Utter Corbynista nonsense, did Keir Starmer put all the crosses alongside the Tory candidates in former Labour heartlands ??
The reason Labour lost, by its largest margin in decades, was Corbyn was not trusted by moderates and swing voters. The Jam Makers fanatical cult followers are still deluding themselves otherwise.
I may well be inferring a piece of political subtlety too fine for my virtually apolitical mind but, after going over and over the point until I’m blue/red in the face, I think I can now see how a Labour government (Jim Callaghan’s) could be considered only marginally less conservative than Johnson’s. That of course is to a considerable extent a reflection of how far the present regime has departed (or been forced by circumstances to depart) from established Conservative principles, especially of course in terms of economic policy.
Sorry @drcongo for me, there is something in what @ChasHarps posted. I thought oooooooo jeremy corbyn was an excellent local MP and I have no doubt expanding Labour membership was something he and his cabinet were very proud of...but Labour membership is not the country as a whole and I am not sure he knew how to deal with what was thrown at him by the media and his own party. You have to spike the trivial cobblers and keep your divisions on the QT, which slick, facile, messianic HR manager Blair was able to do
Also as we have seen today this septic isle would rather have a rich, overly posh, jokey, trivial, disloyal, lying, lecherous, disinterested, self-serving wrecker of the union in charge than even a billionaire tax dodger!
Also as we have seen today this septic isle would rather have a rich, overly posh, jokey, trivial, disloyal, lying, lecherous, disinterested, self-serving wrecker of the union in charge than even a billionaire tax dodger!
Let’s not be too hasty about using “this septic isle” as a synonym for the Voters of Great Britain as a whole!! Time will tell but, when the next General Election is called (probably not in my lifetime) the impossibility of choosing between the respective bands of reprobates is going to be excruciating. Well, it should be but I fear the majority of the Great British Electorate will largely remain faithful to their traditional allegiances.
With the the nation in a state of crisis on so many fronts and the situation more likely to worsen than improve, we may even face the prospect of a National Government. It’s being so cheerful as keeps me going.
Nick Freeman.
PS To avoid any misunderstandings, the above comments were ‘penned’ by me, not Nick Freeman.
The Labour government from 1997 to 2010 should have achieved so much more for those who were struggling. It is failure of that period of government to address inequalities in society which led to Brexit, that led to the loss of the ‘red wall’.
I think the potential admission of Turkey to the EU probably significantly outweighed any shortcomings of the Blair/Brown regime in voters’ Brexit decisions. And in the end of course it was infuriatingly close.
No Government will ever get everything right Chris.
1) Would you or would you not agree that the 97-10 Labour government in that period had many successes in improving the lives of ordinary folk? Overall far better than what a Tory gvernment in that period would have delivered.
2) What specific policies in addition to minimum wage, sure start and large nvestment in public services do you think they should have introduced in order to "address inequalities"
Just a reminder that "slick facile messianic HR manager Blair delivered off the top of my head
1) Slashed welfare for disabled people causing a strain on the NHS that has never abated
2) Expanded PPP / PFI making a shitload of property developers absurdly wealthy at the expense of a £300b (billion) bill for the tax payer
3) Attempted to privatise the London underground with another of his failed PPPs
4) Kicked off the privatisation of the NHS
5) Wasted billions on an IT system for the NHS that was obviously not fit for purpose before they'd even started and which is now costing the NHS an absurd amount of money and time and can't be upgraded meaning that hospitals are running computers on Windows XP which Microsoft stopped supporting 8 years ago leaving them at the mercy of the wannacry ransomware attack
5) Closed 60 hospitals
6) Prayed with George W Bush
7) Invaded Iraq on a crusade and lied about the reasons for doing so
8) the small matter of actually winning serial elections only to spend the entire term implementing the tories' policies for them
1) Would you or would you not agree that the 97-10 Labour government in that period had many successes in improving the lives of ordinary folk? Overall far better than what a Tory gvernment in that period would have delivered.
I'd say exactly the same as a tory government would have delivered, in that frontline care workers' wages fell way behind inflation and welfare for the most vulnerable in society was absolutely decimated. If by "ordinary folk" you mean the middle classes, then yeah, it was fine for them, but they would have been fine anyway, it was a multi-year bull market. But for a lot of people who needed the most help, it was a disaster.
2) What specific policies in addition to minimum wage, sure start and large nvestment in public services do you think they should have introduced in order to "address inequalities"
Closing the tax loopholes that allow billionaires to pay less tax than someone working at McDonalds? Closing the tax loophole that allowed Tony Blair himself to avoid paying £312k in stamp duty by registering a property purchase under a shell company in Panama? Investing public money into the NHS instead of the PFI/PPP shit that we're all still paying for? I mean, one could go on forever here, but I also suspect you have no interest in anyone actually answering the question.
weird, earlier on you claimed that the privatisation of the NHS was "kickstarted" post-2017 and would have been prevented by a Corbyn victory in the General Election
I didn't think hospitals' IT systems were the most up-to-date, but to be running on Windows XP in 2022 is utterly shocking. All of them? I know that's not the most important point there, but it's a bit of a revelation to me.
Facile was a perhaps the wrong word to use. And I accept the peace in Northern Ireland that Johnson has urinated all over might not have been achieved without St Tony's vision. To be clear...I accept both @DevC pros and @drcongo 's cons and still I am not doubting Blair and Brown were a far better deal for the country than the opposition, and won a third term even after alienating a vast amount of their party and the electorate with their holy war, but my point was they needed a level of slick, media friendly presentation and control of information to get past the Murdoch press and the generally conservative (with a small c) country that Corbyn, whose policies were possibly far better for the nation, lacked. Ed Balls and Alistair Campbell were both nasty pieces of work on behalf of their bosses...but they had to be.
On the cons side...may I add the end of licensing hours that the North London set no doubt saw as 'cafe society'...which has increased disorder, anti-social behaviour and violence in city centres by an enormous amount and stretched the resources of the police to breaking point.
you are a gift to the Tories @drcongo . Instead of lauding the successes of the only Labour government for 40 years and seek to build on them, you instead do the Tories job for them by slating it. You also seem to pretend that the Tories would have delivered things like the minimum wage and the large increases in pubic spending that Blair delivered. You are, with due respect, living a fantasy.
It is remarkable that Labour was rescued against all the odds from the momentum crowd and now has a chance of rescuing the country from the damage the Tories are inflicting, much of which like Brexit was facilitated by Corbyn.
It is extraordinary that the Tories now seem hell bent on repeating Labour's mistake. They seem likely to appoint the awful Liz Truss pandering to the extremities of its membership but forgetting that party members are not typical of average voters.
Much more damage is likely to be inflicted in the next two years. Hopefully after the next election, a Labour led government can begin to repair the damage and at the same time introduce a form of PR such that Momentum on the left and the Populist Libertarians on the right can submit their ideas to the electorate along with Social Democratic and One Nation Tory parties and get the representation in parliament that truly reflects public will.
1) Would you or would you not agree that the 97-10 Labour government in that period had many successes in improving the lives of ordinary folk? Overall far better than what a Tory gvernment in that period would have delivered.
Were they more successful than similar countries during the period? I don't doubt they were better than a Tory government would have been, but that alone isn't sufficient. What did the Labour government do for communities in the north of England outside of the major cities that were decimated by the end of coalmining and the end of industrial policy? The failure to address structural inequality led to people believing that the major political parties offered no alternative and helped drive people towards supporting Brexit - interestingly not in Scotland where the SNP were seen as a genuine alternative to the Westminster establishment.
2) What specific policies in addition to minimum wage, sure start and large nvestment in public services do you think they should have introduced in order to "address inequalities"
I don't have an answer to this, but it isn't my job to have an answer.
I have plenty of suggestions although they might not meet your criteria of specific policies - rebalancing the economy to be less reliant on the financial sector, greater support for deprived areas and regions. moving parliament out of London, building council houses (or enabling local government to do so), increased taxes for corporations, (re)nationalising key industries, encouraging unionisation of the workforce, increased regulation, increased social investment, tackling the outdated council tax system. There were also things like electoral reform, and reform of the house of lords, that could have been more of a priority.
I'd like to have seen more state aid than would have been allowed under EU rules, but there was still plenty that the Labour government could have done to support working class people.
I've never really got on board with the argument for moving Parliament away from London. The building is an antiquated mess (much like many of those occupying it), but a country's government should be seated in its capital. Unless people are saying London shouldn't be the capital, which opens up a potentially very interesting debate...
Some of the things yo suggest @Chris would have been worth doing in hondsight, some would in my opinion have been a disaster and some would have made the Labour government of 1997-2010 instead the Labour Government of 1997-2001.
But regardless of detail the really sad thing is that Momentum seem to me to be failing in substance and in marketing. The Blair government did some great things - I wouldn't pretend it got everything right by any means - but some things it did very well. Britain isa better place because of it than it would have been with the alternative. Yet all we ever hear from the momentum wing of the party is very strong criticism and never any praise. In substance that is just wrong. You may have only got half of what you wanted but half is better than nothing at all.
You also fail on marketing. Political parties have to earn votes from a skeptical electorate before they can do anything.
You could send out a message
1) " the Labour Government of 97-10 was a really good government who did these really good things. Actually I think it could have done even more. These are the problems of today and these are the solutions we propose. Trust us with your vote to deliver those answers just as we did before"
Or
2) " Labour has been in Government only once in the last 40 years and then we were shit. Vote for us now and we will try not to be as shit this time unlike before."
Which of those doyou think is more likely to earn floating voters trust and therefore votes?
Instead of lauding the successes of the only Labour government for 40 years and seek to build on them, you instead do the Tories job for them by slating it. You also seem to pretend that the Tories would have delivered things like the minimum wage and the large increases in pubic spending that Blair delivered.
Living in denial is not my style, sorry. The "large increases in pubic spending that Blair delivered" were, almost without exception, PPP/PFI funded. They massively increased the wealth gap, damaged social mobility and were a spectacular failure that we're all still paying for. PPP was literally a tory invention from Major's stint, Blair turned it up to 11.
The Blair government may have worked perfectly for your cosy life,but it caused absolute devastation for the poorest and most vulnerable and is still causing devastation for them today. I don't treat politics like a football match where it only matters if the red team wins, because what's the point if the red team is actually just blue team players wearing a different colour?
Your comments about the increase in public spending being almost without exception PPI funded simply isn't true.
Its sad you see a Government that delivered
1) minimum wage
2) shortest hospital waiting lists in generations
3) peace in Northern Ireland
4) Sure start
5) Investment to fix crumbling schools
6) Devolution
7) Years of economic growth
8) the small matter of actually winning serial elections
a "spectacular failure."
No surprise with Momentum putting out that message that the Tories keep winning elections. Sometimes I wonder though if Momentum actually cares about winning elections - is staying ideologically pure more important than the accepting the compromises that real life power demands.
You can keep posting your list all you want, but a longer one of failures could be just as valid. Also, what I said was a ""spectacular failure" was the reliance on PPP/PFI, not the government. Any tiny amount of research on the subject will show you why, I stand by that statement. You keep banging on about Momentum for some reason, and this sentence "is staying ideologically pure more important than the accepting the compromises that real life power demands", if it's aimed at Momentum, you should ask them. As for me, it's nothing to do with being "ideologically pure", it's to do with not punching down. New Labour, the tories, and Starmer's New New Labour all punch down. I'd just like to see a government that actually cares for the people, without electoral reform I don't believe that will happen in my lifetime.
If you define Blair and Starmer as "punching down" just like the Tories then I think you are right, with or without electoral reform you will not see the Government you want in power in your lifetime. There isn't a majority in the country for your politics.
We do though agree on electoral reform - always nice to end on a note of agreement. I'll leave it there.
Unless NHS trusts can find a way of wriggling out of their contracts they face having to shell out an eventual £70 billion to PFI companies — all for £11.4 billion worth of hospitals, many of which may become obsolete well before their 30-year PFI contracts expire. Had the government simply built the hospitals with borrowed money it would, as with its other debts, be paying 2 per cent interest.
Blair killed the NHS with this. He kept increasing the NHS budget just because his own policies had put them on the verge of bankruptcy - none of that money went towards actually improving the system, it's all being funnelled off into private companies, many of which pay zero taxes because like Tony, they register shell companies in tax havens. We're still paying for this now and if the NHS doesn't go bankrupt because of it first, then our children will still be paying for it after we're dead. How is that helping the country's most vulnerable?
edit: That is surely the very definition of punching down. Some extremely rich people are getting wildly richer at the monetary and health expense of every one of us not rich enough to pay for private healthcare.
Comments
It's almost as if politicians are a bunch of shifty self-interested disloyal chancers.
Utter Corbynista nonsense, did Keir Starmer put all the crosses alongside the Tory candidates in former Labour heartlands ??
The reason Labour lost, by its largest margin in decades, was Corbyn was not trusted by moderates and swing voters. The Jam Makers fanatical cult followers are still deluding themselves otherwise.
Fake socialists always gonna deny.
I may well be inferring a piece of political subtlety too fine for my virtually apolitical mind but, after going over and over the point until I’m blue/red in the face, I think I can now see how a Labour government (Jim Callaghan’s) could be considered only marginally less conservative than Johnson’s. That of course is to a considerable extent a reflection of how far the present regime has departed (or been forced by circumstances to depart) from established Conservative principles, especially of course in terms of economic policy.
God knows where we go from here.
Sorry @drcongo for me, there is something in what @ChasHarps posted. I thought oooooooo jeremy corbyn was an excellent local MP and I have no doubt expanding Labour membership was something he and his cabinet were very proud of...but Labour membership is not the country as a whole and I am not sure he knew how to deal with what was thrown at him by the media and his own party. You have to spike the trivial cobblers and keep your divisions on the QT, which slick, facile, messianic HR manager Blair was able to do
Also as we have seen today this septic isle would rather have a rich, overly posh, jokey, trivial, disloyal, lying, lecherous, disinterested, self-serving wrecker of the union in charge than even a billionaire tax dodger!
Also as we have seen today this septic isle would rather have a rich, overly posh, jokey, trivial, disloyal, lying, lecherous, disinterested, self-serving wrecker of the union in charge than even a billionaire tax dodger!
Oh, Starmer has a chance then!
Let’s not be too hasty about using “this septic isle” as a synonym for the Voters of Great Britain as a whole!! Time will tell but, when the next General Election is called (probably not in my lifetime) the impossibility of choosing between the respective bands of reprobates is going to be excruciating. Well, it should be but I fear the majority of the Great British Electorate will largely remain faithful to their traditional allegiances.
With the the nation in a state of crisis on so many fronts and the situation more likely to worsen than improve, we may even face the prospect of a National Government. It’s being so cheerful as keeps me going.
Nick Freeman.
PS To avoid any misunderstandings, the above comments were ‘penned’ by me, not Nick Freeman.
Just a reminder that "slick facile messianic HR manager Blair delivered off the top of my head
1) minimum wage
2) shortest hospital waiting lists in generations
3) peace in Northern Ireland
4) Sure start
5) Investment to fix crumbling schools
6) Devolution
7) Years of economic growth
8) the small matter of actually winning serial elections
9) He did make a serious error of judgement with joining the UK to Iraq war although that would have happened with or without us.
Corbyn created the space for the Tories to shift radically to the right and facilitated Brexit.
Which one of those two made life better for the Uk population?
I understand Momentum wish to go further to the left but never have understood why they don't understand that
1) getting half of what you want is better than getting nothing at all and
2) slagging off the one Labour government there has been in 40 years is such a gift to the Tories.
Pretty much spot on Mr Dev's. The Blair/Brown did more for those at the bottom end of the social scale than anyone else in the last 60 years.
Well said @ChasHarps.
The Labour government from 1997 to 2010 should have achieved so much more for those who were struggling. It is failure of that period of government to address inequalities in society which led to Brexit, that led to the loss of the ‘red wall’.
I think the potential admission of Turkey to the EU probably significantly outweighed any shortcomings of the Blair/Brown regime in voters’ Brexit decisions. And in the end of course it was infuriatingly close.
Plus racism of course.
No Government will ever get everything right Chris.
1) Would you or would you not agree that the 97-10 Labour government in that period had many successes in improving the lives of ordinary folk? Overall far better than what a Tory gvernment in that period would have delivered.
2) What specific policies in addition to minimum wage, sure start and large nvestment in public services do you think they should have introduced in order to "address inequalities"
It leaves you rather deflated that we've drifted into the abyss after Blair and Browne duo.
Then we had the horrendous Bullingdon boys. Cameron and Gideon.
Brief flapping of Theresa May
Spared The Corbyn and Abbot horror show.
And until recently we would have to stomach Boris and Doris lying and snarling from the front bench.
Just a reminder that "slick facile messianic HR manager Blair delivered off the top of my head
1) Slashed welfare for disabled people causing a strain on the NHS that has never abated
2) Expanded PPP / PFI making a shitload of property developers absurdly wealthy at the expense of a £300b (billion) bill for the tax payer
3) Attempted to privatise the London underground with another of his failed PPPs
4) Kicked off the privatisation of the NHS
5) Wasted billions on an IT system for the NHS that was obviously not fit for purpose before they'd even started and which is now costing the NHS an absurd amount of money and time and can't be upgraded meaning that hospitals are running computers on Windows XP which Microsoft stopped supporting 8 years ago leaving them at the mercy of the wannacry ransomware attack
5) Closed 60 hospitals
6) Prayed with George W Bush
7) Invaded Iraq on a crusade and lied about the reasons for doing so
8) the small matter of actually winning serial elections only to spend the entire term implementing the tories' policies for them
1) Would you or would you not agree that the 97-10 Labour government in that period had many successes in improving the lives of ordinary folk? Overall far better than what a Tory gvernment in that period would have delivered.
I'd say exactly the same as a tory government would have delivered, in that frontline care workers' wages fell way behind inflation and welfare for the most vulnerable in society was absolutely decimated. If by "ordinary folk" you mean the middle classes, then yeah, it was fine for them, but they would have been fine anyway, it was a multi-year bull market. But for a lot of people who needed the most help, it was a disaster.
2) What specific policies in addition to minimum wage, sure start and large nvestment in public services do you think they should have introduced in order to "address inequalities"
Closing the tax loopholes that allow billionaires to pay less tax than someone working at McDonalds? Closing the tax loophole that allowed Tony Blair himself to avoid paying £312k in stamp duty by registering a property purchase under a shell company in Panama? Investing public money into the NHS instead of the PFI/PPP shit that we're all still paying for? I mean, one could go on forever here, but I also suspect you have no interest in anyone actually answering the question.
weird, earlier on you claimed that the privatisation of the NHS was "kickstarted" post-2017 and would have been prevented by a Corbyn victory in the General Election
I didn't think hospitals' IT systems were the most up-to-date, but to be running on Windows XP in 2022 is utterly shocking. All of them? I know that's not the most important point there, but it's a bit of a revelation to me.
Facile was a perhaps the wrong word to use. And I accept the peace in Northern Ireland that Johnson has urinated all over might not have been achieved without St Tony's vision. To be clear...I accept both @DevC pros and @drcongo 's cons and still I am not doubting Blair and Brown were a far better deal for the country than the opposition, and won a third term even after alienating a vast amount of their party and the electorate with their holy war, but my point was they needed a level of slick, media friendly presentation and control of information to get past the Murdoch press and the generally conservative (with a small c) country that Corbyn, whose policies were possibly far better for the nation, lacked. Ed Balls and Alistair Campbell were both nasty pieces of work on behalf of their bosses...but they had to be.
On the cons side...may I add the end of licensing hours that the North London set no doubt saw as 'cafe society'...which has increased disorder, anti-social behaviour and violence in city centres by an enormous amount and stretched the resources of the police to breaking point.
you are a gift to the Tories @drcongo . Instead of lauding the successes of the only Labour government for 40 years and seek to build on them, you instead do the Tories job for them by slating it. You also seem to pretend that the Tories would have delivered things like the minimum wage and the large increases in pubic spending that Blair delivered. You are, with due respect, living a fantasy.
It is remarkable that Labour was rescued against all the odds from the momentum crowd and now has a chance of rescuing the country from the damage the Tories are inflicting, much of which like Brexit was facilitated by Corbyn.
It is extraordinary that the Tories now seem hell bent on repeating Labour's mistake. They seem likely to appoint the awful Liz Truss pandering to the extremities of its membership but forgetting that party members are not typical of average voters.
Much more damage is likely to be inflicted in the next two years. Hopefully after the next election, a Labour led government can begin to repair the damage and at the same time introduce a form of PR such that Momentum on the left and the Populist Libertarians on the right can submit their ideas to the electorate along with Social Democratic and One Nation Tory parties and get the representation in parliament that truly reflects public will.
1) Would you or would you not agree that the 97-10 Labour government in that period had many successes in improving the lives of ordinary folk? Overall far better than what a Tory gvernment in that period would have delivered.
Were they more successful than similar countries during the period? I don't doubt they were better than a Tory government would have been, but that alone isn't sufficient. What did the Labour government do for communities in the north of England outside of the major cities that were decimated by the end of coalmining and the end of industrial policy? The failure to address structural inequality led to people believing that the major political parties offered no alternative and helped drive people towards supporting Brexit - interestingly not in Scotland where the SNP were seen as a genuine alternative to the Westminster establishment.
2) What specific policies in addition to minimum wage, sure start and large nvestment in public services do you think they should have introduced in order to "address inequalities"
I don't have an answer to this, but it isn't my job to have an answer.
I have plenty of suggestions although they might not meet your criteria of specific policies - rebalancing the economy to be less reliant on the financial sector, greater support for deprived areas and regions. moving parliament out of London, building council houses (or enabling local government to do so), increased taxes for corporations, (re)nationalising key industries, encouraging unionisation of the workforce, increased regulation, increased social investment, tackling the outdated council tax system. There were also things like electoral reform, and reform of the house of lords, that could have been more of a priority.
I'd like to have seen more state aid than would have been allowed under EU rules, but there was still plenty that the Labour government could have done to support working class people.
I've never really got on board with the argument for moving Parliament away from London. The building is an antiquated mess (much like many of those occupying it), but a country's government should be seated in its capital. Unless people are saying London shouldn't be the capital, which opens up a potentially very interesting debate...
Some of the things yo suggest @Chris would have been worth doing in hondsight, some would in my opinion have been a disaster and some would have made the Labour government of 1997-2010 instead the Labour Government of 1997-2001.
But regardless of detail the really sad thing is that Momentum seem to me to be failing in substance and in marketing. The Blair government did some great things - I wouldn't pretend it got everything right by any means - but some things it did very well. Britain isa better place because of it than it would have been with the alternative. Yet all we ever hear from the momentum wing of the party is very strong criticism and never any praise. In substance that is just wrong. You may have only got half of what you wanted but half is better than nothing at all.
You also fail on marketing. Political parties have to earn votes from a skeptical electorate before they can do anything.
You could send out a message
1) " the Labour Government of 97-10 was a really good government who did these really good things. Actually I think it could have done even more. These are the problems of today and these are the solutions we propose. Trust us with your vote to deliver those answers just as we did before"
Or
2) " Labour has been in Government only once in the last 40 years and then we were shit. Vote for us now and we will try not to be as shit this time unlike before."
Which of those doyou think is more likely to earn floating voters trust and therefore votes?
Instead of lauding the successes of the only Labour government for 40 years and seek to build on them, you instead do the Tories job for them by slating it. You also seem to pretend that the Tories would have delivered things like the minimum wage and the large increases in pubic spending that Blair delivered.
Living in denial is not my style, sorry. The "large increases in pubic spending that Blair delivered" were, almost without exception, PPP/PFI funded. They massively increased the wealth gap, damaged social mobility and were a spectacular failure that we're all still paying for. PPP was literally a tory invention from Major's stint, Blair turned it up to 11.
The Blair government may have worked perfectly for your cosy life, but it caused absolute devastation for the poorest and most vulnerable and is still causing devastation for them today. I don't treat politics like a football match where it only matters if the red team wins, because what's the point if the red team is actually just blue team players wearing a different colour?
Just so you understand what the PPP/PFI problem is.
Your comments about the increase in public spending being almost without exception PPI funded simply isn't true.
Its sad you see a Government that delivered
1) minimum wage
2) shortest hospital waiting lists in generations
3) peace in Northern Ireland
4) Sure start
5) Investment to fix crumbling schools
6) Devolution
7) Years of economic growth
8) the small matter of actually winning serial elections
a "spectacular failure."
No surprise with Momentum putting out that message that the Tories keep winning elections. Sometimes I wonder though if Momentum actually cares about winning elections - is staying ideologically pure more important than the accepting the compromises that real life power demands.
You can keep posting your list all you want, but a longer one of failures could be just as valid. Also, what I said was a ""spectacular failure" was the reliance on PPP/PFI, not the government. Any tiny amount of research on the subject will show you why, I stand by that statement. You keep banging on about Momentum for some reason, and this sentence "is staying ideologically pure more important than the accepting the compromises that real life power demands", if it's aimed at Momentum, you should ask them. As for me, it's nothing to do with being "ideologically pure", it's to do with not punching down. New Labour, the tories, and Starmer's New New Labour all punch down. I'd just like to see a government that actually cares for the people, without electoral reform I don't believe that will happen in my lifetime.
If you define Blair and Starmer as "punching down" just like the Tories then I think you are right, with or without electoral reform you will not see the Government you want in power in your lifetime. There isn't a majority in the country for your politics.
We do though agree on electoral reform - always nice to end on a note of agreement. I'll leave it there.
Even The Spectator understands the damage caused by PPP/PFI.
Unless NHS trusts can find a way of wriggling out of their contracts they face having to shell out an eventual £70 billion to PFI companies — all for £11.4 billion worth of hospitals, many of which may become obsolete well before their 30-year PFI contracts expire. Had the government simply built the hospitals with borrowed money it would, as with its other debts, be paying 2 per cent interest.
Blair killed the NHS with this. He kept increasing the NHS budget just because his own policies had put them on the verge of bankruptcy - none of that money went towards actually improving the system, it's all being funnelled off into private companies, many of which pay zero taxes because like Tony, they register shell companies in tax havens. We're still paying for this now and if the NHS doesn't go bankrupt because of it first, then our children will still be paying for it after we're dead. How is that helping the country's most vulnerable?
edit: That is surely the very definition of punching down. Some extremely rich people are getting wildly richer at the monetary and health expense of every one of us not rich enough to pay for private healthcare.