Is there any alternative to the jaundiced Tory attitudes?

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Depressing, isn't it? All the miserable gits can come up with is oppression of the poor and fear of the disadvantaged. Never mind, here's something that can make us all feel better about the human race - even if it does have to include Cameron and Company .........

http://www.buzzfeed.com/expresident/pictures-that-will-restore-your-faith-in-humanity

I'm not asking for opinions. I'm asking for labour policy.

If you want to provide an alternative then provide evidence of labour's policies. So far there hasn't been anything - and we already know that Labour increased the brutality of the benefit system during it's time. That isn't opinion it is fact.

I don't think we'll ever get a sensible policy until the Party returns to being the democratic voice of the Labour Movement.. Careerists will always go for the short-term fix favoured by the rich men's media.

Indeed.

Picking Milibland as leader - what were they thinking? Out of the choices available I would have picked Burnham, but even he's another new labour stooge.

John McDonnell would be best. Lord alone knows why that man persists with a party that routinely shafts him and his views.

Only one alternative is obvious. Otherwise vote for the devil party that it is as plain as a pikestaff (unless you are oblivious of ALL their dirty deeds and forever lying) that they are tyrants of the first order. Labour may not be perfect, far from it, however better vote for them rather than give this lot the chance to complete their ideology. Transfer further wealth from bottom, middle to the top to create a grateful poverty stricken low paid workforce.

Unlike Cameron, Ed is an honest person, who wishes to help the people of this country. A decent man, not an arrogant self serving
Bullington scoundrel, that blatantly aids the rich at the expense of the poor. Your choice, good or evil.

The difficulty with this, 'at least they are better than the tories' view is that everyone does a quickstep to the right to please Murdoch and his chums, fewer and fewer vote, and everyone gets more cynical. Once you get into the cult of the personality you are lost, in my opinion.

Mel wrote:Unlike Cameron, Ed is an honest person, who wishes to help the people of this country. A decent man, not an arrogant self serving
Bullington scoundrel, that blatantly aids the rich at the expense of the poor. Your choice, good or evil.

So what are his policies and why does he adopt the same scrounger v striver rhetoric of the right?

""Skiver" v "striver". It suits Cameron's tabloid-slick delivery and Steve Hilton's blue-sky viciousness, but how did it go viral? Why does Ed Miliband now use "striver" as though it were an acceptable way to describe someone, by a stranger's groundless estimation of how hard they are hypothetically trying? The skiver, in opposition parlance, is always unmentioned, yet he lurks; Labour won't tolerate him either, this feckless bogeyman of Westminster's devising. But how did this false dichotomy, which has been at the heart of the rhetoric around the government's attack on benefits this week, catch on?"

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/jan/09/skivers-v-strivers-argument-pollutes

THESE ARE HIS POLICIES,

www.independent.co.uk/.../labour-policies-what-ed-miliband-says-a-labour- government-would-do-if-the-party-wins-in-2015-9957919.html‎Cached

Happy reading Ghost.

Your link is not functional.

Having looked through the article, i see nothing remotely progressive. Nothing left wing. And most certainly nothing that is anywhere near close to what this society needs. THis is not, fortunately, a list of policies. It is barely a list of aspirations, and if that is the limit of Miliband's vision then he is a spectacularly mypic man indeed. No mention of repealing anything.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-policies-what-ed-miliband-says-a-labour-government-would-do-if-the-party-wins-in-2015-9957919.html

It wasn't that hard to find, but some people are only happy when there's something to complain about. I sometimes feel my mother-in-law may have been reincarnated.

Ghost, It is no wonder you carry on as you do about The Labour party, if you find it so difficult to find links.

Having said that, I am getting the feeling that you are a pro Tory in disguise of some either non existant party or perhaps a UKIPPER.

Mel wrote:Ghost, It is no wonder you carry on as you do about The Labour party, if you find it so difficult to find links.

Having said that, I am getting the feeling that you are a pro Tory in disguise of some either non existant party or perhaps a UKIPPER.

On the basis that you provided a dodgy link to something that doesn't actually give anything remotely left wing I'm a right wing supporter? What kind of stupid shit are you spouting?

oftenwrong wrote:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-policies-what-ed-miliband-says-a-labour-government-would-do-if-the-party-wins-in-2015-9957919.html

It wasn't that hard to find, but some people are only happy when there's something to complain about. I sometimes feel my mother-in-law may have been reincarnated.

If that list of wishy washy claptrap is why you support labour then there's really no hope is there.

Where is the promise to repeal the health and social care act? To ban privatisation? To ban workfare and zero hours contracts and sanctions? To ensure that noone has to go to a foodbank ffs? Where is the programme of nationalisation that we desperately need? Where the ban on fracking or the promise to chuck TTIP out the door? Where is the removal of tuition fees (something labourintroduced)?

Or do you want to live in a society where people die because they lose their benefits? Perhaps you don't like me saying that becuase it's just someone sounding like your mother in law. You ***king dense twat.

Two questions Ghost after you getting out of your pram.
1/ Which party will carry out your wishes?
2/ If there is one, other than Labour, who has the slightest chance of winning the next election, please advise me. No nonsense about a possible Coalition to influence things please, as we have been there already to no avail.?

You find out who your friends are when you’re following William Hague and Ffion round the States

From an article by Suzanne Moore:-

There are many good reasons not to like someone. But sometimes it’s personal. Once I was asked to follow William Hague around America. It was when he was leader of the Tory Party and he and his team were to go to the States to learn about this great newfangled idea, ‘compassionate conservatism’. His press people cleared my presence on the trip. I never understand why the Tories don’t just embrace ‘callous conservatism’. You cannot combine empathy with cold-bloodedness, any more than Hague could make himself lovable with a baseball cap and a blonde wife.

No one in the States had a clue who Hague was. American journalists were interviewing me. “Can you tell us who he is? So we know which one to photograph?” Two other journalists arrived. One had missed his flight and had an overstuffed suitcase: Boris Johnson. The other was Gove. We had to go to Austin to meet the governor of Texas, George Dubya Bush. One callow boy would not look at me, or let me near Hague. His disdain was apparent. He and the Tory journalists all got on the pre-arranged plane but he wouldn’t let me board. As a result, I had to trail around on my own, booking tickets and arriving at places alone in the middle of the night.

The young man who would not speak to me wrote speeches for Hague. He didn’t even bother with the rudimentary courtesies of the well-born. For the few days he had any kind of power over me, he chose to make my life way more difficult than it needed to be. Making people’s lives more difficult turned out to be his life’s work. His name was Gideon Osborne.

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/03/you-find-out-who-your-friends-are-when-you-re-following-william-hague-and-ffion

Hague, Johnson. Gove and that Gideon thing. A mixture of greed, uncaring, self serving bunch of bastards. Cameron & Co, the evil gatherings.

Ivan wrote:You find out who your friends are when you’re following William Hague and Ffion round the States

From an article by Suzanne Moore:-

I'm sure all that is true, but i'm not sure what you are trying to say by posting it.

Mel wrote:Two questions Ghost after you getting out of your pram.
1/ Which party will carry out your wishes?
2/ If there is one, other than Labour, who has the slightest chance of winning the next election, please advise me. No nonsense about a possible Coalition to influence things please, as we have been there already to no avail.?

The only realistic option to vote for is Labour, but not because they will actually do anything positive, but because it removes the Tory party.

Unfortunately the priority, in 2015, has to be a removal of people like Duncan Smith who is killing people.

But equally unfortunately Labour have totally failed to present an alternative in five years. The Tories and the right wing media have shut them down completely and part of that is because Labour is no longer a party of the left. It is another neo liberal capitalist entity who's only saving grace is they are slightly less ruthless, on balance, than the Tories. Yet they have laid the groundwork for so much of what the Tories have done.

You may not like to hear about coalitions but the most likely outcome in May will be a hung parliament with a labour majority so they will have to ally with someone.

I agree with most of what you have said Ghost, especially re Duncan-Smith. However I fail to see the Tory media opening in favour of a "party further of the left", even more reason to "shut down" I would suggest.

At last we agree that the main objective is to oust the Tories, condemning Labour will certainly not help that cause Ghost.

Pretty clear to me Ghost with respect, the point Ivan is Making.

The logic of accepting right-wing press rule is starvation ultimately. We'll have to fight sometime, and the sooner the better. The alternative to jaundiced tory attitudes is no-nonsense socialism and, when it comes to it, a General Strike, if that's what it takes. If you let the very rich rule you you're buggered, surely? We don't need 'leaders' if we use our heads.

You and I lead the way Penderyn. The question is-- who will follow? Most are up their own and can't be bothered I fear.

Penderyn wrote:The logic of accepting right-wing press rule is starvation ultimately. We'll have to fight sometime, and the sooner the better. The alternative to jaundiced tory attitudes is no-nonsense socialism and, when it comes to it, a General Strike, if that's what it takes. If you let the very rich rule you you're buggered, surely? We don't need 'leaders' if we use our heads.

But it's the failure of Labour along with the TUC that has ensured that, in this period, there's been no general strike. This is the problem.

So the reason to point out labour's failings is to demand better of them if they do end up in government. Just believing they will fix things when there's no evidence they will is what lets these parties take the piss.

The Labour party is made up of members - if enough members agree with you, they will force a policy change - or else they'll just hang around internet forums complaining.

There is plenty of evidence that if the Tories get back into power things will get even worse for the majority.

It's not Labours fault Ghost, it's the fickle joe public who read and listen to Tory propaganda via the Tory dominated media/press and they fall for it. As you have said in a previous post Labour get the thin edge of the wedge with the media/press.

boatlady wrote:The Labour party is made up of members - if enough members agree with you, they will force a policy change - or else they'll just hang around internet forums complaining.

You're damn right I'm complaining.

If you aren't, you're either dead, stupid, or supportive of what's going on. Which is it?

Mel wrote:You and I lead the way Penderyn. The question is-- who will follow? Most are up their own and can't be bothered I fear.

As before, we must build up inch by inch, teaching the strong just how strong they are if they don't believe flabs like Cameron and his lie-merchants.

boatlady wrote:The Labour party is made up of members - if enough members agree with you, they will force a policy change - or else they'll just hang around internet forums complaining.

That was true when we had a democratic constitution.    Now we don't.

Part of 'building up, inch by inch' is being prepared to address, in a sensible and tolerant fashion, the doubts and questions which people quite reasonably have had about Labour's capacity to govern and to improve all that has been wrong for at least five years.

To my surprise and regret, there has been very little evidence of that on these threads of late and I don't think that such dismissive rejections of legitimate doubts reflect well on 'Labour attitudes'. Indeed, it is the sort of reaction that one might hitherto have expected from arrogant and self-satisfied Tories, who think they have a right to rule without being questioned...

Phil Hornby wrote:Part of 'building up, inch by inch' is being prepared to address, in a sensible and tolerant fashion, the doubts and questions which people quite reasonably have had about Labour's capacity to govern and to improve all that has been wrong for at least five years.

To my surprise and regret, there has been very little evidence of that on these threads of late and I don't think that such dismissive rejections of legitimate doubts reflect well on 'Labour attitudes'.  Indeed, it is the sort of reaction that one might hitherto have expected from arrogant and self-satisfied Tories, who think they have a right to rule without being questioned...

Nobody doubts their capacity to govern - the doubt is about whether they will govern in our interests, since we cannot affect their decisions.   It is vital to destroy toryism whoever puts it forward, don't you think?

Personally I despise the Tories and pretty much all they represent, but that does not mean that I don't wish that Labour and Miliband had opposed them more effectively and been more convincing and compelling in setting out their proposed alternative vision for a fairer Britain.

Phil Hornby wrote:Personally I despise the Tories and pretty much all they represent, but that does not mean that I don't wish that Labour and Miliband had opposed them more effectively and been more convincing and compelling in setting out their proposed alternative vision for a fairer Britain.

Do you think the likes of Humphreys, or the tory press, would report it? The former was hysterical this morning, demanding that the Labour representative be accompanied by an SNP minder and screaming down his every contribution.

Penderyn wrote:Do you think the likes of Humphreys, or the tory press, would report it?   The former was hysterical this morning, demanding that the Labour representative be accompanied by an SNP minder and screaming down his every contribution.

Which makes the need even greater to get messages across by other means - including by using PMQs more effectively , rather than simply providing Cameron with a chance to give Milly a pasting. Whining about the unfairness of it all may well be justified, but it won't get them elected. In any event, such will be the misery of the next 5 years that this is a good election for Labour to lose - and I believe they will lose it...

Well-intentioned criticism clearly has a place in reasoned discussion, but continuous undermining of a common interest can seem more like siding with the enemy.

In October 1936, in the hostilities of the Spanish Civil War, the nationalist General Emilio Mola and his supporters besieged Madrid with four columns of troops. Mola claimed he had additional troops within the city. The claim was reported in the New York Times like this: Police last night began a house-to-house search for Rebels in Madrid... Orders for these raids ... apparently were instigated by a recent broadcast over the Rebel radio station by General Emilio Mola. He stated he was counting on four columns of troops outside Madrid and another column of persons hiding within the city who would join the invaders as soon as they entered the capital.
Out of hiding came a few of the phantom 'fifth column' - the fascist auxiliary force dreaded by the loyalists.

The rest, as they say, is History.

ghost whistler wrote:-
I'm sure all that is true, but i'm not sure what you are trying to say by posting it.

I’m sure that those members who have posted on this thread recently are well aware that Toryism is a vicious, selfish creed, designed to use power to help the rich and to gain that power by spreading hatred, scapegoating certain groups and causing divisions in society. So in that sense I understand why you made the above comment.

However, I thought it was worth posting extracts from Suzanne Moore’s article as an example of just how jaundiced Tory attitudes can be. I’ve never been in any doubt that Osborne and Cameron are arrogant, spoilt brats with a bloated sense of entitlement who have been promoted way beyond their abilities because of their connections (both are distant relatives of the Windsors). Yet I confess I was still shocked to read that Osborne has clearly never revealed even a grain of decency and humanity (the events described took place in the late 1990s). He treated Ms Moore like a leper because she wasn’t a Tory journalist (even though her presence on the trip had been approved by Tory headquarters), and he wouldn’t allow her on the Tory plane, even though there was plenty of space. Because of his spiteful attitude, that woman had to find her own way on the long journey from New York to Texas. And the joke of it is, those Tories were in the USA to learn about so-called ‘compassionate Conservatism’, an oxymoron if ever there was.

Phil Hornby wrote:-
Which makes the need even greater to get messages across by other means - including by using PMQs more effectively, rather than simply providing Cameron with a chance to give Milly a pasting…..In any event, such will be the misery of the next 5 years that this is a good election for Labour to lose

The “other means” which has been deployed is the ‘Labour Doorstep’ campaign, where party members talk to voters on their doorsteps at the weekend. By the end of January, over 4 million such conversations had taken place. That’s a lot of dedicated work by people as committed as our friend Redflag, and it seems to me like the best way to counter the hostile media. If you have any better ideas, I’m sure that Lucy Powell or Douglas Alexander would be pleased to hear them. Maybe “dismissive rejections of legitimate doubts” occur because they offer nothing constructive and just appear to reinforce the Tory and media onslaught against Labour.

I think you overestimate the importance of PMQs, which takes place when most people are at work, with only a couple of sound bites ever making it to the evening news bulletins. In any case, the format of PMQs gives a massive advantage to the PM of the day. Half the questions, almost all of which are planted, come from his own side, only the opposition leader has the chance to reply to an answer (but the PM still has the last word), and the useless Speaker fails to control the baying mob and never tells Cameron to answer the questions. How can you make the spectacle more effective when Cameron even gets away with telling the opposition leader the questions he thinks he should be asking?

You’re right, this could be a good election for Labour to lose. There is a strong possibility that there will be another economic crash in the next few years, made even more likely by Osborne inflating the housing bubble, and if Labour is in power when it occurs it will no doubt be deemed to be “all Labour’s fault” again. However, it might not be a very good election for the poor, the sick and the disabled to lose, if the murderous trustees of the DWP and the Murdoch stooge in charge of the NHS aren’t removed from their posts in May.

Speaking of PMQs, today encapsulated everything that is faulty with the existing political system in Britain.  A fierce debate over whether to have a debate.

Which is apparently the fault of the SNP, or Michael Grade, though possibly also a Top Gear Presenter due to the mess inherited from a previous labour government five years ago, and Michael Gove shouting continuously throughout so-called Prime Minister's question time in The Mother of Parliaments.

Mother......s