not when I presume the Labour party would want to choose a leader who acts statesmanlike and not instead like a buffoon with a banana who calls an elected leader of a sovereign state a "dictator"?


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## Captain Hurrah (Mar 19, 2012)

And not a single fuck ...


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## butchersapron (Mar 19, 2012)

audiotech said:


> Why would they not when I presume the Labour party would want to choose a leader who acts statesmanlike and not instead like a buffoon with a banana who calls an elected leader of a sovereign state a "dictator"?


Becsuse they don't even begin to give a shit about that. That's why.

And nor do you actually.


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## audiotech (Mar 19, 2012)

The latter point is true, but surely since the "OH RIGHT" Kinnock rally most in the Labour party think in those terms.


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## JHE (Mar 19, 2012)

TBH, Audiotech, I think your take on this is a bit eccentric.  DM's comment about the long-term prospects of Putin are really neither here nor there.


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## Balbi (Mar 19, 2012)

audiotech said:


> The latter point is true, but surely since the "OH RIGHT" Kinnock rally most in the Labour party think in those terms.



Miliband, D isnt leader though - and the need for a shift from the old faces, which included him as 'heir' is driving the party right now. Milliband, E avoided the whole Iraq fiasco, worked in a relatively unscathed area of government between 2005 and 2010 and wasnt associated as strongly as Balls etc in the Brown Blair madness. 

What'd be mad is all the losing MP's from 2010 trying to get back on the merry go round in 2015. Miliband, D had his chance and can still be a strong cabinet presence - however, another tilt at leadership might not work out as close as last time if hes up against someone with few ties to the 13 years of power. He can do party elder, mandelson-very-fucking-light if you like, but his leadership would be a backward step. Ditto Balls and even Cooper.


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## DownwardDog (Mar 19, 2012)

When was the last time the youngest candidate didn't win the leadership election (as distinct from an unopposed coronation) of a major party? Foot in 1980? On that basis it'll be whichever of this glittering constellation of talent is the youngest.


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## 8115 (Mar 19, 2012)

What about Harriet Harman?  Did she not stand last time for some reason?  /hazy memory


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## butchersapron (Mar 19, 2012)

DownwardDog said:


> When was the last time the youngest candidate didn't win the leadership election (as distinct from an unopposed coronation) of a major party? Foot in 1980? On that basis it'll be whichever of this glittering constellation of talent is the youngest.


 
ming campbell - 2006


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## Balbi (Mar 19, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> ming campbell - 2006



He said major party butchers.


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## audiotech (Mar 19, 2012)

Captain Hurrah said:


> And not a single fuck ...


 
post #44


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## audiotech (Mar 19, 2012)

8115 said:


> What about Harriet Harman? Did she not stand last time for some reason? /hazy memory


 
A political lightweight, heading for the other place probably.


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## JHE (Mar 19, 2012)

8115 said:


> What about Harriet Harman? Did she not stand last time for some reason? /hazy memory


She didn't stand, presumably because she didn't think she could win.


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## ayatollah (Mar 20, 2012)

audiotech said:


> Surely even the Gypsy Rose Lee of these forums can see that I'm pointing out that Miliband is not Prime Minister material and I suspect that most now in the Labour party will also take that view.


 


I'd vote for Gypsie Rose Lee for NuLabour Leader !


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## trevhagl (Mar 20, 2012)

i would like to see Owen Jones the author of the Chavs book as leader , wouldn't be allowed to happen though

or The Artist Taxi driver off You Tube

i can't see any hope whatsoever if the choice was between the shadow ministers they have now


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## articul8 (Mar 20, 2012)

It's mostly not about the leaders' personality (or lack thereof) but about the kind of institution they find themselves leading.  Labour generally gets the leaders it deserves.


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## Red Storm (Mar 20, 2012)

Evette Cooper.


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## butchersapron (Mar 20, 2012)

articul8 said:


> It's mostly not about the leaders' personality (or lack thereof) but about the kind of institution they find themselves leading. Labour generally gets the leaders it deserves.


Which rather undermines your _look at me challenging the dominant narrative in the party_ rubbish then doesn't it?


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## Zabo (Mar 20, 2012)

trevhagl said:


> i would like to see Owen Jones the author of the Chavs book as leader , wouldn't be allowed to happen though


 
I wouldn't. Seems like the only thing he's capable of is whoring himself around every media outlet. He's now, according to Sunday's Radio 5, become the self appointed expert on defining the term 'chav'. Radio 5 seem to like him. He can often be heard punting his new and exciting thoughts on the Nolan 'Show'.

We've got enough middle class gob shites in the Labour party as it is. What we really need is somebody from the people who can articulate their needs in the real world not more fucking clowns from Oxbridge. It would be even better if that somebody had worked - preferably the public sector.

There's got to be a radical nurse/doctor out there somewhere?


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## articul8 (Mar 20, 2012)

It's a contested tradition (as all important traditions are in fact) - there's no quick fix to getting a decent leadership, only a long haul through the institution(s) and beyond.


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## ItWillNeverWork (Mar 20, 2012)

Zabo said:


> I wouldn't. Seems like the only thing he's capable of is whoring himself around every media outlet. He's now, according to Sunday's Radio 5, become the self appointed expert on defining the term 'chav'. Radio 5 seem to like him. He can often be heard punting his new and exciting thoughts on the Nolan 'Show'.
> 
> We've got enough middle class gob shites in the Labour party as it is. What we really need is somebody from the people who can articulate their needs in the real world not more fucking clowns from Oxbridge. It would be even better if that somebody had worked - preferably the public sector.
> 
> There's got to be a radical nurse/doctor out there somewhere?


 
Isn't what he says more important than his education or class?


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## butchersapron (Mar 20, 2012)

articul8 said:


> It's a contested tradition (as all important traditions are in fact) - there's no quick fix to getting a decent leadership, only a long haul through the institution(s) and beyond.


Jesus but you're going backwards at a rate of knots - last week you were trapped in 1981, this week you've managed to break free but now find yourself stuck in 1970. Let _us_ recreate the traditional ruling class dominance of the state and other institutions but this time use it for good not evil!  And this after pointing out how the weight of existing institutions actually operates to thwart naivety like this.


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## ayatollah (Mar 20, 2012)

Surely there can't really be very many socialists who nowadays think that a new leader emerging from somewhere within that thoroughly capitalist neo Thatcherite right of centre party, can turn Labour into a fighting, radical, party of the LEFT ?  Even Militant packed up its camouflaged tent and went out to do more worthwhile political work in the end !

As for Owen Jones... he's such a blatant opportunist/ self publicist - definitely the Julie Burchill of the day (Remember HER Leftie stuff in the 1970's -  ?)


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## Zabo (Mar 20, 2012)

ItWillNeverWork said:


> Isn't what he says more important than his education or class?


 
Not as far as I'm concerned its not. It is akin to saying 'Isn't it more important what a Tory has to say than his party's policies and his upbringing'.

The Labour party and the middle class left have been saturated with talking heads for too long a time. Enough! It's bad enough with the likes of Chuka Umunna in the party without any more adding to the stew.

I want to see 'real-life' people not arseholes who have made it by licking the arse of other politicians in such cosy jobs as 'researcher'.

As for Umunna, Owen and the like I haven't heard a single thing that they have said which is not only not new but also has a strategy which could be implemented. You could be forgiven for thinking it was they who conceived notions of 'socialism' such is their arrogance.

Talking arse holes


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## articul8 (Mar 20, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Let _us_ recreate the traditional ruling class dominance of the state and other institutions but this time use it for good not evil!


I haven't said anything remotely like this  I'm quite baffled by how you've reached this interpretation. I'm saying that any worthwhile leadership would only and could only arise in relation to, a local party which had active support and roots within w/c communities to whom it was fully accountable. And that would begin to bring out an antagonistic relation between party and state.


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## butchersapron (Mar 20, 2012)

What the hell do you think the long march through the institutions strategy was? If you don't know then why are you using that term?  

What you're saying above essentially boils down to saying the only way the labour party could get a decent leadership would be if a set of perfect fantasy conditions existed, conditions that the party itself (and not just the leadership) is actively committed to ensuring never come about, conditions that have never existed, and conditions that you only half an hour ago highlighted that the party as an institution serves to undermine. And on top of this there's still last weeks vote labour because we're shit and then you'll know just how shit we are then we can move forward nonsense.

And how on earth does that fit it in with your incoherent determination to rebuild labour bottom up from  w/c communities and _against the state? _All over the shop.


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## articul8 (Mar 20, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> the party itself (and not just the leadership) is actively committed to ensuring never come about, conditions that have never existed, and conditions that you only half an hour ago highlighted that the party as an institution serves to undermine.


 
Why do you always talk about "Labour" and "the party" as though it was some kind of homogeneous bloc - it isn't and never has been.   It's the site of contested forces, interpretations, methods and goals.  Just look at the clash between Lansbury and Morrison.  Or between Militant and Kinnock.   You can't have a viable left leadership without a viable left.  So much is obvious, isn't it?  



> And how on earth does that fit it in with your incoherent determination to rebuild labour bottom up from w/c communities and _against the state? _All over the shop.


it would be incoherent if I were talking about rebuilding the party on classic Labourist lines.   But I'm not.  I'm talking about the left trying to consolidate an alternative at the grassroots, and not solely by burying itself in CLP work which would be madness, but by establishing in practice that the left can engage with and help outside forces in the community.


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## butchersapron (Mar 20, 2012)

articul8 said:


> Why do you always talk about "Labour" and "the party" as though it was some kind of homogeneous bloc - it isn't and never has been. It's the site of contested forces, interpretations, methods and goals. Just look at the clash between Lansbury and Morrison. Or between Militant and Kinnock. You can't have a viable left leadership without a viable left. So much is obvious, isn't it?


 
A feeble labour left peopled by you types does not a broad church make - it makes a centrally controlled party where local members have no real say (and know it) and where policy formulation take place along very narrow neo-liberal lines with no real possibility of challenge. That makes it effectively a homogeneous bloc. And it's notable that your counter-examples are a) from 90 years ago (going backwards by the minute now it seems) in  a massively different situation and b) an unusual/one-off situation from 25 years ago based on on an entryism which is now as dead as Lansbury and Morrission. Not going to happen again.



> it would be incoherent if I were talking about rebuilding the party on classic Labourist lines. But I'm not. I'm talking about the left trying to consolidate an alternative at the grassroots, and not solely by burying itself in CLP work which would be madness, but by establishing in practice that the left can engage with and help outside forces in the community.


 
It is incoherent to simultaneously say 1) vote for labour, we're shit, join labour we're shit, the institutional weight of the party makes us shit and 2) also join labour and help rebuild it from the grassroots up and we can then march through the parties institutions, we're not shit.

And to what end? To getting people engaged in and supporting the party that you say is shit and want people to make a break from by joining and voting for. Can you really not see the contradiction here?


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## articul8 (Mar 20, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> b) an unusual/one-off situation from 25 years ago based on on an entryism which is now as dead as Lansbury and Morrission. Not going to happen again.


 
People would have written off the chances of effective entryism well before the 80s though - already by the 50s and 60s there were people ready to say that Labour was irredeemably lost for socialists. (_Pace_ the SP) The difference between then and now is just one of degree rather than of a fundamental difference in kind. Yes there are pretty formidable bureaucratic obstacles. But I don't see why it's impossible in principle.



> It is incoherent to simultaneously say 1) vote for labour, we're shit, join labour we're shit, the institutional weight of the party makes us shit and 2) also join labour and help rebuild it from the grassroots up and we can then march through the parties institutions, we're not shit.


 
It seems perfectly coherent to say to people who want to punish the coalition parties and realise that electing Labour is normally the only way to do this:

"OK you're voting Labour but what do you want Labour to do? What kind of priorities do you want your political representatives to put forward?" - etc and then explain that present institutional balance of forces in the party is certain to see the party fall short, at the very least, but that by working with others inside and outside the party we can contest the inevitability of that.



> And to what end? To getting people engaged in and supporting the party that you say is shit and want people to make a break from by joining and voting for. Can you really not see the contradiction here?


"Breaking from Labour" in a useful way (rather than retreating to an isolated position of impotent smugness) means going beyond Labour - finding a way to deliver more effectively what people wanted when they helped to build the Labour party as grassroots level.


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## DownwardDog (Mar 20, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> And to what end?


 
It's something to do in the evenings. a8's entryist shenanigans don't seem any less likely to bear fruit than any other stripe of left wing nonsense. Is trying to drag the PLP leftward really more pointless than scheming a revolution or a single issue A-to-B march with its own Facebook page?


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## Balbi (Mar 20, 2012)

It's as effective as almost anything else really.


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## butchersapron (Mar 20, 2012)

articul8 said:


> People would have written off the chances of effective entryism well before the 80s though - already by the 50s and 60s there were people ready to say that Labour was irredeemably lost for socialists. (_Pace_ the SP) The difference between then and now is just one of degree rather than of a fundamental difference in kind. Yes there are pretty formidable bureaucratic obstacles. But I don't see why it's impossible in principle.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


So yes, vote and join labour because we're shit but at some future point we may not be because you stop voting for and joining us.But you must join and vote for us first, then you can go.

And sorry, if you really think that there can ever again be an entryist challenge to the labour party then you're an ever bigger fantasist than i first though and you seem to have no grasp of the parties structures designed to stop this happening, never mind the lack of people who would even want to waste their time on such a silly suggestion nor the very different situation that the labour party was in in relation to other parties in the 30-50s, one that simply doesn't exist today and that no one had any interest in recreating either. Madness.

And of course it's perfectly possible to make the above sound coherent when you start from fantasy conditions, but politically people will see it for exactly what it is. Incoherent.


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## JHE (Mar 20, 2012)

ayatollah said:


> Even Militant packed up its camouflaged tent and went out to do more worthwhile political work in the end!


 
They didn't really have much option but to pack up their tent. They were being thrown out. (The loyal Grantites tried to remain in the Labour Party, but you'd need a microscope to find that sectlet, so no one is too bothered by them.)

Where is this "more worthwhile political work" they have done since the end of their (long) period of entrism? There may not be many Socialist Party people left who were members of Militant in the days of entrism, but the few who are left must look back very wistfully on their group's glory days. There was a time when people thought the Militant mattered! It was 'going from strength to strength', as they never tired of telling us. What is the little Socialist Party now? Diddly squat!


----------



## articul8 (Mar 20, 2012)

Entryist challenges can take different forms. New Labour itself was a sort of entryism. One that has left in its wake a constituency of people who understand that Labour is highly unlikely to deliver what they want from it, but nevertheless see no better option available and still feel a residual commitment to supporting Labour at least as they think it ought to be.

It's ironic that Butchers is bang on message with the Blairite argument that Labour's future is inevitably a matter of unquestioned neoliberalism. Perhaps Lord Sainsbury could sub you a few million to bang on about it?


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 20, 2012)

Jesus christ.


----------



## articul8 (Mar 20, 2012)

what?  You are as insistent as they are that there can be no question of re-opening the contested space that has been the Labour tradition...


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 20, 2012)

Bankrupt. Totally bankrupt.


----------



## stuff_it (Mar 20, 2012)

audiotech said:


> Surely even the Gypsy Rose Lee of these forums can see that I'm pointing out that Miliband is not Prime Minister material and I suspect that most now in the Labour party will also take that view.


Because he isn't a blackbelt in judo and doesn't hunt bears?


----------



## JHE (Mar 20, 2012)

stuff_it said:


> Because he isn't a blackbelt in judo and doesn't hunt bears?


 


& has the decency to keep his shirt on


----------



## articul8 (Mar 20, 2012)

the tradition is bankrupt?  or the left?  or both?  At any rate, Labour can't be wished away and it won't just die of its own accord.  In the absence of any more convincing ways of moving forward then it seems worth a go


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 20, 2012)

You, you are bankrupt.


----------



## DotCommunist (Mar 20, 2012)

milipede and the putin should compare pecks to see who is the real man


----------



## Balbi (Mar 20, 2012)

stuff_it said:


> Because he isn't a blackbelt in judo and doesn't hunt bears?


 
Because he makes predictions based on growing civil unrest and a six year Putin rule probably being as popular as the last decade of his involvement. Russia's due a good political and social thunderstorm. Do you think it'll be in 5 years, just for style points?


----------



## articul8 (Mar 20, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> You, you are bankrupt.


in what sense?


----------



## Red Storm (Mar 20, 2012)

Leadership odds

http://www.oddschecker.com/specials/politics-and-election/next-party-leaders/next-labour-leader


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 20, 2012)

articul8 said:


> in what sense?


Well, the party of which you are an active member takes £5 million+ from Lord Sainsbury and you suggest that i am the one who should be in receipt of his largesse because i oppose the politics that this money has helped buy him. You, in your outrage at this disgusting state of affairs, still stay in the party that received the money and benefit from it. The more immediate bankruptcy is in your pathetic suggestion above when the political implications of you offering left-cover to a whole m25 of lord sainsbury's were pointed out.


----------



## frogwoman (Mar 20, 2012)

JHE said:


> They didn't really have much option but to pack up their tent. They were being thrown out. (The loyal Grantites tried to remain in the Labour Party, but you'd need a microscope to find that sectlet, so no one is too bothered by them.)
> 
> Where is this "more worthwhile political work" they have done since the end of their (long) period of entrism? There may not be many Socialist Party people left who were members of Militant in the days of entrism, but the few who are left must look back very wistfully on their group's glory days. There was a time when people thought the Militant mattered! It was 'going from strength to strength', as they never tired of telling us. What is the little Socialist Party now? Diddly squat!


 
what worthwhile political work has the labour party done then from 1997 to now? its haemorrhaging support. those people might (and in most cases aren't) going to the SP but they're not going back to labour either.

articul8, do you think sucking up to a load of labour bureaucrats will mean that the left have any more credibility? will tying the left to labour mean that a revolution (or whatever) is more or less likely to happen? would it fuck, and who could blame anyone now for being utterly sceptical of any of the left wing groups that claimed to represent the w/c but were still in the labour party or supported it in other ways?

whether or not entryism was once a worthwhile strategy (i think that it was once, or at least there was an arguement to say it was, because although labour was, is, and always has been varying degrees of shit it was still once recognisably a "workers party" with a huge amount of support and it was a good way of increasing support if nothing else) and had done a lot of good such as creating the NHS etc. it was never a socialist party but a lot of people still saw it as their party.

it takes time it doesn't happen overnight especially in todays conditions where not voting is actually a better alternative than to vote for any established party so it is no wonder that some people are so suspicious of even the SP and things like that, or completely disaffected from it all


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## The39thStep (Mar 20, 2012)

T


frogwoman said:


> what worthwhile political work has the labour party done then from 1997 to now? its haemorrhaging support. those people might (and in most cases aren't) going to the SP but they're not going back to labour either.
> 
> articul8, do you think sucking up to a load of labour bureaucrats will mean that the left have any more credibility? will tying the left to labour mean that a revolution (or whatever) is more or less likely to happen? would it fuck, and who could blame anyone now for being utterly sceptical of any of the left wing groups that claimed to represent the w/c but were still in the labour party or supported it in other ways?
> 
> ...


 
The dawn of your organisation saying that labour was no longer 'a workers party' miraculously coincided with Militants isolation and collapse once the expulsions kicked in. Far from emerging with Labour Party recruits (which is the desired outcome according to Trot entrist theory) you came out with far less.


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## frogwoman (Mar 20, 2012)

maybe so, doesn't mean that its a worthwhile strategy today though or that the labour party could be reclaimed today in the way that articul8 wants. and militant probably should have left quite a while before that. it wou;ld be totally counterproductive for anyone to try to do that now whereas at the time when it happened there was an arguement that the lp was worth trying to do that kind of work in. im fairly undecided as to whether it was the right decision or not but you could see their reasoning.


----------



## The39thStep (Mar 20, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> maybe so, doesn't mean that its a worthwhile strategy today though or that the labour party could be reclaimed today in the way that articul8 wants. and militant probably should have left quite a while before that. it wou;ld be totally counterproductive for anyone to try to do that now whereas at the time when it happened there was an arguement that the lp was worth trying to do that kind of work in. im fairly undecided as to whether it was the right decision or not but you could see their reasoning.


 
The point I am making is that Militant were pushed , they didn't leave of the own volition. Indeed below is the line that was argued in the appeal against expulsion:



> We shall still continue to work to make certain that this Tory government is thrown out, and preferably a Labour government with socialist policies returned. Whatever programme is put forward,_Militant, _as it has always done in the past, will continue to work for the victory of this movement. There is no way that Marxism can be separated from the Labour Party. There is no way you will succeed with these expulsions. We will be back. We will be restored, if not in one year, in two or three years. We will be back.
> At every trade union conference, at every ward, at every GMC, at every shop stewards' committee meeting this question will come up and we will be back.


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## articul8 (Mar 20, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> what worthwhile political work has the labour party done then from 1997 to now? its haemorrhaging support. those people might (and in most cases aren't) going to the SP but they're not going back to labour either.
> 
> whether or not entryism was once a worthwhile strategy (i think that it was once, or at least there was an arguement to say it was, because although labour was, is, and always has been varying degrees of shit it was still once recognisably a "workers party" with a huge amount of support and it was a good way of increasing support if nothing else) and had done a lot of good such as creating the NHS etc. it was never a socialist party but a lot of people still saw it as their party.


 
You see, I think you're painting a rosy picture of old Labour and I don't recognise the picture you're painting of the present.  By the 80s the Labour party in government had failed to oppose the war in Vietnam, lined up anti-union legislation in "In Place of Strife" [albeit defeated], gone to the IMF for a loan the price of which was slashing public spending, introduced pay restraints, etc. etc.  OK there was a left that could make its voice heard in conference votes and via the NEC, and a union broad left which could limit the leadership's room for manoeuvre.  But at the level of policy it was beginning to implement anti-wc class measures at a national level, and it was precisely the emptying out of CLPs that gave Militant the entry point to start getting people like Nellist elected.

And now, what you said *was* true - in terms of its fate from 1997-2010.  But even in 2010 over 6 million people voted Labour *after* the Iraq war, tuition fees, economic collapse etc.  And against that backdrop the left managed to achieve next to nothing in terms of developing the base for a new workers party.  Whereas Labour has retained its default position as the party to vote for if you want to punish the LDs and Tories.  It is not "haemhorraging" - it might be recovering less quickly than it ought to, but its not disintegrating.  It's ahead in the polls, making gains at local level and well placed to do well in May.



> articul8, do you think sucking up to a load of labour bureaucrats will mean that the left have any more credibility? will tying the left to labour mean that a revolution (or whatever) is more or less likely to happen? would it fuck, and who could blame anyone now for being utterly sceptical of any of the left wing groups that claimed to represent the w/c but were still in the labour party or supported it in other ways?


 
I've never argued that the left should be built on an exclusive orientation to the Labour party, still less that criticisms of Labour should be dropped for some longer term goal (which bureacrats have I suggested sucking up to?)  I don't see why John McDonnell is a less effective campaigner because he's in the Labour party - or is he some stooge of Lord Sainsbury as well?   At the very least taking the need for a radical alternative into the party helps to give exposure to the arguments and constitute something of a rallying point - the LRC is growing in influence and membership though I don't want to exaggerate either.  

 quote]it takes time it doesn't happen overnight especially in todays conditions where not voting is actually a better alternative than to vote for any established party so it is no wonder that some people are so suspicious of even the SP and things like that, or completely disaffected from it all[/quote]
As spineless and supine as I think Ed Miliband is being, I don't think come the next election that people would be well advised to stay at home as though it didn't matter if the Tories got back in again.


----------



## articul8 (Mar 20, 2012)

The39thStep said:


> The point I am making is that Militant were pushed , they didn't leave of the own volition. Indeed below is the line that was argued in the appeal against expulsion:


which expulsions were these? The editorial committee of Militant or of ordinary members?

If you read Rob Sewell's account (from the Grant faction that argued against the open turn), Taaffe basically had the organisation commit hari kari by getting people high profile Militant supporters like Nellist openly campaigning against official Labour candidates in Liverpool - when that was obviously a green light for the hierarchy to expel them.

Taaffe argues that in retrospect they should have left at the time of the poll tax. Don't think the outcome would have been any different.


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## butchersapron (Mar 20, 2012)

Yet it's a model for you of how to retake labour in some bizarre world.


----------



## dynamicbaddog (Mar 20, 2012)

articul8 said:


> If you read Rob Sewell's account (from the Grant faction that argued against the open turn), Taaffe basically had the organisation commit hari kari by getting people high profile Militant supporters like Nellist openly campaigning against official Labour candidates in Liverpool - when that was obviously a green light for the hierarchy to expel them.
> 
> .


the Walton by election which Sewell describes as a 'key factor in the demise of the Militant'
http://www.marxist.com/walton-by-election-twenty-years-on.htm


----------



## ayatollah (Mar 20, 2012)

JHE said:


> They didn't really have much option but to pack up their tent. They were being thrown out. (The loyal Grantites tried to remain in the Labour Party, but you'd need a microscope to find that sectlet, so no one is too bothered by them.)
> 
> Where is this "more worthwhile political work" they have done since the end of their (long) period of entrism? There may not be many Socialist Party people left who were members of Militant in the days of entrism, but the few who are left must look back very wistfully on their group's glory days. There was a time when people thought the Militant mattered! It was 'going from strength to strength', as they never tired of telling us. What is the little Socialist Party now? Diddly squat!


 
Yep the radical Left is in a poor state. Yes the initiatives of the radical Left are up to now having little or no impact on the bosses' austerity offensive, Nevertheless I still think the Socialist Party (and SWP) are  spending their members time better on initiatives like the TUSC initiative than on endless "expose the leadership" , "try and turn the LP leftwards"  campaigns from within the corpse of NuLabour. Only a matter of degree at present, but still more worthwhile.  Saying (correctly) that the radical Left is laughably crappily small, on its own, takes us where though ?   Sit in the pub and moan... or at least consider the possibility that these many laughably small grouplets could with the right united front approaches to the ever deepening economic crisis, gain a much more significant political weight in the years to come. I don't know if the UK Left can pull itself out of its sectarian mire either, but I think the outcome is more open than the inveterate pessimists on this forum insist is the case.


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## JHE (Mar 20, 2012)

articul8 said:


> which expulsions were these? The editorial committee of Militant or of ordinary members?
> 
> If you read Rob Sewell's account (from the Grant faction that argued against the open turn), Taaffe basically had the organisation commit hari kari by getting people high profile Militant supporters like Nellist openly campaigning against official Labour candidates in Liverpool - when that was obviously a green light for the hierarchy to expel them.


 
I haven't read Sewell's account or any other Milly's account, but I think that the very public expulsions of leaders of the Militant and the expectation that the LP would continue with expulsions must have made it virtually impossible for the Millies to carry on as before in the LP.  They would no longer be seen as legitimate LP members promoting their left-wing policies, but as people who had no right to be in the party at all.  What were they to do?  Give up flogging their beloved weekly rag and give up saying anything that was recognisably Milly?  Unsurprisingly, they decided the time had come to leave.  Also unsurprisingly, they (i) massively overestimated their ability to attract support as an independent party and (ii) invented a spurious 'theoretical' justification, claiming the LP had been but was no longer a workers' party.


----------



## The39thStep (Mar 20, 2012)

articul8 said:


> which expulsions were these? The editorial committee of Militant or of ordinary members?
> 
> If you read Rob Sewell's account (from the Grant faction that argued against the open turn), Taaffe basically had the organisation commit hari kari by getting people high profile Militant supporters like Nellist openly campaigning against official Labour candidates in Liverpool - when that was obviously a green light for the hierarchy to expel them.
> 
> Taaffe argues that in retrospect they should have left at the time of the poll tax. Don't think the outcome would have been any different.


 
Editorial Board.

There was a very strong rumour that Hatton wanted to split from the labour Party during the Liverpool Council period but Taaffe and Grant argued that this would mean that those joining the Labour Party would no longer come across  'the best fighters'!


----------



## articul8 (Mar 20, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Yet it's a model for you of how to retake labour in some bizarre world.


I think if you took the best aspects of the Militant tradition, and stripped away the sectarianism and dogmatism there are worse places to look in terms of historical examples.  I'd want to see 1) more of an openness to the left and social movements outside the party 2) more of a willingness to work in genuine broad lefts and 3) no repeat of the fixation with nationalising the top "x" companies


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## The39thStep (Mar 20, 2012)

dynamicbaddog said:


> the Walton by election which Sewell describes as a 'key factor in the demise of the Militant'
> http://www.marxist.com/walton-by-election-twenty-years-on.htm


“2,600 votes for Socialism!”


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## The39thStep (Mar 20, 2012)

articul8 said:


> I think if you took the best aspects of the Militant tradition,* and stripped away the sectarianism and dogmatism* there are worse places to look in terms of historical examples. I'd want to see 1) more of an openness to the left and social movements outside the party 2) more of a willingness to work in genuine broad lefts and 3) no repeat of the fixation with nationalising the top "x" companies


 
You would remove every last bit of Nigel Irritable's 'personality'  if you did that


----------



## articul8 (Mar 20, 2012)

dynamicbaddog said:


> the Walton by election which Sewell describes as a 'key factor in the demise of the Militant'
> http://www.marxist.com/walton-by-election-twenty-years-on.htm


 
That is a shockingly piece though in other respects


> ​The argument about the mood of the rank and file in Liverpool was equally false. *Since when do Marxists allow their strategy and tactics to be determined by the ephemeral moods of the rank and file? It is our duty to patiently explain and convince the activists of the right course of action, not to pander to their prejudices.*​


​


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Mar 20, 2012)

patiently explain


----------



## Captain Hurrah (Mar 20, 2012)




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## articul8 (Mar 20, 2012)

if it weren't for those pesky rank-and-file and their moody prejudices


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## The39thStep (Mar 20, 2012)

Spanky Longhorn said:


> patiently explain


 role of the Party etc


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 20, 2012)

> "OK you're voting Labour but what do you want Labour to do? What kind of priorities do you want your political representatives to put forward?" - etc and then explain that present institutional balance of forces in the party is certain to see the party fall short, at the very least, but that by working with others inside and outside the party we can contest the inevitability of that.


 
...or patiently explain why the party is shit and so you should join and vote for it. An odd twist i have to say.


----------



## The39thStep (Mar 20, 2012)

articul8 said:


> That is a shockingly piece though in other respects
> ​


 
The SP result quoted for the Council elections in Liverpool last year takes a bit of explaining .I was recently informed that the SP were a 'bigger group'



> Liverpool County (where Roger Bannister stood) – 78 votes (Labour got 2,330 votes)
> Liverpool Riverside – 88 votes (Labour: 2,836)
> Liverpool Princes Park – 104 votes (Labour: 2,263)
> Liverpool Old Swan – 74 votes (Labour: 2,689)
> ...


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## savoloysam (Mar 20, 2012)

If chuka changed his name to Jon Jones, he'd have a good chance. He could go around saying hey just call me Jon.


----------



## audiotech (Mar 20, 2012)

stuff_it said:


> Because he isn't a blackbelt in judo and doesn't hunt bears?


 
I'm pretty certain he will posses a black belt to hold his trousers up. Doesn't bear thinking about really.


----------



## articul8 (Mar 20, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> ...or patiently explain why the party is shit and so you should join and vote for it. An odd twist i have to say.


  The reason people will vote Labour is because it is the only option that allows them to punish the Coalition.  Given that we know this, why wouldn't people want to try to shape what direction a Labour government takes - whether by joining the party and fighting from inside or by other means?  No patient explanation involved here


----------



## JHE (Mar 20, 2012)

articul8 said:


> The reason people will vote Labour is because it is the only option that allows them to punish the Coalition. Given that we know this, why wouldn't people want to try to shape what direction a Labour government takes - whether by joining the party and fighting from inside or by other means? No patient explanation involved here


 
The reason people vote Labour is that they believe (correctly, IMO) that a Labour govt will be less bad in certain important respects than a Tory govt. For example, many of us voted Labour in 2010 because we thought the continuation of a Brown-led govt would be less vicious in its cuts than a Cameron-led govt. Abstentionists, I suppose, genuinely believe Brown/Darling/Balls would have been every bit as bad as Cameron/Osborne/Clegg.

Joining Labour to have influence, though, is another matter. I wish you good luck (I'm assuming that at least much of the influence you would like to have would be good), but I'm amazed that you think you will have any influence over the policies of a future Labour govt. If you can, via your ward party and local councillors, have a slight influence over the placing of the new zebra crossing or the timetable for the bins to be emptied in your neighbourhood, you'll be doing well.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 20, 2012)

articul8 said:


> The reason people will vote Labour is because it is the only option that allows them to punish the Coalition. Given that we know this, why wouldn't people want to try to shape what direction a Labour government takes - whether by joining the party and fighting from inside or by other means? No patient explanation involved here


Why wouldn't they?


----------



## articul8 (Mar 20, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Why wouldn't they?


that's what I'm asking...?


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 20, 2012)

Why _don't_ they then if the question was too hard.


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## articul8 (Mar 20, 2012)

Well the membership is beginning to rise, and people also try to influence policy through their other institutional allegiances - charities, public services etc are looking to a Labour government to offer some kind of alternative


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 20, 2012)

What are the membership rise figures? They doubled under Blair - did this empower the ordinary members (if you buy this idiocy that they're really left wing) or did that allow the party to centralise and control all policy making decisions? I'll try not to pity your last line.


----------



## articul8 (Mar 20, 2012)

I'm not making any great claim about that (though the line that support/membership is haemhoraging is false) - as for the last line - even PCS, RMT etc want to try to influence the programme of an incoming Labour government - even if they are realistic enough to understand the odds are stacked against them.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 20, 2012)

I'll ask again then what are the membership rise figures?  Why did you point them out? What did you think that they indicated?

That people who generally support labour support labour and don't want them to commit to neo-liberalism that effects them is not the newest of news.


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

They are marginal, not worth mentioning other than to nail the myth there is some ongoing exodus from the membership.  There isn't.


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> They are marginal, not worth mentioning other than to nail the myth there is some ongoing exodus from the membership. There isn't.


 
You are correct. There is some churn but it overall levels seem fairly static from what I can see.

The real issue is that there is no organised left of any real weight within the party - most members who are critical of the party's structures and current leadership and policies do not seem to be particularly leftwing or militant from what I can see.

The only likely coherent and organised challange to the Progress group that might emerge is the rumoured elements around Owen Jones and some union types who may be launching something soon - that cannot be any more than a bureaucratic centre-left dominated tendency (a mixture of well meaning democratic socialists and social democrats and a few careerists a bit like the old Labour party) that may act as a small influence on the odd thing. Although they will possibly be able to muster considerable financial resources they will have to compete with Progress/M4C (who also have serious influence in the Coop Party and Fabians as well) who have a very good programme of training for organisers and candidates and are well on their way to colonising the entire Labour party.


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

Yes I think this is largely right, although I'd be more hopeful that some kind of UNITE based drive to consolidate a serious counter-weight to the likes of Progress/Labour First could see at least some evolve in a more consistent left direction.   The LRC really isn't geared up to internal organising - which is partly an advantage since it's right to prioritise linking up with the broad anti-cuts movement and direct action groups.


----------



## dynamicbaddog (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> The LRC really isn't geared up to internal organising - which is partly an advantage since it's right to prioritise linking up with the broad anti-cuts movement and direct action groups.


actually you're wrong there, previously the LRC has been slow off the mark but it's now getting it's act together. This month alone In the Greater London area we've had 2 successful public meetings, and last night launched a new South London branch. And we are looking at strengthening our links with those unions that are affiliated to us.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

dynamicbaddog said:


> actually you're wrong there, previously the LRC has been slow off the mark but it's now getting it's act together. This month alone In the Greater London area we've had 2 successful public meetings, and last night launched a new South London branch. And we are looking at strengthening our links with those unions that are affilicted to us.


Freud much?


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

"afflicted to us" -


----------



## dynamicbaddog (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> "afflicted to us" -


 
fucking spell checker


----------



## ViolentPanda (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> Entryist challenges can take different forms. New Labour itself was a sort of entryism. One that has left in its wake a constituency of people who understand that Labour is highly unlikely to deliver what they want from it, but nevertheless see no better option available and still feel a residual commitment to supporting Labour at least as they think it ought to be.


 
You really do have no sense of shame, do you?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Mar 21, 2012)

DotCommunist said:


> milipede and the putin should compare pecks to see who is the real man


 
I can just imagine the Russian Putinist media: "Vladimir uses his to drive 6-inch nails into hardward, Miliband cannot even use his to push drawing pins into a cork-board, it is so small and soft, like baby meerkat".


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> Yes I think this is largely right, although I'd be more hopeful that some kind of UNITE based drive to consolidate a serious counter-weight to the likes of Progress/Labour First could see at least some evolve in a more consistent left direction. The LRC really isn't geared up to internal organising - which is partly an advantage since it's right to prioritise linking up with the broad anti-cuts movement and direct action groups.


 
OK so how does that square with your approach?


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

Spanky Longhorn said:


> OK so how does that square with your approach?


It suggests it's going to be bloody hard work.  I've never thought otherwise.   The Labour left - like the left in general - has a responsibility to rethink its methods (I wasn't suggesting Militant Mk II but a more strategically foresighted sort of entryism) and start getting its act together.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

> (I wasn't suggesting Militant Mk II but a more strategically foresighted sort of entryism)




Twat.


----------



## frogwoman (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> It suggests it's going to be bloody hard work. I've never thought otherwise. The Labour left - like the left in general - has a responsibility to rethink its methods (I wasn't suggesting Militant Mk II but a more strategically foresighted sort of entryism) and start getting its act together.


 
what does that mean? what would be more strategically foresighted?

as i said, i'm undecided whether it was the right decision to go into the LP in the first place, so not necessarily defending that, but what in your view would make entryist tactics any more "foresighted" especially now?

you're not a twat but i find the stuff you come out with unbelievable, do you honestly think the LRC etc will or even could manage to get the labour party to the left no matter how foresighted they are? do you honestly believe this?


----------



## Santino (Mar 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Freud much?


It was just a typo. We all make mistakes like penis.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> It suggests it's going to be bloody hard work. I've never thought otherwise. The Labour left - like the left in general - has a responsibility to rethink its methods (I wasn't suggesting Militant Mk II but a more strategically foresighted sort of entryism) and start getting its act together.


The first rule of modern foresighted proper entryism club is to talk about modern foresighted proper entryism club.


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## frogwoman (Mar 21, 2012)

yeh if you want to do entryism the first thing you do is tell everyone


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## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> It suggests it's going to be bloody hard work. I've never thought otherwise. The Labour left - like the left in general - has a responsibility to rethink its methods (I wasn't suggesting Militant Mk II but a more strategically foresighted sort of entryism) and start getting its act together.


 
By fucking who? Where are your batallions?


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> It suggests it's going to be bloody hard work. I've never thought otherwise. The Labour left - like the left in general - has a responsibility to rethink its methods (I wasn't suggesting Militant Mk II but a more strategically foresighted sort of entryism) and start getting its act together.


Are you a member of the secretive wheel?


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> i find the stuff you come out with unbelievable, do you honestly think the LRC etc will or even could manage to get the labour party to the left no matter how foresighted they are? do you honestly believe this?


 
I think it's conceivable that the LRC could grow (indeed it is growing, albeit from a low base) and use its position to advance the case for a socialist alternative - and provoke a wider debate about the political direction of the party, and build links with (for eg.) the Unite community branches, UK uncut, right to work.

I don't see this leading to the bureaucracy being swept away overnight, or storming of the winter palace etc.   But at least it would be some pressure from within the strategically central political space - and give the left a firmer basis for any subsequent realignment.   (Do you really believe a new workers party is just around the corner? Or that TUSC's 2000 votes for socialism will be the platform to build it?)

You can laugh at calling this  foresighted entryism I don't much care.  Another way of putting it would be to say acting like open socialist in the Labour party prepared to build alliances with other relevant forces.  Unlike, say giving obvious pretexts for expelling everyone at a stroke, not pissing off at least half of your potential allies with your dogmatic sectarianism, not insisting that everything that happens outside of Labour is just irrelevant etc. etc.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

> You can laugh at calling this foresighted entryism I don't much care. Another way of putting it would be to say acting like open socialist in the Labour party prepared to build alliances with other relevant forces


 
So another way of saying it is the opposite of entryism.

Have a day off.


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Mar 21, 2012)

exitism?


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

_Join us in leaving the party. Don't forget to join first though! Then leave._


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> You can laugh at calling this foresighted entryism I don't much care. Another way of putting it would be to say acting like open socialist in the Labour party prepared to build alliances with other relevant forces. Unlike, say giving obvious pretexts for expelling everyone at a stroke, not pissing off at least half of your potential allies with your dogmatic sectarianism, not insisting that everything that happens outside of Labour is just irrelevant etc. etc.


 
What forces?


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

How is it?


----------



## frogwoman (Mar 21, 2012)

> (Do you really believe a new workers party is just around the corner?


 
yes. i do actually - i didn't before but i think its only a matter of time. the doctors standing on a pro NHS platform for example - thats not nothing.




> Or that TUSC's 2000 votes for socialism will be the platform to build it?)


 
No idea if TUSC (or whatever it becomes) will be that party. I think TUSC is important though even if only to show that various groups like the swp and sp can work together without sectarian crap (that was actually one of the positive parts of the meeting we had last night)


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> How is it?


Who are you replying to doc?


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

> the opposite of entryism


How is it?


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> How is it?


 
How are you and the LRC going to promote genuine socialism within Labour in a way which people listen to?


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> How is it?


An open declaration of principles and a comittment to organise around them is pretty much the opposite of entryism. Is it not? Entryism being based on subterfuge and hiddenicity.


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> What forces?


as I said, things like right to work, UK uncut, anti-war movement, climate activists, etc.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> as I said, things like right to work, UK uncut, anti-war movement, climate activists, etc.


And as i said, what forces? Where are your battalions?


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Mar 21, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> *yes. i do actually* - i didn't before but i think its only a matter of time. the doctors standing on a pro NHS platform for example - thats not nothing.


 
Really?!!?

Based on what?

Now the Drs are an interesting lot, but based on past experience why do you think a broad electoral challenge by them will have any real impact?


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> An open declaration of principles and a comittment to organise around them is pretty much the opposite of entryism. Is it not? Entryism being based on subterfuge and hiddenicity.


Well there'd be limits to the extent that you spelt out the consequences of those principles obviously.  You'd have to argue that socialist aims could be furthered within the framework of (bourgeois) parliamentary democracy and that what you were saying was compatible with the philosophy of the party - without actually accepting that as the ultimate horizon.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> Well there'd be limits to the extent that you spelt out the consequences of those principles obviously. You'd have to argue that socialist aims could be furthered within the framework of (bourgeois) parliamentary democracy and that what you were saying was compatible with the philosophy of the party - without actually accepting that as the ultimate horizon.


So you agree that this is the opposite of entryism in then ralph?


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> And as i said, what forces? Where are your battalions?


well the whole concept presupposes an ability to build those forces and that the arguments will be able to resonate and mobilise people.  There's no hope for any of us if we don't succeed in building that broader base of support.


----------



## belboid (Mar 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> An open declaration of principles and a comittment to organise around them is pretty much the opposite of entryism. Is it not? Entryism being based on subterfuge and hiddenicity.


the Labour Party constitution makes that true, but it isn't always - the Workers Party in Brazil allows 'open' entryism. I'm hard pressed to think of another example tho.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> Well there'd be limits to the extent that you spelt out the consequences of those principles obviously. You'd have to argue that socialist aims could be furthered within the framework of (bourgeois) parliamentary democracy and that what you were saying was compatible with the philosophy of the party - without actually accepting that as the ultimate horizon.


Of course. Of course.


----------



## frogwoman (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> You can laugh at calling this foresighted entryism I don't much care. Another way of putting it would be to say acting like open socialist in the Labour party prepared to build alliances with other relevant forces. Unlike, say giving obvious pretexts for expelling everyone at a stroke, not pissing off at least half of your potential allies with your dogmatic sectarianism, not insisting that everything that happens outside of Labour is just irrelevant etc. etc.


 
all those things are things that the SP have learnt from and don't do now (or don't do nearly to the same extent). I wasn't even born then when all that was going on so I can't comment on what it was like, but what you say doesn't match my experiences of what goes on now at all in the SP. And is what you're saying not basically the same, saying you can't ignore the labour party, that there can't be a new workers' party etc, is it not basically the same even if the sectarianism is more subtle, even if you dont "go on about nationalising the top 150 companies" or the other mistakes you said militant made earlier. 

and as far as i can tell Compass etc don't go on about nationalising 150 companies or nationalising anything else for that matter, they don't seem to have very many views at all and often want to just get themselves in the media, I quite like the fact that the SP still says that actually.


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> So you agree that this is the opposite of entryism in then ralph?


No - it's entryism to the extent that you are organising both within and independently from the host organisation, and that that entails limits on what can and can't be said openly.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

belboid said:


> the Labour Party constitution makes that triue, but it isn't always - the Workers Party in Brazil allows 'open' entryism. I'm hard pressed to think of another example tho.


And that's probably just a mistranslation of factions. Based on my massive understanding of both the language and political history of the party.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> No - it's entryism to the extent that you are organising both within and independently from the host organisation, and that that entails limits on what can and can't be said openly.


You don't actually know what entryism is do you? Do you think caucus' are example of entryism?


----------



## ayatollah (Mar 21, 2012)

Spanky Longhorn said:


> Really?!!?
> 
> Based on what?
> 
> Now the Drs are an interesting lot, but based on past experience why do you think a broad electoral challenge by them will have any real impact?


 
Time then surely, Spanky, given that you've consistently rubbished everybody else's ideas for building the fightback, to explicate a bit about YOUR route to a consistent fightback ?

I agree with Frogwoman by the way that TUSC is an encouraging development on the Left. Yes it could implode in a poisonous cloud of infighting - BUT at present is is an exemplar of the way to go for the Left - no matter how small and pathetic it looks in the context of the fight ahead.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

Tell us more about the content of this overt covert activity though articul8.


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Mar 21, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> and as far as i can tell Compass etc don't go on about nationalising 150 companies or nationalising anything else for that matter, they don't seem to have very many views at all and often want to just get themselves in the media, I quite like the fact that the SP still says that actually.


 
I wonder if articul8 got his application form in for the new national coordinator job in Compass?


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Mar 21, 2012)

ayatollah said:


> Time then surely, Spanky, given that you've consistently rubbished everybody else's ideas
> .


 
Please show where I have rubbished everyone else's ideas.


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> yes. i do actually - i didn't before but i think its only a matter of time.


 How long are we going to wait? as Keynes said in the long run we're all dead. 



> the doctors standing on a pro NHS platform for example - thats not nothing.


I'm sceptical about whether this will actually happen.  I think you might have someone up against Lansley on this basis, but I can't see it being more widespread - especially now Burnham has said Labour will repeal it.  




> No idea if TUSC (or whatever it becomes) will be that party. I think TUSC is important though even if only to show that various groups like the swp and sp can work together without sectarian crap (that was actually one of the positive parts of the meeting we had last night)


 
I don't want to belittle TUSC and these kind of initiatives - I'll probably vote for them on the list side as it goes anyway (I couldn't admit to this btw or I'd be expelled!)  But I don't see how they're picking up any momentum (in fact the number of failed putative new workers formations is getting embarrassing).


----------



## frogwoman (Mar 21, 2012)

Spanky Longhorn said:


> Really?!!?
> 
> Based on what?
> 
> Now the Drs are an interesting lot, but based on past experience why do you think a broad electoral challenge by them will have any real impact?


 
yeah, not saying it will be immediate but i think it's a lot closer now than say it was 5 years ago. Also there is loads of public sympathy for the NHS and loads of people who would be prepared to vote for a party that's not labour on that basis. I think huge numbers of people are completely disaffected from Labour, even their "natural" supporters (like in the trades council which was just set up here there are about 25 shop stewards and i think only one or two is a member of the labour party).

im not saying tusc will definitely be that party but i think to be honest it's only a matter of time before we get a new party.

I think it will have a big impact because of the huge public sympathy, previously campaigns on the NHS etc have been limited because they were just single issue campaigns, but there are a huge amount of people who are really fucking angry about everything.

i'm prepared to say i might be wrong (and you know i might be, i don't know whether or not it will be effective and whether or not it manages to do anything is another matter, it might just be that there's no point in us doing all of this ... any of this)


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

Spanky Longhorn said:


> I wonder if articul8 got his application form in for the new national coordinator job in Compass?


Not for me - Compass has been about as inspiring as a bucket of cold sick.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

ayatollah said:


> Time then surely, Spanky, given that you've consistently rubbished everybody else's ideas for building the fightback, to explicate a bit about YOUR route to a consistent fightback ?
> 
> I agree with Frogwoman by the way that TUSC is an encouraging development on the Left. Yes it could implode in a poisonous cloud of infighting - BUT at present is is an exemplar of the way to go for the Left - no matter how small and pathetic it looks in the context of the fight ahead.


Not to be funny but your own practical proposals aren't exactly detailed are they? Consisting mainly of appeals for the left to work together, some kondratiev crap and oh no the fascists are coming.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> Not for me - Compass has been about as inspiring as a bucket of cold sick.


How a year changes things eh?


----------



## frogwoman (Mar 21, 2012)

Sorry, probably not explaining myself very well. I mean rather than it being in a small area like say Kidderminster Health Concern (I think) this has the potential to link up with other groups around the country and also trade unions etc. I'm not saying it will be immediate but i would say it's only a matter of time before it happens, and also the fact that loads of SOS groups are standing anti cuts candidates. 

I think one of the biggest dangers is it ending up the same as the Labour Party did and I'm not sure how you'd prevent that.


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> You don't actually know what entryism is do you? Do you think caucus' are example of entryism?


Entryism, as I understand it, is a broad tactical orientation.  It can operate on a fairly open basis where conditions allow, or on a deep "hidden" basis (like Socialist Action).  Militant was kind of in between, in that it had to disavow operating as a party, but it was an open secret - wasn't it?  It's not like it hid itself away.


----------



## Balbi (Mar 21, 2012)

Ed did himself no harm today, the dogs of leadership war stay sound asleep.


----------



## frogwoman (Mar 21, 2012)

I don't believe people have such short memories that they don't remember that it was actually Labour that started this NHS stuff with PFI etc. Who the fuck is gonna believe them? That's why I think that we could get a new party. What happens after that is anyone's guess


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

So not at all like your strategy of all the nice socialists being nice together. I genuinely didn't think that you could get more fuck-witted than last week, but you never disappoint do you?


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> Entryism, as I understand it, is a broad tactical orientation. It can operate on a fairly open basis where conditions allow, or on a deep "hidden" basis (like Socialist Action). Militant was kind of in between, in that it had to disavow operating as a party, but it was an open secret - wasn't it? It's not like it hid itself away.


 
On what strategical basis - secret entry into another party. Listen to Haston here. FFs


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

Balbi said:


> Ed did himself no harm today, the dogs of leadership war stay sound asleep.


In terms of what these cunts can do he did it very well.


----------



## audiotech (Mar 21, 2012)

Balbi said:


> Ed did himself no harm today, the dogs of leadership war stay sound asleep.


 
Well, the Guardian ICM poll taken on March 18 gives the tories a 3% lead over Labour, so it can't get much worse can it?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2009/oct/21/icm-poll-data-labour-conservatives


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> So not at all like your strategy of all the nice socialists being nice together.


wtf are you wittering on about?  It's perfectly possible to a) maintain a discrete but aligned presence in the Labour party and b) work together with other forces within the limits that a) imposes (ie. like not supporting opposing candidates)


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

The one taken _since_ then give labour an 8 point lead.


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> On what strategical basis - secret entry into another party. Listen to Haston here. FFs


 
entryism doesn't always have to be secret.  That's just one form it *can* take.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> wtf are you wittering on about? It's perfectly possible to a) maintain a discrete but aligned presence in the Labour party and b) work together with other forces within the limits that a) imposes (ie. like not supporting opposing candidates)


So not fucking entryism then is it?


----------



## frogwoman (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> How long are we going to wait? as Keynes said in the long run we're all dead.
> 
> 
> I'm sceptical about whether this will actually happen. I think you might have someone up against Lansley on this basis, but I can't see it being more widespread - especially now Burnham has said Labour will repeal it.
> ...


 
I dont think people will be fooled by that. It was your party that started PFI


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> entryism doesn't always have to be secret. That's just one form it *can* take.


Yes, it can be overtly covert, a known unknown.

Has a8 been reading his little book of 30s-50s trots relationships to the bigger parties and then mechanically applying those conditions to today? Yes, yes he has.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> entryism doesn't always have to be secret. That's just one form it *can* take.


Progressive cuts. Public secrecy. Open entryism.


----------



## ayatollah (Mar 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Not to be funny but your own practical proposals aren't exactly detailed are they? Consisting mainly of appeals for the left to work together, some kondratiev crap and oh no the fascists are coming.


 
Harsh, but not entirely untrue, butchersapron. (Though my past  analysis of the BNP's inevitable collapse into infighting, rather than unstoppable growth ,proved much more accurate than yours . but that's a subject for another thread). And "capitalist Long Wave Theory" isn't "crap" matey... its happening.. NOW... FEEL that  crisis , Butchers, NOT just a short, cyclical mini-blip is it . Maybe you should read up on it a bit more!

 However,  I've said I think the TUSC initiative is a good way forward for the radical Left, and continued  Leftist/socialist agitation/entryism into the LP is a waste of time - and argued long and hard on a number of threads for the relevance of the socialist way forward against those you who have given up on it entirely.

SO, I ask again , what's YOUR strategy to build the fightback, beyond just rubbishing the Left generally ?


----------



## Balbi (Mar 21, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> I dont think people will be fooled by that. It was your party that started PFI



Expanded, yes but not started. Dartford crossing was, in 89 - 90. I think a Labour Party that shuns further PFI and hits Tories on the reforms of welfare and the nhs, tax breaks on the rich while making it harder for the poor - they're electable. But because there isnt an organised alternative on a large enough scale.


----------



## audiotech (Mar 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> The one taken _since_ then give labour an 8 point lead.


 
Fascinating, where is it?


----------



## frogwoman (Mar 21, 2012)

Balbi said:


> Expanded, yes but not started. Dartford crossing was, in 89 - 90. I think a Labour Party that shuns further PFI and hits Tories on the reforms of welfare and the nhs, tax breaks on the rich while making it harder for the poor - they're electable. But because there isnt an organised alternative on a large enough scale.


 
It wont happen though. Did you see that ex blair's adviser labour lord saying last night about how the NHS bill was confused because there wasn't enough privatisation in it it was _too _centrally controlled? that's the type of party the labour party is now.


----------



## Balbi (Mar 21, 2012)

audiotech said:


> Fascinating, where is it?



All are here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election


----------



## Balbi (Mar 21, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> It wont happen though. Did you see that ex blair's adviser labour lord saying last night about how the NHS bill was confused because there wasn't enough privatisation in it it was _too _centrally controlled? that's the type of party the labour party is now.



Oh, it wont happen - but people will vote Labour again.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

audiotech said:


> Fascinating, where is it?


I am Ra.

here


----------



## audiotech (Mar 21, 2012)

Balbi said:


> All are here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election


 
Nothing beyond March 18 there and no 8 point lead for Labour as far as I can see?


----------



## audiotech (Mar 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> I am Ra.
> 
> here


 
You're what?


----------



## killer b (Mar 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> In terms of what these cunts can do he did it very well.


He generally does imo. I'm not a regular viewer of PMsQs, but when I have seen it he's generally been very good. Baffled why so many people would essentially collude with the blairite smears of him being weak & useless.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

audiotech said:


> You're what?


I am Ra

Ra.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

killer b said:


> He generally does imo. I'm not a regular viewer of PMsQs, but when I have seen it he's generally been very good. Baffled why so many people would essentially collude with the blairite smears of him being weak & useless.


He's an excellent politician - he suffers from Hague syndrome - i.e other politicians and media types think he shouldn't be there.


----------



## audiotech (Mar 21, 2012)

It's like pulling teeth. You're what?


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

Ra


----------



## audiotech (Mar 21, 2012)

Nice pic. Labour majority of 20 projected?


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> It wont happen though. Did you see that ex blair's adviser labour lord saying last night about how the NHS bill was confused because there wasn't enough privatisation in it it was _too _centrally controlled? that's the type of party the labour party is now.


No it's not - there has been massive opposition to the NHS bill within the party and the unions (UNITE have been very good - UNISON a bit less so).
OK there are some twats that are probably paid by private medical companies to come out with shit like the above.  But they are very much on the back foot now.  

I don't see how this vision of independent pro-NHS candidates in every ward will be realised.   It's one thing to vote for a single issue candidate when on a highly localised basis.  But I don't see how a national slate of candidates would work at a general election - people want to have their say on the NHS yes, but they want candidates to represent them on a whole range of issues.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

Look, he's shitting it already -_ it might hurt labour_. Who said in every ward? You did. Everyone else said targeting vulnerable seats.


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Progressive cuts. Public secrecy. Open entryism.


 
Dalmations have spots.  All dalmations are dogs.  All dogs have spots.


----------



## audiotech (Mar 21, 2012)

YouGov.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> Dalmations have spots. All dalmations are dogs. All dogs have spots.


That's not very useful. At least you didn't bother with hegel and cows this time.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

audiotech said:


> YouGov.


I look forward to your criticism of their methods. Can you summarise it here?


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Who said in every ward?


 
You did!:
http://www.urban75.net/forums/threa...and-spread-widely.289598/page-5#post-11015366



> You need to have an pro-NHS candidate. Every single ward does


 
oops


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> You did!:
> http://www.urban75.net/forums/threa...and-spread-widely.289598/page-5#post-11015366


Every single ward does - doesn't it?


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

does what?


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Mar 21, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> I dont think people will be fooled by that. It was your party that started PFI


 
That won't stop people (in general rather than individuals) voting for Labour though in the absence of any credible vision of an alternative and how to get there - a handful of angry doctors and an almost invisible alphabet soup "party" with no existence between elections and no real identifiable roots in communities do not provide it unfortunately.

To come back to your earlier point as well about TUSC being a good start - it is no different from what I can see of it (very little) to the Socialist Alliance at it's peak except the SA was much bigger and briefly prior to the 2001 election did have serious numbers of the then remaining Labour left and others in TU's and campaigning groups watching it with interest, immeadiatly extinguished by pisspoor election results, and the takeover by the SWP and walkout by the SP.

Good luck to you but...


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> does what?


"need to have an pro-NHS candidate" - you just directed me to the post ffs. Did you bother reading it?

Do you disagree?


----------



## Hocus Eye. (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> No it's not - there has been massive opposition to the NHS bill within the party and the unions (UNITE have been very good - UNISON a bit less so).
> OK there are some twats that are probably paid by private medical companies to come out with shit like the above. But they are very much on the back foot now.
> 
> I don't see how this vision of independent pro-NHS candidates in every ward will be realised. It's one thing to vote for a single issue candidate when on a highly localised basis. But I don't see how a national slate of candidates would work at a general election - people want to have their say on the NHS yes, but they want candidates to represent them on a whole range of issues.


 
If the NHS "reforms" are to be opposed then it is not the Labour Party that can be trusted to do it. They began the process of privatisation that the Tories have stepped up. The proposed candidates to stand on the NHS issue are medics, and it is not likely that they will stand 'as a national slate'. They seem to be based in Devon and Cornwall currently and will target particular seats across the country where the sitting MP is vulnerable and guilty of involvement in the destruction of the NHS I don't think they expect to get elected, merely to split the vote and so bring down the offending candidate. As a technique of protest and a means of publicising the issue it strikes me as a good one. Albeit that by the time of the next election there will be little left of the NHS.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Mar 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> What forces?


 
The Fabian brigade of the Reformist division.


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Mar 21, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> The Fabian brigade of the Reformist division.


 
armchair Roman general?


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Mar 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> That's not very useful. At least you didn't bother with hegel and cows this time.


 
Hegel has cows, Hegel is a man, all men have cows?


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

Spanky Longhorn said:


> Hegel has cows, Hegel is a man, all men have cows?


A8 is a culchie


----------



## ViolentPanda (Mar 21, 2012)

ayatollah said:


> Time then surely, Spanky, given that you've consistently rubbished everybody else's ideas for building the fightback, to explicate a bit about YOUR route to a consistent fightback ?


 
I think it has something to do with halberds, hempen rope and lamp-posts, but I may be wrong.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Mar 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> How a year changes things eh?


 
Compass are the *old* best thing since sliced bread, not the *new*, silly!


----------



## ViolentPanda (Mar 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Progressive cuts. Public secrecy. Open entryism.


 
New Labour.


----------



## frogwoman (Mar 21, 2012)

Spanky Longhorn said:


> That won't stop people (in general rather than individuals) voting for Labour though in the absence of any credible vision of an alternative and how to get there - a handful of angry doctors and an almost invisible alphabet soup "party" with no existence between elections and no real identifiable roots in communities do not provide it unfortunately.
> 
> To come back to your earlier point as well about TUSC being a good start - it is no different from what I can see of it (very little) to the Socialist Alliance at it's peak except the SA was much bigger and briefly prior to the 2001 election did have serious numbers of the then remaining Labour left and others in TU's and campaigning groups watching it with interest, immeadiatly extinguished by pisspoor election results, and the takeover by the SWP and walkout by the SP.
> 
> Good luck to you but...


 
maybe you're right mate. i don't know. i feel really fucking powerless about all this at the mo so i am just hoping something good will come out of all of this.


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> "need to have an pro-NHS candidate" - you just directed me to the post ffs. Did you bother reading it?
> 
> Do you disagree?


you've just said "who is saying a candidate should stand in every ward"? Followed by "every ward needs a candidate".


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> A8 is a culchie


 
culchie?


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> you've just said "who is saying a candidate should stand in every ward"? Followed by "every ward needs a candidate".


Every ward does.


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

ViolentPanda said:


> Compass are the *old* best thing since sliced bread, not the *new*, silly!


 
If you want to have a go, at least have a go about what I've said, not some fantasy position you're mistakenly attributing to me


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Mar 21, 2012)

NURSE!


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Mar 21, 2012)




----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

Hocus Eye. said:


> The proposed candidates to stand on the NHS issue are medics, and it is not likely that they will stand 'as a national slate'. They seem to be based in Devon and Cornwall currently and will target particular seats across the country where the sitting MP is vulnerable and guilty of involvement in the destruction of the NHS I don't think they expect to get elected, merely to split the vote and so bring down the offending candidate. As a technique of protest and a means of publicising the issue it strikes me as a good one. Albeit that by the time of the next election there will be little left of the NHS.


I've nothing against a well-targeted strategy that takes down people who deserve it.  Good luck to them.  I'd just be careful about the possibility of splitting the vote and letting incumbents off the hook by accident.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

vp said:
			
		

> Compass are the old best thing since sliced bread, not the new, silly!


 


articul8 said:


> If you want to have a go, at least have a go about what I've said, not some fantasy position you're mistakenly attributing to me


 



			
				guess who said:
			
		

> I don't count myself as a Compass member, but am in its general orbit as it least there's some attempt to rethink the role of the Labour party and its relation to the wider left.


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

yes, and?  I didn't say it was the "best thing since sliced bread", I said it evinced "some attempt" to rethink - what minimal promise it might have shown has not been fulfilled.  It's been singularly uninspired for a good while now.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

...and that you were in its orbit. That you gravitated towards them. That you politically gravitated towards something that you call shit that you compare to a cup of cold sick. I suppose this personal quest mirrors your wider _vote labour, we're shit and we're liars_ campaign though. Admirable consistency.


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 while we're on it could you please change your tagline, it reminds me of the div Quartz and his "quietly prospering" one.

Cheers.


----------



## frogwoman (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> No it's not - there has been massive opposition to the NHS bill within the party and the unions (UNITE have been very good - UNISON a bit less so).
> OK there are some twats that are probably paid by private medical companies to come out with shit like the above. But they are very much on the back foot now.
> 
> I don't see how this vision of independent pro-NHS candidates in every ward will be realised. It's one thing to vote for a single issue candidate when on a highly localised basis. But I don't see how a national slate of candidates would work at a general election - people want to have their say on the NHS yes, but they want candidates to represent them on a whole range of issues.


 
are they really? in what world can a party that can be "reclaimed" come out with its public representatives attacking the NHS bill_ from the right? _

And yes people want their MPs etc to represent them on lots of issues not just the NHS. But you cannot say, that because this is not currently happening on a large scale that it shouldn't happen, that there is no point in trying, etc. I'm not saying that TUSC will definitely become a new workers' party but is there no point in trying to build something up because it "might not work"?


----------



## ayatollah (Mar 21, 2012)

Sooooooooo... YET AGAIN, lots of pessimism from Butchers and Spanky...... and don't get me wrong.. there's lots to be pessimistic about... but, absolutely NOTHING in the way of any analysis or suggestion as to how wide-ranging action against the austerity offensive can be mobilised.

 Even saying "the route taken by the IWCA is the way forward" would be some contribution ... but you guys don't want to try and analyse that failure .. so fruitless pessimism and rubbishing of each and every Left initiative is the order of the day.

I couldn't give a toss what you say, obviously... but you seem to be depressing Frogwoman. Don't let em depress you Frogwoman ... there's everything still to play for. The NHS Bill could yet prove to be the Coalition's "Poll Tax Moment".


----------



## frogwoman (Mar 21, 2012)

Nah they ain't depressing me, they're sound. I'm depressing myself!  Got to keep on keeping on that's the only thing to do.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

ayatollah said:


> Sooooooooo... YET AGAIN, lots of pessimism from Butchers and Spanky...... and don't get me wrong.. there's lots to be pessimistic about... but, absolutely NOTHING in the way of any analysis or suggestion as to how wide-ranging action against the austerity offensive can be mobilised.
> 
> Even saying "the route taken by the IWCA is the way forward" would be some contribution ... but you guys don't want to try and analyse that failure .. so fruitless pessimism and rubbishing of each and every Left initiative is the order of the day.
> 
> I couldn't give a toss what you say, obviously... but you seem to be depressing Frogwoman. Don't let em depress you Frogwoman ... there's everything still to play for. The NHS Bill could yet prove to be the Coalition's "Poll Tax Moment".


What suggestions do you imagine that you've put forward? I notice that you've now appended a moan about lack of analysis to your earlier post about lack of solutions. I've offered plenty of analysis. You're simply wrong here. Saying the left needs to be helped is neither a solution nor an analysis.


----------



## ayatollah (Mar 21, 2012)

Right On Sister !


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Mar 21, 2012)

ayatollah said:


> Sooooooooo... YET AGAIN, lots of pessimism from Butchers and Spanky...... and don't get me wrong.. there's lots to be pessimistic about... but, absolutely NOTHING in the way of any analysis or suggestion as to how wide-ranging action against the austerity offensive can be mobilised.
> 
> Even saying "the route taken by the IWCA is the way forward" would be some contribution ... but you guys don't want to try and analyse that failure .. so fruitless pessimism and rubbishing of each and every Left initiative is the order of the day.
> 
> I couldn't give a toss what you say, obviously... but you seem to be depressing Frogwoman. Don't let em depress you Frogwoman ... there's everything still to play for. The NHS Bill could yet prove to be the Coalition's "Poll Tax Moment".


 
Magical thinking eh?

Why don't you have a go at frogwoman for depressing articul8?

also got any evidence of me "rubbishing" anyone flower?


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Mar 21, 2012)

ayatollah said:


> Right On Sister !


 
how patronising.


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> are they really? in what world can a party that can be "reclaimed" come out with its public representatives attacking the NHS bill_ from the right? _


 
Peers aren't "public representatives" technically - I think any MP who argued this would swiftly find themselves in hot water.



> And yes people want their MPs etc to represent them on lots of issues not just the NHS. But you cannot say, that because this is not currently happening on a large scale that it shouldn't happen, that there is no point in trying, etc. I'm not saying that TUSC will definitely become a new workers' party but is there no point in trying to build something up because it "might not work"?


 
I'm sympathetic to the reasons people would try - but after Militant Labour, SLP, Socialist Alliance, Respect, Left List, NO2EU, TUSC etc. you start to wonder whether this effort wouldn't be better directed elsewhere?


----------



## frogwoman (Mar 21, 2012)

to be honest, all the "depressing" thoughts people have said on here are all ones that have gone through my mind independently at one point or another (with a few more of my own). Got to keep plugging away.


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

Spanky Longhorn said:


> articul8 while we're on it could you please change your tagline, it reminds me of the div Quartz and his "quietly prospering" one.
> 
> Cheers.


yes will do - I'm relatively disgruntled now anyway


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Mar 21, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> to be honest, all the "depressing" thoughts people have said on here are all ones that have gone through my mind independently at one point or another (with a few more of my own). Got to keep plugging away.


 
But you're a young woman, surely you need experts like Ayatollah to tell you?


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> ...and that you were in its orbit. That you gravitated towards them.


All comparisons are odious (Hegel).


----------



## frogwoman (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> Peers aren't "public representatives" technically - I think any MP who argued this would swiftly find themselves in hot water.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm sympathetic to the reasons people would try - but after Militant Labour, SLP, Socialist Alliance, Respect, Left List, NO2EU, TUSC etc. you start to wonder whether this effort wouldn't be better directed elsewhere?


 
Yes they are! That is such a cop out!

And equally the same arguement could be made that after all the different groups that have been in or around the Labour Party, such as, Socialist Appeal, the AWL (bombing for socialism!), the LRC, Compass, George Galloway (who was kicked out of the Labour party) why don't we redirect our attentions elsewhere? I just cannot believe you actually think this stuff!


----------



## ayatollah (Mar 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> What suggestions do you imagine that you've put forward? I notice that you've now appended a moan about lack of analysis to your earlier post about lack of solutions. I've offered plenty of analysis. You're simply wrong here. Saying the left needs to be helped is neither a solution nor an analysis.


 
You obviously haven't read many of my posts ,across many threads, Butchers. I at least understand the underlying structural reasons for the current world economic crisis, and hold to a , pretty orthodox admittedly , analysis of the socialist potential to provide a solution.

Well, I've been reading your, and your group of (I assume... possibly wrongly) similar co-thinkers, for some time now across a number of threads and I genuinely haven't found anything but , "slag off the Left", and "it's all going to hell in a handbasket", negativity , in any post ....... quite amusing bitching at other posters .. yes... but analysis ?  and a statement as to what YOU are proposing should be done to combat the bosses' offensive .. no. And plenty of other posters have similarly challenged you to explicate YOUR position.. to NO avail.  Negativity and hostility to socialism isn't in itself a political philosophy or action plan.


----------



## frogwoman (Mar 21, 2012)

it isn't really butchers doing that any more tbf.


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Mar 21, 2012)

ayatollah said:


> You obviously haven't read many of my posts ,across many threads, Butchers. I at least understand the underlying structural reasons for the current world economic crisis, and hold to a , pretty orthodox admittedly , analysis of the socialist potential to provide a solution.
> 
> Well, I've been reading your, and your group of (I assume... possibly wrongly) similar co-thinkers, for some time now across a number of threads and I genuinely haven't found anything but , "slag off the Left", and "it's all going to hell in a handbasket", negativity , in any post ....... quite amusing bitching at other posters .. yes... but analysis ? and a statement as to what YOU are proposing should be done to combat the bosses' offensive .. no. And plenty of other posters have similarly challenged you to explicate YOUR position.. to NO avail. Negativity and hostility to socialism isn't in itself a political philosophy or action plan.


 
Running with Scissors


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

ayatollah said:


> . Negativity and hostility to socialism isn't in itself a political philosophy or action plan.


every now and again you'll get some half-digested concept of "community unions" without any real strategy about how these can be built and on what basis - except they have nothing to do with what any existing unions are trying to achieve.  It has something to do with the IWCA's athletics club though


----------



## Balbi (Mar 21, 2012)

Butchers does come across like a cat playing with a broken bird when dealing with certain posters.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

No you don't - you simply say long wave and kondratiev whilst repeating the sort of mechanical understanding of what's happened over the last 40 years that marx would laugh at. I've offered plenty of competing analysis - both before you joined and after you've joined, whilst outlining the problems and shallowness of the 'orthodox approach' - historically currently and theoretically. I've consistently argued that the left-centred approach that you offer is meaningless in todays context and that what is needed is sustained community work in order to win the small victories that make any wider sort of fightback possible whilst using this place to highlight and organise these sort of things as best it can.



> Butchers. I at least understand the underlying structural reasons for the current world economic crisis


You've really picked on the wrong target here 

If you really think that you've offered a statement as to what needs to be done can you point me to it please?


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> Yes they are! That is such a cop out!


 
No, because if they needed to be re-elected they'd have to watch what shit they came out with...



> And equally the same arguement could be made that after all the different groups that have been in or around the Labour Party, such as, Socialist Appeal, the AWL (bombing for socialism!), the LRC, Compass, George Galloway (who was kicked out of the Labour party) why don't we redirect our attentions elsewhere? I just cannot believe you actually think this stuff!


 
At least Spanky is enjoying this  No-one on the left is really onto some sure-fire winner. There needs to be a wider re-thinking of methods, and why progress has been so limited. This much I know.


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Mar 21, 2012)

ayatollah said:


> You obviously haven't read many of my posts ,across many threads, Butchers. I at least understand the underlying structural reasons for the current world economic crisis, and hold to a , pretty orthodox admittedly , analysis of the socialist potential to provide a solution.
> 
> Well, I've been reading your, and your group of (I assume... possibly wrongly) similar co-thinkers, for some time now across a number of threads and I genuinely haven't found anything but , "slag off the Left", and "it's all going to hell in a handbasket", negativity , in any post ....... quite amusing bitching at other posters .. yes... but analysis ? and a statement as to what YOU are proposing should be done to combat the bosses' offensive .. no. And plenty of other posters have similarly challenged you to explicate YOUR position.. to NO avail. Negativity and hostility to socialism isn't in itself a political philosophy or action plan.


 
First of all - there is no obligation on anyone who criticises someone's ideas to provide answers of their own to your identified problems.

Secondly (although you're wrong about co-thinkers) we have provided our own suggestions on threads - if you have ignored them, or missed them it's your look out.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> every now and again you'll get some half-digested concept of "community unions" without any real strategy about how these can be built and on what basis - except they have nothing to do with what any existing unions are trying to achieve. It has something to do with the IWCA's athletics club though


Again, if you think that you've offered something practical - some tactic or strategy - then please, point it out. All you say is _labour should be great, if we all helped to make it great it would be great. But also it's shit. _ Where the hell is _your_ strategy? Where the hell is _your_ plan of action?


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> Again, if you think that you've offered something practical - some tactic or strategy - then please, point it out. All you say is _labour should be great, if we all helped to make it great it would be great. But also it's shit. _ Where the hell is _your_ strategy? Where the hell is _your_ plan of action?


I don't claim to have offered any sure-fire route map to revolution.  I don't think anyone has this.  I just happen to think that since voting Labour is the only way that people have to punish the coalition parties at the ballot box, what happens within Labour is going to be of strategic importance for the next few years (positively or negatively).  If I can work with others to raise the profile of a radical alternative to neoliberalism I don't see how that's going to be disadvantageous.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

I've got to say that this _you don't offer analysis_ approach is bizarre.


----------



## ayatollah (Mar 21, 2012)

Spanky Longhorn said:


> Magical thinking eh?
> 
> Why don't you have a go at frogwoman for depressing articul8?
> 
> also got any evidence of me "rubbishing" anyone flower?


 
So far on this thread you've contributed the negativity of post 162 and 220 in particular  - Butchers has been  MUCH more busy on lots of posts on this thread rubbishing each and every proposed route forward by the Left. I'm not against rubbishing ideas that one disagrees with per se .. if also backed up with alternative suggestions...... but I still await anything POSITIVE, in terms of a proposed route forward against the bosses' offensive from you guys... EVER, on ANY thread. I'm not saying you haven't ... but I haven't spotted anything.

"flower" indeed ... you aren't in the pub now Spanky .. pushing some unfortunate Leftie against the bar as you mock his undoubted "middleclassness". Dearie me !


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> I don't claim to have offered any sure-fire route map to revolution. I don't think anyone has this. I just happen to think that since voting Labour is the only way that people have to punish the coalition parties at the ballot box, what happens within Labour is going to be of strategic importance for the next few years (positively or negatively). If I can work with others to raise the profile of a radical alternative to neoliberalism I don't see how that's going to be disadvantageous.


I didn't ask you for magic answers - i asked you for what it is that you are suggesting practically that other people are not offering. I've asked you this at least three times over the last month - answer each time = nothing/vote labour.


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

I offer some observations and draw some minimal and provisional conclusions from them.  Do i think I'm some Lenin for the 21st Century?  Not at all.


----------



## killer b (Mar 21, 2012)

ayatollah said:


> "flower" indeed ... you aren't in the pub now Spanky .. pushing some unfortunate Leftie against the bar as you mock his undoubted "middleclassness". Dearie me !


oh, he is.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

ayatollah said:


> So far on this thread you've contributed the negativity of post 162 and 220 in particular - Butchers has been MUCH more busy on lots of posts on this thread rubbishing each and every proposed route forward by the Left. I'm not against rubbishing ideas that one disagrees with per se .. if also backed up with alternative suggestions...... but I still await anything POSITIVE, in terms of a proposed route forward against the bosses' offensive from you guys... EVER, on ANY thread. I'm not saying you haven't ... but I haven't spotted anything.
> 
> "flower" indeed ... you aren't in the pub now Spanky .. pushing some unfortunate Leftie against the bar as you mock his undoubted "middleclassness". Dearie me !


I've mocked one single way forward - that is joining the labour party and working to 'rebuild' it from below. So have you, and just as vociferously as me. I've done it on the basis of historical analysis, comparative analysis, personal experience and an understanding of how institutions perpetuate the interests of those in dominant positions and how this dominance is reproduced.


----------



## frogwoman (Mar 21, 2012)

sorry but that's a rubbish arguement it's like saying that because the tories are in government and lots of people support them we should keep an eye on what's happening in the tory party in terms of a progressive alternative. Should we fuck as like. 

How old are you articul8? because i can tell you now that the huge majority of people my age (23) don't view Labour as a workers' party in any way, the majority of people i know probably don't vote at all. What do you intend to do about that? how do you intend convincing people who grew up under a Labour government and don't have a memory of a goldfish that Labour is the party to vote for?


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> I offer some observations and draw some minimal and provisional conclusions from them. Do i think I'm some Lenin for the 21st Century? Not at all.


Yet you demand a real-life-worked-out-plan from others and mock them if they refuse to do so. You've made yourself look like a massive hypocrite again.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> sorry but that's a rubbish arguement it's like saying that because the tories are in government and lots of people support them we should keep an eye on what's happening in the tory party in terms of a progressive alternative. Should we fuck as like.
> 
> How old are you articul8? because i can tell you now that the huge majority of people my age (23) don't view Labour as a workers' party in any way, the majority of people i know probably don't vote at all. What do you intend to do about that? how do you intend convincing people who grew up under a Labour government and don't have a memory of a goldfish that Labour is the party to vote for?


Didn't you read the thread, he has a plan, get them to vote and join labour so they can see how shit it is.


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> I didn't ask you for magic answers - i asked you for what it is that you are suggesting practically that other people are not offering. I've asked you this at least three times over the last month - answer each time = nothing/vote labour.


Nothing unique under the sun.  I want to see socialist and other dissident social forces (as described up the thread) build non-electoral alliances in anticipation of a realignment of the left in electoral terms.


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

ayatollah said:


> So far on this thread you've contributed the negativity of post 162 and 220 in particular - Butchers has been MUCH more busy on lots of posts on this thread rubbishing each and every proposed route forward by the Left. I'm not against rubbishing ideas that one disagrees with per se .. if also backed up with alternative suggestions...... but I still await anything POSITIVE, in terms of a proposed route forward against the bosses' offensive from you guys... EVER, on ANY thread. I'm not saying you haven't ... but I haven't spotted anything.


 
What "proposed route forward by the Left." have been offered on this thread? Beyond joining the labour party could you possibly list them for me?


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> Nothing unique under the sun. I want to see socialist and other dissident social forces (as described up the thread) build non-electoral alliances in anticipation of a realignment of the left in electoral terms.


_I want to see the sun shine and people laughing in the park. Where's your worked out plan, i have mine, where's yours?_


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> sorry but that's a rubbish arguement it's like saying that because the tories are in government and lots of people support them we should keep an eye on what's happening in the tory party in terms of a progressive alternative. Should we fuck as like.


 
Do the Tories receive the majority of their fund through the organised working class in the shape of the unions? were they constituted and built by working class people to get representation? No. Don't be silly. Labour has a history and an ongoing relationship to workers organisations that sets it apart.



> How old are you articul8? because i can tell you now that the huge majority of people my age (23) don't view Labour as a workers' party in any way, the majority of people i know probably don't vote at all. What do you intend to do about that? how do you intend convincing people who grew up under a Labour government and don't have a memory of a goldfish that Labour is the party to vote for?


I'm 35 - old enough to remember Labour before Blair. I don't want anyone to forget or overlook what New Labour did in office. But I'd hope that they'd recognise that this doesn't typify or exhaust the whole labour tradition.


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> i have mine


maybe you could put the rest of us out of our misery then oh wise one?  Too precious to post on here?  Going to deliver it on tablets of stone are we?


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

You even get reading a simple post wrong - the happy sunshine faced child trying to mock others for not having a worked out plan is you. You above in fact, before that backfired on you and you started mumbling and looking at your feet when quizzed on your plan.


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

suppose we (the left?) all stare into the abyss and accept that we don't have a credible plan - not building a socialist faction inside Labour, not building a new workers party, nothing. 

then what?


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> You even get reading a simple post wrong


thanks for the edit - was wondering whether reading a posy was like reading tea leaves or something?


----------



## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> suppose we (the left?) all stare into the abyss and accept that we don't have a credible plan - not building a socialist faction inside Labour, not building a new workers party, nothing.
> 
> then what?


Then you start trying to attack others for not having a plan. See above. Then you back off into posts like the above.


----------



## audiotech (Mar 21, 2012)

Well the strike planned for 28th March is done for now, no surprise there really. This campaign was pretty limited and sectional in the first place, so what's left? The NHS? Turnout today from what I've seen here looked pitiful, with the usual suspects and mainly students in tow. Anti-cuts? Occupy wherever? The whiz has gone out of these methinks. The welfare reform bill is now law and the consent for it has been firmed-up. Some rank and file fight-back from sparks and concessions won from employers - good - but it will still be tough for those who've raised their heads. Anti-fascism? Top-down, with the state firmly able to deal with any disorder on the streets from the few muppets of the EDL left chanting inanely, with the more idiotic sections harassing taxi drivers and people running take-outs - "paki-bashing" in short. The sects are doing the usual party building and from what I've seen and heard the results in so far are looking pretty poor. I will be concentrating my efforts, what little I have left these days, on a community music project. I don't know what you have in mind ayatollah, but from here it looks like same old same old.


----------



## articul8 (Mar 21, 2012)

some things we do know:
- voting Labour is the only viable way that most people have to punish the coalition parties at the ballot box
- Labour is increasingly reliant on trade union funds
- lots of people believe Labour ought to offer something different from the Tories and their allies

does this not suggest that it's quite an important space in which to debate the rival merits of neoliberalism vs an alternative?


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Mar 21, 2012)

killer b said:


> oh, he is.


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Mar 21, 2012)

frogwoman said:


> sorry but that's a rubbish arguement it's like saying that because the tories are in government and lots of people support them we should keep an eye on what's happening in the tory party in terms of a progressive alternative. Should we fuck as like.
> 
> How old are you articul8? because i can tell you now that the huge majority of people my age (23) don't view Labour as a workers' party in any way, the majority of people i know probably don't vote at all. What do you intend to do about that? how do you intend convincing people who grew up under a Labour government and don't have a memory of a goldfish that Labour is the party to vote for?


 
I know a lot of 23 year olds (not in a creepy way) and I would say that most of them do not care which party is "the workers party" and neither do most people in other age groups at the moment.


----------



## frogwoman (Mar 21, 2012)

well exactly! and whatever it is it's definitely not labour


----------



## Spanky Longhorn (Mar 21, 2012)

ayatollah said:


> So far on this thread you've contributed the negativity of post 162 and 220 in particular - Butchers has been MUCH more busy on lots of posts on this thread rubbishing each and every proposed route forward by the Left. I'm not against rubbishing ideas that one disagrees with per se .. if also backed up with alternative suggestions...... but I still await anything POSITIVE, in terms of a proposed route forward against the bosses' offensive from you guys... EVER, on ANY thread. I'm not saying you haven't ... but I haven't spotted anything.


 
I do not see simply saying here's why I am not convinced based on experience as rubbishing - and frankly I have a lot of respect for frogwoman and her comrades, and I think it's acceptable to disagree with comrades especially if they have relatively recently made a bad turn.

The flower comment was about you being oversensitive on other people's behalf.

I still have yet to see you offer anything sensible.


----------



## frogwoman (Mar 21, 2012)

> I do not see simply saying here's why I am not convinced based on experience as rubbishing - and frankly I have a lot of respect for frogwoman and her comrades, and I think it's acceptable to disagree with comrades especially if they have relatively recently made a bad turn.


 
yep  fuck we need to respectfully disagree that's where the left is going wrong


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## Spanky Longhorn (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> some things we do know:
> - voting Labour is the only viable way that most people have to punish the coalition parties at the ballot box
> - Labour is increasingly reliant on trade union funds
> - lots of people believe Labour ought to offer something different from the Tories and their allies
> ...


 
Your first point is right.

Your second is broadly right but irrelevent without specifying who controls the union money and what their goals and social strength are.

Your third is correct but irrelevent without clarification of what "difference" "lots" of people want.

Also none of that means Labour is an important space to debate alternatives - and you know that.


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## butchersapron (Mar 21, 2012)

Fourthly, the consequent reduction of individual and social class needs down to how people relate to the labour party.


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## Kid_Eternity (Mar 21, 2012)

Yvette Cooper, and after her Chuka Ummana.


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## ViolentPanda (Mar 21, 2012)

articul8 said:


> If you want to have a go, at least have a go about what I've said, not some fantasy position you're mistakenly attributing to me


 
Oh, like you do, you mean, little yapping chihuahua?


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## ViolentPanda (Mar 21, 2012)

butchersapron said:


> ...and that you were in its orbit. That you gravitated towards them. That you politically gravitated towards something that you call shit that you compare to a cup of cold sick. I suppose this personal quest mirrors your wider _vote labour, we're shit and we're liars_ campaign though. Admirable consistency.


 
The consistency of diarrhoea after too much cider and not enough kebab.


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## treelover (Mar 21, 2012)

audiotech said:


> Well the strike planned for 28th March is done for now, no surprise there really. This campaign was pretty limited and sectional in the first place, so what's left? The NHS? Turnout today from what I've seen here looked pitiful, with the usual suspects and mainly students in tow. Anti-cuts? Occupy wherever? The whiz has gone out of these methinks. The welfare reform bill is now law and the consent for it has been firmed-up. Some rank and file fight-back from sparks and concessions won from employers - good - but it will still be tough for those who've raised their heads. Anti-fascism? Top-down, with the state firmly able to deal with any disorder on the streets from the few muppets of the EDL left chanting inanely, with the more idiotic sections harassing taxi drivers and people running take-outs - "paki-bashing" in short. The sects are doing the usual party building and from what I've seen and heard the results in so far are looking pretty poor. I will be concentrating my efforts, what little I have left these days, on a community music project. I don't know what you have in mind ayatollah, but from here it looks like same old same old.


 

A year ago next week, hundreds of thousands marched against the cuts and for positive change, workers, inc many manual workers, teachers, students, unemployed, even a contingent of gurkhas marched, i saw thousands of young people proudly flourishing unions banners, Unite, FBU, even though they clearly wern't members, passion, anger, determination, all present

earlier, biggest student protests for decades,

so, what went wrong?


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## ViolentPanda (Mar 21, 2012)

ayatollah said:


> You obviously haven't read many of my posts ,across many threads, Butchers. I at least understand the underlying structural reasons for the current world economic crisis, and hold to a , pretty orthodox admittedly , analysis of the socialist potential to provide a solution.


 
"Socialist potential" would be predicated on there being a certain critical mass of socialists and potential socialists in order to "operationalise" any solution.
Care to point to where that can be found (and please don't do an articul8 and waffle about changing the Labour party, or I might start crying!)?



> Well, I've been reading your, and your group of (I assume... possibly wrongly) similar co-thinkers, for some time now across a number of threads and I genuinely haven't found anything but , "slag off the Left", and "it's all going to hell in a handbasket", negativity , in any post ....... quite amusing bitching at other posters .. yes... but analysis ? and a statement as to what YOU are proposing should be done to combat the bosses' offensive .. no. And plenty of other posters have similarly challenged you to explicate YOUR position.. to NO avail. Negativity and hostility to socialism isn't in itself a political philosophy or action plan.


 
Let me guess, sociology or PPE by any chance?

A few questions:
Do you believe that any solution to "the bosses' offensive" must be wrought under the auspices of parliamentary democracy?

Do you believe that there are any organisations on the left that take the parliamentary democratic route that are *worthy* of mass support?

Do you believe that it's sensible to "explicate your position" in advance of knowing what battle you're going to be fighting?


On that last, why are so many people involved with politics so tactically and stragtegically-ignorant?


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## ViolentPanda (Mar 21, 2012)

Spanky Longhorn said:


> Secondly (although you're wrong about co-thinkers)


 
You mean there *isn't* a monothought clique?


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## ViolentPanda (Mar 22, 2012)

articul8 said:


> some things we do know:
> - voting Labour is the only viable way that most people have to punish the coalition parties at the ballot box
> - Labour is increasingly reliant on trade union funds
> - lots of people believe Labour ought to offer something different from the Tories and their allies
> ...


 
This is the problem with you party political people, you're so unimaginative, it all has to be done just so, and for heaven's sake don't rock the boat, because you'll make waves!!
How do you think we got to the pass we're in? because people listened to gormless pricks like you and your TINA bollocks and stayed with Labour even when they turned out to be neo-Tory neo-liberal fucks, and then turned out in low enough numbers so that a bunch of Etonian spunk-munchers could bribe their way to power.

To paraphrase Jack Cade, "the first thing we should do is, let's kill all the party political wonks".


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## agricola (Mar 22, 2012)

treelover said:


> A year ago next week, hundreds of thousands marched against the cuts and for positive change, workers, inc many manual workers, teachers, students, unemployed, even a contingent of gurkhas marched, i saw thousands of young people proudly flourishing unions banners, Unite, FBU, even though they clearly wern't members, passion, anger, determination, all present
> 
> earlier, biggest student protests for decades,
> 
> so, what went wrong?


 
Relying on the unions / some Labour MPs was probably a big part of it.


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## treelover (Mar 22, 2012)

aye, the TUC decided it had done the protest element, back to business as usual...


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## audiotech (Mar 22, 2012)

treelover said:


> A year ago next week, hundreds of thousands marched against the cuts and for positive change, workers, inc many manual workers, teachers, students, unemployed, even a contingent of gurkhas marched, i saw thousands of young people proudly flourishing unions banners, Unite, FBU, even though they clearly wern't members, passion, anger, determination, all present
> 
> earlier, biggest student protests for decades,
> 
> so, what went wrong?


 
I don't want to reduce this to "what went wrong" treelover and I did write a lengthy piece replying to your question, but decided not to post it. Posters can come to their own conclusions.


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## articul8 (Mar 22, 2012)

Spanky Longhorn said:


> Your first point is right.


 
that alone means that it's important to pose - from within and outside Labour - the demand that Labour offers at least a clear alternative to the policies of the coalition.  And the more the Labour left can link up to social forces beyond the electoral level, the more the viability of alternative strategies will become clearer - even if they are still institutionally frustrated or blocked. 

You've got a better idea?


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## ayatollah (Mar 22, 2012)

Strange... Out of all the defensive bluster from Spanky and Butchers (and Panda now), and the "goodbye to politics" from Audiotech - still NOTHING in terms of suggestions of any way FORWARD (other than claiming it has ALL been said much earlier - somewhere). Well I've looked at Urban for years before contributing, and at the IWCA website for instance - surely a source of a more worked out position for at least some of you - but it was pretty poor, unjoined up stuff guys. I'll continue to suggest that initiatives like TUSC by the radical Left , and the widespread campaigning against Workfare and the cuts , across the broad Left, is the way to go . NOT rocket science ... not a radical new political insight...So its not bearing much fruit yet.... but we either believe it will eventually gain traction amongst masses of people , or presumeably bugger off and do something outside of any political activity (like Audiotech ? -- good luck to him I say). What doesn't help is just slagging off the Left generally and socialism and constantly wailing "we're all DOOMED".

You chaps do get VERY indignant and surprisingly sensitive when you aren't the ones doling out the criticism don't you .


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## treelover (Mar 22, 2012)

Ni


audiotech said:


> I don't want to reduce this to "what went wrong" treelover and I did write a lengthy piece replying to your question, but decided not to post it. Posters can come to their own conclusions.


 
I think you should post it on here, it's clear that you are accepting what many of us on here have argued for a while, its a bit surprising you have come to that conclusion, as i personally think you are often part of the 'triumphalist' spectrum of left politics, everything is great, etc though I also acknowlege you have done a great deal to help others.


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## frogwoman (Mar 22, 2012)

audiotech said:


> I don't want to reduce this to "what went wrong" treelover and I did write a lengthy piece replying to your question, but decided not to post it. Posters can come to their own conclusions.


 
write it please. and link to it on here if you can't be arsed to post it on here.


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## Spanky Longhorn (Mar 22, 2012)

ayatollah said:


> You chaps do get VERY indignant and surprisingly sensitive when you aren't the ones doling out the criticism don't you .


 
Please show where I have been indignant and sensitive?

I can't be bothered to comment on the self indulgent magical thinking in the rest of your post at the moment, I will try and come back to it next week.


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## Spanky Longhorn (Mar 22, 2012)

articul8 said:


> that alone means that it's important to pose - from within and outside Labour - the demand that Labour offers at least a clear alternative to the policies of the coalition.


 
Why does it? And how can you/we?



> and the more the Labour left can link up to social forces beyond the electoral level, the more the viability of alternative strategies will become clearer - even if they are still institutionally frustrated or blocked.


 
Why the Labour left? Why not just link up with social forces for radical change anyway?



> You've got a better idea?


 
Yes.


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## articul8 (Mar 22, 2012)

Spanky Longhorn said:


> Yes.


great, I'm all ears.  I don't see how it makes sense to withdraw from the debate in Labour when they are the only realistically conceivable alternative government, and still have the biggest unions in the country affiliated to them.


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## Lo Siento. (May 18, 2015)

Lo Siento. said:


> presumably when he goes it'll be assumed that his terribleness will be down to how "left-wing" he supposedly is. So it'd be a Blairite, right?


I'm so prophetic.


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## ItWillNeverWork (May 18, 2015)

Weird. I don't remember starting this poll.


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## belboid (May 18, 2015)

not sure where to put this, so here will do

http://radical-labour.co.uk/index.html - John McDonnell's new 'Labour Left' website


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## Spanky Longhorn (May 18, 2015)

belboid said:


> not sure where to put this, so here will do
> 
> http://radical-labour.co.uk/index.html - John McDonnell's new 'Labour Left' website


some shit articles in the links section and it looks shit and there is no real way to participate - submit papers FFS. This website is more democratic.


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