Labour Party purge/staff cuts.

Miliband was actually seen as moving Labour to the left of Blair and brown.

That's what the papers said but it was bogus in reality. The guy was trying to break Labour's trade union funding link, austerity was the only policy he had to offer, and he happily took blame for the global financial crisis on to Labour school spending.

For what it's worth I voted for Labour in Milibands 2015 election, despite not really rating him. At the time I accepted the received wisdom that gradualism was the only game in town. But then I saw how the PLP carried on when the membership, unions and supporters all decided they wanted Corbyn as leader and realised the left actually couldn't win because the Labour right would do everything they could to stop them.

I'd like the tories out as much as anyone but can't put my time, money or votes into Labour after seeing their real agenda revealed. It's sadistic.
 
Also, what we saw when Milne took over was a lot of purging and petty revenge against the centre and that wasn't right either.

Btw this is just a simple lie. In post #30 I quoted Blair and Mandleson telling people not to vote Labour and bring down Corbyn's leadership. Neither were kicked out the party. Jess Phillips said she'd stab him in the front. Didn't lose the whip. Margaret Hodge screamed "You're a f*cking racist" in Corbyn's face in the chamber, not purged. Even after the 2016 coup and leadership challenge nobody lost the whip. Some (such as Starmer) were allowed straight back in the shadow cabinet.

You'd be much more convincing as a "moderate" if your comments weren't filled with this agenda that everything everyone on the lefts ever done is bad and everything everyone on the rights ever done is brilliant.
 
I ended my Labour party membership the Day Starmer became leader.

I'll return when Labour becomes a socialist party again.
This doesn't mean i'll vote for another party at elections though, unless it's a tactical vote to oust a Tory.
 
It makes me laugh this thread

people demanding the Labour Party solely represent them or they can never vote for them. That goes for people who couldn’t vote corbyn as well as people who could vote starmer

if you have a membership, and you don’t respect a vote that members voted for, you have to ask yourself if you really are a member at all
 
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This thread is a microcosm of why any Labour leader struggles to be elected, both sides are in essence correct, but the reality remains that we have the worst Prime Minister this country is ever likely to have whilst both factions in-fight over the direction the Labour Party needs to go in, and the longer that continues the more Johnson can do what he likes and the situation as a whole deteriorates.

Whatever we think of Corbyn or Starmer neither have taken the Labour Party to a point that makes a General Election victory look likely, for that to happen it needs a unity candidate who focuses on integration rather than exclusion, who can identify the policies that are left leaning and also popular with the public, a leader to go on the attack against Johnson in areas that will resonate with the public, someone who can get the broad church of progressive liberalism to look at Labour as the go to Party in any election rather than a wasted vote on a Party intent to self destruct.

Labour win elections on the promise of hope and change, not more of the same but slightly softer, the echo is never as strong as the shout, the Party needs to identify the key areas of change and focus all its efforts on a coherent positive message that is Socialist enough to appease the left of the Party, Centrist enough to keep the post Blairite wing happy but the key is for it to be different enough to offer an alternative that can generate mass appeal.

A divided Labour Party is a gift to the Conservative’s and the onus should be on the Leader not the members to unify the various factions within.
 
Under Tony Blair we had a young, charismatic leader with some policies that were popular and some, looking back that were dreadful.

• Devolution for Scotland and Wales, assuring their vote - Labour since have been wiped out in Scotland
• Promise of a minimum wage - Now the minimum wage is a joke.
• He managed the unthinkable - signing the Good Friday Peace agreement.

The not so good
• Introducing tuition fees - my God, we have a nation of young people with massive debts
• He went to war -say no more

Back then there was a feeling of optimism - he mixed with the stars and the Clinton/Bush seemed to love him. The appeared to love him and seemed United.
Like the Blair era, we needed change after the Th*****r years. It feels like that now. We need change but it will take a huge "rip it up and start again" from Labour to make this happen.
 
Promise of a minimum wage - Now the minimum wage is a joke.
How is the Minimum Wage a joke?

I think that is the single most important piece of legislation that any Government has passed in decades in the UK. It cast in law that it was no longer legally acceptable for an Employer to pay whatever it fancied, regardless. Until that point, an Employer could do precisely that.

I also remember Portillo and others on the news that night saying that it would put 4 million people on the dole, and that a Conservative Government would repeal it, inside 6 months.

The truth is, the Minimum Wage worked. It brought millions out of poverty, and the Tories now recognise that it is absolutely vital. Nobody mentions repealing it anymore.
 
How is the Minimum Wage a joke?

I think that is the single most important piece of legislation that any Government has passed in decades in the UK. It cast in law that it was no longer legally acceptable for an Employer to pay whatever it fancied, regardless. Until that point, an Employer could do precisely that.

Nothing was put in place to ensure it kept up with inflation. A lot of employers legally get round it by pretending job roles are apprenticeships now - e.g. there's been cases where people are working "apprenticeships" behind a bar or in kebab shops.

It's also been b*stardised a bit by the tories replacing it with the "living wage" policy, which increased minimum wage but not enough for it to actually be a living wage. Classic trick of theirs to use the name of a popular policy/campaign when doing less than called for.
 
What we, Labour, don't understand that the Tory party does is loyalty. I mentioned on another thread that I heard a Blue Rinse saying Johnson is wonderful.

We sit about and say I am not voting labour because of Blair or Starmer or Corbyn or ... Infinitum.

It's pathetic.
 
I
How is the Minimum Wage a joke?

I think that is the single most important piece of legislation that any Government has passed in decades in the UK. It cast in law that it was no longer legally acceptable for an Employer to pay whatever it fancied, regardless. Until that point, an Employer could do precisely that.

I also remember Portillo and others on the news that night saying that it would put 4 million people on the dole, and that a Conservative Government would repeal it, inside 6 months.

The truth is, the Minimum Wage worked. It brought millions out of poverty, and the Tories now recognise that it is absolutely vital. Nobody mentions repealing it anymore.
did at the time, I agree. Now it's surely not enough.
 
How is the Minimum Wage a joke?

I think that is the single most important piece of legislation that any Government has passed in decades in the UK. It cast in law that it was no longer legally acceptable for an Employer to pay whatever it fancied, regardless. Until that point, an Employer could do precisely that.

I also remember Portillo and others on the news that night saying that it would put 4 million people on the dole, and that a Conservative Government would repeal it, inside 6 months.

The truth is, the Minimum Wage worked. It brought millions out of poverty, and the Tories now recognise that it is absolutely vital. Nobody mentions repealing it anymore.
I wasn't critiscing the policy - I was praising it. I didn't know whether it had kept up with inflation or not but £350 for a 40 hour week is surely not enough if you have a family??
 
Yes, it was.

The first Minimum Wage was £3.60 in 1999 - it is now £8.91 - it has gone up by significantly more than Inflation over the intervening 22 years

It's been increased as and when Parliament have increased it. As I said, there's nothing in place to automatically increase it.
 
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