RayC

That simple question begs numerous others? For a start, what criteria did you use to measure success and failure? Wrt the Labour government of 1945 - 51, most historians consider it to be a relative success overall. The establishment of the Welfare State, the improvement of living conditions, the nationalisation of the BoE, full employment can be considered successes. However, there were also failures. As another poster pointed out, amongst other things rationing (of certain goods) remained and poverty certainly wasn't eliminated. So does Socialism always fail? Well Marxism as a theory has been largely discredited so in that sense, yes. Likewise, a fully centralised planned economy e.g. the USSR could hardly be called an (economic) success. However, are socialist economic practices operating within a market-based economies therefore predetermined to fail? The evidence from Europe since WW2 would suggest not.

As I explained before, the British Labour Party was - in theory at least - a democratic socialist party (until the mid-1990s). The Party's guiding principle was the original Clause 4 (reproduced below) which Blair revised. It is clear from the original clause that socialism is to be achieved without violence. While revolutionary socialists may embrace terrorism and violence, democratic socialists eschew it. This is why your statement that, "Socialism mandates terrorism and violence. The philosophical underpinnings of socialism, indeed, their entire philosophical premise for government and life can only be achieved by terrorists who engage in violence and authoritarianism", is patently incorrect. _---------------;;;;;;; Original Clause 4 of the GB Labour Party constitution. "To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service."

All Labour's fault? The Conservatives were in power from October 1951.

Not off topic at all. You stated that, "Socialism mandates terrorism and violence". I have offered a counterexample - I can supply numerous others - which shows that a party running on a socialist platform was able to gain power via a freely contested election without the use of terrorism or violence, thus debunking that proposition. As I said previously, there is absolutely no need for me to revisit the other threads as Morrobay has already given a convincing rebuttal of your premises there. Now what is off-topic is your introduction about the relationship between Bolshevism and the UK Labour Party. Translation: You cannot support your premise and realise that you have lost the argument, therefore, you try to deflect attention away from this fact by introducing a subject which is, being generous, at best tangential to the topic under discussion.

I've showed up here to debunk your nonsense. Here's the 1945 Labour manifesto. Read the document from 'Jobs For All' onwards and tell me that is not a Socialist manifesto. I doubt very much that your MAGA colleagues would disagree with my interpretation that it is. http://www.labour-party.org.uk/manifestos/1945/1945-labour-manifesto.shtml You clearly do not understand Socialism and the various forms which it can take, and you now demonstrate that you know nothing about the history of the British Labour Party or the wider Labour movement. Until you acquire some basic understanding of the subject, there is no point in me - or imo anyone else for that matter - continuing this dialogue.

The Labour Party campaigned on a Socialist manifesto and won the 1945 General Election in the UK. There was no violence or terrorism involved: Moreover, Socialist parties throughout Europe have won free and fair elections on many occasions over the past 70 years. This is known as 'Democratic Socialism' i.e. a belief that power should be gained through the ballot box not the bullet. Therefore, it is clear that Socialism can exist without violence or terrorism. To suggest otherwise is nonsense.

I agree that he did a great job destroying your rather simplistic premise. Both he and I clearly have more understanding than you.

My apologies I was thinking of another exchange which we had on this topic. That must have been embedded in another thread. In any event, there is no point going any further as Morrobay has convincingly destroyed your implied suggestion that 'Socialism' and 'National Socialism' are variations on a theme by correctly pointing out that ownership of the means of production differs under the two philosophies. QED.

The only guy "smacked down" on that thread was yourself. Your ignorance of the respective fundamental tenets of 'Socialism' and 'National Socialism' was plain for all to see.

I agree with your 1st and 3rd paragraphs but take issue with the second. We 'lefties' certainly don't have a monopoly when it comes to behaving like entitled children as can be seen from the list of open petitions https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions?state=open

I thought that we cleared this up in another thread? Apparently not. As I said before, you have been misinformed. In Europe, France, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, the UK - there are no doubt others - have all held national elections within the last year which were free (despite the efforts of Russia to disrupt them). Right wing polled quite well in these elections. Hope that helps.

It's hardly Starmer's fault that he became PM as a result of an undemocratic electoral system. The UK's PM might not be a major player on the international scene, but domestically it's the top position so I'd say that Starmer needs to be taken seriously (in the UK at least).

Pure hyperbolic nonsense. Where has Starmer lied to protect foreign interests? What actions has he taken that could be considered evil? How is he an enemy of Britain? (I'll preempt your response about the withdrawal of the winter fuel allowance killing thousands of pensioners (it hasn't). Some individuals have, no doubt, suffered hardship but by that criterion you could cite certain actions taken by any government and classify them as evil).

Given her past flirtation with Fascism and her statements about same sex relationships, there was good reason to worry about what her premiership might bring, however, those fears have been largely unfounded. Unlike you, I comment on the facts and evidence. Again, unlike you I am aware of my bias. Therefore, I am not blinkered by an irrational hatred of anything or anyone which/who doesn't fit snuggly into a bigoted, dogmatic view of the world.

Then be more specific (and/or don't deny having made a statement).. I'm fine. Thanks for asking. There will hopefully soon be a time after the war and there may be a time to have relations with Russia - that rather depends on what Putin's concept of 'peace' looks like - but conducting 'business as usual' the day after the war ends is not that time. (I'll save you the bother of replying: "I didn't say that").

My apologies: I forgot to include the word 'European'. What you actually wrote was, "Open the European door ...". Now you can question my conclusion that Russia will see an opening of the door as vindication for its' actions, but you cannot deny what you wrote.

According to Henry Foy (comments made in weekly FT podcast), the EU - presumably the Commission and Parliament? - plus 22 of the 27 EU member states are in favour of allowing the UK's participation in this defence fund. The '5' are unnamed but France is obviously one and Hungary almost certainly another. The others are 'neutral' states, whatever that may mean in this context? Foy says that there is significant pressure being applied to the objectors to change their stance and that the 3 'neutral' states will come on board. Orban is a law unto himself, but the main stumbling block is seem as being France, who are being intransigent about the issue. Imo it is difficult to see this as anything other than (misplaced) opportunism on the part of the French. I know very little about the Defence sector, but as one of the top two nations in Western Europe with a (relatively) significant defence capability, it seems a misplaced strategy by the French to put what up-to-now has been quite an cohesive and impressive European response to events at risk.

Good article. Meloni has been impressive since coming to power. Despite fears that she would be an Italian Orban, unlike him she has shown a willingness to engage in constructive dialogue with her EU counterparts. However, as the article suggests, maintaining a balancing act between Europe and the US will probably be her biggest test to date.

But you did say that Europe should open the door to Russia which would almost certainly be viewed as a vindication of its' actions by Moscow.

That in no way excuses Russia's invasion of Ukraine. A lot has changed, especially Putin's attitude since that verbal application. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/04/ex-nato-head-says-putin-wanted-to-join-alliance-early-on-in-his-rule

In a tryst with Joe Biden

Russia has a strange way of asking for acceptable by the wider European community.

You are clearly trying extremely hard - with success I might add - to disprove your own proposition that "... no one can be this dumb". You are obviously unable to differentiate between ABSOLUTE and PROPORTION. Further proof (extract taken from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1556756/ "Using phallometric test sensitivities to calculate the proportion of true pedophiles among various groups of sex offenders against children, and taking into consideration previously reported mean numbers of victims per offender group, THE RATIO OF HETROSEXUAL TO HOMOSEXUAL PEDOPHILES WAS CALCULATED TO BE APPROXIMATELY 11: 11:1 (my caps). I'll cut off your escape route by quoting the rest of the Abstract: "This suggests that the resulting proportion of true pedophiles among persons with a homosexual erotic development is greater than that in persons who develop heterosexually". So, in ABSOLUTE terms there are a greater number of heterosexual pedophiles, while in PROPORTIONAL terms there are a greater number of homosexuals. I hope that is simple enough for you to understand.

I didn't say that you were afraid of homosexuality; I said that you were homophobic. I know a number of gay individuals/couples (of both genders). To the best of my knowledge, none of them gets a parade either: I've not enquired, but I also doubt very much whether they receive a government subsidy to satisfy any sexual kinks that they may or may not have. As I said before, you don't have to celebrate anything. It is you who is skewing the figures. Given that 96% of the population are heterosexual, the absolute number of heterosexual paedophiles far outnumbers the number of homosexuals. In any event, the best rebuttal to your 25% figure - which incidentally I cannot find any reference to - and your (apparent) homophobia comes from the authors of the study in which this figure supposedly appears "To prevent misunderstanding or misuse of their studies on fraternal birth order in pedophiles, the researchers have stressed that any conclusion that homosexual pedophilia shares an etiological factor with androphilia does not imply that ordinary homosexual men (androphiles) are likely to molest boys, any more than the conclusion that heterosexual pedophilia shares an etiological factor with gynephilia would imply that ordinary heterosexual men (gynephiles) are likely to molest girls".

Yes the Nazis are to blame. Unfortunately, when it comes to compensation I think that your options are very limited given that Hitler, Speer (Minister of Works) and Dorpmüller (Minister of Transport) are all dead.