“In Labour Governments we did our best to make capitalism work in a civilised way.
“And we failed.
“It never can work.
“It will always exploit and oppress the people.”
~ Tony Benn, Glasgow 26th January 2013
‘He (Jon Cruddas) and the Blue Labour grouping around him talk of an entirely new way of doing welfare, in which the business of citizens caring for one another would no longer be “outsourced” to the state, but be done directly, whether in families or through associations – the local, mutual and co-operative societies that used to be part of Labour history but which withered long ago.
‘The talk is of a “relational welfare” system, rather than what Blue types call “the contractual, transactional” apparatus in place since 1945 and treated as sacred by parts of the Labour tribe ever since.’
~ Jonathan Freedland Friday 8th February 2013 ‘Will Ed Miliband be an Obama or an Hollande?‘: The Labour party leader faces a choice he’s still not made: to keep ambitions modest, or to offer a genuinely radical vision
Labour continues on its incorrigible way …. for ‘public sector reform’ (read ‘privatisation’ and ‘outsourcing’); for welfare reform think ‘foodbanks’ ‘Parish Overseers of the Poor’ and yes, ‘privatisation’ again!
TIME TO REJECT NEOLIBERAL LABOUR AND FIGHT BACK FOR THE BODY SOUL OF THE PARTY AND THE COUNTRY!
THIS IS NOT THE SOLUTION WE NEED!
Cheap Capital for Business
Cuts to Public Services
Anti Trade Union Laws
Wage Freezes
Food Banks for the poor
Nationalism for the masses
Labour the Party that brought you Food Banks whilst dismantling Welfare, Public Services and the NHS …
Jon Cruddas’s lecture on “the role of the state in the good society” : “We in Labour need to build our own story of the big society. Cameron’s version was too abstract.”
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kennyboy 07 February 2013 8:58pm
Motherhood and Apple Pie is how American’s refer to this hot air.
Yes, the Labour Party should be about putting people first, but this can’t be done without challenging the economic system that has been forced upon us over the last thirty odd years.
Cruddas seems to speak approvingly of the great traitor’s abolition of clause four, with no recognition of the way that employment is going for the vast majority of people who are neither well connected or super talented.
Unless we, through our representatives find a way of controlling the production of the wealth that we all need to survive, all the food banks and faith groups that Cruddas feels are so important will be unable to sustain us.
Within thirty years all the best restaurants that will service the ruling elite will be serving Soylent Green.
I’m sure it will be quite a talking point.
Spoutwell 07 February 2013 7:27pm
Wasn’t Labour about fighting unregulated capitalism and fighting for the rights of working people and the most vulnerable in society?
Isn’t that akin to socialism?
How come the above woolly article managed to appear all well-meaning and compassionate (and very long) without once mentioning the working class or socialism?
Could there be a hint of spin-doctoring here?
A hint of vote-catching without actually defining any concrete change of policy or intention to abandon NewLabour’s love affair with neoliberalism (and imperial wars)?
“The “big society” has remained incapable of decentralising economic power, of holding financial elites accountable and so a promising and interesting idea has collapsed.
“We will produce our alternative.We need to actively rebuild solidarity and a sense of duty and obligation in society. When there is a breakdown of trust in each other, people feel powerless and used. We have to earn each other’s respect and that must be part of belonging. One Nation Labour will renew our welfare institutions, and the key building blocks are relationships, contribution and responsibility”
.
What a load of meaningless waffle.
The country needs honest and courageous leadership not a half-hearted sermon on the mount.
what a load of meaning less drivel.
10,000 disabled people are dead thanks to nu labour not a hint of repentance.
they need to stop learning and talking and think and listen .. jefflph..
The Labour party has never in it’s history been Socialist. They have paid lip service to Socialism when it suited them in order to get votes but have never really done anything remotely connected to making Socialism a reality in the UK.
Today the Labour party has gone so far to the right that they can no longer use the old rhetoric to pull the wool over our eyes. Capitalism is now being seen by most thinking people as a system that is creating misery, not to mention death and destruction, for millions of ordinary citizens the world over.
There is now a great need to replace Capitalism with a system that promotes humanity and cooperation throughout the world.
The Labour party is unable to do that because the Labour party is a Capitalist party.
Looks like we’re on our own people of this Island. Best to vote independent and only of those you are sure wouldn’t sell their mothers and children to a nomadic tribe for £5.00!
Cheap Capital for Business
Cuts to Public Services
Anti Trade Union Laws
Wage Freezes
Food Banks for the poor
Nationalism for the masses
After reading that guff.
Nationalism for the masses it’s political asylum we need to seek!
Blair sneaked in like a changeling and ruined the Labour Party. We need a new one, but the voting system won’t let any new party, be it Left or Right, get off the ground.
It is like reading a Manifesto that has NO Manifesto in it.. It uses emotional words like ‘family’ community’ and Nation’ – but they are just ‘buzz words’ to give the “right-on’s” another “hard-on..”
It isn’t just ‘wishful thinking’ either – it is political masturbation at its worst, a narrative that eschews EVERY previous notion of what the Labour Party once was, in favour of a political ‘wet-dream.’
Enough.. I’ll try to explain! (though give me some leeway for my overiding anger and sneering contempt for the drivel that Cruddas has written.. or perhaps defecated!?
Rather than being purely sentimental about any notion of Labour’s ‘intentions’ we should remember well what was done in the first place.
Men and Women of voting age having the vote – irrespective of social class..
A Welfare System – ensuring that the poorest were not left destitute and did not wither and die in the streets, as they had done under many Tory and Liberal Governments.
A National Health Service – available to everyone: again, irrespective of wealth or social class..
Trades Unions, which, in their proper use and time – aided the working population in securing decent wages and decent conditions: safe, healthy and free from Management interference or bullying. They supported workers in disputes with owners and managers, and gave advice and even financial assistance to those who could not afford Legal Fees.
And they fought for better working hours, sick-pay, holidays, improvements in amenities.. they even fought so that people wouldn’t get sacked for taking a shit on Company Time..
Yet to listen to Milliband’s rhetoric about ‘Duty and responsibility’ you would think we were ALL f*cking thick!?
HERE’S A GOOD IDEA ED, DAVE, NICK.. SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT DUTY AND RESPONSIBILITY AND GET ON WITH CREATING JOBS..
STOP TAKING THE PISS ABOUT ‘JOB SKILLS’ TOO.. BECAUSE IF YOU DON’T TRAIN PEOPLE FOR THE JOBS THERE ARE – THEY CAN’T DO THEM.. CAN THEY?
STOP LYING ABOUT JOBS THAT NO LONGER EXIST TOO!! SOME JOBS ARE ALREADY OBSOLETE AND EXTINCT.. SO WHY AREN’T YOU TELLING PEOPLE THIS?
BECAUSE HOW COULD YOU THEN DEFEND OR JUSTIFY WELFARE CUTS?
WHETHER IT’S ‘BIG SOCIETY’ OR ‘ONE NATION’ IT’S ALL SHIT.. BECAUSE IT IS ALL BASED ON A DELUSION THAT YOU CAN DRIVE COMMUNITIES APART AND SET WORKING MAN AGAINST UNEMPLOYED WOMAN AND STILL HAVE A COHESIVE, COOPERATIVE AND UNIFIED SOCIETY..
LASTLY. AND THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT FACT NONE OF YOU HAVE EVER EVEN THOUGHT ABOUT..
OUR FIRST DUTY AND RESPONSIBILITY IS TO OUR FAMILIES.. NOT YOU! AND NOT TO ANY SINGLE POLITICAL PARTY..
YOU ARE JUST ‘GOVERNMENT’ AND YOU ARE A PAIN IN OUR ARSE..
WHEN YOU WORK. FINE. BUT WHEN YOU DON’T YOU BORE US TO DEATH WITH ENDLESS TWADDLE ABOUT STUFF NONE OF US GIVE A DAMN ABOUT – BECAUSE WE ARE TOO BUSY WORKING. WE ARE TOO BUSY DOING WHATEVER OUR ‘DUTY’ IS.. WE ARE TOO BUSY TAKING AS MUCH ‘RESPONSIBILITY’ AS WE CAN..
IT’S ALWAYS THE SAME THING TOO.. LABOUR BUILDS STUFF, THE TORIES KNOCK IT DOWN (BUT NOW THE LIB-DEMS ARE INVOLVED, AND THEY JUST STAND AROUND WATCHING THE TORIES WRECK STUFF..)
THE LABOUR PARTY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE WORKING PUBLIC.. NOT ANY MORE.
NONE OF THE PARTIES HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE ‘CLASS’ THAT WORKS!!
NO-ONE HAS THE TIME TO LISTEN TO ANY MORE BULLSHIT..
SO, YOU EITHER SAVE THE WELFARE AND NHS SYSTEMS OR YOU DON’T… BUT IF YOU DO NOT.. YOU WILL NEVER BE FORGIVEN OR FORGOTTEN..
CAMERON THINKS NO ONE WILL SAY OR DO ANYTHING TO ‘MAKE WAR UPON THE BEAST’ – BUT HE TOO IS LIVING IN HIS OWN MASTURBATORY LITTLE WORLD..
WAR IS COMING..
BELIEVE IT!
Nice one Mike
All of this is doing my head in.
Can the revolutionists include in their struggle against the nazis a small thing but one that would give me a great deal of pleasure – can we punch that smart arse actor Max Beesley’s lights out too! I hate him as he fronts the ads for Jobshite – smug and smiley he obviously has no problem with poverty or disability – he drives a Caterham car you know – just punch his lights out please
Inspiring Mike, the only way I’d vote for labour is if they gave me a lobotomy, the way things are going it might come to pass what with the T4 program introduced by labour and then the con-dems hit the floor running with it like, hares out of the trap!
The main job of a government is to get 6omillion plus people living in a cohesive society. To do that there needs to be rules and responsibility. If everyone was allowed to do as they pleased there would be anarchy and the people at the top would have the guns and weapons and everyone else would be at there mercy, oppressed and robbed of any hope and security, physical or financial. It used to be called feudalism, now its called capatalism.
To achive a cohesive society, every goverments priority should be the well being of the British people, this includes foriegn and domestic policies, that is everyone in the british society not the top 10% as we have at the moment. It also requires that the present government followed by successive ones stop thinking in short term policies. There are many areas where all parties should be planning 40 to 50 years ahead, we cannot continue to lurch from one extreme to the other.
Take the water companies for example, they came about to provide everyone with clean, safe water, although they were regional they were in fact a nationalised industry and water is and should be regarded as a national resource. Now they are privatised, people in different areas pay different amounts, regardless of whether they come from a deprived area or not, it is also doubtful that many of these companies are even British owned. The argument for privatising them of course was that they would be run better, there had not been enough investment, so privatising them would bring in that investment for infrastructure. In reality what we have got is an industry that we no longer own that gets its primary asset for free, its infrastucture was already there and had been developed from tax payers money, when they wish to invest in that infrastucture the customer supplies the revenue from increased charges, while they make millions in profit which goes to share holders and massive wages and bonuses for Ceo’s.
You would get a better deal off the mafia!
We have also done the same with, electric, gas and rail and they have now started on the NHS and schools. When profit is the main concern it comes before people. Some people of course, as a very small percentage of the population do very well from those profits, I as many many others are not doing very nicely.
We have many economists saying that cuts are the only answer, everything has to be leaner and meaner, others say that if too much money is taken out of economy growth stalls as people stop spending so that the retail sector fails, unemployment goes up, governments borrow more, then they demand more cuts to balance the budget. Sound familier, we’ve been here before! and here we are again! with the same lot in charge.
We now argue about the minimum wage and the living wage, the counter arguement is businesses can’t afford to pay anymore we have to remain competative, yet the gap between rich and poor gets larger and larger.
We here that the guys at the top earn so much to attract the best people, at the other end of couse we hear £7.50 per hour, £15,600 per year, we cant afford that we won’t remain competative!
Ask yourself this, why is it necessary that to earn a living wage it now requires £15,600 per year? ITS THE COST OF LIVING!
What is it that we pay for that we all have in common, Housing, food, power and transport
Where are profits of millions upon millions being made? ALL OF THE ABOVE!
Therefore the cost of living is being driven by EXCESSIVE PROFIT!
Therefore one solution to redistribute a bit of wealth, inject some money into the economy that will actually be spent in the retail and local business sector as opposed to sitting in banks would be to renationalise the utility companies, cut their profits in half and then insist that 80% of that profit is plowed back into the infrastructure.
For example British Gas, half yearly profits released last year was £335million, which means they are well on their way to making a yearly profit of 770 milliom pounds!
Cutting the profit in half would therefore return 335 million to the local economy and they would be forced to re-invest in infrastructure £286 million leaving a profit of £49 million for the year which is a very reasonable sized profit.
If this was done with all utilitiy companies and oil conpanies then billions would be returned to the economy and peoples pokets without raising wages and therefore stimulate growth.
F**k the top 1%!