What is the point of Labour ?

[BFTD]

4 hours ago, Baxter Parp said:

During the months that it would take to get sufficiently proficient how does one avoid getting sanctioned by the DWP for not meeting your job search obligations?

That's your fucking problem; I'm alright, jack.

Edit: whoops, wrong account.

Edited November 12, 2019 by BigFatTabbyDave

[Fullerene]

14 hours ago, Pet Jeden said:

This is a failing of most politically committed folk. They won't acknowledge the extent to which the "other side" have a valid point. Left-leaning hand-wringers - and this site is rammed with them - can't accept that the UK has millions of folk who will take whatever the state, or anybody, gives them and not try as hard as they might to provide for themselves or their family. You must all know folk like that. In fact, given the right circumstances, that attitude is in us all. BUT. Right-wing, I'm alright jack types - plentiful outside the world of P&B  - won't acknowledge that the UK has millions of folk who, as Pandarilla described above, just don't have the wherewithal to grasp opportunities. They're not disabled in any way. They're just not blessed with Duncan Bannatyne's drive, energy, resilience, wits etc or they didn't get the right luck at the right time with the genetic lucky bag or role models or teachers or job interviews or mental health or not getting pregnant or whatever. And really, the sensible debate is about the balance between the state ensuring that nobody has an unacceptable standard of living while encouraging everybody to question what is essential and to do what they can do for themselves.

I read Duncan Bannatyne's biography.

IIIRC he drifted about in his youth and didn't think about serious work until he was 30.  Then he realised the money might be a useful thing to have so he started an ice cream business.  Then he switched to nursing homes.  Then he switched to gyms.

Most people would not have the option of starting employment so late and most would be under enormous pressure to "get a job" which usually means getting somebody to employ you.

It is not simply about initiative or drive.  It is also about resisting the social pressure from friends and family to just get a job like everybody else.

[BawWatchin]

6 minutes ago, Fullerene said:

I read Duncan Bannatyne's biography.

IIIRC he drifted about in his youth and didn't think about serious work until he was 30.  Then he realised the money might be a useful thing to have so he started an ice cream business.  Then he switched to nursing homes.  Then he switched to gyms.

Most people would not have the option of starting employment so late and most would be under enormous pressure to "get a job" which usually means getting somebody to employ you.

It is not simply about initiative or drive.  It is also about resisting the social pressure from friends and family to just get a job like everybody else.

Indeed. Lets not forget the laws he broke and the lies he told. When he first opened up nursing homes, they were doing badly. So whenever they were up for inspection, he'd bring family members and friends into the homes to fill vacant rooms and to give favourable feed back.

Edited November 12, 2019 by BawWatchin

[WhiteRoseKillie]

What alternative suggestions do you have for people in this situation which would be an improvement on my idea?

Three words.

National.

Education.

Service.

Proper education and retraining, funded by the same society which will benefit from a highly skilled workforce.

[Guest Bob Mahelp]

7 hours ago, oaksoft said:

You seem to have taken a turn for the same ridiculous melodrama which has afflicted most of the posters on this thread so I'll leave you to it.

I merely used exaggeration to highlight the weakness in your reasoning.

My first point is the valid one.....'A large number of people in the UK who live on or below the breadline are actually in full time employment'.

Any comments on that ?

 

[DeeTillEhDeh]

I merely used exaggeration to highlight the weakness in your reasoning.
My first point is the valid one.....'A large number of people in the UK who live on or below the breadline are actually in full time employment'.
Any comments on that ?
 

Your wasting your breathe with Walter Mitty.

[Pet Jeden]

6 hours ago, Fullerene said:

I read Duncan Bannatyne's biography.

IIIRC he drifted about in his youth and didn't think about serious work until he was 30.  Then he realised the money might be a useful thing to have so he started an ice cream business.  Then he switched to nursing homes.  Then he switched to gyms.

Most people would not have the option of starting employment so late and most would be under enormous pressure to "get a job" which usually means getting somebody to employ you.

It is not simply about initiative or drive.  It is also about resisting the social pressure from friends and family to just get a job like everybody else.

Fair point. I just lazily used his name, as an example of somebody successful, because he had been mentioned earlier in the thread. The point I was trying to make is that it’s not valid for somebody successful to say “Look at me - I made it. So you can too”

[WhiteRoseKillie]

Your alternative to my suggestion that people should re-educate themselves is for people to.......re-educate themselves. That's wonderful. Thanks for that stunning contribution. 
Fortunately Jeremy Corbyn agrees with me. There's still an unhealthy obsession with certificates but it's hugely encouraging to see the parties start to recognise the value of lifelong learning.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-50378666
To be honest it's hard to disagree over education being the single best route out of hardship but the PB screeching chimps apparently know better.

You really are amazingly stupid. The solution put forward by Labour to achieve an educated, skilled workforce does not, quite importantly, require those retraining to simultaneously work themselves to the point of collapse in a demand contract or having to explain to the gauleiters at the DWP how they have spent their time in order to receive their gracious hand out from the state.

[Old Pack]

Your solution is not happening now, in real time.
 
My practical advice for people now is to vote SNP in Scotland, Labour everywhere else.

Commie Corbyn has fucked Labour good and proper.

[Fullerene]

14 minutes ago, Old Pack said:

Commie Corbyn has fucked Labour good and proper.

The Queen  got to meet both Assad and Adams.  I guess we need to boot her out.

The rest relate to the Palestinians.  How come Kurds are always good and Palestinians are always bad.  Maybe it about who defines the narrative.

The Gaza Strip is about the same area as Glasgow but with three times the population.  Definitely not a place you would want to visit.  Why are we not allowed to show sympathy for them?

Corbyn may be clumsy and insensitive in the way he deals with these matters but he is not an extremist.

[Fullerene]

I hope we don't see any awkward photos of Corbyn standing beside former "terrorist" Nelson Mandela.

[Detournement]

All the arguments about training are beside the point. Everyone in the country learning to code won't end structural poverty, structural unemployment and structural homeless. It's like the 100m in the Olympics, train as much as you want but someone always going to come last.

[steelmen]

1 hour ago, Fullerene said:

The Queen  got to meet both Assad and Adams.  I guess we need to boot her out.

 

Sounds good to me, where do i sign??

[BawWatchin]

2 hours ago, Old Pack said:

 

^^^^ Good guys



^^^^ Wanks

[Granny Danger]

Corbyn has many flaws but in terms of human decency I’d put him far, far ahead of Johnson.

 

[ICTJohnboy]

Shame that the only people who can't see how damaging Corbyn is to the Labour Party (rightly or wrongly) are the Labour Party.

[ICTChris]

Labour have said they've been subject to a sophisticated cyber attack.  Information is that it was a DDoS attack, which isn't necessarily sophisticated.  

As always nowadays in British politics people have blamed Russia.

[thisal]

21 minutes ago, ICTJohnboy said:

Shame that the only people who can't see how damaging Corbyn is to the Labour Party (rightly or wrongly) are the Labour Party.

The people that are doing most damage to the Labour party are within. The Tory press were always going to go for Corbyn and the general consensus would be "Well that's what they would say" But there are people within Labour who have been ousted by the left who have taken the hump (Or maybe never had Labour values) who are backing them up.  That in my opinion is what has really damaged Corbyn.

[dorlomin]

This reminds me more and more of the Republicans and Donald Trump, the message that Trump was a racist buffoon came from people his early supporters loathed and those deeply politically opposed to him. So they continued to brush off all the small allegations as he gained popularity in the primaries. The more he said the unsayable and seemed to be a revitalising of old ways, the more they ignored the criticism and bought the hype.

Anyone on the left knew where Corbyn, McDonnell and Abbott's politics were. They were tolerated and left alone as a harmless fringe, popular with the "left of Labour" activists and the remnants of the Bennites, but that was it. 

They were are pro IRA as you could get in public life in the UK while the Provisionals were planning and executing terror attacks in the United Kingdom and occasionally in the Republic of Ireland. The Provisionals were a terrorist organisation who not only attacked the "British State" etc, but also attacked large number of innocent people in the UK and Northern Ireland including many within their "own community" for what ever reasons they saw fit. This was at a time when there was democratic outlets for their politics. This was not South Africa 1958.  The Social Democratic Labour Party won the majority of the nationalist vote during "The Troubles" and was committed to peace.

The UK government had had contacts and negotiations with the PIRA since 1972 including negotiating cease fires such as in June/July 1972 and the 1975 cease fire. It is a fantasy to try to preset the clique around the likes of McDonnell as some kind of "go betweens" for peace. There were far more credible figures available to any party requiring such contacts across Northern Ireland and the Republic. 

Hansards Online does not go far back enough but I have dredged this up. 

 

 

This is in the immediate aftermath of the Enniskillen bombing. 

-There is no assigning responsibility for the killing to those who planted the bombs. 

-No call to open negotiations.

-No call for "all sides" to enter a cease fire and try to work on a political solution.

-No call for an election for a democratic mandate for a solution. 

This is simply the demand to immediately acquiesce to PIRA demands. For all intents and purposes it may as well be a Provo press release. 

Arguably, post Good Friday Agreement, this should all be water under a very bitter bridge. But I hear little remorse from the likes of Corbyn over what happened and now his role is being white washed into some kind of messiah of peace. At best his judgement was very very questionable, at worst he was an outright supporter of murderous violence to terrorise people to enforce a solution they could not win by elections. 

May and Johnson were happy to be supported by the DUP who are steeped in sectarianism and have a long history of close links with violent thugs.  Just because Corbyn had his tongue up the Provos arse does not make voting Tory a morally justifiable choice, but just because the Tories are amoral  shits means its ok to rewrite the past of the leader of the Labour party. Being anti Blair did not suddenly make people pro Michael Howard. 

 

Its pushing water up a hill on this one. 

[WhiteRoseKillie]

..and yet Corbyn has sufficient security clearance to sit on the Privy Council.

And call me old fashioned, but I'm a lot happier with that than with the high level access that freak Cummings has.