Comments on: Bradford and Bingley 10.14pm Sunday

By: john edwards

john edwards — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 11:42:20 +0000

So you gloated over the question but couldn’t stomach the answer; well, well.

Of course, one question I will never have to answer and you surely will is, “Why did you vote for that war daddy?”.

By: john edwards

john edwards — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 15:35:03 +0000

Sadly Tom, my pension won’t come anywhere near the gold-plated one we’re all having to stack up for you.

Helped deliver a range of equality measures in local government before it became fashionable. Protected a few jobs and shielded public services in Sandwell during the 18 years of Thatcher. About 5,000 bits of casework sorted over the years, numerous evictions stopped through intervention, benefits that were worrying people reinstated, you know the kind of thing.

Couple of anti-fascist organisations started and supported, just keeping busy really. Oh, and when I had a proper job I was a firefighter. Bit more satisfaction in that than being a trade union fixer…And of course, I’ve always paid my own supermarket bills.

How about you?

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 12:20:42 +0000

LOL. And there was me thinking we were engaged in the struggle of ideas John.

Now that you’re about to get that retirement pension, I’d be interested to know how your liflelong mission to emancipate the working class has made a difference. What achievements are you passing on to the next generation?

By: Jacob

Jacob — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 23:12:13 +0000

You must be the one remaining Labour party member not to think that a bland Blairite assemblage of nothingnitis verbiage. In the same way that ‘My vision for a young country’ was nothing more than a laugh. In concrete economic terms how exactly would you describe wealth being in the hands of the many, not just the few? I wager you haven’t a clue. Don’t you think that, having read Rawls, jokers like Gidden’s should simply be flushed down the toilet.

By: john edwards

john edwards — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 13:14:28 +0000

Quaint? The notion of socialism quaint?

Oh dear; I’m afraid the soft leather under the buttocks, the free food and the John Lewis perks have worked very quickly on you.

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 06:33:16 +0000

How quaint, you really do believe in the overthrow of capitalism.

Here’s my claim for the dynamic mixed economy:

“The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few, where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe, and where we live together, freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect.”

By: john edwards

john edwards — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 23:19:10 +0000

What have you waited all your life for? To be a better manager of the system than George Osborne?

You voted twice in Parliament on Post Offices. The first time you were in the lobby to close them, the second time you were in the lobby to close them even more rapidly. And now you want me to save them? Err.. how does that work then?

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:25:04 +0000

Yeah, yeah, don’t tell me, you’ve waited all your life for this moment.

I hope you’ve written the submission on the local post office closure in your ward.

By: john edwards

john edwards — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:14:19 +0000

Tom, Who cares about the bit players? The bigger question is why should socialists be rattled by the collapse of capitalism? I see it as an opportunity for the public ownership and control of the major levers of power and an end to the casino economy that has never worked for the majority of people in the west or anywhere else.
A time for radicalism and confidence. A time and a major test for Brown (and soon Obama) to seize, own, control and regulate for a better future.
The US has just pulled the plug on the Bush plan to reward the crooks who delivered anarchy across the economy there and here. The right decision, even if not for the right reasons. The moment is here. Only timidity can get in the way.
John Edwards