The Labour revolt begins...

[Edward Hunter]

I had the local looney come up to me today. "Ah, suppose you`ll be on strike tommorrow. Im glad you wont have a job soon!" So take it from me - loonies aint at all sympathetic!

[fmrPOSTIE]

theres been stories about a "Cabinet dissent" so you never know, i've heard reports that Mr Johnson is not best pleased either. Mandie had to meet MPs last night to try and get them on side.

[NWpostie]

The Public was conned with the privatisation of Telecom as they believed they would be part of the Shareholding democracy, Yuppie stylee, everyman and his dog would be part of the new "Social Revolution" of the 1980s, it soon turned out that the big money men ended with with a lot of the shares and brought/bribed the rest off Joe Public, same with Gas and Electric, since then prices gone up, service went down, "Customer Services" is just a barrier to your complaints between you and HQ.

In short the Public have now become so cynical about privatisation especially that disaster Railtrack, we are now being squeezed til we pip with the increasing Gas and Electric prices an dnot dropping them when teh wholesale prices were dropping.

The last time they tried to privatise the Royal Mail, people were saying it was a privatisation too far, it still true now as then, the Public, the Lords, the MPs will all be affected by it as they all recieves posts, imagine an MP or a Lord being told to come down to their local sorting offices to pick up their mail because deliveries has been cut to their areas, this will be likely if RM is a fully fledged private company with no USO responsibilities, even the most Capitalistic country in the world never privatised the United States Post Office they kept it Federal.

The MPs better watch out as their seat will be under threat come Election Day if they voted for it, they work for us ! no pigs in trough here.

[borders]

Its the Corporate Takeover of Britain[ good book by the way !!} or Treasure Island as the rich elite call it .

[kingtubby]

Its the Corporate Takeover of Britain [good book by the way !!] or Treasure Island as the rich elite call it .

Thanks for the tip Sounds like my kind of read so I just ordered it.

[TrueBlueTerrier]

The SW people at our gate were not to pleased when I told them the strikes has been called off. They had been waiting there from 6am till we left at 945.

[Night Tonic]

They're like flies round a waste bin and then as soon as the excitements over they vanish.

[borders]

New Labour pains
The smell of death around this government is so overpowering it seems to have anaesthetised them all… The imaginary Blair/Brown ideological distinction has now been exposed as the sham it always was… The sad truth is that he [Brown] opposed Blair, not Blair policies… Unseating a prime minister is very high risk—but a dying party should be ready to take dangerous medicine if that’s the last chance left”.

It is a sign of the depth of New Labour’s crisis that such things are written by Polly Toynbee, a social democrat so opposed to real radicalism that she joined the SDP split from Labour 25 years ago and then went on to enthuse first for Tony Blair and then, until just a year ago, for Brown.

New Labour’s sickness is not, of course, new. Writing quarterly comment on its condition over the past three years has been like writing sick notes for a patient with a near incurable illness. Fifteen months ago the Brown medicine promised recovery from the Blair disease. Now that medicine is blamed for a greatly worsened condition. The problem is not Brown’s personality. It is that New Labour, faced with the double crisis, has neither the desire nor the capacity to relate to the section of the working class that has constituted its voting base.

Brown’s wing of New Labour claims to be able to relate to its traditional support among the manual working class because of Brown’s ability to share a pint of beer with union leaders. Yet his spell as chancellor saw the destruction of a third of the remaining jobs in manufacturing industry and, in the past three years, a decline in manual workers’ living standards . The Blair wing, with its would-be kingmaker Charles Clarke and its new pretender David Miliband, claims to appeal to “middle England”. But a big section of those on or a little above the median income are white-collared, salaried workers alienated from New Labour by its encouragement of marketisation, job testing, targets, privatisation and managerial bullying, with the added ingredient of a public sector pay norm half the official level of inflation. It is hardly surprising that the four million decline in New Labour’s vote between 1997 and 2005 is now turning into a collapse, as shown in recent by-elections and opinion polls .

The immediate beneficiaries in England are the Tories. But that, as we have emphasised before, does not signify a great popular swing to the right. The Tories have had to position themselves to the left of their old policies in order to pick up support and, significantly, in Scotland it has been the SNP that has gained from Labour. It has been able to do so by picking up some of the social democratic policies that New Labour has abandoned. The devolved Scottish government has gained working class popularity with real, although minor, reforms, while leaving it to the New Labour British government to implement the unpopular policies needed to keep capital happy. Nonetheless, the fact that the Tories are gaining support does have important political implications. It further demoralises activists who have looked to Labour in the past, creating a sense of hopelessness

[pcb]

The Labour Party has always sided with Business. All you have to do is read Anthony Crosland's book The Future of Socialism. In it he says that activists should be allowed to get the labour Party elected but don't let them dictate policy! He said this in 1956 and Brown wrote the foreword to the 2006 edition! The working class needs to wake up! the nedd for a new workers party is paramount. The tories will be elected in 2010 so there will be no change in policy no matter who's in power!

[dvbuk55]

The Labour Party has always sided with Business. All you have to do is read Anthony Crosland's book The Future of Socialism. In it he says that activists should be allowed to get the labour Party elected but don't let them dictate policy! He said this in 1956 and Brown wrote the foreword to the 2006 edition! The working class needs to wake up! the nedd for a new workers party is paramount. The tories will be elected in 2010 so there will be no change in policy no matter who's in power!

And consequently no need to support a political party in opposition - although let's look at the facts: we've paid the Labour Party over £5 million pounds so that we (and when I say we I mean the big WE as in the leadership) have meetings and influence whilst the party is in power - ahem - yes quite - if that's influencing the powers that be I shudder to think what no influence would bring; now when they lose the next election the cry is going to be - we need to get Labour back into power so that we can influence decision making therefore we need to financially support them - well guess what, they can take a flying f*ck as far as I am concerned.

[Yahoorsur]

'now when they lose the next election the cry is going to be - we need to get Labour back into power so that we can influence decision making therefore we need to financially support them - well guess what, they can take a flying f*ck as far as I am concerned'.
dvbuk55

Absolutely,it's finito for me and the Labour Party,bring on the vote to sever the link.

[pcb]

We can stand inside or outside of the Labour Party it does not matter. They take the money on the pretence that we will be "looked after" then they say "but for the good of the country"when in power. Policy has been for the last 100 years one of appeasement to the free market. Funny how the free market was going to sort every thing out. Lets face it whilst workers continue to be dazzled by captialism we will always be paying for its mistakes. Tax payers money goes to banks who then refuse to lend between each other or lend money to businesses. Dont you get it they are recupriating their losses. The government gives the money over then says they can regulate themselves! They have been regulating themselves and look where it got us.
The Government should be telling them, NO forcing them to stop repossesing houses and convert the mortgages to a rent scheme until things get better. They should force the banks to release the money so companies are not left with the decision to make people unemployed because liquidity has dried up. Simple economics!
As for advocates for capitalism at least you can see in the shopfront 5 varieties of beans but the problem is unfortunately you can't afford them!
We need to start again with the creation of a new political party based on people before profit.

[borders]

During the boom, everyone is prepared to borrow and lend, confident of obtaining handsome profits. As always there was a large element of speculation in all this. The dizzying rise of stock market prices bore no relation to the real situation. the profits of the capitalists can only be derived from the unpaid labour of the working class. As long as surplus value is extracted, the capitalists, landlords, bankers and stock exchange speculators, can all make a profit. The illusion is created that this merry carnival can go on forever. But this process sooner or later comes up against the inherent contradictions of the capitalist system.

The second phase has now begun - the crisis of the real economy. Millions of workers face short-time working, cancellation of overtime or sackings and closures. The bosses are demanding wage cuts, under threat of closure. This means a general reduction in living standards, which in turn means a new fall in demand, with more closures, unemployment and new cuts. Falling activity means a fall in tax returns, which in turn must mean new cuts in social spending.



Since credit is the life-blood of the capitalist system, the interruption of the supply of credit means that not only "bad" businesses will be made bankrupt but "good" ones also. The drying up of credit threatens the whole productive process of society with slow strangulation. The effects can be seen in a sudden spate of bankruptcies and closures, affecting not only small businesses but also major companies, like Ford, General Motors, Sony, Nissan and many others. The main reason for this is the collapse of demand, aggravated by the drying up of credit. Suddenly there is too much steel, too much cement, too many cars, too many empty offices, too much oil... In other words, what we are seeing is a classical crisis of overproduction.

[Yahoorsur]

Both pcb and borders make a very good analysis of the situation(IMO).
There is real unease and opposition to these proposals,even from Kevin McGuire of the Mirror,who is normally a cheerleader for Labour and yes it was me that made the 2nd comment
http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/maguire/2008/ ... l#comments

[Yahoorsur]

The membership of the Business and Enterprise Committee . The remit of the Committee reflects the responsibilities of the new Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and includes issues such as UK energy policy, the Government's relationship with Royal Mail, competition policy, business competitiveness and trade promotion.


here's the list,how about getting in touch with them ?


Peter Luff MP (Chairman) Mid Worcestershire Conservative
Mr Adrian Bailey MP West Bromwich West Labour
Roger Berry MP Kingswood Labour
Mr Brian Binley MP Northampton South Conservative
Mr Michael Clapham MP Barnsley West and Penistone Labour
Mr Lindsay Hoyle MP Chorley Labour
Miss Julie Kirkbride MP Bromsgrove Conservative
Anne Moffat MP East Lothian Labour
Mr Mark Oaten MP Winchester Liberal Democrats
Mr Mike Weir MP Angus Scottish National
Mr Anthony Wright MP Great Yarmouth Labour
.
It may not do much ,but if they get loads of letters and e-mails then they will take notice ,c'mon folks lets get to it