Labour Party Conference

A friend comments:

I feel torn on this. To be genuinely zero carbon by 2030 is not possible unless you stopped all outbound and inbound flights and had a scrappage scheme for all 37milion petrol / diesel vehicles on our roads- the costs of which would be astronomical.

So this must involve a vast array of offsets. It's a welcome level of ambition of course but let's hear the detail

What's striking to me is how there's a new industrial vision at the heart of it. Using the growth of the green sector to allay unemployement, drive regeneration etc.

Some of the policies seem fairly dumb i.e. the propositions to make pharmaceuticals "in house" - good thread here:
Was this just crowd pleasing anti-big business rhetoric?

I'm sure I saw something on Labour List the other day promoting a third runway at Heathrow, but at the same time talking about 'decarbonization', which seemed a little odd... wish I'd taken a screenshot or saved a link.

who do you guys vote for normally then if not corbyn?

I think it depends on where you are, what the dynamics are etc.. I'm in a Labour safe seat so I have to consider do I want to back my MP or make a protest vote? There are some Lab MPs I'd back without a seconds thought (Lisa Nandy, Thangam Debonnaire) and some I'd actively try and vote out (i.e. Chris Williamson). I'd like to vote Labour without hesitation which is part of the reason for all this moaning. I never thought I'd be a floating voter!

Giving a fuck about foreign policy over domestic is a pretty marginal position as well. I don't imagine it animates a lot of people.

yyaldrin said:

who do you guys vote for normally then if not corbyn?

Click to expand...

In the UK we vote for candidates who, if successful, then become a representative of that constituency in the House of Commons. Nobody who doesn't live in Islington North gets to vote for Corbyn.

It's quite a telling question, though. I think Labour voters who are opposed to Brexit - which was 71% of them three years ago and is bound to be an even higher proportion of them now - are feeling very taken-for-granted by a Euroskeptic leader who seems to be saying "Well who the hell else are you going to vote for?". At least, that's the situation in England - naturally the pro-EU regional nationalist parties are doing well in Scotland, Wales and NI.

But here, the choice is between Labour (progressive on most issues but hopelessly compromised and ambiguous on Brexit), the Lib Dems (anti-Brexit but basically 'Tory lite' on other issues), and the Tory party - unless the so-called "Brexit Party" (inc.) decides to field candidates in the next GE, which would drive the Tories even further to the right, if that's possible.

Hence the frustration of progressive, anti-Brexit voters.

Loads more detail here about the green new deal - £83bn of new windfarms with a big stake from private sector investors sought: https://www.theguardian.com/politic..._BM4ylLSg8cl9_iLpcZAcZ6n-4s_e1jfRuLHy97AYnsmo

Networks for electric vehicle charging. solar panel programs, and the windfarm profits being directed towards coastal communities ('cos of rising tides? Article doesn't make this clear). Hard for me to hate on this. Also seems politically very canny as all those kids school striking will be voting in a few years.

If they've not moved on to something else by then...

Lynching the older generation for climate irresponsibility probably....

DannyL said:

Loads more detail here about the green new deal - £83bn of new windfarms with a big stake from private sector investors sought: https://www.theguardian.com/politic..._BM4ylLSg8cl9_iLpcZAcZ6n-4s_e1jfRuLHy97AYnsmo

Networks for electric vehicle charging. solar panel programs, and the windfarm profits being directed towards coastal communities ('cos of rising tides? Article doesn't make this clear). Hard for me to hate on this. Also seems politically very canny as all those kids school striking will be voting in a few years.

Click to expand...

I'm not up on the details but yeah, the greenification of Labour policy is definitely a big point in Corbyn's favour.

Free care for over 65s -wasnt that on there? Lifechanging for so many if it cd happen.

Manifesto shd be a vote winner if ppl give a shit about quality of life. Problem being that this is the UK and the good life is viewed with suspicion

That sounds crazy expensive though. Great policy but I'd like to see costs and what kinda structures would be in place to make it happen. They also promised, at some point, free nursery places as well. That would've made a huge difference to me, but again, costing.

One thing I read recently was that Thatcher took until her second term to get most if her reforms going. There are real constraints to power, especially in a UK going thru Brexit and I wonder how they'll cope with this and expectation management should they get in.

What I fear is quite a paranoid and embattled govt with a lot of vitriol directed against other parties/coalition partners. The last if these seems pretty likely to me as no way they'll win a majority.

DannyL said:

That sounds crazy expensive though. Great policy but I'd like to see costs and what kinda structures would be in place to make it happen.

Click to expand...

Partially happens in Scotland already, no?

Anyways (for example) the billions that bailed out the banks would have paid for a hefty chunk - the money is likely there with the will to change society.

Mr. Tea said:

You think Putin could be talked into not bombing Syrian hospitals if we, you know, asked him nicely enough?

You really think that?

Click to expand...

Well, put that way... No, I don't.

Mr. Tea said:

To be honest I find it totally bemusing that Western progressives are prepared to look at Russia in any way that's not adversarial.

Click to expand...

I guess I was mostly objecting to the heightened language of "enemies", which has such emotive finality to it.

subvert47 said:

I guess I was mostly objecting to the heightened language of "enemies", which has such emotive finality to it.

Click to expand...

I suppose part of the problem here is semantic. When I say "Russia" I obviously do not mean "each and every living Russian" - I mean the Russian state. In fact, given that his enormous degree of personal executive power and the absence of any meaningful opposition make him effectively a dictator, I might as well just say Putin.

I don't really have a problem with living in a country with a government that considers Putin in adversarial terms. Of course, if and when any Tory spokesman ever does say anything unfavourable about the Russian state, you know it's empty rhetoric, because if they gave a shit then they'd enforce some meaningful sanctions on the Russian billionaires who - like billionaires from all over the world - use the City as the world's greatest (meta-)tax haven.

Of course they never will, because the Tories are spineless cunts and are totally unfamiliar with any concept of ethics. Corbyn, meanwhile, can't bring himself to condemn crimes against humanity being committed by Russia or its allies and puppets except for toothless mumblings about "violence on all sides" (the tankie equivalent of "all lives matter" - and reminiscent of Trump's bullshit in the wake of the Charlottesville murder), because he is intensely ethical, by his own standards - unfortunately it's an ethics based not on any idea of universal human morality but on opposition to the West as the ultimate and definitive good.

So not only is it pretty clear that asking Putin to play nicely with the other children is not going to be effective, but even if it were effective, I doubt Corbyn would be interested in doing so, because as far as he's concerned, Assad and Putin are fighting the good fight, i.e. the one against Western imperialism and Zionism. Whether or not Syrian civilians particularly consider themselves to be agents of Washington or Jerusalem doesn't really figure in the calculation.

It's probably wishful thinking, but I think it would be preferable if Corbyn were to understand that on some level being Prime Minister of the UK does entail playing a role of sorts and it's not necessarily completely cynical to subtly evolve one's positions in response to that. Obviously it's his *authenticity* which lies behind much of his appeal, but there's room within that most pernicious of the all the bourgeois pseudo-needs for that evolution.