Quote:
Originally Posted by Damien
You don't have to convince me about Corbyn, I was banging that drum back when people thought his candidacy was a joke. Now he is a lot closer to No 10 than most of us expected.
But his ascendency is at least in part down the Tories own ineptitude. They played games that came back to haunt them. Drastically cutting benefits for some, freezing public sector pay and doing little to address the cost of living crisis. A lot of the economic growth we did get, which remained sluggish for the last 7 years, has been fuelled by consumer debt as opposed to any great gains to productivity.
And yet despite all that they kept missing their own targets for eliminating the deficit because they weren't able to get the gains in the economy they wanted and weren't actually beyond spending on benefits so long as it was for 'their' voters.
Tuition frees tripled, young people were priced out of the housing market and/or went into less secure work than their parents, people in the public sector effectively saw their pay cut accounting for inflation whereas others struggled.
Corbyn may not have the solution for these, the housing charity Shelter disapprove of rent controls for example, but the Tories didn't offer any for years. Theresa May actually did spot this weakness, even co-opting some of Ed Miliband's ideas about predatory capitalism, but it was too late. That last point also highlights why I think the obsession over party can be unhealthy since she offered ideas deemed insane just twos years before...
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The problem the Tories have is that Brexit is totally swamping the process of Government. The civil service can only handle 1 'massive" project at once: they are not sized to run the country and have spare capacity to handle the 40+ year complexity that is unravelling the EU exit process.
As a result, "good" Government is effectively on hold for the next 2 years. All they can do is react and band-aid. Strategy policy making requires skill, time and a realistic Parliamentary majority. Mrs May has none of these.
The country will see inflation going up, a looming credit crisis, a resurgent risk-taking City fuelled by near 2008-level bonuses and they will reflect on the brutal cuts of local and national Government services. They will ask why not give Labour a go? Some of the policies make sense to many e.g. re-nationalisation of key infrastructure, curtailing the ever increasing wealth disparity, etc.
All Corbyn has to do is try and walk the Brexit tightrope long enough to not alienate one side or the other. If he can get to the next Election having done this then I feel he would be favourite to win.
What will be interesting is that when/if Corbyn gets into power, will the people who endlessly complain that criticising Brexit is "undemocratic", immediately shut up when Corbyn is voted into No 10. by the "will of the people"? No way .. talk about hypocrisy .. Jeez ...