h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The results are in, so presumably the ban on talking about the London Mayor election and the English & Welsh elections is over. What do people think of the results?

Well IMHO Labour have got exactly what they deserved.

From my point of view, they have to do something now or we will have a Tory government....

Yup. Nothing concentrates a politician's mind more than the thought of losing their place at the trough.

Probably I am the less able to give an opinion about that. But,


I think that the left must make quite clear their positions, show why they are different from the right. Blair, from my POV has behaved like the most conservative in the conservatives.

I think that the difference is/should be in the social wellbeing they offer to the citizens.
A better distribution of the richness of the country.
A wise treatment of the phenomenon (NOT problem!!!)of inmigration
A clear position in relation of the role of religion in institutions, that is, to which extend are our societies secular?
....

When I think in Italy, I get depressed. They need a strong left. THey don't have it. It's a shame to see those youngs doing the nazi's hail( don't know the word)
In France and in many other countries working popular people give votes to those groups.

The European left should do something more efficient to convince that there are desirable and useful differences with the right groups.

I think for only the second time since I could vote I didn't vote Labour. I spoiled my ballot paper.

When the part stand for raising tax for the poor to cut it for the rich, and mass privatisation, and doing nothing to protect pensions, and wasting billions on ID cards, and well...

... having Gordon Brown!

At the GE I will probably vote Labour, just because at least with my Trade Union head on the Tories would be awful for us, they sure don't like unions .

Having said that Labour aint done a lot for ordinary working people either. I reckon there is a good chance my union might de-affiliate this year at conference.

What have Labour done for the unions FB ? Has it stopped corporations closing factories and call-centres in England letting the jobs be moved to India - or Malaysia - or Brazil - or Poland ?

What I'm finding confusing is that Nuneaton and Bedworth has never been abything but Labour Controlled - until now, it's just gone Blue.

But that's not what is surprising - what I'm confused about is that two solid labour wards have gone BNP !

Can anyone explain that to me ?

Well Labour have not made things for Unions any worse than they were, unless you work in the public sector when you have been privatised to billy-ho I suppose.

Just based on his pre election pledges to date a Cameron administration would roll back Health and Safety legislation and would undoubtably never, ever do anything to moderate the most restrictive anti union legislation in the developed world.

I hold some hope that Labour might, and I am confident they won't make things any worse (though don't ask the prison warders union).

I am disillusioned with Labour, but I do not, and will not, forget who the enemy of ordinary and under priviliged people are.

I think the Police Federation might disagree with you too, I'd also suggest that the teaching unions might be in for a bit of a shock if a proposed private member's bill gets a reading.

Labour have let down the ordinary working man in so many fields by thier inaction, by allowing our manufacturing base to be exported, and by their willingness to accept imposed legislation from the EU that I think they have made the plight of the (non)working man worse.

For me the enemy of the ordinary people is someone who would destroy their pension, remove their ability to find gainful employment, and undermine the availability of free health care.

(And you should see what the bl@@dy post office is doing here in Coventry - which is on the back of a very badly managed 'competitive market' idea to make the Post Office open to competition - by closing it down !)

"But that's not what is surprising - what I'm confused about is that two solid labour wards have gone BNP !"

People forget that the BNP aren't simply a more extreme version of the rightwing tories (although modern British fascism was created from a splintering of the Tory-right from the main party over the race issue decades ago) they're a populist party who see themselves as appealing to ordinary working-class people whilst the conservatives have always been a mildly elitist, middle-class crowd. The BNP's campaign has focused on issues like immigration and crime and avoided mentioning the party's unreconstructed fascist ideology on other issues. If you listen to the way they discuss immigration they tend-away from the "all foreigners out" line and tend to temper it with a more "clampdown on immigration, we're just worried whites are being marginalised" stuff. This is just window-dressing as anyone with knowledge of the fascist movement will know but it's proof they're serious about courting votes and not just talking to themselves. Immigration *is* an issue of concern in a lot of working-class areas and the BNP have been partially-successful in positioning themselves as a champion of the "ordinary man on the street" in the way Labour used to pre-1980s.

Personally, I think large sections of the tabloid press are undeniably responsible for the rise of racist politics (and that's what this is) because of their coverage of the immigration issue which has become more and more extreme over the years (attacks on "bogus asylum-seekers" became attacks on asylum-seekers generally, attacks on illegal immigration became attacks on immigration full-stop). The problem with the press, though, is that they have little sense of responsibility for what they print because governments cowtow to them so much and treat them with kid gloves even when they're seriously out of line and so they become more presumptuous and arrogant in their output. The yellow press can't be completely blamed for the rise of the far-right - those prejudices need to be there to be stoked after all - but they're responsible in no small part.

Another problem is the response of anti-fascists. The most high-profile campaign we saw recently was another Rock Against Racism concert, a largely-pointless back-slapping operation by the British music establishment and an effort in preaching to the converted.

The BNP are still nowhere near real-power and they have nothing like the political clout their collegues in continental Europe have but their rise in recent years is still a disturbing sign of the political climate in this country. They have essentially campaigned as a single-issue party and that single-issue campaigning has won them seats.

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So what should they have done then? Nationalised factories all over the country? Stopped improvements in productivity so that jobs are saved (except that they wouldn't be)? We actually produce about the same industrial goods by value that we did years ago, it's just that we do it with less people.


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Yeah, cos unemployment's at an all-time high, isn't it? National income has plummeted, yeah? And pensions are being cut by *private companies*, not just the government (if they are).

As I was just saying to Dai, I wouldn't be in Gordon Brown's shoes now for a million pounds.

The public mood is so against him - fairly or unfairly. The high price of oil and the credit crunch aren't really Labour's fault, but they're bearing the brunt of the disgruntlement (is that a word?) of the public.

As for Lahndan, well, we have proof if it were needed of the triumph of persona over policies, of style over substance. We watch with baited breath to see if Boris really is a buffoon, or if that famous hidden intellect will manifest itself.

So what should they have done then? Nationalised factories all over the country? Stopped improvements in productivity so that jobs are saved (except that they wouldn't be)? We actually produce about the same industrial goods by value that we did years ago, it's just that we do it with less people.

Except that LandRover and Jaguar continue to produce and employ in this area.
Our supposed non-existent clothing industry is still a top 10 producer.

The answer wasn't in nationalisation - thought I would listen to arguments about it - it was in improvement of standards.

Yeah, cos unemployment's at an all-time high, isn't it? National income has plummeted, yeah? And pensions are being cut by *private companies*, not just the government (if they are).

Unemployment is far higher than the goverment says - there are over 5M claiming disability, there are 2M 'lost workers' and then there are all the mortgage payers from the factories that now have minimum wage jobs instead of high wages, because they have to work.

Pensions were destroyed by Brown's tax - their own spokesman, Frank Field, said we had a pensions industry that was the envy of Europe - now we have one that is unable to support the future of the current generation of pensioners, never mind a futre one.

Income hasn't plummetted - but the top 10% have quadrupled their wealth and the bottom 10% are 20% worse off - UNDER A LABOUR GOVERNMENT !

Then there's the illegal war, lying to the houses of Parliament, and the selling off our gold for Euro's, and - I could go n.

McKay, just because some industries are still profitable doesn't mean that all the manufacturers who were about 30 years ago would still be profitable, or employ anything like the millions of people who had jobs in those industries then. If they did, then who would work in call centres, biotech, the City etc etc.

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Got any (official) links for unemployment rates and the rest?

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Yeah, that's why I don't vote for them.


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'Brown's tax' may be part of the reason, but it isn't the whole one, and I'm sure you know this.

Hope you're feeling better after your little rant.

Now I will almost certainly never vote Conservative. This is for their ethical position rather than economic. Free market economics actually has a certain mathematical aesthetic appeal to me, (though I do note that the healthiest, happiest places at the moment seem to be slightly less market-orientated than us).

But to me the two the leftist position has ethical appeal in universalist philosophy: that everyone is a citizen, and it extends politeness, consideration, and maybe even a helping hand to them all. Might even give them a second chance*. You don't get to pick scapegoats, you don't get to leave people out in the cold, you'd don't get to squelch people because the papers find them a bit unsavoury. Freedom, fairness, justice, equality, and if you take an opportunity away from people in one place then you have to make sure they have a reasonable chance to find another. So what the hell is the Labour party doing?

If the Labour party sticks with him then they risk throwing good money after bad. If they pick a new leader then they'd better make sure they get it right and not pick someone to be replaced after the next election. Frequent leadership changes work for political parties about as well as for football clubs - not very much.

(Which is why the Lib Dems should've stuck with Charles Kennedy.)

Why this reminiscing about left-wing politics? Socialism is dead. The Labour Party is no more Socialist than the Tories.

Which socialism are you talking about?

For me, What Zapatero has done here is quite socialist, at least for these times.

Economicaly ,both parties have similar POVs, but, socially, I mean, doing things for the wellbeing of the mayority, is quite socialist.

I think that the subject (grammaar) for " is quite socialist" is -the Socialist Spanish Party

Clear?

grammaar?






time to sleep

>Why this reminiscing about left-wing politics? Socialism is dead. The Labour Party is no more Socialist than the Tories.

1) There is a great deal more to the political left than just socialism. In fact, last time I'd looked we'd won all the arguments with the right about race, sexuality and human rights and we won the argument on liberal democracy a long time ago.

2) You've consistently called Labour a socialist party

3) Labour are still a great deal more redistributive than the conservatives, therefore they still remain in part a socialist party; certainly more than the conservatives.

>Economicaly ,both parties have similar POVs, but, socially, I mean, doing things for the wellbeing of the mayority, is quite socialist.

The problem is that Labour's redistributive policies have been "hushed-up" because they're afraid of being attacked by the rightwing press (Labour's major weakness is a pathological fear of the rightwing press who they remain convinced were largely responsible for keeping them out of power in 1987 and 1992). Only a few journalists have actually bothered to highlight them (or indeed look for them) such as Polly Toynbee. Most journos are middle-class and so never see nor know anyone affected by such policies; all they see (or are interested in) is whether Labour adopts a leftist posture which the party rarely do due to their fear of the yellow press. Hence the myth that Labour are "just like the tories".