Where should the Labour Party position itself? (Part 2)

First topic message reminder :

Just to prove what a liar I am, always “making things up as I go along”, I’ll add three more sources to the discussion, but no doubt that won’t convince the pig-headed amongst us:-
 
“The Beveridge Report proposed an allowance of eight shillings per week for all children (apart from for a family's first child if one parent was working), which graduated according to age. It was to be non-contributory and funded by general taxation. After some debate, the Family Allowances Bill was enacted in June 1945. The act provided for a flat rate payment funded directly from taxation. The recommended nine shillings a week was reduced to five shillings, and family allowance became a subsidy, rather than a subsistence payment as Beveridge had envisaged.”
 
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/cabinetpapers/themes/beveridge-report-child-benefit.htm
 
“Known as the Family Allowance, the 5 shillings a week payment was given to parents only for their second AND subsequent children, thus helping shore up the depleted population by encouraging more births. It continued through the post-war boom but was restructured when the economy turned down again, being reinvented as Child Benefit in the second half of the 1970s. The new payments were tax free and first-time mothers also became eligible.”
 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/8041636/Child-Benefit-history.html
 
“In the UK, child benefit is administered by Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC). The system was first implemented in August 1946 as ‘family allowances’ under the Family Allowances Act 1945, at a rate of 5s (= £0.25) per week per child in a family, except for the eldest. This was raised from September 1952, by the Family Allowances and National Insurance Act 1952, to 8s (= £0.40), and from October 1956, by the Family Allowances Act and National Insurance Act 1956, to 8s for the second child with 10s (= £0.50) for the third and subsequent children.

It was modified in 1977, with the payments being termed ‘child benefit’ and given for the eldest child as well as the younger ones; by 1979 it was worth £4 per child per week. In 1991, the system was further altered, with a higher payment now given for the first child than for their younger siblings.”
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_benefit

Bobby, Phil... I think you are both being overly pessimistic. I do play with numbers the whole time and this is entirely my guess.

In a straight fight between the three main parties - let us assume that the conservatives do well. They will get 36% of the vote. Labour does similarly and gets 36% of the vote and the LibDems have an absolute miracle and get 22% then we get another ConLib parliament. Do we really think this will happen? UKIP may well get no seats but 15% of the vote. Where will this come from? Mainly the Conservatives. LibDems will probably suffer a total collapse but say 10% drop - they stand at about 12% now I think. Where will these votes go? Conservatives? Hardly? UKIP? Do you think so? Even if they ALL abstain it means Labour pick up more seats. The irony is that Cameron reneged on support for a new electoral system as the Lib Dems see it. They got a vote but no support which torpedoed it from the start. The response was that they in turn refused to support the boundary changes which would have helped the Tories. on an even split Tory/Labour then Labour gets more seats.

All Miliband has to do is avoid alienating his supporters and he should win comfortably. I am reckoning on a 40->80 Labour majority.

By the way, Phil, I just checked in my wardrobe. I still have my Che t-shirt from student days and also a kilt. I know that misery loves company but in my case it will be to come and gloat

Logically, Bellatori's thesis is unassailable, but does not of itself explain the result of the 2010 General Election, or guarantee that there will not be a similar voting pattern in 2015.

The Electorate do not vote logically, and many constituency results hinge upon either the number of people who did NOT vote, or those who apparently vote against their own interests - for which the only explanation is perversity. (Don't you tell us how we ought to vote - we're British!)

Phil Hornby wrote. I am not sure the Party I support actually exists, Bobby! Shocked
.
Again phil I am with you. At present I am lending my full support to the Labour Party as they are the best of what is on offer and the only hope we have of ridding ourselves of this rancid Tory led Coalition. I fervently believe Ed Miliband will make a better PM than leader of the opposition so I am hoping Ed pulls his finger out and attacks Cameron with the same venom as is used on him..

Hi Bobby
 
To a certain extent I agree with your post, but I hope you do not mean for Ed Miliband to go as LOW as  the Tory party yes Ed has to fight but at the moment they are behaving like those things that live at the bottom of the POND, "SCUM OF THE EARTH".   The Tories are giving him enough ammo to bury them just like the Thatcher gov't did, he just needs to find a way more effective to use it so that he does not stoop to Scam..er..ons level of belly crawling.:yeahthat:

Faint hearts never won .....

............. anything, really.

bobby wrote:-
he doesn't have to disclose one word of policy

 
Ed Miliband has disclosed a lot of policies:-
 
- Repeal of the NHS Act.
 
- Commitment to build 400,000+ homes.
 
- Private rent regulation.
 
- Living wage for public sector workers and shame private sector into following suit.
 
- A minimum 33-40% cut in tuition fees.
 
- Rail price regulation limiting fare increases to 1%.
 
- 50p top rate of income tax.
 
- Mansion tax.
 
- Repeat the bankers’ bonus tax.
 
- Repeal of bedroom tax.
 
- Scrap ‘Workfare’ and replace it with compulsory jobs guarantee.
 
- Either a VAT cut or a temporary VAT ‘holiday’.
 
- No more free schools.
 
- Scrap Ofgem and introduce proper energy price regulation.
 
- Support for clean coal technology and mining communities.
 
- Break up of banks and establishment of a state-owned investment bank.
 
And here’s another one:-
 
Labour pledges to build five new towns to ease shortage of new homes
 
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/nov/24/labour-pledges-five-new-towns-housing

" .... probably thinks he can walk on water."

That may have been why the Tories privatised it in the first place.

bobby. I wasn’t shouting, my friend; I always put newspaper headlines in bold type – and I put quotes from sources in italics – to distinguish them from my own words.  
 
Yes, I should think relatively few people watch the appalling spectacle of PMQs on a Wednesday lunchtime; most have other things to be doing, some even a job. As for ‘Question Time’, the panel usually has three right-wingers out of five, the questions are censored and Bullingdon boy Dimbleby constantly interrupts left-wingers to put them off their stride. And yes, lots of people buy ‘The Sun’, which will never give Labour fair coverage, or ‘The Daily Mail’, which doesn’t care how many lies it prints. Even ‘The Daily Telegraph’ lowers itself to peddle unmitigated crap like this, showing how ruthless – but also how desperate - the right-wing press has become:-
 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/10462871/Its-no-coincidence-the-MPs-found-guilty-of-fiddling-are-all-Labour.html
 
When Andy Burnham made a major speech earlier this year about his plans for the NHS and social care, it went largely unreported. When the BBC wants to discuss anything to do with the economy, they drag up their very own Tory sympathiser Robert Peston and/or a failed former Tory chancellor, either Lamont or Lawson. They rarely interview Ed Balls, who is the best qualified man in Parliament to be chancellor; he was lecturing on economics at Harvard when Osborne was folding towels in a department store. Balls’ absence from the radio doesn’t mean that he isn’t saying or doing anything. I can’t understand why you and Phil Hornby seem to have swallowed the idea that what amounts to media censorship means that Labour, and Ed Miliband in particular, aren’t being active.
 
Labour has realised for some time that the best way to get your message across effectively is for thousands of members and supporters to go out at weekends and talk to people, especially in marginal seats:-
 
http://www.labour.org.uk/doorstep-family

Hi Bobby
 
I watch QT every week and it was good to see some of the audience have woken up to the Tory LIES, IMHO the CHUNT looked very uncomfortble and ill at ease during QT because he has realized the people will not swallow any more Tories BLATANT LIES :yeahthat:

I take comfort from the certain knowledge that, as we speak, members of the Tory Front Bench are making arrangements to serve on the Boards of some of Britain's wealthiest companies or quangoes after May 2015.

oftenwrong wrote:I take comfort from the certain knowledge that, as we speak, members of the Tory Front Bench are making arrangements to serve on the Boards of some of Britain's wealthiest companies or quangoes  after May 2015.

If they have any sense OW those jobs there looking for will have to be in a country that does not have a treaty with the UK, because some of them deserve to serve time for there fiddling and abusing there power while in gov't.:yeahthat: 

Redflag, you might have heard the expression, "The Devil looks after his own"!

 
You're spot on with the Devil looks after his own, but even the Devil will get sick and tired of bailing them out so often OW. :yeahthat:

It angers me that at the moment I cannot do anything to help Ed Miliband (you know the reason why, Ivan)  to win the next general election but it has made me more determined to get out there and do my bit to help the Labour party so I am hoping by next spring I will be off on my travels down south to help Ed be the next Great PM that the UK has ever had.

Those of you who think that the Labour Party isn't doing anything might care to look at this page, showing some of the many 'Cost of Cameron' doorstep campaigns up and down the country today (11 January):-

http://labour.stackla.com/

Today's Sunday Times includes a remark that Labour might provide the Tories with their best chance of being re-elected in 2015.

Osborne is sewing the path with fiscal traps for the unwary, and it's all Labour's to lose if they over-react to dirty tricks.

For whatever reason , I just cannot see Miliband entering 10 Downing Street by the front door in May 2015.

Labour does not have the appropriate armoury to withstand the dirty tricks in store for them and have too little of attractiveness to convince the voting public.

The Tories will not deserve to continue their rule - far from it - but the paucity of the opposition is such that they can secure another 'victory' by default.

Milly might be a jolly fine chap , but he is insufficiently compelling to oust the oily Cameron...       

Unless the old adage can be reversed to read Brains baffle bullshit.

oftenwrong wrote:Today's Sunday Times includes a remark that Labour might provide the Tories with their best chance of being re-elected in 2015.

Osborne is sewing the path with fiscal traps for the unwary, and it's all Labour's to lose if they over-react to dirty tricks.

I think Ed Miliband and the Labour party  will be on the ball for Tory dirty tricks, because the Tories know the  only way they will get back into power is by using dirty tricks that is why they hired Lynton Crosby the dirtiest trick in Austrailia.  As for Osborne laying traps Ed Balls is a whily old fox and I bet he could tie Osborne up in knots without him even knowing anything about it. :yeahthat:

Ed Milliband might not say much but it is starting to seem as if whenever he says that Labour will do something when they get into power the Tories promptly do it first - like giving money back off fuel bills instead of capping bills like EM proposed. He has quietly got the Telegraph on-side by promising to pay attention to the losses of the middle classes. The current priority though is to root out the bits of legislation currently going through to the European parliament which will allow big businesses to sue Britain if governments try to protect NHS contracts from being open to the highest bidder.

Distraction techniques and sleight of hand... someone needs to be awake in the Opposition...............

I agree bobby but I do wish the Labour MPs would back Ed up in the HOC they have more than enough ammo  :yeahthat:

Not many people actually seem to notice the Quiet Man. When he speaks his speeches he drones so slowly that one can go and make a cup of tea and not have missed anything of importance. He is much more animated in spontaneous dialogue - and he speaks truth, which is a refreshing novelty these days!

The party needs to back him - and I could really do without Labour saying stuff like how Labour will make the NHS responsible for social care. That would be enough to turn me away for starters.

Just fund a decent infrastructure that allows Britain to rebuild from its local cooperatives as well as giving shares to workers, which they cannot sell but at least get their fair share of company bonus, affordable good quality education and a help-up rather than a put-down culture.

France has 75% tax rate and a first rate health service. President Reagan also introduced a 75% tax band (and it's his loan and bust policies that set us all on the path to ruin in the first place!)

Our debts to the bankers have placed us at their mercy or lack thereof but we should still try and balance self interest for the nation with a sense of fair play and fair pay.

methought said:  France has 75% tax rate and a first rate health service.

You are absolutely correct French health care is fantastic. When hospitalised in France it is normal for each patient to have their own room, and if required a bed for the other half. The standard of treatment is written in law whereby all clinicians have to give the best treatment available, not like here where we get fobbed off with the cheapest then they work up the cost scale till they find just what you need, it must be normal for treatments to cost more in the long run due to much repetition.
A big problem France is now having is they can not afford the treatments they are at present forced to give, so they need to take the money from another departments budget.

The French like us bobby would not have to rob peter to pay paul if the ruddy banks had behaved in a half decent way  :yeahthat:

Today, I will be mostly phone canvassing on behalf of the Labour party - my first time - wish me luck

My best wishes go to almost anyone whose activities - if lawful - assist the possible demise of this Coalition.
 Power to your elbow, boatlady...      

boatlady wrote:Today, I will be mostly phone canvassing on behalf of the Labour party - my first time - wish me luck

All of my best wishes boatlady, you will do fine when I went down to Eastleigh last February it was my first time out campaigning, before all I had done was stuff envelopes in a campaign office so do not worry there will be plenty of people that will be there to guide you.  

People like me who do nothing but grumble and shuffle a bit of cash to perceived  good causes should really be ashamed...     

Where should the Labour Party position itself? Somewhere that includes Shadow Ministers taking some interest in events which should concern them.
Labour's Shadow Minister for Welfare Reform Chris Bryant was less than impressive on the debate following "Benefits Street". He hadn't found time to watch the show.

http://tv.uk.msn.com/features/white-dees-the-star-of-benefits-britain-the-live-debate

Phil Hornby wrote:People like me who do nothing but grumble and shuffle a bit of cash to perceived  good causes should really be ashamed...     

You are doing what you can PH, at the moment it is all I can at the moment but by April I will be putting myself out there even if its just stuffing envelopes in a campaign office every little helps. My problem is I am not needed in Scotland for campaigning as us Scots DO NOT VOTE TORY EVER so I have to head down south so that I can do my bit.

So please do not make little of what you do to help the Labour party to win the next general election in May 2015, they do need funds to fight the general election as you know the Tory coffers are being filled to the brim from the bankers hedge fund managers and tax avoiders and evaders.  

" Labour's Shadow Minister for Welfare Reform Chris Bryant was less than impressive..."

Such an analysis does tend to support the assertion that , as an opposition, the Labour Party is currently pretty bloody useless. How many chances do they need...?

"Ships? I see no ships!" Horatio Lord Nelson 1805

Well that wasn't bad.
Thanks, all, for the good wishes.

A surprising number of people were happy, even eager, to let me know their views.

bobby wrote:When the Flooding was first bought to Herr Cameron's attention he instinctively made his usual response "its the fault of the previous Government". When he later found out that it was in fact the Tories who stopped the necessary dredging and cut the budgets, he was very quick to change direction saying we don't need to be arguing as who is to blame, but must now come together and deal with the problem.
My first thought was "what a slimy Bastard", then to my horror the Labour party went out of its way not to put the blame fair and square on Herr Cameron's shoulders. I wonder how Herr Cameron would have listened to a like plea had it come from Ed Miliband had the fault really been the Previous Government, why is it that Ed Miliband is prepared to fight a clean election, whilst Cameron and his mates are prepared to and do use every dirty trick in the book?
Ed Miliband has had so much to attack The Coalition on and keep Herr Cameron on the back foot, yet he lets every open goal go by without a shot. No way to win over a fickle electorate.

 
Bobby Ed Miliband leaves the blame game to his shadow Minister for the Enviroment, and they did come out and say it was due to the cuts of Davy boys gov't that is why they asked him if he was still going to cut 550 jobs from the flood defence staff which has been put on hold for the time being but as soon as the publics back is turned those staff will go.  
 
I agree to a certain degree about Labour not using all the ammo that Davy boys gov't hand to the Labour party on a platter, all I can say is would you want Ed to behave in the same way as Davy boy I think that would put the voters right off voting Labour  

".... that would put the voters right off voting Labour"

Undoubtedly true, Redflag. Many voters already use the phrase, "Politicians are all the same!"

It will not help Labour's cause for "the two Eds" to get down on the floor with the slimy Coalition, exchanging Yah-boo insults.

boatlady wrote:Well that wasn't bad.
Thanks, all, for the good wishes.

A surprising number of people were happy, even eager, to let me know their views.

Any chance you could share there views with us on the forum boatlady ??