Politika u UK

[Dr Arslanagić]

[bigvlada]

Corbynomics offers hope of a New Deal for low-paid workers

Prem Sikka

 

Away from the soap opera, the Labour leader is laying the foundations to more fairly distribute Britain’s wealth

 

Wednesday 3 August 2016 18.35 BST Last modified on Wednesday 3 August 2016 22.00 BST

 

The media circus around Jeremy Corbyn’s bid to retain leadership of the Labour party focuses too much on the personalities and not enough on the economic policies, which actually show a latter-day New Deal in the making.

 

Corbyn has rejected the trickle-down economic theory favoured by the Conservatives and New Labour. The liberal economist JK Galbraith likened it to the “horse-and-sparrow theory”, which argued that if you continue to feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows. Well, the sparrows have seen their share of the economy shrink.

 

The data published by the Office for National Statistics show that at the end of 2015, workers’ share of gross domestic product (GDP) sank to 49.7% (see Table D on page 44 of the PDF file downloadable from here), compared with 65.1% in 1976. This is the biggest rate of decline in any western economy. Proponents of neoliberalism claim that workers’ low share of the GDP is the outcome of market forces. Yet it is hard to recall any public demand for low wages and accompanying social squalor. Wages are the outcome of the power of labour and that has been severely eroded by government-sponsored weakening of trade unions. In 1979, the UK had 13 million trade union members, representing 55.4% of the workforce. By 2014, despite a larger total workforce, trade union membership had declined to about 6.4 million, representing about 25% of all workers. The weakening of trade unions has eroded the workers’ ability to negotiate with employers.

 

A key strand of Corbyn’s policies is to strengthen workers’ ability to secure a larger share of the wealth generated by their own brawn, brain and skills. Towards this end, Corbyn has promised to repeal anti-trade union laws and promote collective bargaining by giving employees the right to organise through a union and negotiate their pay, terms and conditions at work.

 

Any mention of “collective bargaining” is likely to send neoliberals into convulsions even though big business has been using collective bargaining for decades to advance its interests. Banks, supermarkets, phone, gas, water, electricity and other companies collectively negotiate with governments to secure their economic interests. Finance directors of the 100 largest UK-listed companies, known as The 100 Group, pool their resources to secure advantages by shaping consumer protection, tax, regulation, competition, trade and other government policies. If big business is able to engage in collective bargaining, it is only fair that workers should also be enabled by law to collectively advance their interests.

 

Boosting workers’ share of GDP seems to be a key part of Corbyn’s policies, as without adequate purchasing power people cannot stimulate the economy. An alternative would be to encourage people to borrow and spend, but that route led us to the 2007-08 financial crisis and danger signs are already flashing. Currently, personal debt stands at £1.48tn and is projected to rise to £2.5tn by 2020. The capacity of individuals to take on additional borrowing is low and redistribution of income is the only sustainable policy.

 

With this in mind, Corbyn advocates wage councils to set working conditions, a decent living wage and the abolition of zero-hours contracts to end the appalling insecurity caused by such working arrangements. Public sector workers have faced wage freezes and cuts in their real wages since 2008. They too have family responsibilities and Corbyn has promised to provide “an inflation-plus pay rise for public sector workers”. He has called for an end to workplace discrimination by requiring firms to publish data about the gender pay gap.

 

Further changes to dialogue about a division of the economic cake come through proposals to change corporate governance. Corbyn particularly wants to enact measures that would prevent directors and shareholders from extracting cash and then dumping companies, leaving employees, pension scheme members and taxpayers to pick up the tab. In the coming days we may well hear more about how workers and other stakeholders are to be represented on the boards of large companies, together with details of stakeholder votes on limiting excessive executive remuneration.

 

 

Jobs and prospects of decent pay would be boosted by investment in infrastructure and new industries. Labour has promised to create a new national investment bank and invest £500bn to reinvigorate the economy.

 

The burden of debt on young people and their families would be reduced by the abolition of tuition fees. This would enable many to start businesses and join the home ownership ladder, which is an increasingly distant dream for many.

 

Corbyn has been upfront about how various financial measures are to be funded. These include a marginal rate of 50% on taxable incomes above £150,000 and an increase in corporation tax rate. A reversal of the £15bn corporation tax cut announced by the chancellor in March alone would fund the abolition of the £10bn tuition fee.

 

In a relatively short time, Corbyn has laid foundations of a New Deal that would ensure economic gains are shared more equitably. Of course, lots more needs to be done – and the media can play a vital role in stimulating the debate rather than obsessing over personalities.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/03/corbynomics-new-deal-low-paid-workers-labour-leader

 

Kako je spomenuto u onom drugom članku na temi o ostrvima sa blagom, preovlađujuća ideja među konzervativcima je potpuno obrnuta stvar, smanjenje poreza za korporacije i pretvaranje Londona u destinaciju za pranje para (ovaj put otvoreno).

[dragance]

 

preovlađujuća ideja među konzervativcima je [...] pretvaranje Londona u destinaciju za pranje para (ovaj put otvoreno).

 

 

 

[Dr Arslanagić]

Prilično dosadna debata između Korbina i Smita. Korbin pričao sve isto što i zadnjih godinu dana a Smit samo Yes, Jeremy, but we have to win first.

[Budja]

Jebe Ovena ta spika "dobar ti je program (osim Tridenta), ali ti si zarozan". Neautenticno je.

 

The problem with Smith is that he comes across as so insufferably pleased with himself.

Edited August 5, 2016 by Budja

[bigvlada]

 

Izvoli se informisati

 

http://www.parapsihopatologija.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=19900

 

a onda pređi na udaranje glavom o zid, možda ti pomogne. 

[Prospero]

Putin fluffer
 
 
 

It’s time for a thaw in our relations with Russia 

Tony Brenton10 August 2016 • 6:21pm

It is good news that Theresa May has spoken to Vladimir Putin, and that they have agreed to meet at next month’s G20 Summit in China. Our relations have been at a counterproductive low for far too long. A thaw is long overdue.

There were, at the time it occurred, compelling reasons for the freeze. As British Ambassador in Moscow, I witnessed the poisoning by the Russian security services of Alexander Litvinenko, Russian attacks on the operations of British oil companies there, and a systematic campaign of harassment and intimidation directed at me personally. Since then we have had the annexation of Crimea, the fomenting of civil war in Ukraine, the felling of flight MH17, and Russia’s backing for the unspeakable president Assad of Syria.
So the charge sheet is long, and the chill has gone deep. Of all major Western nations, we have probably maintained the hardest line on Russia. Our links with the Russian intelligence agencies have been frozen since the Litvinenko murder. Exchanges at the highest level have been few and frosty. We have led the demand for tough EU sanctions, and excluded ourselves from Franco-German efforts to find a negotiated solution to the Ukraine problem. And while even America is looking for a way forward with the Russians on Syria, we seem to be standing pat on the simple demand for Assad to go.

Other Western countries have now begun to rebuild their links with Russia. There is a growing queue of senior ministers and even prime ministers visiting Moscow. Support for sanctions is weakening. We too should now rethink.

There are the normal prudential reasons for this – British business has been very uncomfortable with our outlier stance. But the arguments go beyond that. While the sanctions have demonstrated international disapproval of Russian actions in Ukraine, they have not altered Russian policy one jot, and show no prospect of doing so. In fact, and entirely predictably, they have cemented Russian public support for their president as he presents himself as standing up to a hostile West.

More worryingly, many now see the deep gulf that has opened up between Russia and the West as presaging a “new Cold War”. Talk in Nato is all of the danger of a Russian grab for Estonia. Nato forces in the region are being significantly augmented, with the US in particular announcing a quadrupling of its defence expenditure in Europe. The Russians too are rearming, making worrying demonstrations over the Baltic and elsewhere, and regularly referring to the possible relevance of their vast stockpile of nuclear weapons.

This dangerous nonsense has to stop. The picture we are building up in our minds of a revanchist Russia is as absurd as their picture of an aggressive and encircling West. Russian military expenditure is one tenth of Nato’s and their economy one twentieth. They are not going to take the risk of getting themselves into a losing war. As President Obama among others has noted, they could have taken East Ukraine and didn’t. Those in our security commentariat talking (occasionally with relish) of a new Cold War need to remember more clearly what the old one was like: the bloated military expenditures, the vast arsenals that neither side had complete command of, and the occasional moment of real danger that they might be used.

So it is crucial that we walk back from where we now are. Russia sees the UK as a leading Western hawk. A thawing of our relations with them would be an important step. I am not arguing that we should let our guard down entirely. Russia’s recent actions have revealed a disturbing readiness to break international law and seize national advantage when the opportunity offers. We need to be absolutely clear on Nato’s united readiness to stand firm against such adventures and to support our more exposed allies as and when necessary. But to get the temperature down we also need to be looking for areas where we can expand cooperation. The arrival of the new government opens the possibility of our offering a less cold shoulder to the Ukraine peace process. And on Syria we, like the Americans, have an interest in finding an arrangement with the Russians that will help ease Assad out while focusing our combined attention on the real enemy there: Isil.

Unexpectedly, our change of Foreign Secretary should be helpful in all of this. Philip Hammond, for all his qualities, was counterproductively hard-necked on Russia, describing Putin as a wife-beater and pointlessly demanding what everyone knows is never going to happen – the return of Crimea. Boris Johnson by contrast has, in the pages of this newspaper, recognised the need to “do a deal with the devil” over Syria and acknowledged the EU diplomatic incompetence which helped lead us into the Ukraine morass. He has accordingly evoked a statement from the Russian foreign ministry (no doubt curious as to the role that a post-Brexit Britain intends to play) calling for closer ties. There are traps to be avoided in taking that invitation up, but real costs in not doing so.

 

Sir Tony Brenton is a former UK Ambassador to Moscow

 

[Budja]

Sta je bre ovo u LAB?

 

Watson o trokcistickim infiltratorima, militants, Socialist party (a sto nije isto sto i Socialist Workers Party), neki deda iz osamdesetih Taafe...

 

Jebote, ko Marks 21 protiv Fernoux-a.

[Prospero]

Sud je podrzao NEC u odluci da postavi 12. juli (i clanstvo 6 meseci unazad) kao datum relevantan za pravo na ucestvovanje na izborima za sefa laburista, plus nema ni zalbe na odluku suda, a sto ce iz glasanja izbaciti omo 130000 novih clanova koji su, verovatno, velikom vecinom za Korbina.

 

 

 

 

Jeremy Corbyn supporters cannot appeal Labour leadership ruling

 

 

The Court of Appeal has refused Corbyn supporters permission to appeal today's Labour leadership ruling.

 

Labour's ruling body has won its challenge against a High Court decision allowing new party members to vote in the upcoming leadership election.

 

The outcome is a blow to Jeremy Corbyn’s battle to remain Labour leader, as the majority of those who have recently joined the party are expected to support him over rival Owen Smith.

 

Iain McNicol, the party's general secretary, asked the Court of Appeal to reinstate a block imposed by Labour's National Executive Committee (NEC) on nearly 130,000 recruits getting the vote.

 

The NEC decided on a “freeze date” of 12 July, meaning full members would not be able to vote if they had not had continuous party membership for six months before that date.

 

It banned anyone who had joined the party after 12 January from voting unless they paid an extra £25.

...

[Hamlet Strašni]

Ovi su, da ponovim, gori od DS :-D

 

Послато са SM-G900F уз помоћ Тапатока

[Prospero]

UKIP demise would put Labour on track for landslide loss: report

 

Policy – POLITICO / by Hortense Goulard / 3 days ago

 

 

The U.K. Labour Party could lose up to 44 seats to the Tories in a general election if U.K. Independence Party (UKIP) voters swing to vote Conservative, a report released Thursday found.

 

The report, compiled by an academic for the Sun, argues that as a result of UKIP’s leadership vacuum and power struggle after former leader Nigel Farage’s resignation, and the fallout from the U.K.’s vote to leave the EU, as many as half of the supporters could instead vote Conservative in the next general election.

 

In that scenario, 44 seats could swing to Theresa May’s Tories, leading to a landslide victory with the party taking more than one hundred seats.

 

This is likely because one in two UKIP voters had sided with the Conservatives prior to the 2014 European election, the report states.

 

...

[bigvlada]

Sun. 

[Prospero]

Sun je podržao pobedničku stranu na referendumu, molim lepo

[Prospero]

Jeremy Corbyn called for Nato to be closed down and members to 'give up, go home and go away'

19 August 2016 • 8:00pm

 

Jeremy Corbyn has called for Nato to be "closed down", it emerged today as defence chiefs warned his comments about the organisation are "weakening western civilisation”. 

In footage uncovered by the Telegraph the Labour leader said the military alliance was an "engine for the delivery of oil to the oil companies" and called for it to "give up, go home and go away."

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4zaNJnpLOQ

Mr Corbyn on Thursday was criticised after he refused to say whether he would defend a Nato ally if it were invaded by Russia.

 

Military chiefs said that his comments were "extremely harmful" and warned the public would find his views "disgusting". 

Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former Nato General Secretary, said Mr Corbyn’s opinions were "tempting President Putin to aggression" and compared his views to those of the American presidential candidate Donald Trump. 

 

In September 2014, Mr Corbyn was filmed declaring: “1990 should have been the time for Nato to shut up shop, give up, go home and go away. Why don’t we turn it around, and close down Nato?

“Nato is an engine for the delivery of oil to the oil companies and the major nations of this world, make no illusions about that.”

During a leadership hustings in Birmingham on Thursday night Mr Corbyn was asked multiple times at a leadership debate if he would uphold the Nato principle of "collective defence" where an attack against one member is considered an attack against all.

 

But he refused to give concrete assurance that he would do so were he prime minister. Instead he said: “I would want to avoid us getting involved military, by building up democratic relationships."

When pushed on whether he would sign off on the UK going to the aid of a Nato ally, he said: "I don't wish to go to war. What I want to do is achieve a world where we don't need to go to war, where there is no need for it. That can be done."

 

Mr Rasmussen told the Telegraph: "I am very concerned about his unwillingness to say clearly that Nato of course will defend any ally if they are attacked. Solidarity within the defence alliance is Nato’s raison d’être.

"In line with Mr Trump in the United States, Mr Corbyn now raises doubt about this commitment to defend friends and allies. Thus they are tempting President Putin to aggression and they are weakening Nato and the entire Western civilisation.”

Mr Corbyn's comments come two years after the 28-member alliance created a rapid-reaction force to protect the most vulnerable Nato members against a confrontation with Russia.

 

Lord Roberson, the former Labour defence secretary and Secretary General of Nato, said: "It beggars belief that the leader of the party most responsible for the collective security pact of Nato should be so reckless as to undermine it by refusing to say he would come to the aid of an ally.

"Even in its darkest, daftest days in the past the Labour Party stuck to its commitment to Nato and to the defence of any ally attacked.

"The public will be dismayed and disgusted by what appears to be an abdication of Britain's responsibility in a dangerous world."

John Woodcok, the Labour MP for Barrow and Furness, said Mr Corbyn's views on Nato made him feel "deeply ashamed" and said his stance was a "stain on the memory" of the former Labour prime minister Clement Attlee.

 

Jeremy Corbyn’s refusal to say whether he would defend Britain’s Nato allies plays into the hands of Vladimir Putin and shows little understanding of the threat from Russia, a prominent Estonian MP has said.

The 1.3m population Baltic nation is on the front line of Nato’s standoff with Moscow, and its armed forces are dwarfed by Russian forces just across the border. Britain last month announced 500 troops would be sent to the country as part of a Nato move to bolster its presence in the country.

 

Marko Mikhelson said Mr Corbyn’s stance “reflects little understanding of the real true challenge for not only Nato, but also for the UK".

He said if Mr Corbyn wanted normal relations with Russia, he would first have to be part of Nato’s deterrence.

 

He said: “Russia is playing by completely different rules, using aggression, using occupation, annexation of their neighbours.

“Russia is very much after to weaken Western alliances, both EU and Nato and these kinds of remarks unfortunately play into the hands of those who would like to see Nato weak and disintegrated.

“Its one thing when you [make these remarks] in opposition, or seeking votes, but in real terms when you face the national security interests of your own country, then you will realise that Nato is the best answer today to keep countries safe and sound.”

 

[Budja]

Putin kupio drugu i trecu partiju u UK (LAB i UKIP).

 

Komicna je ta opsednutost Putinom.