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Why do people say that New Labour aren't....
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
socialist when social democracy (which is the basis of Blair's political principles and New Labour's beliefs) is a form of socialism?
The Labour party has simply rejected democratic socialism and accepted social democracy (even though both are revionist forms of socialism).
The Labour party has simply rejected democratic socialism and accepted social democracy (even though both are revionist forms of socialism).
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Although New Labour have introduced the minimum wage and continued to support the NHS, they have also happily embraced the Tory-enforced privatisation of the railways (despite their repeated pleas before they won office that they would re-nationalise them) and have actually given new business to private companies, such as the London Underground or endless PFI initiatives involving hospitals and schools.
This policy flies in the face of any left-wing philosophy, and together with New Labour's cosy relationship with billionaire donors, the oil industry, arms dealers and other big businesses, and the warmongering foreign policy embraced by the government, makes the New Labour party anything but socialist or even social democratic. Right wing Thacherite more like.
it is a bit disconcerting for a labour supporter to be voting for a party that has become more right wing than the tory government of edward heath in the seventies.
i also believe that mrs hatchet moved the goal posts so far to the right and dismantled so much that was of the left that it has been almost impossible to return to that point. we are still living under the legacy of that fucking woman!
big bizz realy does rule the world right now like never before.
Besides, Blair's notion of the Third Way is a form of social democracy.
The current system works , the country is richer than ever before.
Do you mean like Northern European countries, with the most advanced, comfortable and caring societies in the world?
Ask yourself one question: Who becomes richer when right wing governments are in place?
You mean an ever decreasing minority of people are richer than ever before. Did you know that 41% of London children live below the official government poverty line? Or that two thirds of people are on less than the average salary because of the fat cats milking British industry for failure encouraged by a government in thrall to the business lobby that lacks the balls to take them head on.
I do not see how you can say the system works - yes we have a large GDP woopdedoo! We have a pensions system on the point of collapse, a health service with 3 hour waits to be seen in casualty, the re-emergence of diseases like TB which we thought we had cured, an increasing fear of crime with a clean up rate of something like 10% of all crimes, a rail network that is falling to pieces (literally) while fat cat shareholders milk the profits, roads that have never been more congested, an education system where schools have to beg parents for donations to buy textbooks and more people working insanely longer hours just to be able to pay their mortgage on their overpriced houses.
GDP counts for nothing to most people, quality of life is what counts and in that field Britain is surely one of the worst places to live in the Western World.
Hear hear!
At least 10% of all people will wait more than 4 hours, and that's assuming that every Trust achieves the Govt target!
The rich people in this country have become even richer. Income rose by 36% overall; but for the top 10% in the country this was a rise of 63%, but for the bottom 10% it was a decrease by 17%. Approximately 14 million people live in poverty and we are the worst country in Europe for child poverty. Add this to what Kevlar just said and it's apparent the system does not work. The gap is widening.
And what did Tony Blair and Gordon Brown recently just put on the down low? Peter Hain's suggestion of increasing tax for the rich.
Any system is going to favour the rich because that's who runs and controls the system.
New Labour does seem to have taken a more right wing stance now, and anyone older would definitely agree as they have seen the changes and subtle (or not so subtle!) modifications.
Many tax breaks which the wealthy can exploit are so done by offsetting earnings and personal expenses within corporate frameworks which the average wage earner cannot do.
In the end the general rule of thumb is fairly universal, the more you earn, the more you can keep from the government.
monocrat style
Yeah...my family were having a discussion a while ago about how the wealthy can evade tax due to all their financial help. The man who invented milk cartons he apparently doesn't pay tax and has a fortune of £4000 million....
I just don't understand how people with that much money - who have more than one house, too many cars, have possibly everything they could want - believe they shouldn't be paying tax. Seriously you only need so much money, so why not give a little back to the society that has allowed you to succeed so well?
One word: Greed.
Minor pedantic niggle; anyone with a remotely competent accountant does not evade tax; they avoid it. The difference between these terms is that avoidance is legal (e.g. making use of loopholes in tax law), and evasion is not (e.g. false accounting).
Some unfortunate statistics, especially given the government's plan (announced a few years back) to eradicate child poverty in the UK by 2020 (or thereabouts).