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Can anyone point me in the direction of any social reform that was not instigated by the unions?
Just a few suggestions; universal suffrage, shorter working weeks, stopping child Labour, better holidays, National insurance, maternity leave, the Dole etc.
None of these were willingly granted by the elite without a fight.I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains
I've walked and I crawled on six crooked highwaysI do sense an impending change in the tide, Purwell.
I was watching an interview between Owen Jones and Ash Sarkar last night on YouTube.
Now you’d have to go back literally 40 years to find a time when I saw the world even remotely through their impossible left-wing utopia eyes, but they did remind me of a couple of things.
The interview was on the run up to the 2019 Election and they were laughing at how extreme Corbyn’s manifesto was considered to be by the media when much of it was either existing policy in various European countries or mere throwback to the Labour government of the 1970s, considered moderate and simply about social democracy in its day.
Much though some with their puerile personal biased “extreme, left, right, and centre” labels would like us to believe otherwise, the epicentre of British politics is considerably further to the right than it was in 1979.
What some call the centre now would have been considered comfortably on the right back then, even by Conservatives.
Jim Callaghan was no Marxist, neither was Harold Wilson, but then those who use the label don’t really know what a Marxist is.
It’s been a drift to the right 1979-2022 and counting, with Blair/Brown merely arresting, rather than reversing, the drift 1997-2010.
Every newly-elected Tory government has found new ways to make the rich even richer and the poor even poorer.
It can’t go on forever.
Maybe the Pandemic and the War/Cost Of Living Crisis have accelerated matters to a head, but I think we are about to see a right-wing PM whose solution to industrial unrest will be legislation to outlaw union activities.
But at the same time I sense greater public sympathy for unionism than in a great many years because so many are struggling and so many need an inflation-matching pay rise in order to make ends meet.
There’s nothing sadder than a working class Tory defending the super wealthy who are p***ing on them just as much as they are p***ing on everyone else.
But even the dimmest working class Tory has a breaking point.
Look at the universal hostility towards the energy company profits released last week.
It’s been a long time coming, but the tide – in some shape or form – is turning.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"“But even the dimmest working class Tory has a breaking point.”
You’re not allowed to say that, Chezza. They know exactly what they’re voting for. You know, just like with Brexit.
Thatcher is reported to have said that her greatest accomplishment was New Labour. Blair, Brown et al were just Tory Lite.
The entire political spectrum has been dragged to the right by the neoliberal agenda over the last forty or so years, as you rightly point out; a key part of that master plan is to dumb down the general population through an education system that teaches children to repeat rather than think and then inundate everybody with weapons of mass distraction (vacuous television programmes, celebrity culture, blockbuster films, incessant sport, facile music, etc).
Throw wages that are kept deliberately low, so that people have to worry about their daily necessities rather than abstracts like politics, into the mix and, ultimately, you’re left with an electorate that is too consumed with other things to know what’s going on and too thick to do anything about it anyway.
“I was watching an interview between Owen Jones and Ash Sarkar last night on YouTube.”
You deserve some sort of medal for doing that.
“You deserve some sort of medal for doing that.”
Agreed. While I broadly agree with their politics, they both make for painful listening.
“You deserve some sort of medal for doing that.”
I agree – I detest Jones and La Sarkar’s sole redeeming feature is she reminds me a bit of a former Asian girlfriend from way back in the late 1980s.
But they did kind of remind me of a few fringe (or should that be cringe?) meetings I used to attend during my brief flirtation with active politics 1979/81 and looking at things in the round over the years, it did remind me just how much the political axis has shifted.
In 1981, those lads in the Militant Tendency, quite apart from being the most appalling cooks of communal pasta meals for 12 (meetings never that well attended) who blew wind up your backside if you could quote a bit of Lenin, despised Jim Callaghan/Harold Wilson and everything that occurred 1974/79.
Fast forward to 2019 and Corbyn was denounced as a Marxist/Stalinist/Anythingelseyoulikeist for a manifesto which was a mere throwback to those 1970s years.
Don’t ever let anyone tell you the UK hasn’t shifted radically to the right these past 40 years, because it has.
Not that I get too animated about it anymore – so long as I’ve got a roof over my head, have access to a half-decent Indian takeaway and can get a few bets on, you know?
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Three more Labour front benchers (including Lisa Nandy) have been on picket lines this morning.
Is Starmer going to sack them as well? Or does he just pick on Rayner’s boyfriend?
Interesting.
I kinda saw Starmer’s point of view with his original policy.
Labour are a party trying to get re-elected, they’re not a Union, they’ve got floating voters to win over and they can’t be seen to be getting too involved.
And they need to be united behind the Leader’s policy in order to maximise the benefit they derive from current Tory in-fighting.
But clearly Lisa Nandy et al don’t see it that way.
Trickiest moment for Starmer since Beergate, I’d say.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"The explanation is Nandy was just meeting the strikers, not picketing with them. But that looks like a very fine line.
The other two are quite open in their social media posts about being on a picket line.
It is rumoured that Unite, which accounts for a lot of Labour’s funds, has had something to say to Starmer.
I think Mr Tarry is entitled to feel aggrieved.
I just read The Guardian’s account of it and it sounds like the ban is effectively over.
The official line was Tarry was sacked for giving unauthorised interviews and making policy on the hoof, not for attending the picket line.
Even when the Tories are tearing themselves apart, Labour manage to shoot themselves in the foot.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Yes, I have just read that as well, which sort of makes it OK. But why is it OK to support a picket line on Monday but not Saturday? Farcical.
Completely farcical.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"The description of politics is just the same as it has ever been, Chezza.
Left is still left.
Right is still right.
Centre is still centre.
It’s just that political parties and the public in general have turned away from the Centre…
Some would rather believe what is now the Centre has changed from the early 1970’s because they themselves have moved left or right and don’t want to think of themselves as anything else but “Centre”.
Then there are those who were in the left or right camps from the start and deluded themselves they were ever “Centre”.
Value Is EverythingLabour went from Left with Callaghan – I don’t consider Callaghan himself “left” but he was fighting an uphill struggle to keep the extreme left at bay and failed. Extreme left took over under Foot, becoming unellectable.Then to centre-left with Kinnock having to put down Muilitant. Smith wasn’t there for long to judge, but I think he was centre-left. Blair liked to portray himself as centre-left but his policies were definitely Centre. Followed by his “mate” Brown, a true Centre-leftist. Then back to the 70’s, extreme unellectable left again under Corbyn. Now with Starmer it appears centre-left once more but the people in the party are pretty much the same and just like Callaghan and Kinnock is fighting the Left to keep control.
Value Is EverythingConservatives went from One Nation centre-right Heath to further right “New Right” Thatcher. Then Major tried running a centre-right government while fending off the Thatcherites. One Nation Hague couldn’t control the right followed by New Right Howard and back to One Nation Cameron. Cameron first had the Liberals help in keeping the Tory Right in check. May was between the two. sometimes right sometimes centre-right. Pandemic probably forced Johnson to be more centre-right than his instincts, which did not go down well with the right. Now in a Truss, we are likely to be back to a Thatcherite right if not righter still.
Value Is EverythingLess than a million members of all parties across England and Wales. However, total electorate of c50 million?
So, any party has to try and appeal to c50x the number of peeps who are not party members.
They all have to strike a balance; nutjobs of the parties have to be sidelined.
Labour MPs on a picket line? Very noble, but fraught with danger when Labour has to hold on to its opinion poll lead.Completely agree, Wilts.
I think Starmer had it right in the first place.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"
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