The Political Thread

[COMMANDO FORCES]

Don't know how crowded the trains are outside the Southeast but if there's a women only carriage with only a few ladies inside and the rest of the train is chockablock, I think tempers might flare.

[TordelBack]

Right good example of 'when did you stop beating your wife?' fallacy there. Choice of either 'Corbyn advocates return to Islamic-style gender apartheid' or' 'Corbyn dismisses safety concerns of women's groups', take your pick.

[Professor Bear]

If trains are that overcrowded, then surely an extra carriage is a good thing?  Also it is probably sexist to assume that the majority of commuters will be men, so I expect the internet will be along to be outraged at you shortly.

I think it's worth reiterating that these carriages wouldn't be compulsory, and that UK trains are commercial enterprises - any decision would be based on demand.

[IndigoPrime]

Demand and consultation, through finding out what people want and need. Fancy that. Still, he won't win anyway, and we'll instead get empty platitudes and meaningless phrases instead of policy from Cooper (or, less likely, Burnham).

[The Legendary Shark]

How about cheaper train carriages for the financially assaulted?

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

Using public transport tends to be an unpleasant business. That's why I opt for the 35 minute trek every day instead. I reckon if you took away the politicians' chaffeurs, forced the lazy parasites to use public transport and invested the money saved back into the infrastructure, things would vastly improve within weeks.

But these are the gibbering delusions of a fantasist.

[Banners]

Still, he won't win anyway...

Why don't you think Corbyn will win?

[Old Tankie]

Hopefully, he will win, Banners, and, therefore, keep the Labour Party out of power for a generation!  I'm old enough to remember Michael Foot speaking to packed halls of enthusiastic supporters and look what happened to him.

[Banners]

I'm old enough to remember Michael Foot speaking to packed halls of enthusiastic supporters and look what happened to him.

He became the world's oldest footballer at the world's greatest football team, Plymouth Argyle. Is that what you mean?



ps. the original of the above is currently going for auction at £700.

[Old Tankie]

Yes.

[Leigh S]

Hopefully, he will win, Banners, and, therefore, keep the Labour Party out of power for a generation!  I'm old enough to remember Michael Foot speaking to packed halls of enthusiastic supporters and look what happened to him.

It would be wonderful for the Right's complacency with regards a "Left" (though not really) Labour to bite them come the Election - But then you also have to ask why so much bile is being aimed at Corbyn and why the SNP were able to annihalate all opposition on an anti-austerity ticket. There is a definite change in mood, and an apathetic electorate with no real choice marginally voted in the Tories - they hardly have much to crow about other than being able to scare enough old people to turn out in slightly higher numbers than the younger vote.  Invigorate those younger voters with a real alternative? Then you might see a proper contest.

But even without that, democracy would be better served by an effective active opposition than by the bunch of nodding dogs we have now.


Quote fixed—IP

[Jim_Campbell]

But even without that, democracy would be better served by an effective active opposition than by the bunch of nodding dogs we have now.

All of that, but especially this.

Cheers

Jim

[Professor Bear]

I think it's ironic that Corbyn gets it in the neck for supporting homeopathic medicine as a placebo treatment when so many of his critics are gazing into their crystal balls or consulting the goat's entrails to discover that he's definately not going to win anything.  The reasoning is impeccable: if he gets elected on a surge of support for the Labour party, this is proof that he cannot be elected and that people don't support the Labour party.
I like that the right has employed this mindset, and I hope it continues for at least the next five years.

[Jim_Campbell]

(Originally posted to FB, but relevant to the direction of the discussion at hand...)

The continued description of Jeremy Corbyn as a 'candidate of the hard left' speaks to nothing so much as the relentless rightwards drift of the British political establishment over the last thirty-odd years. To be clear: there is very little in Corbyn's agenda that would have troubled the Conservative party pre-Thatcher. That's how left wing Corbyn is.

The problem is that the notion that there is no part of society for which the introduction of private capital and an ostensible free market market would not be beneficial is now entrenched as the political orthodoxy. This, despite the fact that we are looking at the demonstrable failure of thirty years of privatisation. The railways, the energy market, the utility companies, these are all failing the public because of privatisation, not despite it. All of these privatisations have done very nicely thank you for their senior management, executives and shareholders, and the plight of the customer has been very much a secondary consideration, which, of course, is precisely how a publicly traded company is supposed to work.

Apparently, the fact that handing a de facto monopoly (or slice of a cartel) to a publicly traded company and then not regulating them very much might lead to that company not behaving very well didn't occur to the finest political minds in the nation over the last three decades.

The housing crisis? This is a direct consequence of successive governments abdicating housing policy to the market, when what the market wants is the diametric opposite of what the country needs. The price of any item offered for sale or rent (including houses) is a function of perceived value and also scarcity. How anyone can seriously believe that property developers and private landlords want to see vast swathes of cheap housing erected across the country defies belief. This is simply not how the free market works.

And yet, raise a solitary voice in opposition to the madness of this slavish belief in the benevolent power of the free market and one is automatically labelled some kind of Trotsky-loving throwback, pining for the bad old days of the 70s.

And when the roads, the courts, most of the BBC, as much of the police and emergency services as the Tories think they can get away with, and, God help us, the NHS, are all turned over to the mercies of the untrammelled free market, and the same thing happens there...

...Will we recognise the folly then?

Jim

[Grugz]

Did anyone else know the NHS has been subcontracted to the private sector already?
  when your gp refers you for an orthapedic appointment it goes to virgin medical so I had a woman trying to get me to go to a private hospital for an appointment...found this out last Friday when I was in a and e the spinal clinic bod told me to bypass them and ring her instead when I'd had my scan , so I did and have an appointment next week!

  mind you, if/when I need an op I imagine the grub will be better in't private sector.