Halfwit Harman, No Left Turn, And Predictable Outcomes

Harriet Harman is the acting leader of the Labour Party.

She is also a total halfwit. I do not say that simply because I disagree with her recent failure to represent the poor, from the disabled to the unemployed, from the hardworking and underpaid, to the public sector. She failed to do that, because she refuses to oppose the measures the Tories are putting forward which will see huge numbers of innocent people worse off, for no reason what so ever.

Oh no, I do not simply take issue with that. I take issue with the way she justified her choices.

She said something to the effect of:

We lost the last election because we did not provide a reasonable alternative.

One must assume from what she said, that she does not want the Labour Party to get anywhere in future elections either. Of course, alternatively it is possible that she simply has got NO clue about why her party was unsuccessful at keeping the Tories out of the lives of regular folk.

One only has to look at the numbers of people who voted, or rather the staggering number who did not vote, to see that something was seriously lacking from the last election. Some might argue the toss over exactly what that was, but I believe that the main reason is, that the Labour Party of this era, is incapable of attracting the voters it used to be able to attract, for one simple reason. It is no longer a party whose goal is representing those who cannot represent themselves, who have no voice.

The role of the Labour Party is to represent the huge number of people in this nation, who have no power, and yet it has not been doing so for years, since before Blair. The fact that the people of this country have no left leaning representation worth a crap now, is the reason that the Labour Party failed to win the last election, and if Harriet Harman wants to leave the party in good stead for the future, she would do well to remember that a Labour Party which fails the voiceless, will have no one to speak for it at the ballot box.

There is no rational left in politics in this country any more. Where are those who will be lead by scientists in matters where their discoveries may be of use to the population? Where are the politicians who would rather die themselves than see a single down trodden individual suffer at the hands of an uncaring state? Where are the politicians who do not believe that profit is more important than effectiveness, that people should be paid more, and items should cost less to purchase?

The rational left is a non entity in this country, and it is in such a state because the Labour Party are no longer a party for the left, for the workers, for the grafters and for them as have no voice. It is a centre right fiasco of a sham, and that is why they fail. If you agree with austerity programs, the curtailing of benefits paid to the elderly, the sick, and the working poor, if you agree with the destruction of public services and the removal of front line staff, then there is no way that your party will ever gain the votes necessary to beat the Conservative Party in an election.

Simply put, there must be an alternative, and right now, the Labour Party are not providing it, no one is. Harman is part of the problem, and so are many of the members of the Labour Party these days. The Labour Party is short on those who have ever Laboured over anything in their lives, and frankly, the results have been depressingly predictable. There must be change in that party, change which sees the monied oafs who populate it at the moment, replaced with persons who not only represent the working poor, but ARE working poor, people who do not want to be paid more than the national minimum wage for their efforts on behalf of their country, people who will militate against any effort on the part of special interests to shift the balance of power away from the people of the nation, and toward its corporate entities.

If this is not done, voter turn out in this country will continue to be poor, because more than half of people will not be represented by any of the parties in Westminster. This cannot stand.

a reply to: TrueBrit

For me her statement backed up the Scots chant of Red Tories , labour are just another homogenised centrist party of career politicians with no real core beliefs except get elected , it's not about ideas anymore it's just about saying the right thing to get yourself elected.

Politics and politicians are rotten but then it's been that way for as long as I can remember , we no longer need to change our government we need to change the system , a government of the people , by the people , for the people.
I will not vote for a morally corrupt politician or to support a corrupted system.
Vive la revolution.

a reply to: TrueBrit

If this is not done, voter turn out in this country will continue to be poor,

I did not know that you dont have compulsory voting in the UK . Our system here in Australia is based on yours so i thought compulsory voting would apply to both countries . And yes labour here is supposed to be for the little man as well .

You gave her half a wit? ..... that's very generous.

Being from a labour heartland in nw England I was really surprised to hear the view of our local labour mp who supported a bedroom tax but not a mansion tax. That is a tory...

He is forging a career in politics, good for him. should they be careers.

We were conned at the last election because labour was just a protest vote. I have no doubt in my mind if we called another election and English voters were allowed to vote for any party instead of just English ones, for example SNP, we would have a completely different out come. The tories split the labour vote with the SNP, knowing none of them would have an affect, but together they could have.

I for one am glad the tories won because you have to hit rock bottom first and tory are taking us all down, fast. All of Europe are fighting to not be the first out of euro zone as the first one will be made to pay as an example to the rest. Tory britian have other plans. Human rights, they cant implement their full eugenics policy on the people they cant afford. Aged, disabled, unemployable, anyone who is not contributing and realising their own asset value to them. We are under a massive threat and Harmann and the rest of the political parties are compliant.

There is more afoot than we can imagine. The eugenics going to be practised on our youth is rumoured to be the introduction of 'NATIONAL SERVICE' before this term ends. sorry if it off thread but been waiting for brit to post about home troubles.

a reply to: nonjudgementalist

I only gave her that because I am such a bloody nice chap!

The real issue is this. In a democracy, it is vital that the population have representatives who not only understand their issues and have the nouse to help solve the wider sociological and socioeconomic problems which hinder mobility and freedom, but have experienced these things for themselves. The reason for that is simple... People need to feel connected to the individuals they elect. They need to feel that these people not only are capable of representing them, but that those individuals ARE part of the community. No inner city worker on what amounts to subsistence pay, despite working more hours than most executives and doing harder physical work, should be asked to vote for a person who has never achieved a days solid, physical labour.

More to the point, only someone who has worked hard, and for very little financial gain, can possibly understand the real issues pertaining to social stagnation and the inevitable effect of austerity cuts on the people that our public services are meant to serve. Only a person who has lived a real, ground level, non executive lifestyle, where no work worth doing can be done in a suit, can possibly understand the notion that our government should be our servant rather than we, the people, being its slaves.

I will not accept the Labour Party as a viable alternative to the insanity of the Tories, until or unless a change in leadership results in the leader being a working class person, with little personal wealth, but all the good ideas in the world of how to improve the systems which run our government, remove from all halls of power and government offices any notion of trying to run the nation like a business, and install instead a system in which people working for the government do so out of duty to the people, before duty to their bank balances, which certainly is not the case at the highest level, and damned well ought to be.

Give us leaders who will do without, so that we may have our daily sustenance, and we the people may respond fondly. Give us appeasers, people who follow the lowest common denominator in political discourse however, and we will rightly turn up our noses at them, for they are no friend to the common man or woman, no friend to the young, no friend to the elderly, no friend of ours at all.

a reply to: TrueBrit
Which is why Scotland voted SNP. It is absolutley astonishing that the Labour party failed to understand how Glasgow voted SNP. For decades the saying was that you didn't need to count the Labour vote in Glasgow simply weigh it.

The alarm bells were ringing at the referendum when the only place in Scotland that voted Yes was the labour heartland, Glasgow. You would have thought even the thickest Labour politician would have thought "Hmmm I think we have a problem". But no, they actually believe they were too left wing at the election. Jesus H christ how to really miss the plot.

There are those that point to the Blair elections but they fail to recognise that Blair only succeeded because the core labour vote was still there. That core has gone, disillusioned, if Blair2 (Kendall !!) came along Labour would get even less votes.

The Tories got 37% of the vote and only 66% voted. That means they are imposing their will on 75% of the population who didn't vote for them. Democracy UK style thanks to the first past the post system. Yet this simple maths seems to be beyond Harman's understanding. She wants to move Labour towards the 25% and away from the 75% to try and win, what a moronic belief that is!

a reply to: TrueBrit

Well said!

I think there has only ever been one true Labour Government that did something nice for the poor. That was Attlee's post war government that gave us the National Health Service and welfare. It was a thank you I guess from the powerful for the millions of lives sacrificed in the two world wars. Ever since though successive governments have been slowly taking back the post war freebies by stealth and sabotage. Back to the work house for us lot, lol.

England particularly just isn't a Socialist country. Socialism will never get a true chance here. Now that Scotland, that was vital in making up the English deficit of support, has kicked Labour's hypocritical ass out they are finished as an English party in their current form.

The actual poor and minimum wage earner families and individuals are less than a quarter of the English population. In a sense they are a political minority. The way Capitalism has influenced selfish behaviour people do not tend to look out for each other anymore, only their own self interests.

There is no politician who is speaking on my behalf, there never has been in my life time. I hate Capitalism personally. It has turned us all into selfish monsters. I believe in shared wealth. I'm not a Communist, but the disgusting abuse of the masses to launch those greedy opportunists into mega wealth leaves me cold and my every desire is that it falls on its ass.

Shared wealth that benefits us all, working together as a society, looking after those in need, opportunities for all to have some kind of life. Anything else is taking advantage and plain greedy.

If a labour leader can't get backing from the Sun or any Murdoch media, they might as well forget it. The right wing press pretty much run government policy these days. They have done a great job for the Torries in manufacturing consent for current Tory policies. The best labour can do for the next four years is provide a real opposition, but if they are going to support Tory policy then they can't even provide the opposition much needed today. They aren't going to win the next election, so they should get Jeremy Corbyn In charge, so we can have some decent opposition to the status quo.

a reply to: Revolution9

You know UKIP did Labour so much damage in England. They are David Cameron's secret weapon. He has been politically ruthless. The coalition has all but wiped out the Liberal Democrats. Their brief fling with the Tories has cost them the life of their party just about.

The SNP in Scotland and UKIP in England made all the difference. I knew David Cameron was rubbing his hands in glee and playing everyone rotten. I knew it would work, too and that he would take the Tories to victory.

Labour have that loony left image that is so often used as a Tory weapon. The Guardian these last few years has been dealing in the trade of trendy minorities, positive discrimination, continuing the mistakes of Blair's government, while the country was getting rightfully concerned about Euro migration.

I see at least two terms of Tory government in the future. Eventually, I hope, people will get fed up with watching their society disintegrate into empty selfishness. They'll get fed up of their sons and daughters living off them, stuck at home with no benefits and no chance of furthering their education because the grant system has been taken away. They'll get fed up of all the good housing being bought in all the nice places by rich people who use it as new Gold in terms of investment. They'll get fed up as the nation's health goes into crisis. Then a reformed Labour government with a manifesto that seeks to share wealth may garner support. Though I can't see the wealthy wanting to part with even a penny.

Seeing as housing is the new gold and is causing huge problems with housing opportunities wouldn't it be nice if the bottom dropped out of that little earner? How I would wish it. Where I live wealthy people from London have bought up all the little quaint cottages here. They are bought as a real estate investment, used as summer let businesses or as holiday homes. There is one beautiful village a couple of miles away that is desolate in the winter. That was once a thriving community. People who have this financial power are just gobbling every nice opportunity up. As these opportunities become even more scarce their investments only get more lucrative. Interests from foreign investors then arises. We have seen this happen in London already and this will spread out from there. England is a rich man's Fort Knox, but a poor man' hell of zero opportunity.

Carry on eating sharks. Soon you will have eaten up everything and they'll be nothing left to eat.

a reply to: woodwardjnr

With the huge number of people who did not vote last time around, I think it might be the case that the traditional media drivers in politics are not as capable as they once were of turning peoples heads, when it comes to political matters. Of course, there are those brainwashed goons that believe everything they read in the trash rags, but I think the numbers speak for themselves where that is concerned.

People came, fairly in my estimation, to the conclusion that none of the parties was worth a crap, and they did so in vast number. It is a shame, I think, that we do not have an electoral system which counts a failure to post a ballot, as a vote of no confidence in all the parties in the election, and summarily bar any of those parties from running for election in a re-run to be conducted no more than a month later. A system could be devised to ensure that government employees like doctors, nurses, firemen, police personnel, the military, DWP, and so on, are still paid during that period without the involvement of ministers and so on. This would allow a month to pass, during which new representatives and other parties could get their opportunity to be heard in leadership debate, which they may have missed out on previously.

It would also mean that parties running for election would be justly fearful of being totally discounted by the electorate, if they fail to offer policies of enough quality and fairness, that people would select them in order to see those policies enacted. Furthermore, I believe that during an election cycle, all parties should have access to the same data as the sitting government, when it comes to things like the funding for any one sector of the public services, the NHS, the military, and so on and so forth. All too often, promises broken are blamed on things being left in such a parlous state by the previous government, that the promises made during elections are impossible to keep. The candidates being allowed government level access to data would totally remove this excuse, and allow better, more realistic policy to be created and put forward for consideration by the voting public, as well as represent an increase in trasnparency.

There is so much that ought to be happening, and could happen, and yet it does not.

I don't think you've factored in the 'average' person in the UK.

That person, someone with children and an 'average' job, is hard-working, pays taxes and does the best they can for their families and maybe pitch in once in a while for their communities. They typically give to charities and good causes and try to go on one holiday per year. They make up a considerable proportion of the population.

Whether true or not, what they were seeing or assuming under Labour was an underclass quickly develop that could outspend them using benefit payments. Their household income was higher, their children were better clothed, they lived in bigger homes, they went on holidays. Don't assume I'm including the poor in this – I'm not.

The country had had enough of this benefits 'salary' culture, and they voted for fair change.

a reply to: 321Go

Why does every UK political discussion have to end up as the same old story about benifits or immigrants?

The OP was about the lack of a true labour party at present and no real representation of the left as I understood it.

a reply to: nonspecific

Thanks nonspecific! I was just about to say the very same thing.

Hope you are well chap!

a reply to: TrueBrit

Very well sir and I did in two sentances what would have been for you a short novella!

a reply to: nonspecific

Indeed so sir, indeed so!

I can assure you that my verbosity would almost certainly have overcome me, had I been forced to deal with that response myself!

originally posted by: 321Go
I don't think you've factored in the 'average' person in the UK.

That person, someone with children and an 'average' job, is hard-working, pays taxes and does the best they can for their families and maybe pitch in once in a while for their communities. They typically give to charities and good causes and try to go on one holiday per year. They make up a considerable proportion of the population.

Whether true or not, what they were seeing or assuming under Labour was an underclass quickly develop that could outspend them using benefit payments. Their household income was higher, their children were better clothed, they lived in bigger homes, they went on holidays. Don't assume I'm including the poor in this – I'm not.

The country had had enough of this benefits 'salary' culture, and they voted for fair change.

I tried to out line in my above posts the new challenges to any party wishing to challenge the Tory ethos. Was it not Jesus who said "You will always have the poor with you"? You can either keep em clean or treat em mean. It is simple as that. Welfare and social housing put an end to work houses and slums. Free health services for all insured a standard of physical wellbeing. Do you think the poor can be somehow have a magician's trick done upon them and disappear? There will always be poor people because of the behaviour of the wealthy.

There is a choice of having a social system that will insure a certain standard of care for the poor or the other alternative will be drifting back to Charles Dickens or the slums of untouchables in India. It is up to the British people to decide.

Some posters are suggesting that Welfare and Immigration are the same old boring topics and should not be discussed. For a political party who's identity was supposed to be about socialism and with the nationwide shortage of housing and other social provisions these two issues are still top priority. Having too many people for the houses available keeps rents high and drives up property value sky rocketing. It keeps that real estate GOLD going up in value. That is how immigration relates to real estate. Has Cameron somehow dealt with that problem and it is all better now, that UKIP is a thing of the past and there is tighter control of the influx of people migrating from Europe? Not at all! David Cameron has cunningly got away with just speaking tough rhetoric about the issue, but nothing in actual fact has really changed.

What is happening in London will slowly happen to the rest of England. Billionaires buy properties in London, etc, because they are the most lucrative investment. There is no better return on an investment right now in the UK.

Wealthy people don't need looking out for, they are strong. Yet who will look out for the weaker members of society? They will not go away. By failing to have welfare provision life will just be worse for them and very often they can cost more in the long run in a myriad of ways and I'm not just talking financially.

Labour was meant to be a party that had an ethos of Socialism. Harman and her ilk are wanting to abandon that, losing the very soul of the original Labour Movement. In my posts I have tried to highlight why Labour should not abandon their commitments to Socialism.

originally posted by: nonspecific
a reply to: 321Go

Why does every UK political discussion have to end up as the same old story about benifits or immigrants?

.

Because right wing media drives the debate in this country.

a reply to: Revolution9
That's what I wanted to say but got into a rant. Thanks I agree totally

I would be interested to know the demographics of those who decided not to vote?

Did we see the Tory vote as usual ? But thanks to Labours decision to throw in the towel, the majority of non-voters were usually Labour voters? Same goes for disillusioned Lib-Dems I imagine.

In light of actual Tory votes, that makes a heck of an 'opposition' in anyones book.