He told LBC the policy was subject to #labour fiscal rules*, but highlighted the party's aim of generating all electricity without using fossil fuels by 2030, saying he was "absolutely committed" to this target
@jackLondon I can think of many politicians less shifty and dishonest than #Starmer
Seems a silly game of integrity top-trumps , But if you like, i would start with Mark Drakeford, Andy Burnham, Ian Byrne, Clive Lewis, Shami Chakrabarti - in no particular order - and there are many more
But what difference does it make to Starmers shameless dishonesty and lack of principles and integrity?
I note you reference 5 Labour politicians - all serving in the party led by Starmer.
I do find you & others who bang on endlessly about how much you dislike the LOTO rather sad - it's like you cannot accept the leadership of the party is not on the same page as you
Other left parties are available - none ever win an election - that is not a coincidence.
What you see as "dishonesty" is merely a leadership manouvring to gain a majority - without power there is no point to Labour
... I see Mr Byrne is in the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs - 32 of the total of 195 Labour MP - less than 20% of the total. That reflects the importance of "true socialism" in the overall Labour movement - it is about 20% - the other 80% not being socialists. Within those who vote labour I reckon the % is more like 5%
No - what I mean is that at no point in its entire history has Labour been a totally scoailist party - and only when it acknowledges that and sidelines the extremists like Benn, Foot and the like does it attain power
Socialists comprise no more than a few % of the UK electorate
I'm just curious why you are you so angry about Corbyn and abusive to people you see as being on the left. (by which you mean anyone who raises any question around Starmer or labour policy).
The centrist right has been in control of Labour for decades and was losing elections in 2010 and 2015 without any help from 'the left'.
I merely think one should not attack the current #labour from the left, repeating canards that are patently untrue - let the #toriesOut do that
By all means criticise policy - but that is not what "It's just a vehicle for his power grab" and similar, baseless accusations are
I did not comment - once - when #labour chose disastrous leaders who I caould see would not prevent the disastrous shift to the far Right in the UK ...
You're a bit previous - the manifesto is not out yet
It will definitely not be a copy of the Tory one - nor I am sure will it make the left very happy either.... since it must work with the constrainst imposed by reality
@jackLondon@MattMastodon@OliverNoble The ‘reality’ being we can’t spend any money, because there isn’t any, and we can’t tax the rich because that’s a bit socialist. So everything has to be predicated on growth, which - if we’ve learned anything in the last few years - we now know our planet cannot sustain. Bit of a problem….
I do not criticise scepticism - I do object to those putting the worst construction on anything the LOTO does or says - IMO that says more about the poster than him.
Given that there is a near zero chance that there will be a change at the top of the paerty, I cannot understand why some are so determined spit poison when the only alternative is 5 more years of the #toriesOut screwing us all
IMO Because they are just speaking the truth. He may be the only option, but Starmer is not very good, he's a poor politician and he's not putting forward very interesting policies. I doubt he'd do well if there was a competent opposition.
@MattMastodon@jackLondon@OliverNoble He's been as lucky as hell basically. He has benefitted from the implosion of the Tories across the UK and the implosion of the SNP in Scotland. Clearly the thinking is that it would be an unnecessary risk to put forward 'interesting' policies - just do nothing to frighten the mainstream media and cruise to victory on the back of the collapse of the opposition. I have no doubt it will work, unless something extraordinary happens.
Well I hope he continues to be "lucky as hell" ...... oddly the left of #labour continues to be as "unlucky as hell" in the 21st C as it was in the previous one...
It always makes a difference having a Labour govt - and none at all having an ineffective Labour opposition
Whether its the Public order Act, or the Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill (spycops), Starmer provides no "effective opposition"
Amnesty UK -the law is “deeply authoritarian,” “neither proportionate nor necessary".. it puts the UK government “in breach of its international obligations.”
"human rights lawyer" #Starmer will let it "bed-in" - fraud
I would be running a no-policy campaign now. I'm guessing every word is Daily Mail checked to anticipate how they will twist it back. Difficult. Besides the Tories are doing a better job of making themselves unelectable better than any Opposition could hope.
Manifesto launch is when the Opposition are better placed to communicate policies direct to the public rather than an unfriendly mostly right wing press. Can Keir cut it then?
We will see - I gather #labour do not beleive #sunak 's declared "working assumption" that he will wait till the autumn and are aiming to have the manifesto
ready for a May election
Starmer is not exactly charisma central & betrays inexperience by missteps - but i fail to see any evidence he is malign
Labour have had enough time to have it ready now. I assume it is locked in a safe somewhere. There a precious few things they can promise given the mess we are in. Save 'em up and present them as a fresh package at election time beats letting them be roasted and forgotten now. Best keep your what powder you have dry.
Plus if they can surprise and wrong foot the Tories that's a win. I live both in hope and dread that it will be a damp squib.
I think you are right to worry - there is little scope for expensive new commitments and some that had been on the radar have been reduced as the economic position has deteriorated
There are a number of policy initiatives that do not cost billions - eg to clean up public life. I am hopeful we will have some of these to combat the corruption the Tories let in
Not heard that labour are promising to cut taxes.....I thnk you will find that is the other lot - the party for capitalists who will get re-elected were #labour daft enough to repeat the manifesto they had in 2019 - fortunately there is no chance of that
Like it or not, modern politics requires substantial cash to drive an election campaign - I am sure any offer you might make to replace the funds from source you disapprove of would be considered carefully5
I'm a cyclist for a few hours a week. I'm also a motorist for a few hours a week.
I'm a socialist for some things. I'm a capitalist at other times.
Being one thing doesn't preclude you being something else. Indeed I'm skeptical of people trapped in a particular ideology all the time.
You know, like the ERG and the Common Sense (si9c) Group.
Frankly - I don't know how much of a socialist Keir is. We may find out next year but this year he is going to downplay if he is to secure the centrist vote.
It would be sad if self confessed'100% socialists deserted him because he is not as pure as them. Especially when I can't see any likely to seize the Labour Party and the country.
#labour never has been a socialist party, but rather one with a minority of socialist members & is positoned on the centre-left
There are parties with "socialist" in the name - maybe some would be more comfortable in one of them
There is always a tension between being in a tribe where everyone thinks like you (aka a cult) and being in a larger association where you have a common interest but disagreement on the course to plot
Labour was committed to public ownership until Blair. That is a key element of a socialism as I understand it.
The next variant of Labour will be effectively an extension of the Blair Foundation. Many Labour MPs candidates have links with the BF. The BF dwarfs the Labour party in terms of staffing and Starmer is likely to accept direction from Blair and Mandelson.
The next #Labour government will be very capitalist. Maybe, with some crumbs for the proles.
You seem to think state ownership of industries is important, relevant and popular, but a few evil people have corrupted #labour since John Smith died and that is why it is off the table
I think you are totally wrong, and there is little electoral support for "public ownership of the means of production" - and that is why Labour have moved away from the notion
There is no reason to invent silly conspiracy theories that involve "devil-eyes" Blair
What is more, I will wager you cannot identify a single country in the entire world in the last ten years where a party with a socialist agenda as you describe it has been elected to power....
The 'means of production'? I can remember when we had massive means. No more, what is left is struggling to compete with both arms tied behind their backs. Another Brexit dividend. Nationalisation of these will achieve little and the cost cannot be afforded. Better to regulate so they can compete on a more level field.
Now utilities are different. They are monopolies and they are not serving the public. Worse still they have been ransacked by hedge funds. A future government may be gifted the indebted remains. Nationalisation but not a happy one.
The answer is strong regulation - with teeth. And regulators who sympathise with consumers not apparatchiks from the industry, answerable directly to Parliament.
Not massive splurges of borrowed money secured by our future taxes on buying back industries after they have been gutted by capitalists. That way madness lies
This is OUR country, not global capitalists. If they want to run businesses here they do it on our terms. Else hand them back free of debt
Regulation doesn't work, #markets will always find the cheapest path. All across our #economy we see market failure water, #housing, and #climate breakdown. Even the banking system collapsed and was saved by us tax payers
Regulation does work when it's sensible and enforced.
In my industry (IT) we have seen the EU mandate standards that went worldwide (eg GSM & USB) removing proprietary locking and cutting costs to the user benefit. They broke the Microsoft browser locking which is why you are likely to be using Chrome, Firefox or some other. They brought in GDPR for data protection. They are at war with the mega Social Media companies.
The argument is they have not gone far enough not that it doesn't work. And in leaving the EU we may lose some of the protections gained.
I agree - we need to avoid all forms of rigid ideology - specifically any that require we bankrupt the nation
If rail returns to public sector, in whole or in part (much is already) it'll be thanks to how rail is structured. Other industries like water aren't structured the same way - without strong regulation it's hard to see any UK govt being able to afford to buy back water, now laden with debt thanks to incompetent way it was sold off by #toriesOut
Water is woefully under-regulated - dumping untreated waste in unprecedented volume in our rivers & seas. Fierce regulation - & corporate & personal liabiity strong enough to change behaviour - will have tdouble benefit of cleaning our waterways & reducing the value of the industry to its owners, who basically got away with murder for years. If they like, they can then hand it back (without any debt) once regulation has done its work in stopping exploitation.
Without nationalisation these companies will profit from pollution and either refuse to make improvements to the water system or demand that tax payers or water 'customers' pay for it.
Only a pro-capital and anti-people party would oppose privatisation.
Defending this system is an affont to common sense.
Not convinced there is much "common sense" in your part of the political spectrum - certainly not common enbough to produce anything remotely approaching a majority....
As I said - the regulator needs real teeth - regardless of ownership
If you think being in the public sector prevents abuse, you are even more naive than I previously thought.....
Everywhere you look in the UK you see prvatised companies providing poor quality bad services. Our water companies are pouring shit into our rivers and borrowing money to pay shareholders.
This isn't the case for most of our neighbouring countries. Indeed many of them own parts of our utilities and the profits from our bills go abroad.
Everyone can see it, it's not a left or right-wing thing, it's just common sense.
Privatised companies were mostly monopolies. As @jackLondon notes a monopoly needs to be effectively regulated. In the case of BT that allowed other competing businesses into the market and be protected from market dominance. So now we have a plethora of companies from which you can choose quality or cost. This is good.
Imho where you can't have competition (like water) it would be best not to privatise but operate on a combination of public service mission (as the BBC does) combined with regulatory oversight. But that horse has bolted. It might come back lame or dead. We can't wait so properly regulating them is the only option. Sadly this government has ideological issues in that department.
But we could nationalise water. Rail is halfway there already.
The whole point is monopolies shouldn't be private. They just don't work. The evidence is all around us. Regulation may make things less worse but I've seen this with government contracts again and again. Private companies run rings around regulators.
The evidence is all around us.
BT is a different case. I'm not even sure it's a monopoly anymore, tech has transformed that business.
You mean take over paying the megadebt. The dividends from selling that debt aren't coming back. You can nationalise Thameswater but you can't nationalise the mortgages/service charges on what used to be our public assets. A public corporation cannot do more than we can force Thameswater to do if we want to. And the effect on public borrowing will impact other public services.
Same problem with the train operating companies. They are shells. The real assets (rolling stock etc) are all in the hands of the banks. So some operational control is possible but GBR is just a dressed up regulator doing much of what is already done in the Transport Ministry.
actually the real rail assets - the track stations and signalling - are largely publicly owned already. The trainsets are leased from private owners but are a fraction of the total asset value
Except they determine how many trains you can run where and take a cut on every mile travelled. Which may become more evident when publicly owned TOCs sort the driver training (lack of) scandal.
As an aside my local station has two TOCs; Southern and London Overground. Although the Overground has TfL branding the operator is a private company. They are very good whereas Southern find it impossible to provide a reliable service.
TfL are running 100% of pre-Covid schedules. Southern is 50% when they do run because they say they don't have the drivers. Not sure I believe that is the real reason.
Maybe TfL knows how to broker better deals than the government.
I suspect the incentives are perverse - HMG paid the TOCs for trains cancelled by staff strikes - so TOCs were in no hurry to settle; NB supermarkets raised staff pay by far more than rail with no strikes - because of course if they don't trade they lose money. The hated Thatcher would never have allowed HMG to subsidise non-operational rail
So I would not be surprised if they calculate on Southern that they make more profilt by NOT running trains now
Suppliers like Philips for the NHS or Hitachi for trains are not the same as the holder of the assets. I understood that TOCs could not make trains as British Rail used to nor own them.
Bit like Channel4 cannot make programmes or own them. Just commission and broadcast. Except that's a good model to drive an independent market. Something Nadine couldn't get her head around.
But I rather doubt your assertion that the trainset owners can determine which routes and when they are run - or that a TOC cannot source transets from others. The mileage charge I do understand - if you hire a car the charge may be related to mileage
Tho it was Tories that privatised rail, it was #major, a sane tory, not a modern mad #toriesOut. So it must have made some sort of sense to him then
Again to deviate - I saw John Major sharing a platform with Keir Starmer. Guessed who shined brightest?
Possibly our most underrated PM. He kicked off the Northern Ireland process without which Mo & Tony would have been setback years. He also, unlike Dave, stood up to the Bastards helping to create a growing economy that financed Blair first years. But his fascination with trainsets wasn't his greatest idea (but not as bad as Iraq) and tired divided parties are easy meat for a revitalised Opposition.
I remember the Cones hotline, Back to Basics & sleaze - Aitkin, Hamilton and the usual litany of those who could not keep it in their trousers - and the later revelations of an affair with Edwina Curry (Ugh!)
So it was all falling apart then - much as it is now really. But yes, #major was a more decent man than #sunak
The reality is the #privatised system doesn't work and regulation will be fought against by those companies tooth and nail. They will see it as precisely the kind of state intervention you are saying is beyond the pale.
The UK looks a lot more functional from inside the M25.
Using the phrase "The reality is" does not improve your argument.
I agree that the Water industry as currently is not working for consumers or our environment - obsessing about ownership for a few years is kicking the can down the road - put someone like #fergalSharkey in charge of OfWat and give the regulator teeth will achieve far more at much less cost to taxpayers...
..Of course Water Companies will fight regulation (having a lawyer as PM will help ensure they lose) - but the idea that local apparatchiks of a state owned industry will clean the rivers better in the absence of regulation is for the birds
I have, perhaps, more confidence in a local apparatchik devoted to public service. I don't have confidence that a greedy Treasury will squeeze all the needed capital improvements from their budget. We need a regulator and legal service level agreements to remove that as an option.
Doing the legal/reg stuff immediately rather than delaying decisions while a renationalisation process is designed, legilated and implemented and then trying to empty a threadbare public purse would appear a better course.
Making water companies do what they should be doing for a few years will reduce the rip-off profit taking if there is anything left. The owners may then wish to hand them back
You might want to read your posts again. You have reproduced most of the key arguments used to justify privatisation.
This isn't a particularly ideological argument it's a practical one. There is very broad consensus that monopolies are naturally exploitative and has been a massive failure for taxpayers and the public.
To say we can't nationalise water because of £56 billion debts when shareholders have been paid £66bn is perverse.
@jackLondon@MattMastodon@stuart
Properly apply the law to water companies, which then are bankrupt because they are over-leveraged
The assets are sold by the administrators to recover something for the lenders and shareholders
The government or not-for-profit owned by its customers can then buy the assets
Its what is supposed to happen in a market system - and should happen , but what we will get from #labour and #tories is state support, political and financial, to continue the scam
I also didn't realise that Thames Water had been owned in part by Macquarie Assets management. Who benefited from the borrowing made by Thames Water and then sold it's stake.
These are precisely the kind of people Rachel Reeves is cosying up to and plans to have on her advisory council.
Asset management funds play a dangerous short term role in the economy.
Labour are planning to use funding from banks and asset managers to develop UK infrastructure. This will in effect make the government an extension of asset management multinationals as corporations can turn funding on and off as will. Even if Labour wanted to, they won't be able to say no to business interests.
Bit confused here. If the government funded directly then it would be financed in the bond market. That's mainly banks and pension funds. They control the market as Liz Truss discovered. Is this more about cutting out the middleman (ahem middlewoman) which may in certain areas have some benefits and relieving fiscal restraints. Which admittedly is the hair shirt all parties reluctantly have to accept.
Maybe. But if it's stuck on the shareholders it's my partner who takes the hit as University Pension Fund pays her pension. So either way as customers we take the hit. The true thieves dumped this crap company years ago and ran with the money. That isn't coming back and you can't punish them.
Moral: don't buy crap assets from an asset stripping hedge fund. But then again legislation presses pension funds into buying assets with a guaranteed predictable income stream - ie utilities. Just the attraction that invites hedge funds to come in do their worst and cash out.
Apparently tracker funds perform better anyway. And solar is a good investment. Or housing. In fact I was reading about the Xanadiqn pensions fund who don't by 10funds but invest directly and long term. So it is not so much in their interests to see an asset stripped.
Maybe pensions should be state run. Very low risk. The money could be invested in UK industry and infrastructure.
Rather than put into an international gambling scenario full of spivs doing the utmost to take a % out of people's retirement funds to spend on a yaught or a second house in the Bahamas.
But then few people have occupational pensions nowadays so it's probably too late.
@jackLondon the #starmer "leadership" is not on the same page as the people i mentioned - nor with large majority of voters who, for example, want a ceasefire in gaza and and end the rip-off privatisation scam in energy, mail, rail and water
Oh, and the handing of #NHS budgets to private "healthcare" providers - something else #Starmer has "pivoted from ", " been pragmatic on" , "trimmed", " manoeuvred on" or whatever the latest approved bullshit euphamism is
The question is it a 'large' majority of people who voted Tory in the 2019 swing constituency. Without them what leaders or what policies Labour has are for the birds.
Reconciling the votes of people motivated by the incompence of the Tories rather than progressive values with running a progressive government (I hope) is a headache. Tackling that rather than worrying how progressive the Manifesto or leader is a bigger question for me.
I've seen Keir in action and he is charisma-free. But methodically working through and winning a civil rights case - well yes. Applying that skill to our complicated problems might work.
Expect incremental improvements not a revolution. Is there is a large majority for one?
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