The Labour Thread

[SUTSS]

I don't like Corbyn as I've made it clear in here several times but Smith really is awful. Seems to lack charisma, a clear idea of an alternative and has made several gaffes already. I've certainly not seen anything to suggest he would be more electable than Corbyn.

I think if I was a Labour member I would still vote Smith but it would 100% be an anti-Corbyn vote with no pro-Smith desire.

 

[Jockney]

Watched it. What a mess. Smith doubling down on the 'no Brexit' policy is CRAZY. The whole thing was in danger of becoming an echo chamber until an ex Labour UKIP voter piped up as a reminder of the world outside.

For all his flaws I think Corbyn is more electable than Smith. Just more genuine.

That's almost self-evident. Smith is a trainwreck. His scolding of the dude who suggested that Smith was more inclined to split than serve under Jeremy as 'abusive' is the sort of discourse that has turned most folk off the party completely. As well as being myopic, these people are so unbelievably entitled and precious that they cannot believe that the electorate might actually be angry with them; might have some sort of passion about the ideological direction of British politics.

 

[Jockney]

Notice that Corbyn tried to skip over free movement re. A50 until Dimbleby pushed the question to him directly.

He may be 'principled' but this is a bloke who's been in Westminster for decades and he plays the political discourse game loosely like any other Labour politician, albeit with far more subtlety. Definitely more of a social democrat than a democratic socialist.

 

[.V.]

The Corbyn problem; 47% see him as left wing.

https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/774897892721037312

But most people identify as holding central politics.

https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/774896209962074113

Simplifying the political spectrum I know but still, this is why it's important to appeal to the centre ground.

 

[Jockney]

The Corbyn problem; 47% see him as left wing.

https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/774897892721037312

But most people identify as holding central politics.

https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/774896209962074113

Simplifying the political spectrum I know but still, this is why it's important to appeal to the centre ground.

The mainstream media, PLP and broader institutional framework of the Labour Party are attempting to abstract and polarise the political debate to undermine Corbyn and you're suggesting that... he plays right into that? If he panders to that debate he will never win over the electorate. He needs to focus on key policy issues: housing, income inequality, housing, tackling corporate welfare, housing, railway renationalisation and fucking housing. People don't identify keenly with ideological labels anymore; we're post Eastern Bloc and post-democracy. Relate those issues to people broadly and he will start win voters over. Maybe not enough to win an election, but certainly enough to make the political landscape more accomodating to so-called left-wing ideas.

 

[.V.]

The mainstream media, PLP and broader institutional framework of the Labour Party are attempting to abstract and polarise the political debate to undermine Corbyn and you're suggesting that... he plays right into that? If he panders to that debate he will never win over the electorate. He needs to focus on key policy issues: housing, income inequality, housing, tackling corporate welfare, housing, railway renationalisation and fucking housing. People don't identify keenly with ideological labels anymore; we're post Eastern Bloc and post-democracy. Relate those issues to people broadly and he will start win voters over. Maybe not enough to win an election, but certainly enough to make the political landscape more accomodating to so-called left-wing ideas.

I'm saying that a political leader of the Labour Party that is perceived to be left wing, will find it difficult to win a GE, especially if Scotland continues to vote for the SNP. The Tories understand this, which is why they make a stake for the centre ground, then move to the right once elected.

 

[Jockney]

I'm saying that a political leader of the Labour Party that is perceived to be left wing, will find it difficult to win a GE, especially if Scotland continues to vote for the SNP. The Tories understand this, which is why they make a stake for the centre ground, then move to the right once elected.

The assumption here is that the 'centre' is some homogenous, pragmatic safe-zone where ideology goes to take a tactical breather. Conservative centrist strategy assumes a very different form to New Labour's strategy of political convergence. The former appeals to the economic self-interest of homeowners and the aspirational working and middle class, cloaked in a rhetoric of generalised inclusiveness and appeals to common sense, and has been so successful because housing and employment did not crash to the same degree as in Spain, Greece, etc. They own that middleground now. Labour will never reclaim that. Instead, they have to proffer an alternative to the millions who have rejected that settlement. They need to win back Green and UKIP defectors. They need to mobilise the young. They need to make housing, income inequality, etc, salient issues again, which means a united and comprehensive front against austerity articulated in terms of concrete policy. That is when electoral politics transcends labels, because those in real terms are the issues that are currently affecting people the most.

We need to accept that the rest of the advanced democracies in the West and parts of the Global North are moving away from centrist politics altogether. Britain has been an anomaly in that sense, for a whole host of historical reasons, but it probably won't remain anomalous in the long-term. Corbyn, for all his flaws, is the only thing keeping Labour relevant at the moment. But if your real concern is for the PLP to remain electable no matter what, here's my tuppence: the PLP and those within the established infrastructure can either passively cling on and wait for the apparently inevitable crash in 2020, or, if they're smart and more importantly patient they can negotiate a watered-down social democratic project that retains the artifice of radical policy without actually challenging the parliamentary and political/economic power structure too much. The latter is a strong possibility even without too much internal intervention.

*Or they could go full-on Red UKIP, which is probably not at all unrealistic if the likes of Dan Jarvis and Tom Watson run for the leadership in the near future.

 

[DarkSithLord]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37342828

 

[.V.]

I'm surprised not more of a fuss is being made of the boundary changes.

 

[mnb089mnb]

I'm surprised not more of a fuss is being made of the boundary changes.

I am too. Then I remembered who the official opposition are.

 

[The Paranoid Pineapple]

In truth, I'm not really sure how controversial the proposed boundary changes are. As a general rule the Conservative party tend to favour change and look to speed up the process while the Labour party tend to be more resistant and look to the delay change whenever possible. And you kinda have to say that pure self-interest explains why the parties adopt these positions. Because boundary changes tend to favour the Conservative party (due to the pattern of population change) it's in their interest for these reviews to take place more regularly. Whilst there are aspects of this review that will be contentious (the reduction in seats to 600 is pretty arbitrary and may yet scupper the whole thing if enough anxious Tories rebel) boundaries do need to be revised periodically because people move around and you need constituencies which are roughly the same size. You'd end up with drastically uneven seats were you to just leave things as they are.

 

[Aber gas]

Corbyn right again...
https://medium.com/@gregdash/history-shows-corbyn-right-on-libya-dc434332720e#.ht3g7ojlr

 

[SUTSS]

I thought May was very unimpressive against an ordinary Corbyn performance last week at pmqs. Corbyn much better today talking about something he is clearly passionate about and really had May rocking. I've criticised him plenty but deserves a bit of praise today. Also becoming apparent that May has some key weaknesses, not confident that Corbyn can exploir them long term though.

 

[GodsGift]

Yeah the honeymoon period is well and truly over for May. This grammar school policy was only ever going to end one way.

 

[.V.]

Latest personal poll numbers for Corbyn and May. I do think Mays are looking that good due to a honeymoon period but Corbyns...

https://twitter.com/johnrentoul/status/776372024994304000

 

[Alty]

Not sure the grammar school issue is going to be as big a problem as some people think. It's one of those issues on which the antis are extremely vociferous, but the concept of grammar schools is actually quite popular with parents. An accurate representation of the information around grammar schools - which is still flawed of course, because you don't actually see what the same child would have done having been through the other system - is that they significantly help working and lower middle class kids who do attend, while slightly negatively impacting on those who don't.

I'd probably favour a Finland-style education system but in the world we have not the one we wish it was, I think grammar schools might be worth a try. I certainly think it'll aid social mobility to a certain extent if you have grammar schools in every town. At the minute there is an element of selection by postcode which is probably more damaging to kids' life chances.

Chuck into all that that if the SNP decide to try blocking grammar schools it'll do them a lot of reputational damage. Devolved issue, they should be staying the fuck out of it.

 

[Abertawe]

Popular with parents, of course they are. What parent would want their child taught in what is essentially the 2nd division? The standards grammar schools supposedly achieve can be done under the current system, the need to split children up just doesn't carry logic, it's social engineering.

 

[blade1889]

Ain't the idea of grammar schools that you separate the more academic children from those that would benefit more from vocational work? Maybe we should stop seeing vocational work such as plumbing and being an electrician as second rate to academic.

 

[Abertawe]

Says the academic

 

[blade1889]

And? Just cos I'm quite academic doesn't mean I value it more than other skills, it's just something I've always excelled in.

 

[Jockney]

Ain't the idea of grammar schools that you separate the more academic children from those that would benefit more from vocational work? Maybe we should stop seeing vocational work such as plumbing and being an electrician as second rate to academic.

No-one does, though. At best this is a complete misunderstanding of those objections. There is a clear link between academic success and socio-economic status. We should not create conditions where disadvantaged children are overwhelmingly funnelled into vocational work.

 

[blade1889]

No-one does, though. At best this is a complete misunderstanding of those objections. There is a clear link between academic success and socio-economic status. We should not create conditions where disadvantaged children are overwhelmingly funnelled into vocational work.

The way I see it I know plenty of people who education (including private) hasn't worked for and they'd have been better suited to something vocational. Obviously there will be winners and losers in every system but pushing more academically minded people further and providing others with training they can engage with doesn't seem like an awful way forward. I do feel as though the 'academic or nothing' kind of thinking doesn't do any favours to those who struggle with it, for which I do believe there's enough to warrant a separate system for...as nice as it would be to provide everyone with the best quality education and everyone thrive from it it ain't gonna happen. It may be true that better education tends to lead on to better pay etc. but if those people aren't engaging with the education they're receiving it doesn't help them one jot. This is probably where we end up an ideological debate about improving the education system so they do engage with it which would be great, in theory.

 

[AFCB_Mark]

No-one does, though. At best this is a complete misunderstanding of those objections. There is a clear link between academic success and socio-economic status. We should not create conditions where disadvantaged children are overwhelmingly funnelled into vocational work.

That's all well and good if every child was equally skilled and equally interested in the same academic areas, and thus all had an equal chance of obtaining the same standards on merit. That obviously isn't the case. We/our kids aren't robots that can be fed identical code and can produce identical outcomes from it.

As kids develop they naturally take up differing areas of interests and / or differing areas of skills. Some might fall into a 'academic' bucket and some into a 'vocational' bucket, but that's a crude and black and white way of putting it. IMHO we need a school system that's flexible enough to allow kids through their teens to explore and later specialise on area(s).

One assumption I feel you make here is that vocational work is somehow a lifetime sentence to living on the bread line. It really isn't - or at least it certainly needn't be. Not everyone can be a mathematician or a scientist, and if everyone was then there would be a lot of unemployed mathematicians and scientists. I feel (maybe naive) that if you're good at what you do there is a living to be made in whatever field it happens to be. If your interests and/or skills are more practical in nature, then becoming the best you can be at those things will most likely result in getting on well in life.

And if as I you seemingly assert: vocational work is a gateway to low pay for life...then perhaps I'd turn that around and suggest that it's partly down to our school system being rather crap at teaching any vocational skills. Instead it currently gets left to further education and/or the private sector, who receive 16-20 years olds who have had a mushy generic, vaguely academic curriculum beat against their heads for years which they had no interest in, and as such might be rather low on morale and motivation. I feel (based on personal experience) that continually trying to push more practically minded people to be better academically daily over years and years, with no outlet for other skills or interests, is not only pointless and a waste of time, but is actually detrimental to those individuals.

 

[Jockney]

That's all well and good if every child was equally skilled and equally interested in the same academic areas, and thus all had an equal chance of obtaining the same standards on merit. That obviously isn't the case. We/our kids aren't robots that can be fed identical code and can produce identical outcomes from it.

Of course not, but it's funny that the kids from the higher economic strata invariably do better academically, and thereafter economically and socially, than those from the lower. It's almost as if there's a system in place that is designed to reproduce these class inequalities in perpetuity....

As kids develop they naturally take up differing areas of interests and / or differing areas of skills. Some might fall into a 'academic' bucket and some into a 'vocational' bucket, but that's a crude and black and white way of putting it. IMHO we need a school system that's flexible enough to allow kids through their teens to explore and later specialise on area(s).

They don't 'naturally' do anything. They are entirely conditioned and ultimately corralled.

One assumption I feel you make here is that vocational work is somehow a lifetime sentence to living on the bread line. It really isn't - or at least it certainly needn't be.

I don't. Nothing is technically impossible for an individual in a capitalist system. That is how the dream is kept alive. The reality is different for the majority of people, though.

Not everyone can be a mathematician or a scientist, and if everyone was then there would be a lot of unemployed mathematicians and scientists. I feel (maybe naive) that if you're good at what you do there is a living to be made in whatever field it happens to be. If your interests and/or skills are more practical in nature, then becoming the best you can be at those things will most likely result in getting on well in life.

I'll skip the Marxist counter-analysis of the premise here that 'not everybody can be X' and just ask you this: why should those professions be effectively kept warm for the offspring of the upper/middle/professional classes?

And if as I you seemingly assert: vocational work is a gateway to low pay for life...then perhaps I'd turn that around and suggest that it's partly down to our school system being rather crap at teaching any vocational skills. Instead it currently gets left to further education and/or the private sector, who receive 16-20 years olds who have had a mushy generic, vaguely academic curriculum beat against their heads for years which they had no interest in, and as such might be rather low on morale and motivation. I feel (based on personal experience) that continually trying to push more practically minded people to be better academically daily over years and years, with no outlet for other skills or interests, is not only pointless and a waste of time, but is actually detrimental to those individuals.

Fucking hell, WHAT VOCATIONS ARE OF ANY USE TO THIS GENERATION IN THIS ECONOMY? I did a vocational undergraduate degree and it got me fucking nowhere. I barely found retail work. There's a stunning level of cognitive dissonance going on here.

I'd suggest the reason that there is no morale or motivation for this generation or recent previous generations is because their situation is hopeless. They have had it drummed into them that the metric they should measure their life by is a vaguely-defined but mysteriously quantifiable level of 'success', but then they are given so few opportunities to succeed, so then who is setting them up for failure? It's depressing that we're still accepting this situation as an unchangeable, historical reality, when it is nothing of the sort.

Teachers have been campaigning for years to get the curriculum changed, but, ironically, those challenges are met with opposition by the people who bemoan that very same system. Conservatives, liberals and backward-ass technocrats want state education to be standarised, 'rigorous' and value-free, well this is the generation we are producing: basic competencies for a knowledge-based society, but lacking creativity, passion, and perpetually disadvantaged by a lobotomised critical faculty.

 

[Jockney]

The way I see it I know plenty of people who education (including private) hasn't worked for and they'd have been better suited to something vocational. Obviously there will be winners and losers in every system but pushing more academically minded people further and providing others with training they can engage with doesn't seem like an awful way forward. I do feel as though the 'academic or nothing' kind of thinking doesn't do any favours to those who struggle with it, for which I do believe there's enough to warrant a separate system for...as nice as it would be to provide everyone with the best quality education and everyone thrive from it it ain't gonna happen. It may be true that better education tends to lead on to better pay etc. but if those people aren't engaging with the education they're receiving it doesn't help them one jot. This is probably where we end up an ideological debate about improving the education system so they do engage with it which would be great, in theory.

1) Why
2) Why
3) Why
4) Why

Answers that do not regurgitate BS notions of common sense, plz.

 

[blade1889]

Would have thought common sense would be to acknowledge everyone has different strengths and weakness and those strengths need to be pushed forward and don't necessarily revolve around academia.

 

[Jockney]

Would have thought common sense would be to acknowledge everyone has different strengths and weakness and those strengths need to be pushed forward and don't necessarily revolve around academia.

Argumentum ad Ignorantiam.

 

[AFCB_Mark]

Of course not, but it's funny that the kids from the higher economic strata invariably do better academically, and thereafter economically and socially, than those from the lower. It's almost as if there's a system in place that is designed to reproduce these class inequalities in perpetuity....

You're diverging the subject of school curriculum into something much broader around philosophy and society as a whole, and clearly we come at this from rather different ideals and worldviews on those things so I'm not going to debate philosophy with you too much. I do understand that the education system does have to sit within a wider context of society, and that a well working education system will only be of great benefit to society.

But I have to take issue with:

They don't 'naturally' do anything. They are entirely conditioned and ultimately corralled.

I find this assertion absolutely incredible.

If we can't agree on something as basic as how kids develop and their ability to develop independent traits, I doubt we're going to get very far discussing what our education system should do because the two are dependent on each other.

If growing kids were 'entirely conditioned and ultimately corralled' by 'the system' and didn't naturally develop interests or leanings in one thing or another, surely they would all come out as identical people.

Clearly they aren't, surely they develop different interests and ideas, in spite of the current education system that I believe stifles that diversity with it's bland vaguely academic rigid curriculum . Whether the education system actually allows them to explore, develop and grow those interests sufficiently - I do not think it does as I've been saying, which I why I would like to see more diversification rather than rigidity and uniformity.

I do agree with some elements of what you say. What qualifies as success in our education does need broadening. It needs some more variety and creativity, not a curriculum that I believe is a compromise suiting nobody. I do not think that is unchangeable or at least hope it isn't, clearly otherwise I wouldn't be talking about it. I agree from my anecdotal experience working in schools that many teachers want change in the curriculum, although it would be a mistake to group teachers as one humongous agreeable group on the subject.

 

[AFCB_Mark]

Putting that to one side for a sec and going back to the topic of thread regarding Labour - did anyone else see the Channel 4 undercover documentary last night about Momentum? Exploring how Labour and Momentum sit together, - something I had been unclear on for a while. Some interesting links and differences, dependencies and disagreements between Momentum / Labour / various Trade Unions. Quite interesting.

 

[Abertawe]

Bit weird their legal bod was Alistair Campbell's brother in law I thought...