'Jeremy Corbyn's £3million state salary'

Nix said:
Maybe you could do with brushing up a little more on your history?

Labour were historically far more left during the post-war consensus. It was only during the 80s and the shift towards neo-liberal policies and the smashing of the trade unions by Thatcher did the traditional left lose ground.

The rise of Nu-Labour and Blair represented a shift in the Overton window. Nu-Labour have been nothing but Tory-lite since their inception. Let's not forget that until the recession hit, the Tories were promising to actually spend more than Labour in the coming government. The shift to austerity was a quick about turn and capitalising on misfortune to push their own ideology. It was opportunism.

Corbyn isn't bad for Labour. It is a return to its traditional values which is what the supporters clearly wanted. It's a move back towards pre-Thatcherism. It's giving people an actual choice again as opposed to six of one and half a dozen of the other. This is why there's been a resurgence for Labour and this is why people (especially younger people) are becoming interested in politics again. Corbyn represents a legitimate choice and a legitimate voice for those who otherwise were unrepresented or disillusioned with our current political system. The media's scaremongering is based on vested interests, nothing more. Other people's mocking of Corbyn only represents being unable to think outside of the Overton window.

Whatsmore, the right hasn't exactly been helping itself lately. Having a strong left to challenge their awfulness is exactly what this country needs right now.

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Ed Milliband was actually lambasted by the media for being too left when he was only proposing policies which surveys have suggested the majority of the populace actually wanted. The media labelled him 'Red Ed' in a smear tactic relating to his father being a Marxist academic. What Ed was proposing was hardly left-wing at all, but because it dared to push the boundary of the Overton window and thus threaten powerful vested interests, everyone (namely the media) went crazy to discredit him.
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I'm not sure that comparing, say, the electorate of '45 with today gives us any meaningful insight into how Labour will fare in future elections. People then had totally different aspirations, attitudes and expectations in life. For example I would imagine that Clem Attlee campaigning for LBGT rights would have gone down like a cup of cold sick with the traditional working class.

As you say, attitudes change. But surely though, the 'shift in the Overton Window' occurred in 1979 with Thatcher's election, and was then confirmed in 1997 when the public trusted Labour to not repeat the mistakes of its past by restoring power to the unions.

I quite agree that having, once more, a clear ideological divide between the parties is a good thing. Not so such that Labour under Corbyn will do a good job of holding the government to account. Just to be clear, I'm no great fan of Cameron; he's a Tory Blair. Like Blair he's good at PR and possesses, in bucket loads, that most precious of political commodities, luck. And in his opponents he has been especially lucky.

I have to ask the question, if the public were so supportive of Ed Miliband’s ideas in opinion polls (and surely the biggest lesson of 2015 is not to trust what the public says to the pollsters!), why then did they reject those ideas at the ballot box. You will answer, as above (and as Margaret Beckett did in the Learning Lessons from Defeat Report) that it was because of sustained and vicious attack by the right-wing press. Yet the same press were just as vitriolic about Tony Blair in 1997, but he won. When Blair said you can trust me with the economy, people believed him. They didn't believe Ed Miliband, and are unlikely to believe Jeremy Corbyn.

We'll find out who's right in 2020!
 
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Safetytrousers said:
Corbyn being leader will enable a number of people on the left who don't normally vote (or vote Green and somesuch), to vote for Labour for the first time since the olden days.
He is the first politician in my whole life I have been able to fully stand behind.
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I haven't voted Labour for 16 years, but I will vote for them next time if Corbyn is still leader.
 
I've always voted Lib Dem, thought they got a bad rap because of having to forfeit free university in exchange for raising the earnings allowance before tax butdid a good job with the power they were afforded. However I will be voting for Corbyn.
I dont' take public transport but I think it does need to be nationalised again. The service and maintainence levels of of trains in particular are awful.
 
Hambut_Bulge said:
You think they're bad now? Some of us are old enough to remember what it was like back in the 'good-old days' of BR...
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yeah, wow they were bad, people these days have no idea how abysmal it used to be - we certainly pay through the nose for the better service though!
 
aardvark said:
yeah, wow they were bad, people these days have no idea how abysmal it used to be - we certainly pay through the nose for the better service though!
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We certainly do. Train travel is way more expensive here than in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland:

https://fullfact.org/news/do-uk-commuters-pay-highest-rail-fares-europe/

I was curious how many of those are public/private so did some digging on Wikipedia. It turns out 6/7 of those are state-owned rail systems:
  • SNCF in France
  • DB in Germany
  • Trenitalia in Italy
  • Nederlandse Spoorwegen in the Netherlands
  • Renfe Operadora in Spain
  • SBB in Switzerland
The exception is Sweden, which has a mixture of private and government-owned operators.

Maybe we shouldn't have privatised the trains?
 
Scania said:
Corbin & co are going to milk this for all its worth, it's a great way from distracting the media from their ineptitude and lack of credibility as an opposition, we need strong opposition to keep the government in check, instead we're stuck with Corbyn's outdated leftist politics of envy, quite pathetic really.
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What we don't need is Tory light fighting for the right wing vote.
 
elrasho said:
May be legal but morally wrong, according to Cameron himself. The issue here is how much of a hypocrite he is.
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Agreed. He shouldn't jump on TV riding the morale high ground about people like Jimmy Carr when knowing deep down he was exactly the same thing. Makes him untrustworthy, but nothing new there.
 
Pudney said:
The more amusing part of the story is the recent revelation he hasn't been declaring his pension income on his tax returns properly. Or at all.
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Strangely, if he has no other job, and no other income, then he should simply be PAYE, and this should have been declared by payroll.
One would assume he had some other income for appearances etc, but they do not seem to have mentioned this at all.
 
bloodline76 said:
Agreed. He shouldn't jump on TV riding the morale high ground about people like Jimmy Carr when knowing deep down he was exactly the same thing. Makes him untrustworthy, but nothing new there.
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except that Cameron paid tax on his dividend etc.

he didn't avoid any tax.
 
Hikari Kisugi said:
Strangely, if he has no other job, and no other income, then he should simply be PAYE, and this should have been declared by payroll.
One would assume he had some other income for appearances etc, but they do not seem to have mentioned this at all.
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iirc there was a few thousand pounds mentioned for lectures etc.
 
Hikari Kisugi said:
Strangely, if he has no other job, and no other income, then he should simply be PAYE, and this should have been declared by payroll.
One would assume he had some other income for appearances etc, but they do not seem to have mentioned this at all.
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As long as his personal allowances are coded correctly there won't be any issues with the amount of tax paid. Unfortunately, that doesn't change the fact due to carelessness he has submitted an incorrect tax return to HMRC. Which is a separate (and fine-able) offence. Hence my amusement.

He also apparently had about £1,500 for fees for doing speaking events but that was declared (although there are stories he's slightly over declared this income!) He should really take more care over his official forms :D
 
Pudney said:
As long as his personal allowances are coded correctly there won't be any issues with the amount of tax paid. Unfortunately, that doesn't change the fact due to carelessness he has submitted an incorrect tax return to HMRC. Which is a separate (and fine-able) offence. Hence my amusement.

He also apparently had about £1,500 for fees for doing speaking events but that was declared (although there are stories he's slightly over declared this income!) He should really take more care over his official forms :D
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Speaking as someone who does a lot of odd little contracts and expenses, I think a fair proportion of people probably inadvertently get their taxes wrong in small ways. I'm positive that if someone micro-examined my returns they'd find something wrong somewhere. Though I'd give fifty-fifty as to whether or not it was in my favour. That day I was paid by that US company - what was the exchange rate that day, did the transfer count to the rate when it was sent, or when I received it given I have one date on the paid invoice return, one on the bank statement... Who knows? If there's some minor ****-up in their tax returns, I don't see that as a moral indictment.
 
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