[Closed] Politics and ideological / pragmatism balance

Should they be pragmatic and take a position that gives them policies that could potentially get them elected at the next election and with a view to then moving towards the direction they really believe in (eg the left for Labour) or should they stay true to their convictions even if that means they're unlikely to be elected for many years.

Who is labour? If you write down who you are it might help but then you could also be stuck in the past. A pragmatic party who takes the best from both sides and can attract support would work. Is it better to do what you can in government or achieve nothing in opposition?

When was the last real left wing labour government? Does that have enough support to get elected?

For me, that's part of labour's problem - their grass roots support is left wing in general but the leadership isn't (incidentally, I reckon you could to a lesser extent say the same about the conservatives - their support is probably more right wing than the leadership).

Who says a Left-wing Labour party couldn't win an election?

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See all those DNVs since Tony took the reigns?

or should they stay true to their convictions

You must be looking at a different Labour Party. I certainly don't see any convictions whatsoever. Thats the problem.

I do think that George Osbourne, clever bastard that he is, helped by the right wing press, has been unbelievably effective at, firstly, painting labour into a corner, and then presenting the Tories as the party of the centre.

In most peoples mind Labour are now the party that caused the financial crisis, and want to hand all your hard-earned money over to fat people in tracksuits, who will spend it on Lambert and Butler, Stella, weed, takeaways and Sky Sport subsciptions.

Whatever the labour party decides its going to be - because it doesn't seem to have a scooby at the moment - it needs to actually [url= http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/17/labour-story-leader-communication ]communicate it properly[/url]. Something Tony and Malcolm Tucker were notably good at

Are you saying that a majority of DNVs are going to vote left wing? the graph suggests that both cons and lab lost people to DNV - cons first (1992), then lab (1997).

You must be looking at a different Labour Party. I certainly don't see any convictions whatsoever.

Amongst the leadership, yes. I'd suggest that the grassroots do.

[quote=nemesis ]Are you saying that a majority of DNVs are going to vote left wing? the graph suggests that both cons and lab lost people to DNV - cons first (1992), then lab (1997).Or did the Cons switch to Labour and lots of old-style Labour voters became DNVs?

You must be looking at a different Labour Party. I certainly don't see any convictions whatsoever.

Amongst the leadership, yes. I'd suggest that the grassroots do.

Hence Jeremy Corbyn and potential electoral oblivion. Labour desperatly needs to sort its shit out, but a return to the 70's is most certainly not the way to do it.

What they're reaping now is actually Blairs fault. He hollowed out the party from the inside, apointing careerist yes men (and women) who just acted as unthinking drones to rubber stamp Tony's orders. The free-thinkers like Clair Short or Robin Cook were marginalised until they just gave up. All decisions were then taken by Tony's cabal, and issued as dictats. Any sign of democratic intent, or dissent was stamped on as treachery.

Thus we end up with a party utterly devoid of ideas, as none of them have ever had an original thought in their lives. They've just been doing what central office told them to do. Except now central office doesn't have a *ing clue what to tell them to do either.

So they're *ed, basically

Absolutely but that's the crux of my question - as I see it at least, you have candidates that will essentially follow the tory-lite strategy or Corbyn who won't. Assuming that I'm right and Corbyn's election would lead to years of Tory government, is Labour better to stick to it's roots (well, actually go back to them) with Corbyn or to go with the others in a more pragmatic way (though as I said, I reckon they're pretty crap and will probably continue like headless chickens along the tory-lite path rather than trying to gradually guide people to a more representative view of Britain than is out there at present).

Western economies + Japan + China are all in a massive crisis. Debt and ageing populations reducing ability to produce GDP and pay off that debt, whilst also increasing the cost of supporting that ageing (non-economically-productive) population...

In a crisis IMO ideology is not helpful, it reduces access to policies which may well be effective

We need a technocratic, non-political government in place for 5-10 years. Worked quite well for Italy with Mario Monti it seems. Look where ideology has got Greece in the last few weeks...

In some ways, Gideon's game-playing and stealing Labour-style policies has meant he's following a more centrist path than he might normally have done, which is a good thing.

However, it's not hard to find a photo of him looking Machiavellian so I suspect he's not doing this for any reason other than political gain...

They need to try and win back the 'blue collar' worker who are in the private sector. How they do that is tricky as they've allowed the Tories to take that ground. They need to start understand their concerns and I have a funny feeling they won't like the answers.

Eventually, the Tories' lie will be exposed. Currently, the right wing media is very much in control and helped the Tories into power by spreading lies about Labour's spending and fears about a labour election.

The financial crisis absolutely was not caused by reckless government spending, it was a global banking crisis, which required huge government spending to stop banks falling apart (and society as we know it with them).

Why Labour have decided not to highlight this is weird. They could point out all the brand new and re-built schools and hospitals they "wasted" money on (I know, PFI and all that). They could talk about what the Tories are doing to council tenants in London and talk about social housing stock, but silence...

The BBC can't help them, as it is currently too scared to say anything not sanctioned by the government.

I'm not sure whether they really are stupid or are waiting for all the proper cuts to kick in and wait for the Tories to split over Boris/Osborne/May for leader.

What it does show is that the media, if used correctly, can be very powerful indeed.

I'm not a labour supporter, by the way...

Has George really stolen Labour policies? He makes it sound like that I'll grant you (increasing minimum wage) but look at the detail (cutting tax credits out of sync with those increases) and it rarely seems to be the case.

Just realised that I haven't actually stated my own position - I'd go for pragmatism but with a clear plan to head back to the party's roots. Not that I'm a labour supporter but that'd be my tactical plan. And FWIW, that's what Tony B and Mandelson, etc had - a clear plan - regardless of whether you agree with it. I don't get any impression that Labour have that now.

Eventually, the Tories' lie will be exposed. Currently, the right wing media is very much in control and helped the Tories into power by spreading lies about Labour's spending and fears about a labour election

Hoping that your opponent sounds less appealing isn't a strategy unless you are Neil kinnock.
Policy, no stone tablets, ideas, engagement, address some of the tough issues, deal with the union influence and listen to the people in a non pr way. Provide an alternative that doesn't make people feel like it's a step backwards.

George Osborne did not steal policies, just language...

You need both in balance to be credible, imo if a party doesn't have a core ideology that it sticks to people wont believe in it and wont vote for it. If you don't have a clear practical plan people will not vote for your party.
Currently the Tories have both, Labour have neither. I am neither a Tory supporter nor a Labour supporter by the way.

In most peoples mind Labour are now the party that caused the financial crisis, and want to hand all your hard-earned money over to fat people in tracksuits, who will spend it on Lambert and Butler, Stella, weed, takeaways and Sky Sport subsciptions.

You forgot to mention all those money grabbing disabled people, living a life of Riley on disability benefits gravy train driving round housing estates in their gold plated wheel chairs.

What they're reaping now is actually Blairs fault. He hollowed out the party from the inside, apointing careerist yes men (and women) who just acted as unthinking drones to rubber stamp Tony's orders. The free-thinkers like Clair Short or Robin Cook were marginalised until they just gave up. All decisions were then taken by Tony's cabal, and issued as dictats. Any sign of democratic intent, or dissent was stamped on as treachery.

Yes, but that's also an effective way to win an election - total focus, everyone on message. You need discipline to win and he provided it.

The sad thing is labour dont really need to change that much, theyve just got to hold it together and wait for Tory sleaze to once again rear its head 😆
The Europe referendum could be a big problem for the Tories and exposes some of their basic contradictions; they are pro business and recognise the huge benefits of being in the EU and the necessity of immigration to support our ageing population, but they capitalise on EU scare stories and fear of swan eating Romanian pickpockets etc.
Thats not to say that dragon's blue collar workers arent justified in some of their fears, and the further huge cuts to local council funding etc will only magnify the inability of communities to cope with large immigrant numbers.
The move to the right by Blair etc helped Labour re-emerge as a modern party, they shifted to the right on education, policing, NHS etc which pleased the capitalist press barons no end. The financial crash gave them the opportunity to move back to their natural bedfellows and they took the electorate with them.
And the tories are joyfully cutting back the state, health, education police etc are all following the american model.
Osbornes shifts to the left arent really that radical, he is still dependent on the eternal housing boom and his minimum wage efforts are really just acknowledging that the bit of a mess of tax credits that sees so much befenits actually going to the blue collar types rather than the stella and tracky pant types (despite what the press/media tells us) has to end.

have to say, I'm f****** loving this

For the past five years we heard 'Labour need to go left' - we had Len McClusky saying that Miliband was the best leader since Foot

Where did it get them?

Every time labour loses it shouts 'turn left' and every time it does so it loses again!

So, what's going to happen after comrade Corbyn kicks the ball into the long grass again in 2020 (after an election campaign saying the Tories are definitley, really going to privatise the NHS if they win, just like the claimed said in every election since forever)?

Let me guess: 'Corbyn wasn't Left enough' 'it was all the fault of the right wing media' 'waaaaah, waaaah, not fair!'

'King laughable!

'Twenty four hours to save the NHS' they will cry, while the electorate looks on at five more years of navel gazing.

And us right wingers are loving it 😆

Maybe people are cleverer than we give them credit for. They saw Labour spending all that money on schools, NHS etc and were happy at the time, but times have changed and as people cut back their expenditure they expect the government too, knowing full well that the new schools etc Labour built are still there.

And us right wingers are loving it

I know just think of all the misery and suffering being heaped upon the poor, disabled and underprivileged, these are truly Golden Days for the selfish 😆

Theres a lot of truth in that Dragon

Labours job is to provide a viable alternative by the next election, by the time Osbournes slash and burn 40% cuts to public services are becoming a reality that people are unlikely to be enjoying very much.

Will they be able to do that? Not looking at the shambles they are at the moment, no

Every time labour loses it shouts 'turn left' and every time it does so it loses again!

You can replace left for right to describe the Tories during the Blair years.

The sad thing is labour dont really need to change that much, theyve just got to hold it together and wait for Tory sleaze to once again rear its head

Probably true but i could take 10+ years to get there. And as Labour showed in 1992 you still need a credible message to get elected on (or not as was their case).

That's right kimbers

It's like Kristallnacht all over again isn't it!

Tell you what, when civil servants in the job centre, who worked for years under a labour government and whose union makes it clear they should oppose reforms in the system, impose unofficial performance targets on issuing sanctions that don't exist, and discipline staff who don't meet them, but the whole thing is denied by their managers - do you think the government are behind that, or do you think that people are playing realpolitik with peoples lives to undermine a government policy?

Oooooooooo - I do love a good old nonsensical conspiracy theory. Unions undermining govenments too? Was this in a Daily Mail editorial?

Do go on.....

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Maybe people are cleverer than we give them credit for. They saw Labour spending all that money on schools, NHS etc and were happy at the time, but times have changed and as people cut back their expenditure they expect the government too, knowing full well that the new schools etc Labour built are still there.

The problem for ideology is the increasing habit on the part of the voter to vote for what suits them best [i]as an individual[/i] and not what fits their own personal ideology.
Voters can no longer be split into ideological groups, they are now a multitude of [i]demographics[/i]. Cue political parties trying to appeal to as many of these demographics as will get them elected, while screwing over the demographics who won't.
Political parties no longer represent democracy, they are basically an extension of the advertising industry, which claims to represent societies' conflicting self-interest.
John Nash may have died, but his ideas remain at the forefront of the political establishment.

And us right wingers are loving it

And it's statements like that which make right-wing politics look shallow, self-serving and uncaring.

You personally in that example are doing nothing to show that right-wing politics is meant to show a different way to achieve a fairer society with more equality - an alternative narrative to Labour but fundamentally still looking to achieve the best for all.

It's actually a common problem with a lot of the right-wing orientated people on the ground. They forget that the right-wing in the UK at least has not had a story of grinding people into the ground to serve an elite - but has been about how smaller government and private ownership can bring more jobs, improved opportunities and better services. A lot of the people I encounter with right-wing views think only of the low-tax, poor employment rights and easy cheap purchase of former government assets aka services and privatisation and what it can do for them and them only in the short-term and to hell with anyone else.

So much truth in that fin25.

You personally in that example are doing nothing to show that right-wing politics is meant to show a different way to achieve a fairer society with more equality - an alternative narrative to Labour but fundamentally still looking to achieve the best for all...
...It's actually a common problem with a lot of the right-wing orientated people on the ground. They forget that the right-wing in the UK at least has not had a story of grinding people into the ground to serve an elite - but has been about how smaller government and private ownership can bring more jobs, improved opportunities and better services.

T'was ever thus, but almost impossible to explain when people only heard the 'no such thing as society' and ignored (or were never told) the words around it - a trait that has continued to this very day with the preponderance of 'professionally outraged' - see Tim Hunt as a perfect victim of this.

Can I point out that this isn't a thread about the right and wrong of the policies but rather the strategy/tactics about where Labour go regardless of whether you think their policies are right or not.

So sod off to the many other threads on that subject if you want the usual left/right bicker 😉

I think this sums up the problem for Labour fairly nicely...

[url=

can't post bloody videos[/url]

So sod off to the many other threads on that subject if you want the usual left/right bicker

Not really interested in the bickering today - was pointing out that ideals and method to achieve ideals are different things and that pragmatism can often be twisted as opportunism.

[quote=fin25 ]I think this sums up the problem for Labour fairly nicely...
Still can't post bloody videos

Ask a Lib Dem - there recent experience tells you all you need to know

cheers THM

Want a labour government? Persuade someone like me to vote for them.
First thing a labour government did was introduce tuition fees when I turned 18.

I think the state should provide for those that can't but those that can should help, people should be helped to do what they can not be defined by what they can't, business should survive by being good and taxes should work and encourage success. Loopholes should be closed.
Business and workers should work together and the public sector ditch the deadwood.

Pleasure - then ask the folks at Syriza or at least those who voted for them

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Cherie has really let herself go

@THM you should have used "their" there ^^^ my dear.

I think the state should provide for those that can't but those that can should help, people should be helped to do what they can not be defined by what they can't, business should survive by being good and taxes should work and encourage success. Loopholes should be closed.
Business and workers should work together and the public sector ditch the deadwood.

Too much common sense to work in most political systems...

I know, was waiting to be shot down for living outside the UK rather than talking sense...

There is a huge part of the voting populous that I just don't think are catered for and that is the under 30's, maybe this is should be the target of labour.

What would that need?
Well traditionally, the older you get the further right you head so that would mean they could stay left leaning.
I suspect they'd need to also be very, very tolerant, backing gay rights, backing drug decriminalisation, etc.
They'd need also to find a way of dropping the value of millions of homes so younger people can afford them.
Social care, particularly education and health need to be pushed and spent on, big infrastructure projects perhaps left alone.
You'd need ministers who are younger, feel more "normal" and able to engage with people without sounding or looking condescending. Oddly, you need someone not a million miles from Nick Clegg, well, 2011 Nick Clegg anyway.

But, but this will royally annoy a huge amount of older voters whose "pension pots will be raided" and whose house prices will be slashed. Are any modern politicians prepared to do that? I think not.

There is a huge part of the voting populous that I just don't think are catered for and that is the under 30's, maybe this is should be the target of labour.

The SNP just proved what can be achieved by actively involving younger people in the political process. They built on the referendum, and kept them engaged. They came out and voted for them. As labour will if learnt, if they're capable of actually learning anything. Which it doesn't look like they are.

They came out and voed for them

Well, they could no worse than actually being coherent and honest. I think a large part of the swing towards Corbyn can be exemplified by the shambles that is Andy Burnham abstaining from voting on the Tory's Welfare Bill, when he made opposing Tory cuts a central part of his recent election campaign.

Apparently, this doesn't mean he does support the bill though...So I guess he'll be able to sleep at night knowing that when the poor are being pissed on from a great height, he'll be able to claim he didn't vote for the cuts...

And they wonder why we won't vote for them.

Have a bunch of policies that support the poor and vulnerable, have a coherent media message that gets that across, persuade the electorate. Y'know basic party political stuff.

Y'know basic party political stuff.

The labour party just isnt very good at doing politics. You know... communication and stuff. The present Tory party is.

Looking at the run up to the election I did wonder what their so called Electoral Guru from Merica was doing to earn his enormous salary. Not much would seem to be the answer. The Tory's rougher hewn Aussie version seemed to be earning his though.

It would appear that the only person the Labor party has ever had who was any good at getting the message across was...

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Yeah I think you could be onto something there. I know you like Burnham, and of all the candidates he seemed the most plausible. Have you seen his Facebook page after the vote (on welfare)

It's ugly

You know... communication and stuff. The present Tory party is.

Unfortunately the torys have the press on their side presenting shall we say, a version of some truth. The messengers need to be "shot".

Also, Blair was rather helped by the murdoch press, a decision made easy for murdoch by an uncooperative John Major who didn't like murdoch.

Have a bunch of policies that support the poor and vulnerable, have a coherent media message that gets that across, persuade the electorate. Y'know basic party political stuff.

Well a message is nice I suppose, but what a future Government needs to do is impress upon its citizens that they have a responsibility to society as a whole, and not just to themselves as individuals. Do you remember all those quaint Government broadcast films? Of course some here would squeal "nanny state".

Anyway I don't see social responsibility happening any time soon particularly with the Governments we've had since 1979, preaching small government and free choice.

The natural conclusion of having free choice of course is if you have money, you can make a choice, a choice in health, education, law and so on. If you don't have money, well...

In 1979 the defeated Labour Party underwent 18 years of inter-party left/right wrangling until their eventual re-election in 1997 under Tony Blair
During that time four former Labour cabinet ministers formed the SDP (remember them?)
Will history repeat itself?

Their other problem seems to be membership and the finance necessary to push their message. Their alignment will affect this too

There is a massive gap in the way that we're thinking about what a "good society" looks like 20 years down the line. Corbyn & co don't really know: their models for how work and money are organised, especially, are out of date and getting worse - most of the 20th Century methods of the left are reduced to tatters by global mobility of capital and (to a lesser extent) labour.

The right has some vague kind of vision, but it focusses on the interests of the biggest capitalists and monopolists, and tries to co-opt everyone else into behaving as good, productive work-persons and presenting government and the state as a supplicant to capital.

Looking at the future through that spyglass, most people are screwed: instability, personal indebtedness, personalised costs of insurance against all the risks of a life, but great rewards for the best people in a ferocious vaguely-meritocratic competition.

The left almost needs to sidestep the logic of late capitalism altogether: to understand better how technology can reduce the impact of the weakness of the modern state on people's lives and risks, how the sharing of knowledge can be managed for everyone, to push into spaces where formal money does not go easily and enable economies that work on labour, barter and peer-to-peer credit. It needs to grasp that people are (generally, to an extent) decent to one another, but that empathy does not stretch to a national scale. They need to work hard at designing and enabling ways of pushing semi-formal and acutely democratic government down to the level of really quite small communities to manage their own business - including welfare provision.

The starting point has to be an understanding of how the world of 2030 might look. [url= http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/17/postcapitalism-end-of-capitalism-begun ]Paul Mason[/url] is probably a decent first call here.

Labour isn't going to win in 2020, unless the Tories literally implode over the EU referendum. It isn't actually a case of being "right or left" enough. It's a case of understanding the world in a way that doesn't mean you have to end up acting with the callousness that we dislike when we see it in the right, and using that understanding to inspire.

🙂

BD for PM!

wow, I went on a bit up there^^^. Sorry! 🙂

They need to work hard at designing and enabling ways of pushing semi-formal and acutely democratic government down to the level of really quite small communities to manage their own business - including welfare provision.

BD - You could argue that a lot of what your saying there was what motivated Blair initially. What he initially set out to do. And he won 3 elections. I think he underestimated how much oppsoition he'd receive from the vested interests throughout the whole system. And as a Labour PM, could only take on the public sector unions to a certain degree. And then he sort of gave up, then his desire to centralise and consolidate power took over, when he got a bit ...erm... Jesussy and thought it'd be great to bomb everyone.

I doubt George Osbourne will be feeling quite as restrained by those considerations. Hence him telling governement departments to draw up plans for 40% cuts in budgets.

I'd say its what presently motivating George Osbourne too. His Northern Powerhouse thing isn't just rhetoric. He means it. Pity theres no money to back it up, but the devolution is real. [url= http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/feb/12/secret-negotiations-restore-manchester-greatness ]Here's a great piece on how Osbourne and Howard Bernstein made it happen[/url]. Really interesting.

He'd clearly like to do it with other areas too, especially in the north. but (probably correctly) has evaluated the local polititians as not presently up to the job. THere are not many obvious Howard Bernstein's out there. More's the pity.

has evaluated the local polititians as not presently up to the job

We [u]never[/u] take that as an excuse. Any "evaluation" will have missed all the Mhairi Blacks out there, guaranteed.

🙂

fin25 - Member

The problem for ideology is the increasing habit on the part of the voter to vote for what suits them best as an individual and not what fits their own personal ideology.

Spot on.

It's the cult of the self.
Greed is promoted as the default position.

Picking any other option than the one which promises the greatest benefit for the individual is portrayed as perverse, saintly or comical.

There are even TV programs that show amazing acts of altruism, carefully scripted so that we can get it all out of our system in half an hour, then go back to thinking about ourselves.

Inevitable, given societal changes post industrial revolution/WW2?
And/or an inevitable consequence of ideology behind the post 1979 New Tory lurch right?

As to the Labour leadership, I have little interest in a Blairite Labour Party.

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'It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees'.
🙂

^^ All very true.

The Conservatives party have made this seem like both the common sense and virtuous choice and aligned it to a narrative that talks about the economy.

In contrast a non-Blair Labour Party is at a grassroots level the same party with the same ideology it had 60 years ago. I'm convinced that Conservatives from the same period would be horrified by what the Conservative party and viewpoint has become now compared to then. In simplified terms, I see it as: -
- Labour = big state, nationalised industries to provide maximal employment and better living standard and welfare state to protect vulnerable
- Conservative used to equal small state, entrepreneurial businesses to invest to provide maximised employment and better living standard with welfare state to protect vulnerable. Now it's about giving money to shareholders and bugger everybody else not true a Conservatism.

NHS will be changed in ways that cannot be undone

Nothing is beyond change, you just need to be prepared to piss a lot of vested interests off. Being able to change the law before you do what you want is also helpful. (See apartheid era South Africa for examples).

Things need to change and adapt, looking back to the good old days of free everything and jobs for life churning out mediocre stuff that people didn't want isn't sustainable.
A very strange example but there was a fascinating documentary on the invention and deployment of the iso shipping containers. Literally something that in one move changed so much. Union influence is good and bad for Labour they need the cash but they also need to accept that this isn't the 70s any more.

Vested interest are greater and more immovable than they have ever been IMHO.

Unions can be brilliant and were essential in developing civil society as we know it. Unionisation needs again IMHO to be in more German model - working in positive collaboration with more responsible business leaders.

Nothing is beyond change

Fair point. I should have said that 'The NHS will be changed in ways that [b]will not[/b] be undone' instead. I don't believe that if the NHS as it was laid out in the post-war period was proposed now it would be taken up.

On p1 Binner's says that free thought and dissent was stamped out by the grinning idiot. Isn't that the whole point behind labour? The greater "good" being given priority to individual desires.