Leaked Labour manifesto

[WTFH]

Nationalise the rail network? Disgraceful! There's no problems with Southern Rail, is there?

[The_Equalizer]

Nationalise the rail network? Disgraceful! There's no problems with Southern Rail, is there?

I'm not sure this is necessarily a bad one. Same goes for energy, or at least some state run competition (given the big six are meant to be making cash hand over fist).

[MrMarkyMark]

I'm not sure this is necessarily a bad one. Same goes for energy, or at least some state run competition (given the big six are meant to be making cash hand over fist).

Of course there is intelligence mixed with the insanity.

Even as a mere boy at the time, I realized privatizing the public transport was never a good idea, before it happened.

[WTFH]

I'm not sure this is necessarily a bad one. Same goes for energy, or at least some state run competition (given the big six are meant to be making cash hand over fist).

Yup. Most of the energy companies are foreign owned, bankrolled on borrowing from China. If the energy companies were actually UK owned, then the country is less reliant on foreigners/foreign investment.

[d000hg]

Which part? The leadership is clearly hard-left. As a straw in the wind, the Communist Party has backed Corbyn and is not standing any candidates.

It might be more left than we're used to, but it's a long long way short of being hard-left. That's just your experience of living in what has historically been a very moderate country. If you'd studied history at school you'd know. I don't see JC calling for an abolition of money, or an end to high-paying jobs, only for high earners to pay a bit more tax. That's left-centrist policy not socialism. Nationalisation is a socialist policy but then I don't see he's further left than Scandinavian governments.

It makes sense for hard-left parties to back Corbyn as pragmatically it will get closer to their aims. But calling him a communist is just a smear tactic. Few people in the UK really know what communism is, even those using the word!

[Swamp Thing]

Reading this manifesto, I feel very depressed for this country that there is officially be no effective opposition to the next Tory govt.
We'll now see TM for the Red Tory that she is and I'm sure the power will go to her head.

I'm not a Labour supporter, but the party has been let down badly. Dredging up policies from the '70s is very embarrassing. No realism, no realpolitik. Just real tulip.
Although an erstwhile Tory supporter, I'm going to have to vote Lib Dem, in a vain hope to keep the Tories honest.

[d000hg]

Nationalise the rail network? Disgraceful! There's no problems with Southern Rail, is there?

It was only privatised quite recently so reversing that would be reasonable if we're convinced it hasn't worked. Has it? I was alive (I think) at the time but barely remember British Rail, however I can't see that we have a wonderful world-class rail network.

Nationalisation of core infrastructure seems reasonable to me - health, education, transport, post. Energy suppliers is a bit of a leap though.

[jamesbrown]

It might be more left than we're used to, but it's a long long way short of being hard-left. That's just your experience of living in what has historically been a very moderate country. If you'd studied history at school you'd know. I don't see JC calling for an abolition of money, or an end to high-paying jobs, only for high earners to pay a bit more tax. That's left-centrist policy not socialism. Nationalisation is a socialist policy but then I don't see he's further left than Scandinavian governments.

It makes sense for hard-left parties to back Corbyn as pragmatically it will get closer to their aims. But calling him a communist is just a smear tactic. Few people in the UK really know what communism is, even those using the word!

You've lost perspective on where the political centre lies. Corbyn may be a de facto centrist within the Labour bureaucracy, but many of his views, expressed over the decades, are extremist. You seem to be unaware of his personal history. The manifesto is a relentless collection of spending pledges with no credible funding plan. Those elements of the funding plan that have been exposed, clearly lack credibility. These pledges stem from socialist ideals, not a pragmatic evaluation of how the world operates. As such, they will fail in their own terms (of increasing equality). Take the tax pledges as an example; the idea that high-earning individuals and corporations respond passively to tax policy is demonstrable nonsense. Labour's current policies are neither centrist nor likely to succeed in their own terms.

[MrMarkyMark]

You've lost perspective on where the political centre lies. Corbyn may be a de facto centrist within the Labour bureaucracy, but many of his views, expressed over the decades, are extremist. You seem to be unaware of his personal history. The manifesto is a relentless collection of spending pledges with no credible funding plan. Those elements of the funding plan that have been exposed, clearly lack credibility. These pledges stem from socialist ideals, not a pragmatic evaluation of how the world operates. As such, they will fail in their own terms (of increasing equality). Take the tax pledges as an example; the idea that high-earning individuals and corporations respond passively to tax policy is demonstrable nonsense. Labour's current policies are neither centrist nor likely to succeed in their own terms.

This +1.

[d000hg]

Sorry but no, the Labour party has until recently been extremely centrist. Firstly, Corbyn himself is quite left wing but certainly not extreme. Secondly, the policies are less left-wing than Corbyn is himself.
To claim Corbyn is centrist within the Labour party is the opposite of the truth. The PLP is firmly centrist and Corbyn is left-wing by comparison with the PLP.

Just because you don't like left-wing political views doesn't make them more left-wing. Neither do we need to claim they are extremist views to discredit them. That's what the leftist campaigners are doing but in reverse... talking about "lurching towards the far right". It's equally ludicrous. Both are main parties are still centrist, they're simply slightly less bang-on central now.