Burnham’s anti-welfare stance will lose him my vote

Will somebody from the Common Sense wing of the Labour Party please stand for the leadership?

Today The Guardian is reporting that leadership favourite Andy Burnham has decided to pander to big business rather than stand up for the common people.

He said he was prepared to support cuts to social security in order to counter claims that Labour gives scroungers an “easy ride”.

What stupidity!

He would do better to counter the claim that all political parties give an easy ride to lazy business bosses who exploit the working classes and hide their massive profits in tax havens – especially as he was making his speech at the HQ of tax avoidance tzars Ernst and Young.

The company, now branded EY, is one of the ‘Big Four’ accountancy firms that have been helping the Tory Government rewrite tax law to make it possible for big business to use tax havens and avoid paying.

Regarding benefits, the simple fact is that the fraud rate is 0.7 per cent – a miniscule amount. People claiming benefits deserve to have them – especially as they have paid into the relevant fund for their whole lives; the money belongs to those people, not any government – Labour or Tory.

If Burnham really wanted to bring down the amount of benefit claims, he would have been telling businesses to buck up their ideas and start paying the living wage, rather than scrounging the rest of the money their employees need from the government.

He would have been telling landlords to start charging reasonable rents, rather than pushing them up and up and expecting the government to pay what tenants cannot afford in housing benefit.

And he would have been proposing a strategic remodelling of the system to prevent people falling into the kind of difficulties that force them to claim benefits – including a revamp of Health and Safety regulation to ensure that people do not fall prey to long-term illness caused by conditions at work.

Most important of all, he would be pledging to roll back the plan initiated by Margaret Thatcher, Keith Joseph and the rest of them back in the 1970s, to impose poverty and insecurity on the working people.

This Writer doesn’t see him doing any of that.

Will somebody step forward who can actually do the job?

Labour leadership favourite Andy Burnham has indicated he would support further welfare cuts, including government plans for a £23,000 cap on benefits if it has adequate safeguards.

At a speech in London, the shadow health secretary said he wanted to counter the perception his party wants to give “an easy ride” to people who do not want to help themselves.

“Labour does need to win back those people who have that feeling about us,” he told business leaders at the headquarters of EY (previously Ernst & Young) on Friday. He added that the party would not be re-elected unless it showed people it was on the side of those who wanted to “get on” and succeed.

Source: Labour’s Andy Burnham suggests he might back further welfare cuts | Politics | The Guardian

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60 Comments

  1. jaynel62 May 29, 2015 at 2:00 pm - Reply

    Well said Mike, my thoughts precisely xx

    • John Gaines June 1, 2015 at 8:55 am - Reply

      I second that honest appraisal of the horde of would be ‘Labour’ leaders; whoever told this pseudo gang of political misfits that the Labour Party was a used Tory Loo paper image, which they feel free to re-use for stuffing up decent peoples backsides.

      Not only will they lose the ‘Elevation’ to party leadership, but get to Hell out of the Labour Party for good an all, we don’t want any more light Blue dinkheads, pretending they give a toss about anybody else other than themselves.
      I have had enough of A-hole Millibands looking down their Noses at us and parroting that the shagging criminal City of London, their criminal Banksters and Privatised swindlers, the largest ‘Welfare’ Begger in the history of the Nation, £5.5 Trillion since 2007 should be ‘cozened’ up to.
      Tear them down and break them in pieces, jail the fraudsters and get my country back its dignity.
      I want a Labour Party…not an insipid version of the Tory murderers and their swindling swine friends.

      • Les Bullock June 2, 2015 at 1:22 am - Reply

        Well said, that man!

  2. Peter Buckley May 29, 2015 at 2:09 pm - Reply

    I couldn’t agree more. We need a leader who will oppose the Tories, not one who agrees with everything they say
    It is members of the Labour Party who will elect a leader not the editor of the Daily Mail. Tory lite is not the way forward. Why on earth candidates are looking for praise from the right is beyond me.

    • Les Bullock June 2, 2015 at 1:21 am - Reply

      Hear hear!!!

  3. Jim Round May 29, 2015 at 2:31 pm - Reply

    RIP Labour.
    Will it be missed when its gone?

    • Mike Sivier May 29, 2015 at 3:31 pm - Reply

      It isn’t gone yet and there are plenty of people around to keep it alive.

      • Ian May 29, 2015 at 5:47 pm - Reply

        Those people might be doing us a disservice. Labour is too infested with Tory usurpers to be viable any more.

        The unions need to call an end to it and start another party.

      • Jim Round May 29, 2015 at 7:29 pm - Reply

        Trouble is they are being ignored.
        If they were being listened to, there would be non of this nonsense from the wannabe Blai…sorry, leaders.
        Still they go on about welfare reform, cozying up to big business and trying to stay in Murdoch and Dacre’s good books (or should that be papers)
        Labour continues (sadly) to move ever further from its roots in a quest for power.

  4. Moggy Paw Lore May 29, 2015 at 2:49 pm - Reply

    Yes, I wrote a blog along these lines in January last year:

    http://moggymilitant.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/the-party-of-welfare-so-what.html

    “We need to challenge and expose some of these nonsense soundbites for what they are.

    Think about that expression ‘welfare dependency’ for a moment. When you analyse it you realize it’s the most ridiculous expression on earth. I mean what is normally meant by welfare? What do you understand by it? I understand it to mean looking after the health and well-being of my fellow human beings. Dictionary definitions will say ‘the health, happiness, and fortunes of a person or group’ and ‘statutory procedure or social effort designed to promote the basic physical and material well-being of people in need.’

    So being dependent on that or at least that concept is a good thing, isn’t it? Of course, successive governments are using it to mean ‘benefit dependency’ but again, put this phrase under scrutiny and its absurdity is all too evident. Benefits are only, after all, the means to living, eating, clothing, shelter, warmth. Show me a person who isn’t dependent on these things. Are MPs, CEOs, bankers or any other wealthy individuals you care to mention somehow immune from this sort of dependency? Of course not.

    Successive governments are using the phrase ‘dependency’ in the sense of addiction, with all its negative connotations. If you think about it, it is actually the wealthiest in society who are more ‘addicted to a culture of dependency’ – a phrase governments, and especially the Coalition, like to bandy about a lot. Can it be called dependency at all when it is essential for living?

    Let’s face it, if we substitute the word ‘welfare’ for ‘oxygen’ – (we’re all oxygen-dependent ) – we expose the phrase for its utter stupidity. ..”

    I also wrote to Ed saying I and many others wanted to see them stand up for Social Security. It’s about time. The pendulum is swinging and they risk missing the boat again.

  5. Robert Fillies May 29, 2015 at 2:53 pm - Reply

    Agree with you completely on this Mike, Peter Buckley in his comment also is spot on, I believe Labour lost the election because of being tory lite. They are loosing their grass root supporters, mainly to UKIP, in our constituency (Dover&Deal) UKIP polled 10,000 votes, had Labour picked up a large proportion of this they would have taken it, instead the Tory incumbent retained the seat.

  6. Mr.Angry May 29, 2015 at 2:53 pm - Reply

    Another nail in Labour’s coffin are they totally incapable of understanding their failure to understand the cries of the nation, not just those at the top living in London? I am absolutely ashamed of him and wasted my vote.

  7. Dave Rowlands May 29, 2015 at 3:03 pm - Reply

    We need a “REAL” Labour Party, not the pretenders we have now. Absolutely disgusted with the way “they” are heading. Conservatives in power for the rest of my life, I can see it happening, does no one have any balls any-more?

  8. notesfromthenorth75 May 29, 2015 at 3:13 pm - Reply

    So, which Labour leadership candidates are willing to make a positive case for social security and against austerity? It seems those of us lucky enough to have left wing Labour MPs at least can vote for them, for the rest of us the only choice left except is voting for and supporting other true left wing parties who don’t attack people on social security such as the Greens, TUSC, Plaid Cymru and the SNP. And , I hope that your blog will also support a coalition of truly left wing parties and individual left wing Labour MPs.

    • Mike Sivier May 29, 2015 at 3:33 pm - Reply

      Well, other left wing parties have another five years to build up their following, certainly – although that will fragment the Left vote, making more Tory years more likely.
      Perhaps some brave Lefties might try joining the Conservative Party and doing to it what it seems clear some Tories did to Labour in the 1990s.

      • notesfromthenorth75 May 29, 2015 at 3:44 pm - Reply

        This tribal partisanship really doesn’t help you know? A coalition of the left is needed, and i’ve said for a long time now that partisanship is a big part of the problem. Perhaps you could have a little think about why people who don’t vote Labour might not want to vote for a party filled with right wingers and centrists? Of course there is a minority within Labour who aren’t, hopefully they will join the new progressive alliance within the commons and drop the partisan crap.

        • Mike Sivier June 2, 2015 at 10:54 am - Reply

          The party as a whole isn’t filled with right wingers and centrists, though – they seem to have gravitated to the top, mostly as a result of patronage by the neoliberals who were there already.
          It’s a majority within Labour who remain true to the party’s original intentions. They are being denied their voice and pushed away; they need to push back – hard.

      • notesfromthenorth75 May 29, 2015 at 3:46 pm - Reply

        One last point, I do find it sad that tribal partisans are so adamant and cannot think in terms of more than “Labour or Cons”. You don’t have much of an imagination do you?

        • Mike Sivier May 29, 2015 at 4:03 pm - Reply

          I find your comment strange.
          I said other parties have another five years to build themselves up, even though it will fragment the Left vote and leave us all wide open to more years of Conservatives. That is what will happen.
          There is nothing wrong with my imagination.

  9. John Mcleish May 29, 2015 at 3:47 pm - Reply

    Although I have disagreed with previous comments you have made, this deserves to be read far and wide. This is right to the point and I think will resonate with everyone who follows your blog

  10. christopherblackmore May 29, 2015 at 3:53 pm - Reply

    Hi, I was part of the Common Sense Wing of Labour. I left when Blair changed things so that he made policy, not conference. My common sense clearly failed me in 2010 when Clegg fooled me into thinking he was part of something new, honest and democratic. Right after the election, of course, it became obvious he was another Tory, like Blair.

    I’ve joined the Greens. So far, no sign of being Tories. Rather socialist, too. I hope this one doesn’t go wrong…

    • Mike Sivier May 29, 2015 at 4:04 pm - Reply

      A bit amateur though (apparently).

  11. Rupert Mitchell (@rupert_rrl) May 29, 2015 at 4:30 pm - Reply

    I agree with all of the above comments. The cuts to welfare are UNFAIR and totally unnecessary. Those savings should come from the very rich in society contributing just a bit more. In a decent society those with the heaviest shoulders should bear the heavier burden and the thousands earning over £150k pa., should most definitely be paying at least 50% above that figure which would certainly not be a burden but possibly might mean just one or two less Rolls Royce cars and luxury yachts etc. I detest scroungers and cheaters but have every sympathy for the sick and those not fortunate enough to have had the luck to get rich by fair and, as so often is the case foul, means; Banks, non-doms and tax dodgers.

    Of course I don’t want any party to be against private enterprise as long as they are not allowed to steal from the Nation by the government allowing them to buy up our property e.g., East Coast Rail etc., and they should be supported in a fair and equal way.

    I don’t feel able to vote for any party right now and it will certainly not be for Mr. Burnham in view of these latest statements; no doubt the Cons will welcome him into their fold.

    How wonderful it would be if we could find another Aneurin Bevan, or my favourite MP of all time Tony Benn.

    I begin to wish that we could forget all about the term Labour Party and look for a more progressive and fairer party with a completely different name.

    • Moggy Paw Lore May 29, 2015 at 7:46 pm - Reply

      That would be the Greens, Rupert.
      I wouldn’t use the word ‘scroungers’ – it is straight from the Daily Ex Lax. The Greens believe in the Citizens Income and so there would be none of this ‘scrounger’ nonsense

      • Mike Sivier May 29, 2015 at 8:03 pm - Reply

        The Greens worked very hard to sink Labour in the run-up to the election, siding with the Nationalists and collaborating in the “£30bn cuts” lie.
        They need to put their own house in order before making any claim to take over from Labour.

    • Irene Simpson May 31, 2015 at 10:24 am - Reply

      I agree with everything you say about the “new” blue labour party. I stopped voting for them at the time of Tory Blair and the Gulf War. I think we need to dump them and unite all the left groups into one party representing ordinary people. Yes it will take a few year to grow but if we don’t start on it straight away our welfare state will be a thing of the past. The Trade Union and Socialist Coalition are growing already so why not join us and get things back to the way they should be. Get all Left Wing Labour people, Trade Unions, Socialist, Greens and perhaps even Scottish Nationalists working together to save Britain.

      • Mike Sivier May 31, 2015 at 11:03 am - Reply

        By the time your united left party is strong enough, the welfare state will already have been abolished.

  12. Steve Grant May 29, 2015 at 4:32 pm - Reply

    I just find Andy Burnham a fair weather politician….very plastic and predictable.So won’t get my vote…..Im still going with Yvette Cooper as the most sensible,steady as you go leader….you either agree with her or you don’t but she isn’t changing her mind to suit those around her…

  13. Thomas May 29, 2015 at 5:48 pm - Reply

    Cone 2020 I might have to support a micro party of the left and waste my vote if Labour are just like the Conservatives.

  14. Ian May 29, 2015 at 5:53 pm - Reply

    Have you oticed Burnham has used almost precisely the same language as Chuka Umunna before he bailed? ‘Wealth creators’, people who ‘want to get on’? I find this strange, it’s like there’s somebody in the background telling him what to say, deciding what direction the party will take. The neoliberals have it sewn up and there hasn’t even been a bloody discussion.

    This actually, genuinely, stinks.

    This sounds conspiratorial but when every major party is a pro business, anti worker then something has to be deeply wrong and not by accident.

    • John Gaines June 1, 2015 at 9:14 am - Reply

      You need look no further than the NeoNazi GOP Party in the USA…the Thatcher Foundation and ALEC (THE MOST DANGEROUS NEO Nazi Party in the World) they influence voting in the EC by bribery, in UK by handouts, even New Labour grab them:
      *************************************************************

      Through the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council, global corporations and state politicians vote behind closed doors to try to rewrite state laws that govern your rights. These so-called “model bills” reach into almost every area of American life and often directly benefit huge corporations.
      In ALEC’s own words, corporations have “a VOICE and a VOTE” on specific changes to the law that are then proposed in your state. DO YOU? Numerous resources to help us expose ALEC are provided below. We have also created links to detailed discussions of key issues, which are available on the left.

      http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed

  15. Adam Clifford May 29, 2015 at 6:56 pm - Reply

    This is this thin unnourishing political gruel for ordinary people. This moron is completely out of touch. We’re fed up with inequality. We’re fed up with s*** wages and food banks while the rich get richer and the Tories remove the security of the welfare system to spare their rich buddies from the responsibilites of paying rightful taxes for the privilege of exploiting and becoming rich from the UK markets.
    This is quisling politics, the politics of shame, because he isn’t big enough to look for social justice and doesn’t believe in the electorate, 34% of whom didn’t believe in the election – didn’t vote, with 36.9% -11,334,576 million, almost as many who didn’t vote – of the 66% of voters voting tory.
    ‘The number of registered voters in the UK fell from 46,139,940 at the end of 2013 to 45,325,078 in December, a drop of 1.8 per cent.’
    So the tories represent 1/4 of the population.
    There is room for hope that a politics that people can relate to can evolve.
    I would suggest that it is the feudal system with the only option, as yet, of highly capitalised individuals being able to exploit and profit from the surpluses inherent in national markets that is the problem.
    When communities learn how to capitalise and run businesses, then they will start to benefit from the markets and their surpluses which are a product of their own economic activity, and feudalism will recede into the past.

  16. British Blokes Cooking May 29, 2015 at 7:19 pm - Reply

    BBC1 here (you’ll have to read our blog for an explanation of that), but I think I have now decided to join the Labour Party in order to vote against Mr Eyelashes, as I call Andy Burnham. The fact that they have allowed the Tories to sell their rhetoric and rewriting of history to people and continue to miss opportunities to stand up against it is bewildering.

  17. Chris May 29, 2015 at 7:26 pm - Reply

    Andy Burnham will be a gift to the Tories, because they will mercilessly attack him over Stafford Hospital scandal forever and never let go.

    But all current Labour leaders are sounding too Tory, so you may as well vote Tory.

    The real Labour Left might end up in Len McClusky’s mooted UNITE’s worker’s party, if UNITE disaffiliates with Labour.

    But Andy Burnham won’t take union campaign funds, so they are meeting in the middle already.

    The trade unions began the Labour party.

    Maybe they will start it again?

    If the trade unions want my vote, they will have to offer using Statutory Instruments with 28 days notice, to gut the Tory Pension Bills 2010-2014 and pay us all the same state pension, regardless of National Insurance history and SERPS opt out, of £276.10 per week state pension, current and new pensioners at 60 for men and women.

    This Citizen State Pension, then might not need the admin costs of Pension Credit and Winter Fuel Allowance?

    And saves on unemployment benefit for the over 60s, and in-work benefits for the over 60s, half of which are in the working poor.

    With money in the hands of pensioners from 60, they will pour into the high street, to restaurants, charity shops, Bon Marche, Marks and Sparks, Millets, coffee shops for those nice Italian coffees with lashing of whipped cream or even those wicken chocolates with marshmallows.

    The shopmobility charity will need more shops.

    And more young people jobs created overnight.

    To be Baristas. By the truckload.

  18. paulmac49 May 29, 2015 at 7:36 pm - Reply

    The names that have been announced for leadership of the labour party, won’t be getting my vote as none of them represent me with their views in anyway whatsoever we need some ordinary people on the top table. The labour party should wake up before it’s too late.

    • Derek Pierson May 30, 2015 at 11:39 am - Reply

      This is a theme repeated over and over in the comments above. No more Blairs, no more Milibands, no more Harmans, Jowells or Turnhams, Straws or Tristrams ….. just straight forward common sense socialists with principles that they will announce and stick to! Unless Labour can create a visible divide between themselves and the Tories and give voters a choice, they can forget it. Someone should remind these Blairites of Labour’s origins!

  19. Ath May 29, 2015 at 7:44 pm - Reply

    Mike i have a lot of respect for you, and enjoy reading your posts. i even use you as research matierial for my own blog at http://www.facebook.com/madashellandnotgoingtotakeanymore (other expansions pending and in progress). That said when are you going to realise that Labour are spent and are now an obstacle. The left need a new party. In the same way as the Liberals outlived their usefulness in the early 20th, Labour have hit the end of theirs. the sooner people like you help other parties break through the better. The Greens being the only candidate as it stands, the SNP being nationalist.

    • Mike Sivier May 29, 2015 at 8:01 pm - Reply

      The problem with what you’re suggesting is it’s a sure way of letting the Tories do whatever they want to anybody they want for the next 20 or 30 years, and even if a new party of the Left has risen by then, who knows what opposition it will face?
      Better to clear the excrement out of the house we’ve got, and make it a place where people want to live again.

      • bookmanwales May 29, 2015 at 9:00 pm - Reply

        The problem is no one wants to be the sanitary engineer and become shunned for doing such a dirty job.
        “Leftie” is such a dirty word these days it will be impossible for the Labour party leadership to even countenance such a move, especially in the current climate of a predominantly right wing press, not without a leader with a huge set of balls (metaphorically speaking) anyway.
        Why there is such a debate about business versus scroungers or why one has to be on one side or the other is beyond me. Surely it is possible to appeal to both sides in a balanced manner ? I was of the opinion that a political party is meant to stand for a range of voters not a specific group. (unless it’s a Tory party of course)
        Labour’s best, if not only, hope is that the Tories make life so unbearable for so many people that they would get elected next time with a mannequin as a leader.

        • Moggy Paw Lore June 2, 2015 at 8:27 pm - Reply

          You seem to have fallen for the rhetoric @bookmanwales – the word ‘scroungers’ seems to have seeped into your subconscious. It’s not a word I would use

  20. AM-FM May 29, 2015 at 9:12 pm - Reply

    AB was on Channel 4 News, it ended with Krishnan Guru-Murthy asking him why he doesn’t just join the Selfservative party.

    http://www.channel4.com/news/labour-leadership-burnham-kendall-cooper-creagh-party

    Now from The Sun [No, I don’t read it or subscribe!]

    Caroline Flint:
    Urging the party to stop being tribal, the big hitter campaigning to be the party’s Deputy Leader said Labour had to start speaking to Sun readers and aspirational voters once more.
    She added the party should be comfortable giving people choosing to live off benefits a “kick up the backside” to prove it believed in fairness at both ends of society.

    Is there an MP, even just one, who has even the slightest idea how the economy and money works. I’m hopeful that it will be a lot less than five years before everyone realises that making 40% of the population poorer and poorer is a very bad idea.

    • Mike Sivier May 29, 2015 at 10:00 pm - Reply

      “Aspirational” again?
      Do these people think we don’t pay attention to the fact that they’re all saying the same thing?

  21. Lynne Ismail May 29, 2015 at 9:12 pm - Reply

    I totally agree with the above comments. Labour think they have to replicate the tories ‘ policies instead of being a viable opposition, which even some tories say it needs for the sake of democracy. I was so impressed with Ed and their manifesto that it inspired me to become a member of the party. But since his resignation I am appalled at what is coming out of their mouths. I am utterly disenchanted with politics and in despair for this country. What has happened to principles and political convictions. Politics has completely lost its way. I shall probably leave my membership of Labour and return to being a floating voter if they don’t get their act together!

  22. iamcrawford May 29, 2015 at 9:17 pm - Reply

    The problem here is that the Parliamentary Labour section of the party has been allowed to select the candidates. They live in the cosy Westminster bubble and do not seem to listen to anyone except themselves unless their seats are threatened. The answer is to open the selection of candidates to the whole party.

  23. Sarah Smith May 29, 2015 at 9:38 pm - Reply

    Another U-turn to appease the middle class? So was he lying then or is he lying now? This is how he voted in parliament previously:-
    How Andy Burnham voted on Welfare and Benefits
    • Voted strongly against reducing housing benefit for social tenants deemed to have excess bedrooms (which Labour describe as the “bedroom tax”)
    • Voted very strongly for raising welfare benefits at least in line with prices
    • Voted strongly for paying higher benefits over longer periods for those unable to work due to illness or disability
    • Voted strongly against making local councils responsible for helping those in financial need afford their council tax and reducing the amount spent on such support
    • Voted strongly against a reduction in spending on welfare benefits
    • Voted moderately for spending public money to create guaranteed jobs for young people who have spent a long time unemployed

    You can see the full list of how he voted in parliament here.
    http://www.theyworkforyou.com/…/andy_burnham/leigh/votes

    • hugosmum70 May 30, 2015 at 4:49 pm - Reply

      Sarah,that only takes you to a page where you can find out how your OWN MP votes on things. not Andy Burnham.AB is not my MP so cannot see what he has done..(it will however be handy to me to see what Mary Creagh voted on and how.)
      as for AB. i am afraid he as really gone down in my estimation.i admired how he stood up for the NHS for instance. and those who were vulnerable. only just joined the labour party a couple of weeks ago(plus my daughters an avid labour supporter who cannot afford to join so her birthday present next month will be a years subscription …yes with her utmost approval.) i cannot in good heart now vote for AB .he’s done a Clegg as far as i can see. (like christopherblackmore i too voted lib dem in 2010 and was fooled)..my vote will probably go with either Yvette Cooper or Mary Creagh now. it was going to be AB but he’s had it now as far as i am concerned.

      • Daniel June 1, 2015 at 10:47 am - Reply

        hugosmum70 – go to the link, then click on MPs in the bar at the top of the page. This takes you to a list of all MPs, so you can then find AB on that list and get the info.

    • Moggy Paw Lore June 2, 2015 at 8:45 pm - Reply

      Power corrupts, Sarah Smith, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Remember Danny Alexander? How he opposed the ECA? One sniff of power and the old Danny exited his body

  24. Brian Macfarlane May 29, 2015 at 10:58 pm - Reply

    For once I agree with you and it seems like there is still some common sense in the Labour party https://commonspace.scot/articles/1487/exclusive-new-left-wing-labour-mps-open-to-working-with-snp-against-austerity

  25. jim May 30, 2015 at 2:38 am - Reply

    “There are questions about discretionary housing support. I don’t know what plans the government has in respect of that. It hits London disproportionately. So those are what we’re going to look at before we make a final decision [on the cap],” he said.

    http://youtu.be/3mLNl7GUXlI

    that sentence above shows no decision yet on how he will decide IF he’s leader and the second is a link to youtube interview with channel 4 where he sets everything out I think he does care and its the headlines that everyone is looking at we cant move left we get accused of lefties and all that crap we cant move right we’re like the tories! andy burnham also said on the doorsteps we have this thing where people think we are the party who looks after the people who scrounge off the benefits (which is untrue) but that is what we are looked at sometimes to the hard working man we cant hit disabled and people who need it but we should hit those who can work but screw the system I worked all my life until I had a breakdown severe depression panic attacks etc I said that incase anyone thought I was winding anyone up what I was saying I know a few people where I am who are doing that exactly screwing the system me Im honest because hard working people pay taxes for my money andy does care give him a chance thats it we have to move to the centre ground (not crawling to murdoch) but making business believe we can run the economy again

    • Mike Sivier May 30, 2015 at 6:24 pm - Reply

      You want Labour to move back to the centre ground, then.
      That’s a LEFTward move.

  26. Andy Bungay May 30, 2015 at 10:55 am - Reply

    I think there is a ghost in the machine here in the form of the state of DWP bureaucracy which is in my experience (as a sometime welfare worker) Kafkaesque- for example, adjacent staff in Glasgow were forbidden to discuss a claim shifting from income support to ESA, requiring it to traipse round the country before returning to a foot or so from whence it came. Then came profligate IT spending and muttering about privatisation. Neither party has pledged logistical effectiveness, and some would say the system is being run down in order to justify its evisceration and abolition ( although in fairness some replacement schemes for community care grants have now and then worked very well). My point here is that both parties can say they support fairness while omitting to say that the system is ****”d.

  27. Joan Edington May 30, 2015 at 7:08 pm - Reply

    Just an aside Mike. You seem to be disillusioned with the Labour Party. In another post you even referred to “plastic Tories”. Would they be the same as the “red Tories”, a term that you accused the SNP of using in error during the election?

    • Mike Sivier May 31, 2015 at 10:47 am - Reply

      No – this is one of those classic SNP-fan generalisation that the rest of us have to stamp on. Liz Kendall is a plastic Tory – an artificial, fake Tory who thinks that trying to turn Labour into a party of artificial, fake Tories will bring electoral victory. There would be no point – such a party would not change national political policy enough to restore the freedoms that we have lost.
      That’s hugely different from Labour being a whole party of ‘red Tories’, as claimed by the SNP at all times, not just during the election (they’re still using it now). That implies that Labour is claiming to be a party of an entirely different colour while in fact its entire membership may as well be in the Conservative Party.
      What you are suggesting is hugely insulting to grassroots Labour, to many of Labour’s Parliamentary stalwarts, and to many of the Parliamentary party’s recent intake.

      • Joan Edington May 31, 2015 at 12:32 pm - Reply

        I think it is a bit condescending to imply that I am a “fanatic” of the party I voted for. That almost implies lunacy (which I suppose you think it was). I am not that at all. I admit that I do support Scottish independence and that I vote SNP at the moment. They are the only party in Scotland worth turning out for in my constituency, where Labour polls around 5%. A very few more Labour votes and we would have had a second Tory MP in Westminster. I regret deeply that the shenanigans of Jim Murphy etc caused the extreme backlash that had the result of the decent Labour MPs such as Katy Clark, Mark Lazarawicz and Sheila Gilmour losing their seats. I am under no illusion that the SNP are perfect, far from it, although I see it improving under Sturgeon. I am not blind to their short-comings. They are too centralised, over-keen on wind farms and their children’s guardian policy is OTT. However, they have still done more good in the Scottish Parliament than Labour did in their years, whatever the media says.

      • Joan Edington May 31, 2015 at 12:35 pm - Reply

        As an afterthought. I have never, personally, referred to the party as “red Tories” although there are certainly several of them that would deserve the title.

      • Moggy Paw Lore June 2, 2015 at 8:25 pm - Reply

        Quite. If you want to vote Tory you’d vote for the real thing, not Tory lite

  28. Brian Atkinson May 31, 2015 at 3:59 am - Reply

    When he was interviewed on TV yesterday, the guy interviewing him said ‘ Why don’t you just join the Conservatives?’. All the answers he gave in the interview were the same as what the tory government are doing. He did say he would put tax back to 50% for the top earners but never mentioned getting the billions owed by big companies. He never mentioned the exploitation of children by Ministers, Police et al. He never mentioned the deaths linked to sanctions. He came across as a Tory pretending to be Labour but unable to have any proposals for the Labour party and could do nothing but agree with what the tory party have done.

  29. Respect, Mike.

  30. nhswatchuk June 3, 2015 at 12:03 pm - Reply

    When I was running Atos Victims Group a while back everyone attacked me for suggesting the Labour Party were turning to the right?

    The Labour Party did SFA to stop the torture that Atos were forcing on the vulnerable in our society and look what happened?

    Sure some members of the Party spoke out and said how awful things were for people being continually tested, sure it was wrong for people who have incurable conditions to be retested but did they do anything, NO is the answer, all they did was to voice meagre words and tell us they would stop all this crap if they got into power, I never believed them once, they’re all in it for themselves, none of the politicians with a few exceptions have any morals or ethics?

    The Labour party is willing to sell the vulnerable down the road just to appease those in big business, if the Labour Party don’t stand up for those vulnerable people in our society then the Labour party is finished.

    You know what? The way the party’s going, that may not be a bad thing????

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