OK then Labour supporters...

[T_i_B]

...sell me the labour party at this election.

I can honestly say that I have not found it easy to find any Labour policy proposals for the next parliament looking through Labour campaign literature and even then much of these seem to be echoed in more extreme form by the Tories. I need you to sell me the Labour manifesto.

And I need you to do it WITHOUT recourse to "vote Labour or it's the Tories" arguments. Tell me what's so good about what Labour proposes do do in the next parliament.

[AP]

1. Give me a link to the policy proposals...

I have to say that I think the way college tuition is paid in the UK is one of the most progressive policies I've ever seen in my life, yet I hear a lot of liberals criticize it.

So I wonder if progressives are looking at Labour policies through "Iraq goggles" and can't see what's reall going on.

[T_i_B]

8. That's quite funny really that you've mentioned that

As in 2001 the Labour manifesto expressly promised NOT to introduce top-up fees. Since then top-up fees have been introduced. Now given that sort of track record why should we trust anything that is written in the Labour manifesto?

[bennywhale]

12. Not progressive

How can going from having free university education to having to pay for it progressive. They said they wouldn't introduce fees and they did.

They are terrified of annoyimg the monied with tax rises to pay for it so they make the student pay for it.

And this policy has been shown (opinion polls) to put off parents persuading their kids to go to university, as a lot like mine have been brought up to avoid debt. And 12 to 30K debt over three years is a lot of debt.

Its a Tax on learning. Disgraceful

[Anarcho-Socialist]

2. I've always liked Brown's economic philosophy

called "endogenous growth theory", as opposed to the Tories' beloved monetarist philosophy. I have absolutely no idea what macroeconomic policy the Lib Dems have, although someone is welcome to tell me.

Endogenous growth economists believe that improvements in productivity are linked to a faster pace of innovation and extra investment in human capital (human capital = people. "Investment in human capital" = healthcare, education and standard of living; thus investing in people, for it is they who provide economic returns). Proponents of endogenous growth theory stress a central role for 'knowledge' as a determinant of economic growth.

A high knowledge economy is able to develop and maintain a competitive advantage in growth industries in the global economy. The higher educated the people = the higher return of economic growth.

I like this economic philosophy because it stresses Britain's advantages. As a country we lack rich primary resources, but we have a lot of people on our island. Subsequently our GDP is dominanted by the ever-increasing service sector. It's about making the most of human capital to achieve economic growth through the service sector. The emphasis on people does attract me as a socialist.

[tjwmason]

3. I'm not so sure that it's focussed on people

It's part of the shift from having a 'personel department' to having a 'human resources department'.

We are no longer people, and valued for that and that above all - but rather we are economic agents.

Certainly ideas which make productivity growth endogenous are superior to those in which it is exogenous, in that they seek to understand how we can improve rather than just sitting back and expecting improvement.

But it still puts the entire aim as the increase of G.D.P. - G.D.P. is not people, it is just a large number which makes very little sense to most people.

Neo-classical endogenous growth theory is still part of the capitalist system - it simply bolts on another element (human capital), and thus still contributes to the de-humanisation of the population.

This was my biggest irritant when I was studying economics, so much of it is mathematical that we simply become the output of equations rather than actual people.

I'm certainly not calling for lower living standards - but I do think that we need to take a large step back and raise questions of where we seek to go as a nation. What is the trade-off between an extra 25 basis points of economic growth in terms of personal alienation - in terms of the dilution of family life - in terms of our living environment &c.&c.

[T_i_B]

9. Not convinced

As I don't see what policies "endogenous growth theory" mean in practice. It just looks like another bunch of "new" Labour platitudes.

I'm not looking for management consultant gobbledygook and incomprehensible platitudes, I'm looking for actual policies that I can support.

[tjwmason]

11. N.C.E.G.T. is not management gobbledygook

It's economist gobbledygook.

The biggest point which it makes is the necessity of creating 'knowledge' and 'skills' within the workforce - in terms of policy this would lead to a great concentration on education and skills - not quite the same thing as university top-up fees in my humble opinion.

[Taxloss]

4. Sure Start is lifting children out of poverty.

Labour has done more to combat poverty than any party in 30 years.

Primary education is improving fast - as those children move up, higher tiers will improve.

The NHS is improving - waiting lists are falling. Labour is investing. MRSA took hold in the Conservative time, and is being combated effectively. NHS Direct has massively improved primary care waiting times - a service the Conservative would cut within their first 100 days, while breaking up the NHS.

Clearer joined-up thinking in local government and better funding systems will mean far more high-quality local hubs for things like nurseries, clinics, primary schools and old folks' homes - community campuses will spread across the country in a third term.

There is unparalleled investment in housing. In another Labour term, poor housing will be eradicated. No more overcrowded and disease-causing conditions for the poorest families.

Independence for the Bank of England has led to stability in interest rates - politics is no longer a factor.

The minimum wage speaks for itself.

Devolution, and London government, speak for themselves.

Labour has guaranteed that the employment rights of those working in contracted-out public services match those of public employees.

Labour is transforming this country. Don't let the Tories ruin it.

NB I won't be voting Labour.

[fedsron2us]

5. Me thinks Labour claims too much

Lifting children out of poverty.

The prospects of the poor are actually declining in the UK

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1469361,00.html

Clearer joined-up thinking in local government and better funding systems will mean far more high-quality local hubs for things like nurseries, clinics, primary schools and old folks' homes - community campuses will spread across the country in a third term.

You can not have elderly or infirm relatives in Britain otherwise you would know that 'old folks homes' are now virtually non existent in the UK.

There is unparalleled investment in housing. In another Labour term, poor housing will be eradicated. No more overcrowded and disease-causing conditions for the poorest families.

This appears to be a meglomaniac policy to demolish thousands of properties that could be saved by renovation so that more public money can be stuffed into the greedy pockets of the major housebuilders

http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/newsletter/issue23/part1.htm

Independence for the Bank of England has led to stability in interest rates - politics is no longer a factor.

Interest rates are set to appease the financial community. The fact that ordinary people have no direct influence via the ballot box over something that effects their every day lives is a scandal. A nation run by appointed establishment apparatiks can hardly be called a democracy.

Labour has guaranteed that the employment rights of those working in contracted-out public services match those of public employees.

This is called TUPE. It is based on the EU Acquired Rights Directive and existed long before Blair came to power. I actually experienced it first hand when my job was outsourced in the John Major era.

Blair's political slogan in this election appears to be - Vote Labour, we may be shit but we are not as crap as the Tories.

This is just sad.

edit for more links

[Taxloss]

6. You're wrong.

Half a million children have been lifted out of poverty.

It is state-run better facilities for the elderly that Labour intends to bring back across the country in a third term. "Bundling" facilities onto single campuses has been trialled in the second term and will be rolled out nationally in a third term. It means that more than one govt department pays, and thus helps keep spending under control - that's "joined up". Who did I hear this from? Ian McCartney. Who closed those facilities? The Tories. And yes, I have elderly relatives, some of whom could not be cared for at home. Thanks for the ad hominem attack.

Demolition works. Google about the Eldonian Village in Liverpool - demolition worked there, and that's the model that's being followed. A tiny fraction of homes are being demolished, homes that otherwise would sink into ruin. This investment is turning around deprived Northern neighbourhoods.

You would rather the control of interest rates was with chancellors of the exchequer panicking over sterling crises, like Norman Lamont? Mr Black Wednesday? Mr elected by the people? You would like the money in your pocket to jump up and down in value to please opinion polls?

As for TUPE, the entire point of Labour's rule change was that they gave the rights you enjoyed under TUPE to workers who weren't covered - they already worked for the contractor, or they were hired later. Now they enjoy the benefits you did. They were hideously exploited before, now they aren't. And you never even noticed.

[fedsron2us]

13. All I can tell you is that I have worked in and around government

for more than 25 years and in my experience the current Labour administration is as hard hearted and ruthless as any of its immediate Tory predecessors. Ask any of the 235,000 public sector workers who will lose their jobs in the next two years what they think about Blair and Brown's promises to protect workers rights.

http://www.epolitix.com/EN/News/200504/22761c30-6d94-48da-b307-8f7d986da080.htm

With regard to the setting of interest rates, Lamont may have been a fool, but at least he was elected and the the populace could vote him out of office. This can not be done with the current Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England. If you are claiming economic stability is better than democracy then you are using an argument that that was popular with certain European dictatorships of the 1930's. It is certainly not a reason to vote Labour.

The sad fact is that the Parliamentary Labour party has swallowed the Thatcherite neoliberal economic agenda hook, line and sinker.Worse its engaged in a premeditated war of aggression in Iraq that has almost certainly breached international law and resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians. No amount of domestic posturing is going to wash away that stain. If you feel happy voting to support a party that has probably engaged in war crimes then thats your privilege. I am just glad that I will not be joining you.

edit for links

[Taxloss]

15. Considering how Labour has swelled the ranks of the civil service,

235,000 sounds tough, but not insurmountable.

As for your concerns on the setting of interest rates, I think you need to be reminded what Thatcherism was really like. A hint: cuts, cuts, cuts, cuts, cuts, cuts, cuts in the war against inflation. If you think Labour has been like that in office, you haven't been paying attention. And your comparison with fascism is really, really classy.

I don't call a genuine attempt to eradicate poverty and illiteracy "domestic posturing". I strongly oppose the Iraq war and - get this - will not be voting for Labour, something you would have learned if you had read my original post more carefully, if you read it at all. I would say you have forgotten exactly what living under a Conservative government feels like.

[fedsron2us]

19. Those workers about to lose their jobs

will be glad to know that their problems are not 'insurmountable'. I do not really see how these cuts are in any way, shape or form different to those imposed on the civil service or other public sector workers in the Thatcher era. The fact that the Labour party created some jobs before destroying them is hardly an argument in their favour. The same could be said of IBM, Marks & Spencers or any other large employer. The reality is that Blair has sold out the Labour movement to big business. People like Alan Milburn with their large financial retainers from private healthcare companies have been actively promoting an agenda for putting the machinery of government in the hands of large corporations. As a consequence vast areas of public expenditure are excluded from the scrutiny of Parliamentary committees. This is a very strange form of democracy. New Labour's policies if followed to their inevitable conclusion will lead to a corporatist state not unlike that envisaged by Mussolini in the 1930's

http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Germany/mussolini.htm

I know you think this argument is ludicrous but I would ask you to read Lawrence Britts article 'Fascism Anyone'. He lists 14 common threads for identifying the slide to a totalitarian society.

http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/britt_23_2.htm

From the denial of the human rights of asylum seekers, through detention without trial, to the use of wars of aggression as an instrument of foreign policy Blair's government has slowly but inexorably begun to tick its way through the list.

edit for link

[non sociopath skin]

7. Little to add to the excellent stuff above ....

... except to point out, as I have all the way through this campaign, that we can't allow the political discourse to move any further to the right and it is clear that there is only one way available to prevent that in practical terms.

Then the REAL work starts ...

The Skin

[T_i_B]

10. I said WITHOUT recourse to those arguments

And even then, I don't think that the likes of David Blunkett are going to do anything to stop the right wing drift in UK politics. They certainly didn't in the last parliament. All we got was PFI, foundation hospitals, immigrant-bashing, attacks on our civil liberties and of course Iraq. If that genuinely was the idea in the last parliament then I can't say that Labour has been a success.

I find the "Vote for us or it's the Tories" to be rather puerile. I need proof that a Labour MP will be different (and indeed better) then my current Tory MP and I'm not even convinced of that.

[non sociopath skin]

14. So is your Labour candidate racist?

The Skin

[T_i_B]

16. Is the Labour immigration policy all that different?

Like I keep trying to tell you, I want to try and debate POLICY here, something which so far you have utterly failed to do. I have no interest in pathetic "Vote for us or it's the Tories" arguments. The only tactics I have bothered with so far today are where to stand on the platform on Chelmsford train station and I want to keep it that way.

If you can't tell me what's so good about what the Labour party policy proposals then why are you even on this thread?

[non sociopath skin]

17. Did that bit of foot-stomping make you feel better, Thanx?

As it turned out, I suspect that a lot of people made their decision yesterday as much on what they DIDN'T want as what they did.

Policy-wonkery takes you only so far, even in Essex.

The Skin

[T_i_B]

18. No, but not voting Labour made me feel a lot better.

And you have just shown why I tend to dislike the Labour party very well. I made the following comment in the original post.

"And I need you to do it WITHOUT recourse to "vote Labour or it's the Tories" arguments. Tell me what's so good about what Labour proposes do do in the next parliament."

This you have utterly failed to do. Even when I asked you about Blair's immigration policy you did not answer, which kinda gives me the impression that Labour is just as bad on immigration as the Tories. All you have done is to recycle the very same arguments that I specifically asked people NOT to use on this thread.

Why should I vote for a party whose policies I do not like? And more to the point, why should I vote for a party whose supporters are unwilling or unable to tell me about what policies they wish to introduce in the next parliament. I don't want to go and vote for a party under false pretenses.

[non sociopath skin]

20. Next time I post, I shall take care that I obey your instructions, Thanx.

I really feel guilty about moving away from your agenda.:nopity:
:nopity: :nopity:

Did you vote LibDem? If so, I imagine you must be getting quite excited waiting to see what their policies are going to be.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=191x4383

I remain, Sir, your obedient servant,&c &c
The Skin

[T_i_B]

21. So you are still unable or unwilling...

...to present the case for the Labour manifesto. Most interesting.

Time was back in 1997 that Labour could talk policy. Time was when Labour could talk about the good they were going to do in the next parliament till the cows came home. Now it seems that Labour supporters would rather talk about anything else but that. I think that your stream of evasions on this thread speaks volumes about the government's programme N_S_S.