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For example, Germany has worker representation on the boards of large companies, but they also have a government that actively supports German industry at home and abroad.
And one of the ways they do this is completely support training costs and education. Something that UK Government has actively dispersed from public funding.
paininthe
Just coming back to the "hard left" thing again - the way this seems to go is that the current labour leadership is described as hard left, to which the response is something along the lines of "which policies are hard left? They are all moderate socialist policies as in place in france/germany/some other european country"
An issue with labour's policies is not just what's in there, but what was lacking.
For example, Germany has worker representation on the boards of large companies, but they also have a government that actively supports German industry at home and abroad. While I could imagine Corbyn et al standing up for the workers against the bosses, I find it hard to envisage him standing shoulder to shoulder with the same bosses on an international stage promoting privately owned british companies. For the "workers on boards" policy to be acceptable, there needs to be a belief that a labour government would actually support private enterprises and industry generally - not just at the level of workers rights against the companies.
The same goes for public vs private provisioning and the nationalisation/privatisation debate: France, Germany, etc. all have examples of successful nationalised services or companies with some level of government ownership. So that in itself is not exceptional. However nationalisation is not the default setting of these larger European companies and there is no sense that they see private enterprise as "bad" and government provisioning as "good". Yet, this is exactly the sense I, at least, get from the McCluskys and others surrounding Corbyn.
For a policy of nationalising private services to be acceptable, there has to be a belief that it is being carried out as a sensible practical response to improve failing services (answering the question, exactly how is this specific nationalisation actually going to help?) not just an idealogical reaction to 1979. As above, I can see Corbyn et al nationalising stuff, but I'm struggling to imagine them privatising or making use of privately provided services, even if it was a practical, sensible thing to do.
Rinse and repeat for defence - a draw back from internationalism needs to be balanced by a belief that the leadership will defend british interests.
To me, this is why the "hard left" label sticks - because alongside the history of the leadership, there is little in the way of balance.