'Full socialism' is what produced the NHS, British Rail, the BBC, universities, police forces etc. These things are or were entirely owned by the public , via their elected government. And other things could be as well.
@@uktravel8341 Since when were the BBC, the police forces, or universities socialist? These are the hyenas of the bourgeois! The NHS hasn't been truly socialist since 1951. It's a right-wing healthcare system.
@@Myndir It's the principle under which they were created rather than the people who run them technically that is important. Socialism means economic activity run by the public rather than private capital so those things are socialistic measures.
Look at how 40 years ago the average person had such a much better grasp of policy than they do today. Most voters today couldn't name a single manifesto policy of the party they voted for at the last election.
Remember that pretty much everyone who featured in this piece was not an ordinary voter, but an active Labour member. So they are not your average voter.
Now, Mr Rodgers,..there’s a chap who spoke with proper aplomb and hood old common sense, in the Gaitskell, Wilson, Callaghan mode. Would’ve make a superlative PM !
The problem the labour party has had for years - so many of the activists and party members are completely unrepresentative of Labour voters, let alone the wider public.
Henry Silver Democracy is not spontaneous mob rule. Imagine setting off on a coach to Scotland, and then when you reach Birmingham, a load of people board off the street and demand that the journey be diverted to Wales. That’s what’s happened to Labour, and there is not only nothing genuinely democratic about it, but it is also the height of intellectual anarchy. The Tories will run the country forever as long as irresponsible and uneducated fools are let in to the driver’s seat of the party.
@3:10 - There were two elections in 1974. The first one resulted in no party having a majority. The second one gave labour a three-seat majority. Yet the left (and specifically Tony Benn) acted as if the party had won an overwhelming victory and had a mandate from voters to implement massive changes to the economy. From 1974-1979, the best the labour party could do was just hold on to power. They didn't have the votes in the house to pass nationalization or consumer price subsidies. They also didn't have the majority to ride out the consequences of a massive currency devaluation. If, for example, the government had rejected the IMF deal and gone its own way in 1976, the government would have fallen. When the left of the labour party finally fought an election on their full socialist agenda in 1983, they were crushed.
@@kevinlongman007 Tony Benn and many others on the left of the Labour party did not see the country being bankrupt as a negative. They presented an alternative economic plan in 1976 which would have involved a massive devaluation of the pound to boost exports, currency controls and import restrictions. If the policy had been followed, the result would have been to turn back the clock to the Austerity Britain of the late 1940s with rationing of basic commodities. Tony Benn and company saw Austerity Britain perversely as a sort of golden age.
The Wilson and Callaghan governments got a lot of legislation through despite having a small or nonexistent majority and those were progressive Labour policies
@@briandelaney9710 In hindsight they where progressive, but at the time they were more middle-of-the-road. The whole country and even the whole world has moved to the right.
Nationalization was such an obsession for many😅USSR nationalized 99.9% of everything and destroyed most innovation and productivity, still producing and driving cars that were copied from the 60s Western cars in 1991...and so many many things
...But oxidiser rich staged combustion rocket engines so far advanced that the US was still catching up forty years later. Yes I'd rather have a nice car too. My point is that it's not a question of stiffling innovation but misdirecting it. Innovation invariably comes from the human urge to create, not from the profit motive.
@alanywalany6460 it is actually. those labour voting brits would have gotten a shock had they got as much as a glimpse of the standard of living in the official state of "workers and peasants", to say nothing about a complete absence of any semblance of even the most rudimentary political freedoms.
Some of the predictions here are hilariously wrong: the 1980 conference turned out to be the biggest triumph of the Left e.g. in changing the way the leader was elected
You can almost smell the body odor of those sweaty labour meetings. Red faced and suffocated by tobacco smoke, somebody should open a window to get in some fresh air.
tubularbill there wasn’t many to pick from and there’s even less leftwingers now thanks largely to do with labour scrapping a form of Mandatory Reselection in 1990
Shirley Williams and Tony Benn were not even candidates for the leadership in 1980. Foot ran as the candidate of the left in 1980 for the leadership, not because of his popularity, but because he was the least unpopular figure on the left. The left also considered him weak and someone they could push around once he was leader.
Antony Wedgwood Benn might of given up his title but not his money/properties that was put into trust. Do as i do not as i say! My parents hard working class people who didnt like or trust him.
Always thought that made sense. He wanted poor people to be rich, not rich people to be poor. On that at least, Benn and Thatcher were on the same page.
By your rationale I'm guessing you believe that to be a socialist you must be financially poor, live in a small house and live a sparson life otherwise that person is a hypocrite.
If Healey had become Labour leader in 1980, Labour may not have won the 1983 General Election but they certainly would not have lost it as badly as they did.
For any community to prosper and be able to have a social programme with provides vital services ie police, NHS, schools, road sweepers etc etc capitalism and competition is vital as taxes pay for those very important services, to be so dreamily idealistic to deny the need for capitalism in modern societies is I have to say rather foolish.
@Bessie Hillum So why do you pay so much in taxes then? Thatcher once said that Socialism was alright until it ran out of peoples money, so does that include Northern Rock Bank & The Lehman Brothers Bank?!
@@kevinlongman007 Not anymore they're not. Outside of sharing crap on social media, they're not functioning in any practical manner anymore and not just because of the lockdown. Many pro-corbyn/left labour members are dropping momentum like a stone for many reasons but the main one seems to be their willingness to give into the bullshit antisemitism claims presented by the media as being a widespread problem within the left of the party...which of course it isn't. And no, being critical of the way the Israeli government and IDF treat Palestinians in that hemisphere is not the same as promoting pseudo-fascist ideas.
@@whatamalike The election of Starmer as leader over Long Bailey proved that the party still has a strong base of support for centre left policies rather than the neo communist bollocks favoured by Momentum. Now Corbyn has gone hopefully they will too. Also the fact is that Kier Starmer will prove to be a far more credible leader than Long Bailey could ever have hoped to be.
@@kevinlongman007 Maybe I'm suffering from selective hearing, but I've barely heard a peep out of starmer since he became leader. Say what you want about corbyn, he was always pressing the point of anti austerity and a feckless working class suplexed him for his troubles! Nobody is going to convince me that a poisonous media full of self interest had nothing to do with December's outcome...
@@whatamalike Typical Momentum thinking...blame the Mainstream media. Yes Corbyn had a rough ride but no worse than Brown in 2010 or Miliband in 2015 and both won more seats than Corbyn did in December. The manifesto was the main problem. It promised the Earth and people did not believe it.
Bill Rodgers speaks a lot of sense. Social democracy might be a bit bland, but it's far more palatable to the electorate than full socialism.
'Full socialism' is what produced the NHS, British Rail, the BBC, universities, police forces etc. These things are or were entirely owned by the public , via their elected government. And other things could be as well.
@@uktravel8341Pretty sure universities and the police force predate socialism, fam.
@@uktravel8341 Since when were the BBC, the police forces, or universities socialist? These are the hyenas of the bourgeois!
The NHS hasn't been truly socialist since 1951. It's a right-wing healthcare system.
@@Myndir It's the principle under which they were created rather than the people who run them technically that is important. Socialism means economic activity run by the public rather than private capital so those things are socialistic measures.
@@guidadiehl9176 Socialism dates to about 1780 or so. Robert Owen etc. Most universities and all the police forces were created after that time.
Look at how 40 years ago the average person had such a much better grasp of policy than they do today. Most voters today couldn't name a single manifesto policy of the party they voted for at the last election.
Remember that pretty much everyone who featured in this piece was not an ordinary voter, but an active Labour member. So they are not your average voter.
The Falklands conflict propelled Thatcher on in 1983
Now, Mr Rodgers,..there’s a chap who spoke with proper aplomb and hood old common sense, in the Gaitskell, Wilson, Callaghan mode. Would’ve make a superlative PM !
The problem the labour party has had for years - so many of the activists and party members are completely unrepresentative of Labour voters, let alone the wider public.
Still so true to this day
1:51 yeah right!
Until Labour returns to selection of the leader by MPs instead of people who joined the party two weeks ago, the party will be doomed.
Henry Silver Democracy is not spontaneous mob rule. Imagine setting off on a coach to Scotland, and then when you reach Birmingham, a load of people board off the street and demand that the journey be diverted to Wales. That’s what’s happened to Labour, and there is not only nothing genuinely democratic about it, but it is also the height of intellectual anarchy. The Tories will run the country forever as long as irresponsible and uneducated fools are let in to the driver’s seat of the party.
That’s how Blair was chosen. By the electoral college
So the party should be a dictatorship then
@Bessie Hillum Keir Starmer has worked out well. Labour are actually electable again and the far left Corbyn cult are a diminishing bunch thankfully
@3:10 - There were two elections in 1974. The first one resulted in no party having a majority. The second one gave labour a three-seat majority. Yet the left (and specifically Tony Benn) acted as if the party had won an overwhelming victory and had a mandate from voters to implement massive changes to the economy. From 1974-1979, the best the labour party could do was just hold on to power. They didn't have the votes in the house to pass nationalization or consumer price subsidies. They also didn't have the majority to ride out the consequences of a massive currency devaluation. If, for example, the government had rejected the IMF deal and gone its own way in 1976, the government would have fallen.
When the left of the labour party finally fought an election on their full socialist agenda in 1983, they were crushed.
If Labour had not accepted the loan from the IMF in 1976 the country would have been bankrupt.
@@kevinlongman007 Tony Benn and many others on the left of the Labour party did not see the country being bankrupt as a negative. They presented an alternative economic plan in 1976 which would have involved a massive devaluation of the pound to boost exports, currency controls and import restrictions. If the policy had been followed, the result would have been to turn back the clock to the Austerity Britain of the late 1940s with rationing of basic commodities. Tony Benn and company saw Austerity Britain perversely as a sort of golden age.
@@Jim-Tuner That is the reason why the likes of Tony Benn were never fit to lead the Labour Party and why Foot stood as Leader in 1980.
The Wilson and Callaghan governments got a lot of legislation through despite having a small or nonexistent majority and those were progressive Labour policies
@@briandelaney9710 In hindsight they where progressive, but at the time they were more middle-of-the-road. The whole country and even the whole world has moved to the right.
Very obvious from this documentary which side the person doing the voice-over is on. Not the slightest pretence of impartiality.
Nationalization was such an obsession for many😅USSR nationalized 99.9% of everything and destroyed most innovation and productivity, still producing and driving cars that were copied from the 60s Western cars in 1991...and so many many things
Wow that's such an accurate assessment of reality >_>
...But oxidiser rich staged combustion rocket engines so far advanced that the US was still catching up forty years later.
Yes I'd rather have a nice car too. My point is that it's not a question of stiffling innovation but misdirecting it. Innovation invariably comes from the human urge to create, not from the profit motive.
@alanywalany6460 it is actually. those labour voting brits would have gotten a shock had they got as much as a glimpse of the standard of living in the official state of "workers and peasants", to say nothing about a complete absence of any semblance of even the most rudimentary political freedoms.
Some of the predictions here are hilariously wrong: the 1980 conference turned out to be the biggest triumph of the Left e.g. in changing the way the leader was elected
You can almost smell the body odor of those sweaty labour meetings. Red faced and suffocated by tobacco smoke, somebody should open a window to get in some fresh air.
Back when Labour was actually still working-class. God forbid.
So Michael Foot is on the bottom of the list at 8% and he is picked as the new leader....gotta love the left...lol
tubularbill there wasn’t many to pick from and there’s even less leftwingers now thanks largely to do with labour scrapping a form of Mandatory Reselection in 1990
Gotta love polls you mean
Shirley Williams and Tony Benn were not even candidates for the leadership in 1980. Foot ran as the candidate of the left in 1980 for the leadership, not because of his popularity, but because he was the least unpopular figure on the left. The left also considered him weak and someone they could push around once he was leader.
@@Jim-Tuner Shirley Williams was not a candidate because she was not an MP in 1980...she lost her seat in the 1979 General Election!
You just know Rodger is Owen Jones daddy
Antony Wedgwood Benn might of given up his title but not his money/properties that was put into trust.
Do as i do not as i say! My parents hard working class people who didnt like or trust him.
Always thought that made sense. He wanted poor people to be rich, not rich people to be poor. On that at least, Benn and Thatcher were on the same page.
By your rationale I'm guessing you believe that to be a socialist you must be financially poor, live in a small house and live a sparson life otherwise that person is a hypocrite.
No they are mainly white, middle-class metropolitan
If Healey had become Labour leader in 1980, Labour may not have won the 1983 General Election but they certainly would not have lost it as badly as they did.
But it wouldn't have been the real.Labour Party
Healey only stood to stop Benn
With the traitor.Kinnock help etc
For any community to prosper and be able to have a social programme with provides vital services ie police, NHS, schools, road sweepers etc etc capitalism and competition is vital as taxes pay for those very important services, to be so dreamily idealistic to deny the need for capitalism in modern societies is I have to say rather foolish.
All of those vital services can be provided for directly through private means instead of via the government.
Those working (& have worked!) are already paying a NHS stamp! And still have to pay extra now for more services that have been privatised!
@Bessie Hillum So everything should be private then...........................?!
@Bessie Hillum So why do you pay so much in taxes then? Thatcher once said that Socialism was alright until it ran out of peoples money, so does that include Northern Rock Bank & The Lehman Brothers Bank?!
@Bessie Hillum What really! So you dont recall Thatcher saying that then?!
What was taken out of the report?
Labour members: can we have a democratic party please the right: trotskyists and tony benn are trying to take over pur party
No Momentum are trying to take over the party.
@@kevinlongman007 Not anymore they're not. Outside of sharing crap on social media, they're not functioning in any practical manner anymore and not just because of the lockdown. Many pro-corbyn/left labour members are dropping momentum like a stone for many reasons but the main one seems to be their willingness to give into the bullshit antisemitism claims presented by the media as being a widespread problem within the left of the party...which of course it isn't.
And no, being critical of the way the Israeli government and IDF treat Palestinians in that hemisphere is not the same as promoting pseudo-fascist ideas.
@@whatamalike The election of Starmer as leader over Long Bailey proved that the party still has a strong base of support for centre left policies rather than the neo communist bollocks favoured by Momentum. Now Corbyn has gone hopefully they will too. Also the fact is that Kier Starmer will prove to be a far more credible leader than Long Bailey could ever have hoped to be.
@@kevinlongman007 Maybe I'm suffering from selective hearing, but I've barely heard a peep out of starmer since he became leader. Say what you want about corbyn, he was always pressing the point of anti austerity and a feckless working class suplexed him for his troubles!
Nobody is going to convince me that a poisonous media full of self interest had nothing to do with December's outcome...
@@whatamalike Typical Momentum thinking...blame the Mainstream media. Yes Corbyn had a rough ride but no worse than Brown in 2010 or Miliband in 2015 and both won more seats than Corbyn did in December. The manifesto was the main problem. It promised the Earth and people did not believe it.
The brilliant Heffer talks so much sense.
Bill Rodgers was a joke.
@Bessie Hillum 🤣 I can't stand him either...no, his book on Enoch Powell is excellent.