Fun and games with ballot papers

[vinteuil]

I agree that the Attlee government was right-wing in its foreign policy..

... could you explain what you mean?

.

[Andy Freude]

But higher taxes, stopping people using their cars, telling them to buy new non-gas central heating boilers, stopping air travel for foreign holidays and banning the eating meat is not going to be very popular. These are the sort of policies that are required if you listen to BBC R4 Costing the Earth.

That needs to be analysed. I don't believe that 'higher taxes' would be anathema to everyone who feels comfortably off, merely to the greedy and rapacious.

People aren't going to be "stopped from using their cars", merely encouraged to find alternatives where this is possible, and making alternatives to car ownership more available. No?

People aren't being "told" to replace their boilers. I've been looking into conversion to a heat pump system completely off my own bat.

Not "stopping" air travel. Encouraging people to think about the pollution caused by aviation is a first step to encouraging people to cut down on unnecessary flights.

No one is proposing banning the eating of meat: educating people about the consequences of excessive meat consumption might lead them to cut down spontaneously.

Did you vote Tory or Brexit party, I wonder. A rhetorical question: I wouldn't wish to pry.

[CGR]

That needs to be analysed. I don't believe that 'higher taxes' would be anathema to everyone who feels comfortably off, merely to the greedy and rapacious.

People aren't going to be "stopped from using their cars", merely encouraged to find alternatives where this is possible, and making alternatives to car ownership more available. No?

People aren't being "told" to replace their boilers. I've been looking into conversion to a heat pump system completely off my own bat.

Not "stopping" air travel. Encouraging people to think about the pollution caused by aviation is a first step to encouraging people to cut down on unnecessary flights.

No one is proposing banning the eating of meat: educating people about the consequences of excessive meat consumption might lead them to cut down spontaneously.

Did you vote Tory or Brexit party, I wonder. A rhetorical question: I wouldn't wish to pry.

I did mention that these points came from the R4 "Costing The Earth" programme a couple of weeks ago. They were the collection of policies that would be required in a green future.

[Joseph K]

... could you explain what you mean?

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http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj62/budd.htm

[Serial_Apologist]

Whilst I take your articulately expressed points, I think that another factor affecting Labour's election performance was that quite a few Remain and Leave supporting Labour MPs, Labour members and traditional Labour voters were irked by the fact of Mr Corbyn's steadfast refusal to clarify which way he would vote were a second referendum to take place; whilst each individual's voting preferences are his/her own prerogative and not necessarily to be declared and shared, I do think that it behoves the leader of a party such as Labour to make an exception of this kind of thing for the benefit of those MPs, members and voters but he evidently thought otherwise.

My guessing is that Corbyn probably saw the whole Brexit thing as one massively irrelevant diversion from urgent issues that are now hitting the headlines daily. Others on here have corrected me on my wrong asumption that Labour's manifesto included much that would have contravened EU competition rules. By deduction, whichever way Corbyn was going to vote in a second referendum would have been neither here nor there (no pun intended) - the important, nay only possibility for Labour, was to promise the masses that second referendum, as would be common practice in sealing negotiated agreements between unions and bosses. Where we would have been had we not put agreements back to the members before finally signing goodness knows - probably had the union office burned down. Why all of a sudden the difference here? The truth is that the refusal by Leavers to countenance such a refendum amounted to refusing to face up to the weakness of their position: with the second referendum it would be put up or shut up. The Remain option could have envisaged Labour at the helm of a pan European left/centre left initiative to reform the EU's structures, reversing the slide to single state hegemony and re-prioritising sovereignty at the helm over Commission policy initiation.

[eighthobstruction]

....Awful lot of having games with ballot papers papering over cracks in policies, hopes, fears, projections, double-guessing.....No Socialist party will ever be able to tame the rampant types of small/SME and large/corporate Capitalism that is so all incompassing, complex/infinitly detailed, Global, Political....too late the time has passed,...Best can be expected is a Left of Centre Social Care Party with a very wide Green Wing .Now for Climate change, everybody requiring an electric car etc, Lithium/Colbalt poisoning of environment and South America mines etc etc ....

[Andy Freude]

I did mention that these points came from the R4 "Costing The Earth" programme a couple of weeks ago. They were the collection of policies that would be required in a green future.

Clearly 'a couple of weeks ago' was a bit vague: I've listened to 23 Dec (party manifestos), 26 Nov (what a vegan Britain would be like) and 19 Nov (the countryside being available for everyone). Nothing remotely like people being banned from eating meat, stopping air travel and not using cars.

Quite interesting programmes, but a bit of a waste of time as far as your claims about what the 'Green Agenda' is.

[Joseph K]

To be honest, while the Labour manifesto was radical, I almost can't see the point in it not being radical. To decarbonise our sources of energy requires we take radical steps (Green New Deal). So if we need to jettison that in order to get into power, and only enact mild reforms that only touch around the edges regarding tackling climate change, I almost can't see the point in getting elected - which leads me back to my earlier comments on this thread about the parliamentary route to socialism.

[Dave2002]

To be honest, while the Labour manifesto was radical, I almost can't see the point in it not being radical. To decarbonise our sources of energy requires we take radical steps (Green New Deal). So if we need to jettison that in order to get into power, and only enact mild reforms that only touch around the edges regarding tackling climate change, I almost can't see the point in getting elected - which leads me back to my earlier comments on this thread about the parliamentary route to socialism.

You should consider the last paragraph of my post 721. It might appear that the only way to get the green policies which some of us seem to think necessary is by stealth. Don't have them in the manifesto, stand on other issues in order to get elected, then (and only then) start to implement any green strategies.

[greenilex]

If green and red are both verboten, are we left with blue and purple? Oh yes, and some form of orangey yellowy pinkish black?

[Richard Barrett]

The truth staring us all in the face is that the kind of green policies the world urgently needs (and that's surely the truth rather than just emotive words) are not compatible with the capitalist drive to profit and economic growth. Any serious green policy therefore needs also to address issues of inequality, public ownership and the rest of it. Which Labour's 2019 manifesto attempted, in however clumsy and scattershot a way, to do. This is much more important than one's opinion of Corbyn or Johnson as people or as "leaders", although I would say in passing that some people's seeming need (still!) for "strong leadership" is a problem rather than a solution.

To Vinteuil's claim that "the chances of [my] wish for a socialist victory at the next election are vanishingly small", I say: a lot can change in five years, particularly in these times of accelerating climate change, not to mention the unpredictability of exactly what kind of dog's breakfast the Johnson government will make of Brexit. Of course a lot also depends on who becomes the next Labour leader. Whoever it is needs to hold to and develop the kinds of policies that were presented in 2019, while not being hobbled by constant sniping from within the party (constant sniping from outside it being a fact of life). Let's not lose sight of the fact that a "socialist victory" is actually better characterised as a victory for the many, and in particular those least able to fend for themselves, against the callous and entitled few. Surely that's something worth making an effort to bring about rather than something to be dismissed as impractical.

[Dave2002]

Perhaps one thing we (some ... ) might learn is that the electorate doesn't care about truth, reason, or any other rational basis for making judgements. We should have realised that months ago - maybe even years ahead of time.

[Serial_Apologist]

Perhaps one thing we (some ... ) might learn is that the electorate doesn't care about truth, reason, or any other rational basis for making judgements. We should have realised that months ago - maybe even years ahead of time.

I do wonder if much of the voting turn-out was people who have never, or hardly ever voted in their lives, or who maybe think an election is something they experienced for the first time ever, 3 years after voting Blexit.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Perhaps one thing we (some ... ) might learn is that the electorate doesn't care about truth, reason, or any other rational basis for making judgements. We should have realised that months ago - maybe even years ahead of time.

But "we" are "the electorate": I think it's dangerous to think in terms of "them and us" in this way.

[Dave2002]

But "we" are "the electorate": I think it's dangerous to think in terms of "them and us" in this way.

You are right, but I am certainly not representative of "the electorate".