Labour Party Supporters

[Ruffneck]

Is this a recent photo , looks like they have fallen on tought imes , wearing clothes bought in op shops and all

Seriously thats a terrible blazer

[Rare Bear]

Did you beat him just a little too often when you were growing up, perhaps?

When I went to school if you were winning the argument you were being disrespectful.

[enrieb]

Over the course of human history ignorance has generally been a less effective survival tool than knowledge. There are always bumps in this road (the last 13-or-so years for example), but things generally even out in the end. All we have to do is wait

Excellent retort, i'm going to memorise this.

[Si1]

When I went to school if you were winning the argument you were being disrespectful.

it is like this from some hard lefties now - you are being rude if you point out step by step their logical fallacies

there are some good moderate ones coming out of the woodwork tho which is nice to see

[Si1]

it is like this from some hard lefties now - you are being rude if you point out step by step their logical fallacies

there are some good moderate ones coming out of the woodwork tho which is nice to see

and interestingly, if you debate with them on facebook and accuse them of being illogical they hide their threads from you and talk labour public sector gobsh*te amongst themselves instead

[jaspers]

Landlords, employers, lawyers, brewers, and financiers are there in parliament in force. Why not Labour?

The slums remain; overcrowding continues, whilst the land goes to waste.

Shopkeepers and traders are overburdened with rates and taxation, whilst the increasing land values, which should relieve the ratepayers, go to people who have not earned them.

Wars are fought to make the rich richer, and underfed schoolchildren are still neglected.

Chinese Labour is defended because it enriches the mine owners.

Labour Party Manifesto

1906.

[South Lorne]

Yes, I think the religion point has nailed it. Equally true of either "side" too. No point in arguing with many of them.

...yeah...proved in the film Kingdom of Heaven with Orlando Bloom....Liam Neeson....great film...

[libspero]

him: lot of people out of work (knowing I am a tory supporter)

me: yes, the economy is very hard right now

him: yes, lots of people out of work, not like this under labour [knowing smirk]

(me – didn't know where to start without being rude, like unemployment is the not only consideration in the economy? Like the unemployment of the early 80s was followed by the biggest economic boom in 100 years? What about interest rates on govt bonds? The deficit? Out of control govt spending? The Greek crisis? But oh no, if you say that you're a nasty tory. So I kept quiet.)

Not everyone is made to be confrontational.. but often there are ways around it.

For example, it appears he suffers a lack of depth to his understanding. If you suspect you are going to get confronted by people like this my approach would be to play dumb and make him feel like you appreciate his advice on the matter.

My opening question would be to earnestly say "I know, it's so sad.. I wonder how we ever got into this situation?"

That would put him on the back foot.. if/when he starts talking crap you'll be able to innocently ask him all the awkward questions that make his argument fall apart because your understanding will almost certainly be better than his.

At the point he starts to get upset, you can just back off and say "it's all too complicated for me... how's my son's education?"

[brainclamp]

In the political economy there are 3 factors of production; Land, Labour and Capital. Nearly all the mainstream parties have to embrace one or more of these opposing factors to gain enough support to win power. Before the Labour Party was created in 1906, the Liberals represented the Labour and Capital factors of production (The vote did not really get to the working man/women before this Liberal era), and the Tories the Land factor.

From 1906 the Labour party better represented the Labour Factor of production, and the Liberal party died off as pointless while the Tories represented Land and Capital.

In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s most people were members of a Trade Union. During this time the spectre of mass immigration from the commonwealth loomed large (all commonwealth subjects had the right to settle in the UK in the 1950s i.e. over half of the world) It might suprise people on this forum, but it was the Labour party which enacted the strongest immigration controls in UK history, with the Tories on the backfoot during these decades (Labour combined this with strong anti-racism legislation).

In the 1980s with the breakup of monopolies and trade unions under Thatcher combined with limited immigration, people saw rising real wages, falling inflation and greater employment and life opportunities, trade union membership sharply declined in the private sector, as workers felt they didn't need mass representation to protect their interests and that industrial trade unions acted against their interests.

This left the Labour party funded only by public sector trade unions. There was virtually no private sector 'workers' trade unions left funding the party. Soon enough, in the 1990s the Labour party changed into 'New Labour' and embraced a policy of mass immigration which acted DIRECTLY against the interests of the Labour factor of production.

The public sector gained from this, because rising rents and profits at the expense of declining private sector real wages, massive competition for jobs, increasing job insecurity and unemployment meant more revenue for the state through taxation.

The Tories can never really represent Labours interests, apart from Thatcher, pre-new labour they have been on the backfoot and thats why we have no real cuts in immigration today even through they spout on about it.There is no political competition, because the Labour party is really just the 'Public Sector party'. COMPETITION is needed to force the Tories to really embrace strong immigration controls. Only the smaller parties like UKIP offer any hope to change the status quo.

Edited October 23, 2011 by brainclamp

[Venger]

In the 1980s with the breakup of monopolies and trade unions under Thatcher combined with limited immigration, people saw rising real wages, falling inflation and greater employment and life opportunities, trade union membership sharply declined in the private sector, as workers felt they didn't need mass representation to protect their interests and that industrial trade unions acted against their interests.

blackmail your employers.

Union power in the private sector could have also declined because of changes in the economy. Factory to office. Mass production to small teams. Union power in small companies, themselves competing against other small companies, is difficult to threaten employers with. More likely for employees to get paid their market worth, and that doesn't necessarily mean lower wages. Just it's less likely workers with less ability and positives to offer companies can threaten employers in demand more pay than they're worth. Economic change.

[Si1]

bounce

[spyguy]

Don't think I read thid.

My comment on teachers i baed on my experience up to my O levels (84).

Our town had one school -no 'good' or 'bad' split, every one went to it - a handful who went to a very small public school.

I was in the top stream i.e. doing 7 O levels.

Of my teachers, 30% should have been sacked then and there. It was embarrassing having to sit there and watching them fail to read the course work nook.

When the inspectors bang on about preparing for lessons they at least mean remembering which chapter you were reading - and which book/subject.

Nothing more than register tickers.

Another 30% might be OK for tutorial type classes- with some intensive retraining - or just reading the s*dding course book.

30% were OK to good. Bear in mind these were O -levels i.e 150 hours over 2 years, you are not talking anything really complex or hard.

I started to pick up during A levels because I'd given up on lessons and just read the books, which brings me to the point - How many teachers add any value above the course book? Why not find a good teacher, video him/her teaching, chuck in some good course books and pay the students to pass the exams?

I've made these comments to teachers - I hesitate to say peers, lets say same age group - and I get some waffle about 'soft' culture growing up etc. What a load of w*nk.

ps. Don't get me started on FE colleges - nothing more than a job creation scheme for the intellectually sub-normal.

[happy_renting]

Sit the teacher down in an undersized chair with the crayons and explain:

"Mr & Mrs Private produce 5 Oranges. Mr Public takes 3 off them.

Mr Public keeps one for himeself, gives 1 to Mr & Mrs Private's retired parents, and gives one to Mr Teacher.

Mr Teacher is also smirkingly amused that Mrs Public is to lose her job, and and will thus produce no oranges.

Mr Teacher still thinks that an extra orange will appear for him when he retires.

Explain where this orange will magically appear from. Show your working."

[Byron]

* Eighties house price bubble - Thatcher

* Energy companies - Thatcher

* Banks - Thatcher

* Wage inequality - Thatcher

* WTO - Thatcher

* Financialisation - Thatcher

* Tax cuts for the wealthiest - Thatcher

Continued by " We're all Thatcherites now" NuLiebour

It's really not difficult to grasp, even for Hayekians.

Jack the Ripper- Thatcher

World War One and Two-Thatcher

Korean war-Thatcher

Traffic wardens-Thatcher

Winter of discontent-Thatcher

Sold all the gold-Thatcher

etc. etc. etc.

[MrWallace]

I don't mean to sound rude but I really think you and your primary school teacher mate are wasting your time favouring one of the mainstream parties over the other.

They're all the same really, politicians gave their power over to 'the markets' long ago, and they plan to keep it that way too.

If Labour were in power unemployment would be like it is now as they wouldn't be able to do much to force private enterprises to create jobs either. All the cuts would be happening too and they would have raised VAT as well. Their promises don't mean anything. Labour are owned by exactly the same group of people who own the Tories.

Its like this. Pretty much all politicians of all the mainstream parties will always take the side of a higher social/economic class over another. For example, they will always favour landlord over their tenants, but if landlords get into trouble they will always side with the bankers over the landlords.

The only difference is with policies that the mega wealthy aren't untied about; such as the right to protest, free speech, ID cards and other civil liberties. Labour really dislike individual freedom and want as much state control over people as possible in order to socially engineer them into what they want them to be. Labour were also pretty keen on filling up the jails as fast as possible and criminalising as many things as they could, as quickly as they could. Labour will generally sell you a peerage too whilst the Tories will had them out to folk born with a silver spoon in their mouth, but really there is not a lot of difference between them when it comes to things like employment and the economy.

What always surprises me though, is how come Labour's core vote of Social Democratic voters are so stupid that they vote for them time and time again? Don't they realise that when your vote can be taken for granted your views become worthless to these people?

Labour introduced the non-dom tax break for foreign billionaires, it was such a break that I believe the IMF listed the UK as a tax haven for foreign nationals until 2008.

Labour kept all the Tories buy-to-let legislation and engineered a housing (price, not building) boom to transfer wealth from the young and the less well off to the better off and the baby boomers.

Labour built less council housing than the Tories and continued to sell it off.

Labour introduced tuition fees because their goal was, as Tony Blair put it, 'to create a market in higher education'. They're totally cool with the market in elementary education too and Labour politicians, even the so called 'left-wing' ones, generally send their children to private schools.

Labour increased the gap between rich and poor, during Labours term in office the earnings of the richest 0.1% soared and the bottom 50% of earners got poorer in real terms.

Labour well and truly reversed social mobility. Senior Labour politicians like Harrett Harmen claim they're concerned about inequality amongst different sub-groups, race, religion, gender etc... but they one group they're not interested in is the working class. They're so far detached from the plights of ordinary working people that they don't even seem to be able to relate to them.

Labour boasted about their "light touch" regulation and let the capitalist cowboys in the City of London, dodge taxes, run riot and blow up the banks and then bailed them all out with tax payers money when they did it and allowed them to return to business as usual.

Labour MPs ripped off the tax payer with their expense claims at least as badly as MPs from every other party too.

Why anybody who believes in social democracy turns out to vote for a party like that is beyond me. At least Conservative voters believe in the massive inequality they're voting for...

Show your teacher mate my comments if you will, because I'd honestly like to hear what a Labour voters has to say about these things. If I knew any Labour voters who were social democrats I'd ask them myself but up here they've all switched to the SNP in disgust (not because they want independence).

[spyguy]

Labour well and truly reversed social mobility. Senior Labour politicians like Harrett Harmen claim they're concerned about inequality amongst different sub-groups, race, religion, gender etc... but they one group they're not interested in is the working class. They're so far detached from the plights of ordinary working people that they don't even seem to be able to relate to them.

One very noticable change that has occurred since Bevan is that Labour changed from being the party of 'the working man' to being the party of 'the public sector worker and client state'

[newbonic]

What is it with so many teachers? That's exactly how they are.

Many of them are institutionalised i.e. school -> 6th form -> uni -> teacher training -> back to school. They're not very good at talking to anyone except other teachers and kids.

[Charlie The Tramp Returns]

The biggest joke of the latter Labour Government under Gordon Brown was his statement.

BRITISH JOBS FOR BRITISH WORKERS. Herein lays the true problem.

[MrWallace]

So, have you seem the teacher again yet?

[Si1]

So, have you seem the teacher again yet?

generally into BTL (despite negative equity) and playing the lottery hoping for a win every weekend, as far as I can tell