ALB
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
You can still be a political party without being registered with the Electoral Commission. Only, if you are not, you cannot contest elections under your party name. The SWP, for example, is not a registered party.
Someone else who sees Owen Smith as a mere stalking horse:http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/politics/miners-hero-tyrone-osullivan-given-11666739
Quote:“I'm disappointed Owen has done what he did,” he said. “He’s from a socialist background, his father was [Labour historian] Dai Smith, he comes from Pontypridd and he doesn’t seem to realise that he’s a stalking horse.“If, for whatever reason, Jeremy gave up tomorrow, Owen would find he’s not top of the list – he’d be forced down to about 25th…“Even if by the most impossible luck he won this election, I can promise you he will not be standing as the leader of the party in the next election… If the right wing are just using him, what a tragedy."He's using "socialist" in the sense of Old Labour of course (which wasn't socialist in our sense)..As "David" Smith, Owen's father was the joint author of The Fed, the official history of the South Wales miner's union. Hence, no doubt, Tyrone O'Sullivan's admiration for him.
According to the BBC, the City of London has given up hope of deal allowing the UK to have continued full access to the single market (like Norway) because they see this as politically impossible and is going for the second best option in the circumstances : bespoke deals on particular financial services (like Switzerland):
Quote:There are, of course, plenty of business leaders in financial services who think the UK can now prosper even better outside the EU. But as an industry, the City lost the argument at the ballot box and it is now debating what deal the UK government can negotiate to ensure its future.The options come down to something the well-dressed City slicker knows all about. Does it go for an off-the-peg arrangement, or have something made bespoke?Off-the-peg would be best for many in financial services: they would prefer that if the UK is to leave the EU, it should at least stay in the single market, which would include that all-important passporting.However, it is looking increasingly likely that the off-the-peg solution is just not an option. That is because membership of the single market has always come at a high price, allowing the free movement of people from across the EU and paying money into the coffers of the EU.The City, which has been testing the waters, seems to have decided that is just not going to happen.As prime minister Theresa May said, "Brexit means Brexit". And with many voters deciding to vote Leave to keep "our money" and to reduce immigration, the price of membership of the single market would be unacceptably high.That leaves a "bespoke" solution, one based on the Swiss Model (pun intended), one where the UK negotiates a series of deals with the EU covering different industries.This is what Switzerland has done and it is a very prosperous country, but it does raise several areas of concern for the financial services industry in the UK.For a start, the City will want a better deal than the Swiss enjoy. The perfect illustration of that is the fact that one of the reasons the City is so successful is that it has attracted all those banks to London to do business in the EU, including all the major Swiss ones.That's because Switzerland's deal with EU does not provide its banks with that "passport" the UK enjoys, so they have to base a lot of their staff here. A great gain for our economy and a bit of blow for the Swiss economy.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-37129715More on Switzerland's relationship to the EU here.
Why not just choose the "politicians" (by which is presumably meant people to carry out certain administrative functions on behalf of a community, better a committee than a single person of course) "from the public by ransom selection", i.e by lot? In socialism of course. Under capitalism it doesn't matter who is chosen or how — they still have to apply the economic laws (the logic) of capitalism in the end.
Bonaparte Trump ! Alan I think you been looking at too many conspiracy-type sites I don't think Trump has any chance of being elected. Remember Barry Goldwater, the last way-out rightwing bugbear who stood for president? He got thrashed by LB Johnson in the 1964 presidential elections. I expect Trump to meet the same fate. America isn't that backward. But then I was wrong about Brexit …
Of course there are Trots in the Labour Party. Entryism is now back on the agenda for most of the groups. They are parasites who need a host. Not sure they'll get anywhere though. But let's hope Taaffe is allowed back and his so-called "Socialist Party" disappears.Not a bad article, actually. I liked this bit:
Quote:The practice of Trotskyist politics has long been built around the idea of the “transitional demand”, a rather cynical manoeuvre whereby you encourage people to agitate for this or that – a hugely increased minimum wage, perhaps, or the end of all immigration controls – knowing full well it is unattainable within the current order of things, but that when the impossibility becomes apparent, the workers will belatedly wake up. In other words, the herd gets whipped up into a frenzy about something you know it won’t get, while you smugly sit things out, hoping that if everything aligns correctly, another crack will appear in the great bourgeois edifice.Spot on.
Quote:There are simply not enough delusional Leninists in Britain to make up the entirety of Corbyn’s supportI think that's manifestly right.
Yes, I was wondering too what interest the death of an old Stalinist hack could have for Socialists.
Sympo wrote:At 1:55 I couldn't quite understand what was being said. It sounded like "the claws is of fudd" toClothes and food.
Impos1904 has drawn attention to this blog item about the relationship between the Far Left and the Labour Party. It makes some good points about their tactics and illusions:https://hatfulofhistory.wordpress.com/2016/08/01/corbyn-labour-and-the-limits-of-the-british-far-left/I have to confess to liking Roy Hattersley's cruel description of the far left as being composed of
Quote:Trotskyists, one-subject campaigners, Marxists who had never read Marx, Maoists, pathological dissidentsThen it will have to be a unofficial one just as "Capitalism and Kids Stuff" has been. It's never been endorsed as an "official" party production either.
Thanks, Matt, I see. "Poles" and "Lithuanians" are the same. The date seems to have been 1887 when he was a leader of the Ayshire miners. That's only five years before the founding of the ILP and his own elections as an MP.According to this site, his views were in line with those of the union's members, not that that makes them any more acceptable of course.http://www.scottishmining.co.uk/467.htmlSearching on the internet I see that far right groups have taken up these quotes, arguing that Hardie was right.This site gets the date wrong, though theoretically possible as Hardie was born in 1856 and started working in the mines at the age of 10:
Quote:A local newspaper on the 8th of November, 1867 quoted Keir Hardie (miners’ organizer and future Member of Parliament) in a speech to a miners’ meeting: “These men (Lithuanians) I am informed, are growing fat on four shillings a week. Their chief item of diet is said to be garlic fried in lamp oil.” Hardie also alleged that the Poles had brought “Black Death” and “immorality” to Scotland and stated that “decent men are not going to be turned adrift to make room for beastly, filthy foreigners without knowing the reason why.”.
