Labour Party/government Watch

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 12 Aug 2015, 13:09

China is the world's second largest economy.
Chinese inward investment in the UK is large, not least the housing market, with a large percentage of new build being sold straight into foreign ownership
Devaluation of the Yuan is going to make UK investment a hard sell, with Stirling riding high.
How much money in the City is wrapped up in Chinese ghost cities, etc.?
The UK srill pumps more than half of our oil consumption out of the North Sea. The oil price is decimating the industry and will increase the amount of oil we import.

In a global market, why wouldn't the City of London catch a cold?

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 12 Aug 2015, 13:11

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33881487

Labour leadership voter registration deadline extended

First step to 'delaying' the election?

johnhemming2 · Post by **johnhemming2** » 12 Aug 2015, 13:14

That part is not significant. The question as to who should be allowed to vote is more significant, but an issue for the Labour Party not me.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 12 Aug 2015, 13:15

I've just started reading Paul Mason't Postcapitalism. Brilliant so far. It confirms my feeling that so much political discussion is still arguing about last century stuff. We need to move on.

PS_RalphW · Post by **PS_RalphW** » 12 Aug 2015, 13:31

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33884836

Peston discusses Corbyn's policies dispassionately. He says,
money is all about confidence. The people with the power to destroy a currency are the market traders, ie. the bankers. In other words, if they don't get their cut, they will take you down.

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 12 Aug 2015, 15:15

If Corbyn — heaven forbid — had been British Prime Minister in 2003 he would not have committed British troops to the invasion of Iraq. Just imagine what would have happened if we hadn't invaded Iraq! Well, I'll tell you what would have happened — the Middle East would now be a haven for terrorist groups which would be targeting British tourists on beaches when they go on their summer holidays. The whole Middle East would now be in turmoil. We'd be facing a refugee crisis with people fleeing all the countries that we hadn't destabilized.

Source

Blue Peter · Post by **Blue Peter** » 12 Aug 2015, 16:27

PS_RalphW wrote:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33884836

Peston discusses Corbyn's policies dispassionately. He says,
money is all about confidence. The people with the power to destroy a currency are the market traders, ie. the bankers. In other words, if they don't get their cut, they will take you down.

Richard Murphy replies

noting that the bond vigilantes have been rather absent since 2009, amongst other things,

Peter.

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 12 Aug 2015, 17:08

PS_RalphW wrote:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33881487

Labour leadership voter registration deadline extended

First step to 'delaying' the election?

Nah. Just a website that couldn't cope with the amount of people trying to register at the last minute, looks more like.

peaceful_life · Post by **peaceful_life** » 12 Aug 2015, 18:09

Unions unfairly back a ermm......Labour candidate in democratic process, shocker!....thankfully brought to light by ermm.....other Labour candidates.

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/20 ... ver-ballot

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 13 Aug 2015, 09:57

Blair's at it again.

Tony Blair, with intended irony, wrote:If Jeremy Corbyn wins leadership Labour faces 'annihilation'.

only he got his party name wrong.

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 13 Aug 2015, 10:04

emordnilap wrote:Blair's at it again.
Tony Blair, with intended irony, wrote:If Jeremy Corbyn wins leadership Labour faces 'annihilation'.
only he got his party name wrong.

In the last 24 hours, the trade unions have more than doubled their number of signed-up supporters to 190,000, and the total who have paid £3 to become registered supporters soared from 70,000 to 120,000.

Wow. Those figures are almost unbelievable, especially as it is not unreasonable to assume the overwhelming majority of the sign-ups are Corbyn supporters. I just can't see the other three mobilising those sorts of numbers with their thoroughly uninispiring lack of any vision or message.

The party has been struggling to cope with almost 400,000 new members and supporters

To put this into perspective, approximately 30 million people voted in May.

emordnilap · Post by **emordnilap** » 13 Aug 2015, 10:08

As has been noted, Corbyn's opponents have brought it about themselves. Podema, Syriza, SNP etc etc.

But watch. Providing he doesn't get disappeared, he'll be elected leader, win the next GE, then be bludgeoned into submission by the right, then vilified by his supporters, then we'll be back to, ermm, normal. You cannot win against money and power without physically removing that combination.

Little John · Post by **Little John** » 13 Aug 2015, 10:52

Even if he, at the milder end of things, get politically bludgeoned out of office or, at the darker end, has a "walking accident" sometime in the next five years it's all part of the changes that are coming. one more part of a journey out the the fag end of neo-con corporatist capitalism. The only question tat now remain is what replaces it; fascism or socialism. Every time a socialist alternative is crushed with brute power, as with Greece, it builds up the resentment in the population and bring closer the day when people properly take to the streets in violent opposition

Because that is what it will take, in the end,

UndercoverElephant · Post by **UndercoverElephant** » 13 Aug 2015, 11:05

Little John wrote:. Every time a socialist alternative is crushed with brute power, as with Greece, it builds up the resentment in the population and bring closer the day when people properly take to the streets in violent opposition.

There is a similar thing going on in the Corbyn campaign. I get a sense that all attempts to crush, destabilise and derail the "Corbyn juggernaut" are backfiring. The more establishment figures like Blair attack him, the stronger he grows. It does appear that a significant and growing proportion of the population aren't so easily brainwashed/misled any more. They've learned to so distrust any message coming from the establishment that those messages are now having the opposite effect to that intended.

It also appears to be age-related, just like the leftist movements elsewhere in Europe. The younger people are, the more disproportionately disenfranchised they are. And the Tories are clearly hell-bent on piling ever more misery on young people, while continuing to protect the older generation. One has to wonder about the long-term viability of such a strategy.

raspberry-blower · Post by **raspberry-blower** » 13 Aug 2015, 11:53

emordnilap wrote:Blair's at it again.
Tony Blair, with intended irony, wrote:If Jeremy Corbyn wins leadership Labour faces 'annihilation'.
only he got his party name wrong.

An interesting aside here: War Criminal funded by Financial Felons

Michael Milken, with the legal assistance of his brother Lowell, is known for having developed the market for high-yield and high-risk bonds in the 1980s, earning him both billions of dollars and the nickname of "Junk Bond King". In 1990, he plead guilty to six felonies and agreed to pay $600 million, including $200 million in fines, to settle what The New York Times had called "the biggest fraud case in the history of the securities industry". Milken was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but served only 22 months.

According to Mother Jones magazine, Lowell was also indicted on federal racketeering and fraud charges connected to insider-trading violations at Drexel Burnham Lambert, the now-defunct Wall Street investment bank where both brothers worked. However, in order to get Michael to accept a plea deal, the charges against Lowell were dropped.

The magazine further notes that the collapse of Drexel Burnham Lambert and a number of other savings and loan partnerships (many of them affiliated with the Milken brothers) fuelled the larger savings and loan crisis between 1986 and 1995, creating an economic recession and costing American taxpayers about $500 billion.