Our three neo-con major political parties have come up with a jolly cunning plan to lift money direct from the taxpayer, in addtion to being paid by big business to promote the interests of big business against the people.
A government inquiry is recommending that £20 million a year in public funding be given to the three neo-con parties. Is there no end to their greed? I suppose the logic is perfect – it will finally cement into our political system the monopoly of power by parties that are arrogantly unrepresentative of the will of the people, knowing that their system, above all by control of the media, locks out any alternative from competing for political power.
I write with certainty that all our three political parties are now neo-conservative, but with great sadness. The Tories became fully neo-con around 1979, New Labour around 1996 and the Lib Dems around 2010. All the parties contain still a minority of resisters, the fewer the longer they have been neo-con. So Ken Clarke is an almost entirely isolated resister in the Tory party, Jeremy Corbyn one of very few left in New Labour, while the Lib Dems still have a few Norman Bakers who have not yet been entirely corrupted by power and money, but you can see the process working on the Lib Dems like acid and their integrity will have been completely eaten through in another 18 months.
Meanwhile, there are some who don’t get it, like poor deluded old bat Polly Toynbee, who still has not worked out that New Labour went neo-con. Yesterday’s Toynbee article has the headline: “Executive pay soars while the young poor face freefall. Where is Labour?” You are a fool, Toynbee. The ex-ministers of the last New Labour government are in the boardroom picking up those massive remunerations and perks you are rightly complaining about. Did you really not know that, or do you just refuse to see?
New Labour is now neo-con, Toynbee. It is fifteen years since Peter Mandelson said that “New Labour is intensely relaxed about the filty rich.” Mandelson and Blair and Hewitt and Jowell and Milburn and Burnham and Reid and Blunkett and the whole lot of them are now filthy rich. Somebody explain this to Toynbee.
But it is an extremely important point that I did not see a single mainstream politician yesterday questioning the obscenity of directors’ earnings rising over 49% last year – from a huge base – when average real incomes were falling. The media was packed with apologists explaining trickledown theory to us. I also noted that the Occupy movement needs to beware of the media appearing to give them coverage, when in fact the media are deliberately picking on people whose hearts, instincts and minds are all in the right place, but who lack media experience and formal education in the ground on which the media places them. The media can then give the impression of debate with the cards severely stacked, to make the view that in fact the large majority of those at home will hold, that executive salaries are obscene and untenable, appear amateur and ill-informed.
The parties do not represent us and their collective membership is falling, as they are now a vehicle for career rather than belief. No wonder they want to pick our pockets to keep up the pretence of democracy.
@ Quo Vadis.
Resorting to ad-hominem attacks merely illustrates your lack of argument and childishness.
Pathetic really.
Having said that i welcome your contributions here.It simply serves to remind us all of the crass stupidity and ignorance you represent.
Thank you.
Guest
Whatever the reasons for Juan Cole’s pandering, it seems to me bizarre that Craig Murray should have a link to it here. Cole isn’t just banging the drum for NATO crimes, he’s taking a full part in the propagation of facile lies about those who dare to criticise them. I wonder how long it will be until he gives the same treatment to Craig.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/aug2011/cole-a10.shtml
craig,
your old “friend” is apparently much in the news. lots of links in this:
31 Oct: Antiwar.com: Justin Raimondo: Back to Uzbekistan
America and the Axis of Thieves
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/10/30/back-to-uzbekistan/
Thanks for that link Oddie. I wonder if Raimondo knows about the Malyshevs. I’ll let him know.
Anno:
“New Labour electing the son of an Israeli terrorist as leader at least shows where they are coming from.”
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EH??
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Miliband
And his mum’s pretty hot on Palestinian rights, too.
.
Let’s keep it factual, eh?
Fr’ instance, let’s look at Jim Murphy, whose gentle criticism of Fox/Werritty seems to have subsided into total silence –
http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/55188/jim-murphy-labour-still-loves-israel
Or the seven recipients of Labour Friends of Israel largesse whose freebie last month enabled them to appreciate the sincere desire of Israel for peace. With Britain, that is:
“Anne McGuire, Rachel Reeves, Jonathan Reynolds, Dan Jarvis, Michael McCann and Pamela Nash. New LFI chairman John Woodcock MP led the visit.” (JC, 19th Oct)
Names to watch.
Gracie, nobody said you can’t freely speak here, so why do you not address the policy mistakes that have been made? speak on the substance rather than present us with some other new/old vision of more of the same.
I refute your accusation of being Craigs thought police, thats bolderdashingly daft.
Facts are, Child poverty doubled under noLabour, you may like to start with that, or address the daft idea of forcing single mums to work, pressing their young children into day care, rather than bonding with their parent.
Not bonding with a child is a gurantee for later disagreements, violence at home and many other ofsocieties ills today , would you not agree?
As long as noLabour says yes and amen to Conservative measures because they refuse to present a different agenda, people might not want to vote for them, a fact far more important to Labour than developing an alternative agenda.
Jimmi Saville, I take my hat off for him, has shown the clergy of St. pauls how to do it. Lived on 10% of his income and gave the rest away, a man of principles they, as well as political parties, shaould take heed of.
Komodo’s last post shows that all three neocon parties dance to the same piper. A piper who is not even in NATO and can do as he likes, the piper of Hamelin looks amateur compared to the friends of Israel.
Spinwatch have put a lot of information together on LFI here:
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http://spinwatch.org/-articles-by-category-mainmenu-8/70-british-politics/5000-labour-friends-of-israel
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I don’t actually think Miliband is quite as keen on Israel as Blair was/still is. (But he’d have a job to be) And the Israel Firsters don’t warm to him, either.
Cucumber Type, Cole must have seen whats coming and is really spooked, he now thinks he must serve his new masters, its called self preservation. If you can`t beat them, join them, is his order of the day.
@Ingo
“Facts are, Child poverty doubled under noLabour”
No the facts are here http://fullfact.org/factchecks/did_child_poverty_go_up_under_labour-1508
No where near the reduction I would like – but not the doubling Ingo refers to.
I can provide similar links to the facts that Saddam/Assad/Gadaffi/Ahmedinjabad were/are serial abusers of human rights but for some reason many here are quite happy to ignore those facts as well.
“I can provide similar links to the facts that Saddam/Assad/Gadaffi/Ahmedinjabad were/are serial abusers of human rights but for some reason many here are quite happy to ignore those facts as well.”
Not me. But Saddam and Gadaffi (also Noriega, and many others) seemed to escape any Western scrutiny until their policies became dangerously independent. We’ve put up with the Assads for decades, and even sent them rendered detainees for, er, processing in Damascus. Ditto Mubaraq. Karimov’s a good guy we can do business with, no? For the moment, anyway.
Ignoring the facts is essential, don’t you see?
Evil Gadaffi’s end: Sweet Karimov’s new dawn.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/10/2011102775111437925.html
Ignoring the facts is essential, don’t you see?
NO
Heh.
http://www.credoaction.com/comics/2011/04/2180/
Stephen do you accept the DWP statistics? It is noLabour who made a point about child poverty and they failed, doubling or not.
What of integrating transport modes, or the denial to regulate the City in 2006 when they had the statutes on the order bill? Blair and Brown waved them off did they not? and prime mortgages came home to roost.
I can’t understand the mindset that clambers for more of the same, that believes that those who made these corporate mistakes and had their hands in the till, all of them, not just the few that got prosecuted, but the other 120 that got away with it.
How many more dissapointing experiences can the gullible public possibly be subjected to before they wake up and start rejecting these self serving career politicians? Does it take another Victoria Columbie to tell us that their services have failed, where family unfriendly and have led to many youngsters disaffections. Those who rioted grew up under no Labour.
Thanks for the links commodo looks like the FoI have thouroughly infested and undermined this country with their influences and war mongering. who would have known, trade unionists sucking up to fascists.
Komodo
Ok. I was thinking of Livni. Livni is a war criminal and David Miliband was foreign secretary apologist for UK torture.
Yes, if Ed slips one dark night, there’s a good chance Labour will beg David to assume the throne, and that won’t be good. But I lose track of which Israeli leaders aren’t ex-terrorists….
Ingo
I am not making a claim that everything the Labour Party did was perfection – far from it – but the fact is that your claim that child poverty doubled under Labour was and is complete garbage. I am not clambering for more of the same – lessons have to be learned, but the Labour Party has been the vehicle for much of the progress in the UK and has many acheivements of which it can be proud. In the absence of any credible or coherent alternative – and I still wait to hear what the many who disagree here actually propose to do, rather than what they are against – it continues to be the best (or least worst) alternative available.
You on the other hand may wish to place yur faith on an Independent with Shirley Williamas as a hero but little in the way of discernible policies.
Indeed Stephen I always admired noLabour for its introduction of the white heat of energy, their thought full extraction of plutonium at windscale, thank you.
I suppose when TB scraped Clause 4 you told yourself that it was progress, you heard that Labour had the FoI act all worked out, ready to roll as soon as they got into power, he said, but then you had to wait two long years for it.
What would you say to Labours back room deals with Rupert Murdoch, long before they got elected in 1997, their undermining of the police during that time, the lack of transparancy, their emphasis on political policing, not to talk of their grubby dependence on Unuion cash for very little. All that has happened to the union since 1984 in this country is the securement of their own existence and safe guarding of the upper echelons of bonzes and protagonists. I Remember when Bob crowe was beaten up and I know who did it.
Labour failed to regulate the City, sonning itself in a false economic boom, was that not so? labour s Iraq war was a illconstrued than the Falkland war under the Conservatives, there’s not an iota of difference, Ed Milliband or not.
You would like to hear what to do? Have one MP in every county, with deputies from other parties shadowing and sharing his workload, active pragmatism without political party interference. We could also talk about decentralising those services which are the target of lobbyists, wherever from. Lobbying to be curtailed and open to scrutiny as it happens.
Funding of political parties in order to stop all sponsorship, or outside interference in Government, might be a way to go, but it cannot be applied to party political bodies, it should be a sum per voter, giving a very good reason for political parties to be active, not jusdt at election times. It should benefit any candidate if they get elected.
But this would also mean that those who lost, but got a certain amount of votes, woudl receive the remuneration, if they are serious, they will usesuch support as an impetus to greater future campaigns.
Reform the tax laws in all British protectorates and tax havens. In it to win it, might be a good slogan. Adopt the Tobin tax and make extendable if necessarry.
Propose new guidelines directing all of industry to re-use recycled resources in their newly developed goods, those who do more than others get tax/rate relief brownie points, those who fail pay for the brownie points. Purchase valuable wastes/resources from consumers for nearly the market price and attract companies, who can re-use certain wastes, for enterprise zones surrounding these sites.
Do not attack Syria or Iran for spurious geo strategic reasons and/or our dependence on oil and other rare resources!
Scrap half of the restrictive legislation build up around s pseudo war on terrorism and tightly control all police and their powers, they are all our servants, not just for those in power.
Phew, need a cuppa, this should keep you busy sniping away.
Ingo
The worrying thing is that you actually believe that what you say is a coherent programme – nothing on macroeconomic management of the economy, education and health and other areas of public spending, corporate and personal tax plicies within the UK, what our defence and foreign policies should be rather than what they shouldn’t, how we should regulate financial markets rather than the just stating that we should, equality and distribution and child poverty – or what we should do about real rather than pseudo terrorism.
And if Bob Crowe is your model for trade unionism heaven help us.
I think you need rather more than a cup of tea.
What an utterly lame response Stephen. Just for your information, Bob crowe is not, but his treatments exemplafies what unions are all about these days, back stabbing.
You want macro economics without getting a mandate, telling people what to do before you have as mandate? Thats no Labour allright.
Now we just have to agree that this thread is not ours to deflate and we are fine. This is about more important issues.
“You want macro economics without getting a mandate, telling people what to do before you have as mandate?”
I might want you to tell us what your macroeconomic stance is before giving you a mandate (although clearly Nick Clegg didn’t). Yes I do expect parties to say what they plan to do before giving them a mandate – write a blank cheque to the nihilists (or anyone else for that matter), no thanks.
What more important issues are there than the future political direction of this country.
Stephen, what do you want of the candidate coming to your door? Do you talk to him and ask him to act in such and such a way on certain issues?
Its not just about smiling and shaking their hands, admiring their garden or kissing their baby. To hold public meetings and sound out the electrate, ask certain questions as to their views, take on their case work, etc. etc, thats whats important, doing something your community wants you to do, not some large TNC with no iota of social responsibility.
Both Labour and Conservatives want to semi sell the profit making assets in the NHS, rather than having a look at some very good examples in Germany or France, they want to embrace a model that has been seen to lead to exhorbitant health costs and a creeping tax take by more and more private companies. NoLabour did not stop the PFI programme, they endorsed every previously taken contract, now shown to have returned bad value for money, and then took the PFI programme to new hights.
But David is all out of the frame, is he not? Komodo. What about that weirdo Murphy, or one of the other FoI? Nobody else will have much of a chance, and whoever comes closest has to lead the seasonal merrygoround for the unions.
I’m sure David would allow himself to be cajoled back into the leadership if Ed were firmly removed from contention. With Murphy as the stalking horse, perhaps. The Blairite tendency is not dead. Just resting.
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http://www.socialistaction.net/Britain/British-Politics/Defeat-for-Blairites-%E2%80%93-but-the-fight-will-continue.html
Brilliantly put. It’s about time someone had a proper dig at Toynbee. Either she’s stupid or she thinks we are.
I might quite like all the candidates coming to my door and asking me how they should act on the full range of issues they might encounter over the next 5 years. I somehow doubt that the other 70,000 in the constituency would be granted the same access and ability to influence the selected MP. Be practical we have to have candiates who have some political philosophy and can give some idea as to how they will act.
Labour does not want to semi sell the profit making assets in the NHS (whatever they may be?). While I agree with many of the complaints about how PFI contracts were awarded and managed – I do think there needs to be some recognition that much of the finance they raised could not have been obtained by the public sector going direct to the markets.
Here I agree Stephen, why can we not have Public Finance Initiatives? why can we not issue local municipal bond schemes to finance the local infrastructure?
Whether its private of public finance initiatives, the banks will earn from the taxpayer. The bankers, most likely earning from both, the taxpayer and private company account, are obnoxious old boy network types who are allowed to do as they see fit, we have allowed them too much leeway.
Ingo
The real problem with PFI was that those negotiating on the public side didn’t really understand what they were doing and were therefore taken to the cleaners by those providing the finance. One of the problems with issuing local bonds would be that for small projects it might increase the cost substantially – but this might be addressed by pooling projects, which would also have the benefit of spreading the risk for the investor.
One of the problems on the Left is it lack of interest and competence in fiancial matters – and sometimes this has had more of an impact than any pro City ideological leanings.