Hockey_saint

I will call them whatever I like if they forget why they were voted out and repeat the mistakes they made before. Cobyn doesn't have a monopoly on the Labour party but his values are darnslight closer to the values of the Labour party than someone like Harman or Kendall who essentially say "ok, even though most Labour voters abstained because they didn't know what the heck we stood for, we'll pretend we got a battering and just allow the government to do what the heck it likes" now, in my opinion and clearly most others....maybe not yourself CB....But according to the current polling, most others...That is quite disgraceful and not what an opposition should be doing.

About sums it up Trousers. I don't care what side of the divide you belong to, you have to expect an opposition to be just that and people like Kendall and Harman...well, they just appear gutless to me and clearly a lot of others and maybe Labour will be sidelined for a decade or so but at least they'll understand who they are and where they came from and stopped trying to be something they are not.

Slacker, although like a lot, I work a flexi shift pattern and I have an internet connection for the entire working day.

I mean, I like the EU but I agree with this 100%.

You have a very good point there. It certainly aligns itself to a lot of external views of the British... Anyhow, for a chuckle, I found this (funny though because it seems like this would mean our current government would face a term in nick.) http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/27/france-discrimination-poor-poverty-illegal

I think you are right, if they went further left the unions would have more power. I'm not old enough to remember what it was like in the 70's when the country was hamstrung by them but the workers of those industries certainly paid for that in the 80's and 90's to the point we have no industry any more. I think both parties need to be more aggressive about tax avoidance too but I have as much difficulty believing the tories would be tough on their mates in big business and the banks as I do of Labour on the unions so it's a problem.

Nothing to do with a global economic crash then....although we've been through this a hundred times there is a myriad of evidence to prove the conservatives can no more be trusted with the economy than Labour....look at the current deficit level...and borrowing one.

See that's the thing, I think the hope is that if Labour starts to act more like Labour and an alternative to the Tories, they'll gain more traditional working class Scottish votes....that's the hope.

It detracts from the 1920's great depression image of half-starved kids and skeletal adults people expect to see you know ;p

Good point. I know what he's like but it's essentially one of the niggles I have, people (some on this board) will say "but the genuinely sick/hardworking won't be affected" to which my usual response is to say that the tactic used is like breaking a walnut with a sledgehammer.....IDS being the sledgehammer.

Well this is good to see: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jul/26/benefit-sanctions-review-urged-amid-concern-over-regimes-effectiveness It's also good to see where Matthew Oakley went!

It's possible the system is being abused by some I grant you but I don't think we can dismiss them as such because a few are like that however. Besides, maybe the people queueing may have such stupid tastes and addictions but I bet their kids don't and it'll be them who suffer.

I wouldn't say he was left either. Having said this, my old mother is a lefty and she's just informed me she doesn't want Corbyn in as he's "too old, too regressive and just the wrong choice"...Which buggers up a few of my views too.

Well I do have to walk through Shirley a lot. Don't forget, I am a disabled person and I belong to a lot of groups who are having their funding stripped and the boundaries for what is "disabled" as well as in fact what is "poor" are being re-written all the time by this government. There are lots of points I'm making that are linked and coherent but you refuse to see them. What you prefer to do is just insult me. Either way, it should be up to the labour party members to vote for whoever they want in charge as opposed to those lovely people at the Telegraph who are encouraging the tory voters to ransack such a vote....Then again, given Conservative history, democracy hasn't really been their "thing" (Pincochet, Smith etc).

I see poverty, I see people being thrown on the scrapheap, I see people using foodbanks and I read some of the stuff written here and you think I'M ill-informed? Can I call the ******** you spout garbage to then? Because most of the disabled people I know don't think they're having a rollocking good time under this government. It just seems to me these threads, when ever a political subject is brought up is dominated by a few right wingers who's view HAVE to be completely correct and everyone else is wrong.

I've been to China CB, my father goes there all the time and a lot of his friends are in the pharmaceutical industry. China's not a great example for you I'm afraid. "western communism mixed with Chinese business sense"...i.e. not very left wing on most things except when it's to the advantage of the politburo. Healthcare is shockingly expensive over there too (not what we'd expect a Socialist NHS style organisation to be). None of this genocide or totalitarian-ness was in Karl Marx or any of the socialist founders plans or ideals for a new world (some struggle may have been required to otherthrow you capitalists) but if I give you a few far right wing ideals, murder, genocide, intolerance and general nastiness are never too far away. Either way Polaroid's right, my appologies for turning this quite clearly ideological (at the very start and title) thread into a politically ideological one!

The point I am trying to make is that people like you and GM bang on about the dreaded left. When in fact the whole reason for Corbyn is because the party has drifted so far from the left to more a centralist right party that this was going to happen. Also, did I say they just "accidently" turned into despotic megalomaniac totalitarian states? No, as I said quite clearly, it's often human nature to disagree with a lot of Marxist beliefs and there is often one power voice within such movements who, more often than not is essentially a right-winger parading in left-wing sheep's clothing who often appears very clever and skillful and therefore pushes their way to the top and essentially turns the ideals of socialism into a manifestation of themselves. It doesn't happen by accident at all but it's not the left's ultimate goal to do this.

Whatever you may think. Some great quotes here however....not much of which could be construed as "leftist" (Maybe in your mind they might be) "I believe Margaret Thatcher's emphasis on enterprise was right." "A strong society should not be confused with a strong state." "Duty is the cornerstone of a decent society." "Britain needs more successful people who can become rich by success through the money they earn." "People don't want an overbearing state." Yep, very commie eh? http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1996/06/the-paradoxical-case-of-tony-blair/376602/

Very true. One could say the same of Mugabe's Zimbabwe too...what with it formerly being the bread basket of Africa. As I say, I feel the ideas of the far left are always good in theory but they far too often end up like Animal farm thanks to Human nature. I still don't think Corbyn is along on this scale. He has expressed some opinions that are certainly left of centre but the over-reaction from the rest, who, at best are a bunch of clones is disgraceful.

Perhaps those two, although I would probably discount Venezuela. There never has really been a government that fully embraced the communist system to the letter anyhow.....As the right wingers will point out, it relies on a part of human nature that is often lost to more selfish, basal (some would say right wing) instincts of greed and such. To that end, if you watch US politics and whenever someone veers slightly away from the centre, there are groups automatically willing to label whoever a "filthy commie", now, we've not gotten that far here but I still think what people consider communist or far left wing to be more centralist than people give them credit for. I was in a bit of a history group at college that were a bit communistic in our thinking.....the other three are now history teachers so oddly enough, I do know a bit about these things, often more from osmosis off them.

Can't disagree with that. But my point was that Marxist theory (ergo, the left) doesn't envisage some supreme totalitarian leader (but it does happen, a lot) who is better than anyone else and can do whatever he/she likes without the will or permission of a government people's body. Now Stalin never behaved like that. In many ways he acted like Hitler (Lenin warned of him before his death) believing that it was his will and his ideals that counted the most and as we all know, his purges nearly cost Russia the war. Now there are many totalitarian leaders like this claiming to be on the left and indeed affiliating themselves as such, Pol Pot for example. Mugabe being another. My point was that unless they follow marxist doctrine of no one more powerful than the people, then they are certainly not communist (although communism is mainly just a financial system). Maybe left wing but since Marxist theory is the basis of left wing thinking then they are not really that are they? In which case, all that is left (since he wasn't an anarchist, which is the diametric opposite of Nazism) is the right. But if Tony B-liar was a lefty, then the left of the labour party would not be wanting a new direction....to the left....would they?

Whatever. I'm not trying anything, I've just never encountered such a backward bunch of oddballs. Did Stalin live as a member of the public or did he live a lavish lifestyle, whilst making sure that the tiers of government were firmly under his dictatorship?

You don't know much about history do you? Do some reading. Whilst it is convenient to say that Stalin was a communist, in truth nothing could be further from the truth. Like most mentalist, despotic leaders parading as communist, what they really are is insane, cult-leader right wing nutjobs. But do carry on because you clearly have no idea what you are talking about GM.

Blair an example of socialism.....also priceless. (by the way, in case you didn't get it, Stalin was used as an example to show how bleedin stupid the example above was....however, even whilst parading as a communist, he was probably more a right-wing totalitarian mentalist).

See you keep on using Tony Blair as an example of socialism....You really are not getting it are you? The points you make might be good if he actually followed through with any of them in government. In which case, can I use Stalin as an example of conservatism? because what you've just written up there is frankly ******** and it's because of Tony Blair that this whole thread is up so please stop using him as an example of the left because he really wasn't.