Labour leadership contest 2020

Better than free shit broadband. Also busses are not shit everywhere.

Lisa Nandy made the same point about busses over broadband. Why not join and vote for her?

No, the places where they're alright they're also more affordable. Investing in decent bus services for those who need it is a good idea, probably through nationalisation, as since they've been privatised, unprofitable routes get dropped. Not having to pay for something that's pretty awful or non existent isn't much use for most, it'll just be a bonus for those in cities who need it least. Rolling out decent broadband to places where, again, it's not profitable for private companies do so seems sensible to me, helping those who actually need it, although I don't know if I'd have made such a big deal about it.

Better than free shit broadband.

Broadband would have been an infrustucture project, and would have given an almost immediate fiscal stimulus. That was the logic for prioritizing it and is usually missed. Free bus passes just distributes a cost born by individuals across the whole of society.

However, the nuance of that point combined with the lack of foresight over how state* controlled internet would look to people encapsulates the issues with JC/JMcD's political awareness.

*Particulary under a socialist government run by people who've back leaders like Chavez, and are believed to have connections with Russia.

I'm not picking a fight :

Particulary under a socialist government run by people who've back leaders like Chavez, and are believed to have connections with Russia.

Can easily be changed to
Particulary under a hard right government run by people who've back leaders like trump, and are believed to have connections with Russia.

Also:
Agree broadband would be an infrastructure thing, allowing people to use the internet they need to use for their UC aims for instance is a big one. What's the point of having digital government services if the people that are using them can't access them?

And finally, buses outside of London are fucking expensive. Providing stuff to your population is a pretty standard basic thing.

I'm a member of another party. Also I'm not sure any of the candidates currently could get the party on the right foot. One of the big problem is union influence. Union influence appeals to labour party diehards. To the rest of us they are a throwback. I was once a NUT member but stopped paying my subs when they asked me to go on strike for a second time that was 2010. I was quite well paid. I left teaching after that work more hours now for half the pay. The pension was also stellar. Now I can barely afford a pension but I will never go back to teaching. No amount of money is worth the stress. I object to working in a pressure cooker. The influence the unions have in the labour party is of the main reasons why I cant join the labour party. I am not opposed to unions I am opposed to the power the try and wield. It's often counter productive. Union politics and the control the unions have had over candidate selection and policy has to be one of the reasons for labour's defeat. When candidates stand up and say I am a proud trade unionist then people like me are turned off and vote for someone else. Everyone who voted for the conservatives was turned off by that. That's how a big a change of direction is required. The nation is not that left wing. What the nation wants is a bit of statism. That why nationisaltion of rail is popular but a bit of statism is popular not alot of it.

Free broadband had a big issue. Giving it away. Having the state own a telecoms service is not that radical. It probably is not the best way to run it as it not likely to run like a business. Giving its income stream away is exactly the problem that everyone saw except labour diehards. Giving it away means it's not run like a business. It a bit like the government paying me to fix bikes for free. I am not likely to run the shop well as some one else is picking up the tab. Sane goes with broadband. If the nationalised industry is required by law to stand on it's own and its revenues support it then fine it's a business. The moment that's not true then voters know it not going to work hense the nationisaltion policy overall was not popular.

Free buses therefore are not needed (I suggested it would be more useful than free broadband not more desirable because free is not desirable) services should never be given away. I'd chop all bus passes as all they mean is buses are more expensive for working age people. Appropriate compensation could made through disability allowances or pension payments. Cheaper busses are desirable. To get to my shop is cost £3.50 each way for 7 mile journey or I can ride for a lot less. No wonder so many drive.

The problems with the labour run deeper than corbyn and the leadership. The whole thinking is flawed. I was a diehard remainer once but once the 2017 election result came in remain died yet the party and its membership kept flogging that dead horse and kept failing to back compromise options (the lib dems also failed here). instead the labour party insisted on trying to have brexit done it's way. Labour lost then. The lib dems had the same problem and have been punished for it ( I'm a lib dem member and actually left over ther parties pointless opposition to brexit and re joined to get a vote on the leader on to be disappointed again by the new leaders even more extreme brexit stance( I have only stayed a member to have a say in leadership bid and maintain a say in the party as I knew defeat was coming). Principled opposition to have it our way is never the way to win. There a time and place for principles but if they make a party rigid... Compromise and the ability to adapt is the life blood of poltics, without that a party looks rigid and will loose. That's what done labour in and why the tories won. The tories compromise was with the right of the party and understanding the public as a whole is not that left wing.

Demographics are also against the labour parties strategy. Take south suffolk. I was at the count as a party agent. Sudbury and cornard are labour areas where labour and the tories are close. Everywhere in the constituency which is rural is tory. Labour could not even turn towns like ipswich and colchester. The lib dem vote going all to labour would still not have changed the result. If towns like this cant turn labour then the party has got it really wrong.

Brexit has to be embraced but the reason for brexit have to be addressed. The labour party needs to embrace devolution and look less urban and middle class leftist. It need to look like a poltical party rather than a protest group.

If all that happened I might join but the membership have to go with that change.

I actually wanted to vote labour this time but could not find a single reason to do so. I voted for labour 2017 because even as a lib dem member I was that opposed to the parties brexit policy and Tim Farron is not a leader that inspired. I could find reasons in 2017 to vote for labour although j held my nose at yhd union thing.

Which one?

For @t-v

I maybe a lib dem member but I would like to see labour do well.

We are the apostles of true equality and the personal freedom that it must sustain.

Amazing to have this level of conviction/self-belief

Reading fail! Thanks

I have expanded my reply.

This is a worth a read;

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/22/labour-has-no-hope-of-rebuilding-unless-it-breaks-cold-grip-of-the-hard-left

The only way Corbynite hard left grip will be broken is if people join if rejoin and are active. I have rejoined.

Can you tell me the “hard left” policies that corbyn had?

people on 12 december: vote Labour
people on 13 december: OMG HERE'S ALL OF THE OBVIOUS, FATAL FLAWS WITH LABOUR OVER THE PAST FOUR YEARS

Nationalisation of broadband, railways, etc.

That will be a tough one! When we are moving towards a 1920s germany, helping an old woman cross the street could get you branded as dirty socialist

To be fair, some of us had been pointing these out for years. If a choice comes between Johnson’s hard right Tory party and Corbynism, I’d choose the latter, but I still think it is a cult of leadership and a lot of the policies are unreflective of the real issues.

People were actually criticised before the election for undermining the leadership. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I don't see what the problem with nationalizing the railways is... We are already pissing away billions in subsidies to the big rail companies. Who skip out on corporation taxes

They're really not hard left policies, they're sensible, non neo-Liberal policies. Nationising all the stuff that's been sold privatised is definitely good, privatisation has demonstrably failed repeatedly unless your aim is to make money for rich people. The broadband thing is still a decent idea in my mind, if not currently as important as sorting the railways, it's along the same lines but more forward thinking.

Here is a little extract from the web in regards to who is making all the money from our railways..

Rail
Railway infrastructure—things like the tracks, signals, level crossings, bridges, and tunnels—is run by Network Rail, which describes itself as a “public company, answerable to Government”. Trains, most smaller stations, and routes are split into franchises run by different companies. Around a dozen of the franchise holders are linked to governments in other countries.

A German company, Deutsche Bahn, runs several UK rail franchises—Arriva Trains Wales, Chiltern Railways, CrossCountry, Grand Central, and Northern. The German government is Deutsche Bahn’s majority shareholder.

Rail travel in France is run by a state-operated rail company, SNCF. SNCF is also the majority shareholder in a French private transport firm called Keolis which in turn jointly runs railway company Govia with the UK Go-Ahead Group. Govia operates UK franchises: Thameslink, Southern, South Eastern, Great Northern, and Gatwick Express.

Greater Anglia, Stansted Express and Scotrail are all operated by Abellio. Abellio is run by Netherlands Rail whose only shareholder is the Dutch government.

Abellio has partnerships with other businesses to run rail franchises. Along with the Japanese companies Mitsui & Co. and East Japan Railway it runs London Northwestern and West Midlands Rail. Abellio also runs Merseyrail with UK-based Serco.

The c2c franchise is operated by Trenitalia. Trenitalia is part of the FS Italiane Group which is owned by the Italian government.

Other franchise holders are UK companies FirstGroup, Stagecoach, and Virgin Trains (which is in part run by the Virgin Group and partly by Stagecoach).

so.... huge profits going oversea's to other countries governments essentially, then you have Stagecoach and virgin, Both of them are massive tax dodgers and run laughable levels of service.

It’s the focus only on nationalising services and an underlying assumption that “nationalisation will provide a better service than a market approach”. I’d say this is as clearly nonsense as the opposite extreme - that markets always provide better outcomes.

There are situations where nationalisation works, situations where a pure market approach is best and often situations where government provide direction and boundaries for private companies.

I can’t recall anything in labour manifesto that helped or supported private enterprise. This focus exclusively on nationalising companies and on providing services directly from government is, I think, what attracts the hard left labelling.

Yeah it’s very sensible, anyone who uses the train network outside of London thinks it’s horrific. Prices keep rising but service and trains keeps getting shitter.