Performance Of Labour MPs At Westminster

[Kingsmills]

Started a thread but, so far, have nothing to post since they do nothing but abstain in relation to measures they were elected to oppose.

[Laurence]

Maybe members are elected to govern not oppose?

Bills are not one dimensional, they are composite, so if part of the measures are OK and part of the measure you disagree with, you can find yourself abstaining.

Then again you have a brain, should you not blindly follow the party whip, or should you stand up for your beliefs?

The interim Labour Leader took the view that to abstain was the right course of action, to vote against the finance bill, is not good government, and could lead to massive problems in governance of the country. Should the budget not be accepted

It is a hard concept for non parliamentarians or rookie MP's to grasp. but the British government is not a free for all. It does not want to end up like Greece.

[Kingsmills]

Well done Laurence. Although the content demonstrates all the political understanding and sophistication of an eleven year old, that post is properly spelt and in decent grammatical form.

[Oddquine]

Maybe members are elected to govern not oppose?

Bills are not one dimensional, they are composite, so if part of the measures are OK and part of the measure you disagree with, you can find yourself abstaining.

Then again you have a brain, should you not blindly follow the party whip, or should you stand up for your beliefs?

The interim Labour Leader took the view that to abstain was the right course of action, to vote against the finance bill, is not good government, and could lead to massive problems in governance of the country. Should the budget not be accepted

It is a hard concept for non parliamentarians or rookie MP's to grasp. but the British government is not a free for all. It does not want to end up like Greece.

Laurence, can you tell me which were the parts of the Welfare Reform and Work Bill (not the Finance Bill) that the Labour Party thought so damn good that they thought it better to abstain and let the whole Bill go through unopposed by those in the Labour Party who are, or hoped to be sometime, in the (Cabinet/)Shadow Cabinet), without having to make a stand in either direction on the most important economic decision to be made this year. Given even some of the abstainers, like Andy Burnham, did get off their right wing backsides and actually vote for the Labour amendment to refuse a second reading, would you care to try explaining to me the difference in real terms between refusing a second reading and voting against a bill, pretty please?

Are you really saying that, if the Bill had been voted down on the 21st or so of July, it wouldn't have been rejigged, maybe even taking some cognisance of the points made in the debate by opponents of it, in order to make it more likely to be voted through another time, and produced again after the recess? Are you really saying that the only way there would ever have been a Welfare Reform and Work Bill is by accepting one with very little to recommend it, and hoping against hope that a Conservative heavy committee will decide to allow amendments to it,  which would then have to be voted on in a Conservative heavy legislature?  If you are, would voting against it not have been a the very best way of opposing it....by removing at a stroke,£12 billion of Welfare cuts and sending the Tories homeward to think again?

If you can say Maybe members are elected to govern not oppose?  you seem to have missed the whole point.

Members might think the whole point of being in Westminster is to govern, but it isn't.........the whole point of being in Westminster is to represent your constituents first.....all your constituents. It is not about representing only your party,and those who voted for your party, though it is looking more and more as if even many of those who voted to elect Labour MPs aren't being represented either. 

In Government in the UK, party ideology should not produce policies which subsume the collective good of the UK as a whole, but it does......so it is also UK Governments who only represent their party and their voters country-wide, and not the whole population country-wide. As an example of representative democracy, Westminster is the equivalent of 5ft 1 inch 6 stone me being an example of a cat-walk fashion model......in other words, there is no resemblance whatsoever. The job of opposition is to oppose....but not to oppose good policies which will either benefit or do no harm to their constituents....that is opposing the political party which proposed it, not opposing bad policies. It is, tbh, the same stance that the Labour Party in Holyrood has followed with regular monotony since 2007....if proposed or supported by the SNP, oppose it on principle (one of the very few principles Labour has left) and something which appears to have carried over to Westminster. Opposing the Tories, on the other hand, appears to consist of putting forward some amendments ,to try to alter the worst bits during the process of a bill, and even where those amendments are rejected, and the bill they thought bad enough to try to change then goes unchanged, all they do is find the nearest rock, crawl under it to hide from having to actually do their job (which is not to succour the Tory Party at all times) and hope their voters don't notice. 

 

[Charles Bannerman]

by removing at a stroke,£12 billion of Welfare cuts and sending the Tories homeward to think again?

Here's a great suggestion for those who huff and puff and protest about Welfare cuts. (These people, by the way, are well represented within the ranks of the noisy middle classes who make far more of a fuss about poverty than the poor do..... and of course the SNP who have for a long time time cynically exploited poverty as a means towards their sole political objective.)

Anyway....what all those affluent middle class people (including a lot of SNP types - among them their MPs who are soon to be on a generous £74K a year) who protest so loudly about poverty and inequality simply need to do is to find themselves a "poverty buddy". By that I mean someone on somewhat less than average earnings. And all those better off people can then realise the virtue of their social consciences by paying the poverty buddy a sum of money which either brings the well off social crusader down to the average wage OR brings the poverty buddy up to the average wage, whoever gets there first. That way, the poverty buddy gets a hike in income and their benefactor finds themselves inundated by a massive tsunami of righteousness - and without themselves having either to go below the average wage or even become poorer than the poverty buddy. So come on all you SNP anti-poverty crusaders on more than the average wage - all you Nationalist lawyers, accountants, dentists and a few more - put your money where your mouth has been for far too long, do what your sworn enemies the Tories have refused to do, and make a poor person very happy.

the whole point of being in Westminster is to represent your constituents first.....

Coming from someone so rabidly sympathetic with the single obsession of the SNP... well that's just hilarious!!!

SNP MPs attending Westminster to represent their constituents first?! I believe Oddquine is not from these parts, but in Inverness the relevant response is "YERJOKEENMUN!!" The ONLY reason the SNP MPs attend Westminster, or indeed anyone from the SNP does anything, is to seek the break up of the political entity which Westminster governs.... be that by attempting to foster grievance among the Scots, by alienating the English by their embarrassingly crass behaviour or by pinching the other boys' chairs when they aren't at school - and a lot more.

I just wonder how many people who voted SNP in May were naïve enough to believe that their interests as constituents have any significant place at all on the agenda of the candidates they voted for. The SNP has never stood for anything other than separation, and all this social justice stuff is nothing more than a cynical attempt to cadge votes. Similarly that noisy, attention seeking and politically immature rabble don't give the slightest toss about their constituents when there's separation to be sought. They are programmed only to jump obediently to the diktat of SNP Central and cynically exploit the people who put them in Westminster the same way as they do the poor.

SNP.... Westminster.... constituents first.   

Oddquine - I really wish I hadn't read this late on, because such a suggestion is going to keep me up all night p!ssing myself with laughter.

Constituents first         It's not just the way she tells them

[+DoofersDad]

Representing your constituents does not mean blindly voting in the way you think your constituents want.  Those in the labour party who have resisted the simplistic rhetoric of the left wing should be applauded for having the courage to act responsibly in relation to welfare spending. 

It must be clear to everyone that the whole welfare system is a mess and needs reform.  It has grown arms and legs and the reason why so many on the political left are up in arms about this is that so many of them have their noses in the trough.  It is all about self interest rather than directing welfare funding where it is most needed.  Whilst there is much I would disagree with the Tories about, the need to reduce welfare costs by getting people out of welfare and into jobs is surely something every one should support.  The exception will presumably be those who are currently on welfare and getting more money than others who are in full time work.

The Tories are absolutely right to seek to put an end to the utterly absurd measure of poverty we currently have in this country.  Getting rid of that meaningless statistic will allow a focus to be put on those with greatest need.  Predictably the SNP are attacking the Tories for wanting rid of the measure.  Bear in mind that in a growing economy, if the wealth is shared out pro-rata to current wealth distribution, the measure would still report the same levels of poverty even if everyone had twice as much disposable income.  It would do this because it is not a measure of poverty, it is a measure of relative wealth.  Knowing the economy is growing, the SNP see the opportunity to bleat to the electorate that despite the UK economy growing, poverty levels in Scotland have not fallen.  It is complete nonsense of course, but it is nonsense which can be backed up by an official statistic and which will resonate amongst the electorate.

There are people on the right of the Labour party who have come to the understanding that the level of public spending in this country is not sustainable and that therefore welfare budgets need restructuring in order to adequately provide for those with greatest need. Unless those on the left can also accept that basic fact, the Tories will be in power for a long, long time (which is why Salmond is openly supporting Corbyn in the labour leadership contest - not that it should be any of his business, of course!)  Meanwhile we can expect the SNP to continue to stir up the left and oppose much needed reform of the welfare system (and they dare to brand themselves as a progressive party!). 

I'll finish on a prediction.  If Scotland becomes independent and if the SNP are the first Government of an independent Scotland, one of the first things they will do is to introduce loads of policy which they are currently opposing.  They would have to do that or else the country would go bankrupt (although I'm not sure in which currency it would go bankrupt!)

[StanDrews]

OK we get it Charlie - SNPBad.  They are psychotically devoted to independence at all costs following a concerted programme of brainwashing at party central and care not a jot for social justice. But tell me, why do you think the SSP and those SNP members and MPs who used to be members of the Labour party are convinced by "separashun"?

[Kingsmills]

The answer will be along the lines that CB has a very dim view of his fellow countrymen believing that hundreds of thousands of us are, unlike him and his intellectual peers, politically naïve gullible fools.

[Charles Bannerman]

 

The Tories are absolutely right to seek to put an end to the utterly absurd measure of poverty we currently have in this country.  Getting rid of that meaningless statistic will allow a focus to be put on those with greatest need.  Predictably the SNP are attacking the Tories for wanting rid of the measure.  Bear in mind that in a growing economy, if the wealth is shared out pro-rata to current wealth distribution, the measure would still report the same levels of poverty even if everyone had twice as much disposable income.  It would do this because it is not a measure of poverty, it is a measure of relative wealth.  Knowing the economy is growing, the SNP see the opportunity to bleat to the electorate that despite the UK economy growing, poverty levels in Scotland have not fallen.  It is complete nonsense of course, but it is nonsense which can be backed up by an official statistic and which will resonate amongst the electorate.

 

Thank goodness for someone who understands that poverty is something which is measured in absolute terms and not by the relative parameters which simply suit the ends of the neo-socialists/expedient nationalists in our midst. Poverty is about the inability to afford essentials. That is an absolute statement and has nothing to do with relative considerations of whether you earn 60% of the median wage - which is a relative parameter and an expression of your position in the pecking order.

There really is so much self righteous tosh spoken about poverty - mainly by people who have never spoken to anyone, for instance, faced with bringing up a family in the immediate aftermath of WW1 or during the depression which followed, or in a squalid single end with an outside toilet in the late Victorian era (all pre-Welfare State). Of course it exists but even in more recent times, what I saw as a pupil in a council scheme primary school in the early 60s bears no comparison with the improved status I then witnessed during almost 40 years teaching in a large secondary with a significant working class catchment area, and especially in the latter part of that era.

I have just been listening on Radio Scotland to a nutritional expert who was quite specific that the greatest incidence of obesity, arising from the overconsumption of food, exists in the least affluent areas which are said to rely most on food banks. In news item we learned that this morning has seen an emergency meeting of the COBRA committee to discuss thousands of migrants, who have already reached the relative affluence of France, clamouring to get into this terrible country of ours which, we are told by the said neo-socialists/expedient nationalists, does such a poor job of looking after the underprivileged whose benefits are going to be capped at something like 20 grand a year.

Now by this stage I am sure my chums, those handwringing neo-socialists/expedient nationalists, are positively choking on the meal in their mouths by now and have me firmly categorised alongside Holocaust Deniers, but let's get real about some of this. People in this country, including the less affluent (a relative term please note), have never been better off than in the early years of the 21st century in the absolute terms which define their capacity to obtain biological essentials such as food, warmth and shelter.... and a lot more too as it happens.

But in terms of warmth, we have this arbitrary term  "fuel poverty", defined as spending more than 10% of income on energy. This has always struck me as bizarre and not only because it's this incredibly convenient round number percentage of a relative quantity. Then there are the food banks that the Nats find it so politically expedient to chunter on about and start riots outside. Food is an absolute essential which is biologically prioritised well above more or less all other things. So if people are so poor that they have to go to food banks to obtain this absolute necessity, one must presume that none of them has a mobile phone, smokes, visits the bookies or the pub or owns an i-player or a TV?

People like the SNP, plus various other organisations which actually believe in Socialism rather than hijack it as a political vehicle, are really doing the less well off (relative term) no favours at all by alienating them to the majority on whom they depend to provide a level of assistance which migrants are fighting with each other to escape from continental Europe in order to reach.

Edited July 29, 2015 by Charles Bannerman

[Charles Bannerman]

OK we get it Charlie - SNPBad.  They are psychotically devoted to independence at all costs following a concerted programme of brainwashing at party central and care not a jot for social justice. But tell me, why do you think the SSP and those SNP members and MPs who used to be members of the Labour party are convinced by "separashun"?

"Psychotically devoted to independence at all costs" does rather tend to understate the way some of them are

As for the second sentence there - well I don't think too many people (apart from themselves) ever took the SSP especially seriously, even when they were getting some MSPs. The SSP (do they still exist??) were pure Citizen MacSmith slapstick, probably best parodied by Jonathan Watson in terms of "Bru'ur Toammy, Sistur Rosie an' Coamrade Foaxy". In fact loony lefties like that make interesting bedfellows for the SNP! Regarding the SNP members and MPs who used to be members of the Labour Party, let's not forget that although the SNP is now, of course, the Largest Political Party In The Known Universe, its membership is still pretty tiny in relation to the Scottish electorate as a whole. I really couldn't say how many of those concerned were once members of the Labour Party - the Labour Party actually being the root cause of all the "separashun" nonsense we've been having since 2011. Because once Blair decided in the mid 90s to try to make Labour more electable by nicking Tory policies, abandoning the Marxist Clause 4 etc, it was inevitable that sooner or later Labour would haemorrhage support to any other body which would "keep the red flag flying" - which the SNP then expediently resolved to do. (Although we all, of course, know that Socialism is the greatest political philosophy in the world.... until you have to apply it to yourself).  Then you have to add in the other political own goal scored by Labour at that time by way of actually volunteering to create a Scottish Parliament. This spectacular instance of turkeys voluntarily voting for Christmas quite obviously was going to present the SNP on a plate with a soapbox from which to con the politically naïve and anybody else they could con. So sooner than you can say "referendum", you have this lemming-like drift towards the Socialist Utopia of the said "separashun".

One thing we never hear much about from this new generation of Citizen MacSmiths  is who was actually going to fund the said Socialist Utopia - especially now that the oil revenue myth has been well and truly exposed? Because for them the inconvenient truth is that the socio-economic breakdown of the Referendum vote shows us that the wealth producers were largely concentrated within the No support while the wealth consumers were similarly concentrated among the Yessers (q.v. the unusual Referendum  preferences of those joint benefits capitals of Glasgow and Dundee). Had separation actually happened, there would hence have been an instant and dramatic exit of wealth and wealth-creating talent. Many, many geese would have departed the farmyard, leaving not a lot in terms of golden eggs with which to build the promised Socialist Utopia.

Edited July 29, 2015 by Charles Bannerman

[Laurence]

1. To Oddquine A few parts of the budget I thought  need support.

2. Wages

   The National Living Wage, starting at £7.20 and rising to £9 an hour by 2020, replaces the £6.50 minimum wage

   Tax

   • Personal tax free allowance rises to £10,800 next year and £11,000 the year after. A tax cut from 27m people.

   • 40p rate climbs to £43,300 in 2017-18

    

   • Corporation tax cut to 20pc from next year, and simplified to cut relief on foreign branches

   • Tax loopholes being closed will raise £3.1bn

   Duties on fuel, alcohol, tobacco and gaming

   • Cancel fuel duty increase for petrol. Osborne says £10 off a tank with the Tories

   • Cutting beer duty by a penny off a pint, cider duty down 2pc, whisky and spirits by 2pc, wine duty frozen

   • No changes on gaming or tobacco

   Energy/North Sea

   • £1.3bn of support for the oil and gas industry through a series of tax cuts to petroleum revenue levies, supplementary charges and a tax allowance.

   • This will increase production by 15pc by the end of decade according to the OBR

   Launches a sale of £13bn of UK Asset Resolution mortgages. This is the "bad bank" of bailed out Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley

   • £9bn of Lloyds shares will be sold this year

   • The bank levy will be raised from 0.156pc to 0.21pc, raising £900m a year

   Regional initiatives

   • A comprehensive transport strategy for the North to help create a Northern Powerhouse

   • Business rate receipts devolved to Manchester, and offer to do the same to Cambridge

   • Eight enterprise zones across Britain, with new ones in Plymouth and Blackpool

    

   . Inheritance Tax

   An increase in the inheritance tax threshold to £1m for married couples by 2017

    

    

    

[Joe DiMaggio]

I'm a topic not about the SNP. Charles has still been able to bore everyone with his obsession and mention them 19 times already!

[Charles Bannerman]

I'm a topic not about the SNP. Charles has still been able to bore everyone with his obsession and mention them 19 times already!

Yes.... I know... the SNP would NEVER complain about the Tories as often as that

[robbylad]

Only Kezia Dugdale talks about the SNP more than CB.

[+DoofersDad]

Good on Ms Dugdale.  It needs more people to be vocal at showing up the SNP for what it truly is.  This thread was started simply as a diversionary tactic to draw attention away from the disruptive and irresponsible behavior of the rabble we have elected to misrepresent us at Westminster.  Any attempt to make a rational argument that the Labour party were making a poorer stab at being an opposition party has been stopped in it's tracks by Laurence's excellent post and so the SNP apologists revert to their typical one liners having a pop at someone who holds a different view.

Of course, the Holyrood elections are not that far away now and the political focus really should be directed at the record of this dreadful reactionary and regressive Government we have at the moment.  The election should be about the Government's record and the parties' plans for progressing within the Union and utilising the increased devolved powers.  Instead the SNP will want to deflect attention from that and make the election a referendum on a referendum

[Charles Bannerman]

 the SNP apologists revert to their typical one liners having a pop at someone who holds a different view.

Or as Corporal Jones would say.... "They don't like it up 'em Captain Mainwaring. They do NOT like it up 'em!"

[Oddquine]

Good on Ms Dugdale.  It needs more people to be vocal at showing up the SNP for what it truly is.  This thread was started simply as a diversionary tactic to draw attention away from the disruptive and irresponsible behavior of the rabble we have elected to misrepresent us at Westminster.  Any attempt to make a rational argument that the Labour party were making a poorer stab at being an opposition party has been stopped in it's tracks by Laurence's excellent post and so the SNP apologists revert to their typical one liners having a pop at someone who holds a different view.

Of course, the Holyrood elections are not that far away now and the political focus really should be directed at the record of this dreadful reactionary and regressive Government we have at the moment.  The election should be about the Government's record and the parties' plans for progressing within the Union and utilising the increased devolved powers.  Instead the SNP will want to deflect attention from that and make the election a referendum on a referendum

Which excellent post of Laurence's?  I must have missed that one?  Do you mean the one in which he said that the bill on which Labour abstained was the Finance Bill, and MPs are not in Westminster to oppose anything but to govern?  Or do you mean the one he posted, after I said that it was not the Finance Bill, that they abstained on, but the Welfare Reform and Work Bill,  C& Ping  the parts of the Finance Bill,  he rather liked. Which?

What disruptive and irresponsible behavior..really? How much disruption did clapping in the House instead of braying and hooting cause? I'd call that civilising behaviour, myself. Bercow said that if members voted to allow clapping, clapping would be allowed. That raises the rather amusing spectacle of MPs in the past having voted to allow hooting and braying and not clapping.but then I suppose it is the only way many MPs will ever say anything in the House at all.

True,  the Holyrood elections are not too far away......and we will see then what we will see, but currently it isn't looking too good for the Unionist Parties.The SNP has, afaik, so far,not approved any referendum proposal to be debated at the conference, which will more or less decide the thrust of the manifesto, so probably  the only people who will bang on about it are Unionists to deflect attention from the complete lack of policies, leadership and talent in the Scottish branches of their parties..

 

[Charles Bannerman]

 

but currently it isn't looking too good for the Unionist Parties.

Interesting that you incorporate the "Unionist Parties" into a single entity, again reflecting the fact that the sole obsession of the nationalists is separation. But currently, indeed it isn't looking too good for the people you refer to - incredibly, one would suggest, given the total pig's ear the SNP are making right across the entire spectrum of the powers devolved to Holyrood. That such a bunch of obvious incompetents can be sitting where they are in the polls is a desperate reflection of the state of the other parties, especially Labour.

[Oddquine]

On current polls can you see any of them doing much, Charles?   But just say by some happenstance they did.....who do they have who is capable of running the country at least as well as the SNP?  Bear in mind, while you may not like what the SNP has done, going by the polls, they have certainly done enough to satisfy more voters than voted YES last September, or voted for them in 2015.......and they have consistently done more, with less, than any of the LibDem Coalitions managed from 1999 to 2007. 

Who would you fancy for the next First Minister and Finance Minister, then? Ruthie and  Gavin Brown, or Willie Rennie and somebody? Or maybe (and more likely if the polls are wrong) Kezia and Jackie Baillie,bearing in mind that Scottish Labour is controlled from Westminster, and there we currently have a Labour Party who can't differentiate between Tony Blair/Gordon Brown and liabilities..... which just illustrates the level of their ineptitude. 

Or would it just be, as usual.......anyone but the SNP?

[Charles Bannerman]

On current polls can you see any of them doing much, Charles?   But just say by some happenstance they did.....who do they have who is capable of running the country at least as well as the SNP? 

Oddquine... that's the whole point. The current era marks an absolute nadir for politics and politicians in Scotland if this bunch of inept separation-obsessed comedians gets the nod from the electorate ahead of the other parties. Even some of the old SNP brigade like Jum Sullurs, Winnie Ewing (if sober) and yon guy that looked like Dr Goebbels would have done better than this lot of happy clappy saltire wavers.

It really doesn't say much for the opposition if people are still going to vote for you in the face of a police force which is a laughing stock, a legal system which is in disarray, a health service which is in chaos, education provision which can't even set a Higher Maths exam never mind get the SNP's "flagship" Curriculum for Excellence to work and a transport network which is creaking at the edges.

So many complete clowns - Russell, MacAskill, Hyslop, Father Jack etc - have already since 2007 had their services dispensed with for rank incompetence in various roles, but we are still no closer to getting public services which work. In fact they are getting rapidly worse. But still we have your chum on the main street through Dingwall demanding more powers, even though the SNP are utterly incapable of operating the ones they already have.

In fact, given that's the case and the other parties also don't have much going for them, rather than chase extra powers they won't be able to exercise either, might it not be better to hand back some of the ones they already have?

Edited August 16, 2015 by Charles Bannerman

[+DoofersDad]

The SNP's objective of winning even more seats in Holyrood is undoubtedly made much easier by the way Labour have simply self destructed.  To have any chance of success in Scotland, the Labour Party must be strong and credible in the UK as a whole.  But it has lost a lot of strength and credibility and looks like it will lose a whole lot more by electing Corbyn as their leader.  Regardless of whether you agree with his policies or not, the fact is that the majority of the parliamentary party do not want him as their leader and are fundamentally opposed to some of the policies which Corbyn wishes to introduce.  It will be interesting but probably thoroughly depressing to see how this will translate into the performance of Labour MPs at Westminster.  A lurch to the left will mean they become even more un-electable South of the Border and the Tories' success at the next Westminster election is all but guaranteed.   Assuming Corbyn is elected, there will also be precious little common ground between Corbyn and Dugdale which will further damage Dugdale's credibility.

All of this suits the SNP down to the ground.  Until Labour are a credible united force again or unless something remarkable happens to vastly improve the popularity of the Tories or Lib Dems, there will be no meaningful challenge to the SNP in Scotland.  The SNP may be regressive, centralist and incompetent but there is simply no other party which has the credibility with the electorate to get the electorate to either understand that or vote for an alternative manifesto.

[Oddquine]

The SNP's objective of winning even more seats in Holyrood is undoubtedly made much easier by the way Labour have simply self destructed.  To have any chance of success in Scotland, the Labour Party must be strong and credible in the UK as a whole.  But it has lost a lot of strength and credibility and looks like it will lose a whole lot more by electing Corbyn as their leader.  Regardless of whether you agree with his policies or not, the fact is that the majority of the parliamentary party do not want him as their leader and are fundamentally opposed to some of the policies which Corbyn wishes to introduce.  It will be interesting but probably thoroughly depressing to see how this will translate into the performance of Labour MPs at Westminster.  A lurch to the left will mean they become even more un-electable South of the Border and the Tories' success at the next Westminster election is all but guaranteed.   Assuming Corbyn is elected, there will also be precious little common ground between Corbyn and Dugdale which will further damage Dugdale's credibility.

All of this suits the SNP down to the ground.  Until Labour are a credible united force again or unless something remarkable happens to vastly improve the popularity of the Tories or Lib Dems, there will be no meaningful challenge to the SNP in Scotland.  The SNP may be regressive, centralist and incompetent but there is simply no other party which has the credibility with the electorate to get the electorate to either understand that or vote for an alternative manifesto.

So what you are saying, DD is that it doesn't really matter what the majority of Labour Party members want. Democracy, Labour style, isn't really democracy unless the majority of Labour MPs want the result the people choose as well, as if the MPs are not simply Party members like Joe Public. You are saying that a couple of hundred or so MPs,  arguing a case predicated solely on getting into power and holding onto their jobs, should have more say than a couple of hundred thousand Party members and supporters who would prefer that the party represents all of them and not just the careers of the MPs. It appears you are another who thinks the only purpose of politics is to govern, and not to oppose or amend.

There seems to me to be a real dichotomy there, in a situation in which it appears to be perceived, by the average Labour punter, that the only difference between the policies of our two Buggin's turn Governments is one of method and not one of ideology. This perception has been confirmed regularly since 1997, and is still being underlined by the Labour abstention propensity, even when the abstentions mean they refuse to vote against Bills/clauses in Bills which damage the people who vote for them, or used to vote for them, along with everybody else.....like the Bedroom Tax, the moratorium on fracking, the Welfare Reform and Work Bill  etc.

With the best will in the world, the only job in Westminster of the Buggin's turn party, when not in Government, is to oppose anything which conflicts with the principles/manifesto commitments on which they were elected, but since 2010, the Labour Party has even failed at that, perhaps because it has pretty much agreed with everything the Government was and is doing.  It doesn't really matter, imo, if that opposition does not stop a bill or change a clause, they have to be seen to be standing up for their principles....or they are not being seen to be doing the job they are paid to do.

And that, more than anything, is why, in Scotland, there is simply no other party which has the credibility with the electorate to get the electorate to either understand that or vote for an alternative manifesto......because there is no other Unionist party which has an alternative manifesto, in Scotland or in the rest of the UK, and haven't had since 1979, because they are all of one mind...the need to get elected in swing seats in the South of England. If Corbyn doesn't get elected, there won't be any alternative manifesto.........you know it and I know it....... there will just be small variations on the theme of trashing those on benefits, whether working or not, to impose austerity on those who have no voice any more, enriching those who are already well-off and growing the poverty gap..... because Labour has gone over to the dark side to try to persuade the Southern electorate that they are not so different from the Tories really and safe hands to continue to meet their middle class aspirations and prejudices.

As Margaret Thatcher is meant to have said, DD, her greatest legacy was the Labour Party of Tony Blair, the party which was in power as long as she was and made no effort to repair the damage she did, but simply applied more Germolene and sticking plasters to the wounds she inflicted.It is now reaping what it has spent the last twenty years sowing. 

 

Edited August 17, 2015 by Oddquine

[Charles Bannerman]

Oddquine... you really are trying to over-interpret what is really a far more straightforward situation with the Labour Party which boils down to a few bullet points.

* They consigned themselves to eventual oblivion when, back in the 1990s, they sought electability through means ranging from pinching Tory policies to the major own goal of giving the SNP their Holyrood soapbox, the significance of which George Robertson entirely misread when he suggested that it would "kill nationalism stone dead."

* The Labour Party is going through a fundamentally useless phase in any case... or rather, even more useless than usual.

* Most of Europe seems to be suffering some kind of Loony Left delusional accident where far too many people hold the misconception that the rest of society has loadsamoney with which to owe them a living. Hence you get downright silliness like Chorizo (or whatever the hell that ruling Greek party is called) and their supporters thinking they can just keep spending beyond their means and have that financed on tick by the rest of the Eurozone. The SNP also exploits similar delusions here, pulling in the votes of the Great Unwashed by promising large quantities of jam tomorrow, heavily laced with benefits, to be paid for by oil money which increasingly obviously doesn't exist. And across the UK Labour Part,y exactly the same blind naivety is drawing people to the very similar and equally unrealistic policies of Jeremy Corbyn. The only real difference is that Corbyn advocates these policies because he actually, misguidedly, believes in them while the SNP do so because they have identified them as most likely to attract ballot box fodder for the only thing they care about.

[Kingsmills]

By ' major own goal' do you mean abiding by the democratic will of the people who, having voted for devolution once before and been denied it on the unique contrivance of a threshold of those who couldn't be bothered voting, voted in overwhelming numbers for a Scottish Parliament ?

Do you believe in democracy or not ? The majority of your posts suggest that you do not.

[Charles Bannerman]

 do you mean abiding by the democratic will of the people

You mean like the SNP and the 44.7 sticking with their pledge that, the democratic will of the people having been exercised decisively last September, they will give us peace from this nonsense for a generation?