I would like to think that I am a normal person. Left wing politics, in a simplified manner, is an attempt to take money from the hard-working middle class and give it to those who refuse to work, Robin Hood style. It is intended to give enormous power to the workers so that they can form massive unions, demand what they want, and get it. In theory, it should ensure equality, but equality isn't the most important thing in the world. When you are taking money and giving it to somebody else, in large quantities, that's not fair. That's not justice. You punish the worker and reward the non-worker. You take away all incentives for financial success.

The above, lumped together with a healthy dose of dictatorship and totalitarianism, is Soviet Communism. You know who believed in that? Ed M's father. But I digress.

Fortunately, Labour hasn't been like that in a very long time, if ever, and so they follow a perverse version of it which attempts to satisfy both capitalism and communism and succeeds at neither. Attlee had the right idea. Set up a National Health Service, because healthcare is the right of all people. Improve state schools, because education is the right of all people. But don't ban private insurance or private schools, because top quality education and healthcare are not the rights of all people. They are the rights of the people who have worked to be able to afford them.

They've moved right and left under a succession of politicians, becoming their most left wing in the 1980s under Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock, and their most right wing, of course, under Tony Blair. Blair achieved a pretty good balance. Gordon Brown, despite his hatred for rich people, was only able to move it slightly further left. Ed Miliband will move it much further left again. He embodies everything that is bad and disgusting about left-wing politics and socialism, where Attlee embodied everything that was good and fair.

Boris Johnson is a thoroughly useless politician and government official. That's why everybody loves him so much

Seriously, though, if you look at the (ugh) alternative to Boris Johnson, I would take the crazy man with the messy hair any day, thanks.

Delusional, I'd say. I've never read such revisonist, blinkered pish outside of the comments on Telegraph or Mail articles.

Anyway, back to the thread- Burnham would have been my first choice, but a chat with my local branch secretary and other CLP members- some of whom were helping to run parts of his campaign- convinced me as to Ed Milliband's merits so he got my vote in the end. I'm delighted it wasn't his brother, he's far too Blair-ite for my taste and hopefully the younger Milliband can now map out his own path and the horrific Blair- Brown sectionalism can be consigned to history. It'll be nice to have a centre-left leader for the first time since John Smith, and hopefully he can pull back in the C2DE vote which collpased so badly at the last election and cost Labour dearly. Not shitting on your own natural supporters will be very much welcomed.

Higher rates of unemployment, public service cuts, government spending cuts, lower rates of economic productivity, freezing wages,  busting unions, increasing rates of poverty, Falklands War and Poll Tax. Thatcher was a great PM for the UK- not! Poverty becomes fashionable when the Tories get into power. The Tories always cut spending and implement economic austerity measures.  Millions more unemployed and more crime and more poverty. Shame Tories Shame.

Dear God.

*quickly exits thread*

Left Wing politics is about a more equal society and the abolition of poverty, its also democratic to its very core, it redistributes wealth from those who have absurdly high incomes to those who struggle to get by on lower incomes and who often work just as hard, if not harder, very few people refuse to work altogether, this is a myth perpetuated by the bourgeoisie

Dictatorship and Nationalism are both Right Wing views, any nation that adopts such stances is by nature not Left Wing, I am an Internationalist Democratic Socialist 

Read the sentence which followed. I was describing Soviet Communism, which is the essence of left-wing politics.

Labour is not truly left-wing and never will be.

you think Soviet Communism is the essence of Left Wing politics and you expect me to take anything you say seriously? well done mate, you just lost any and all political credibility and credibility in this debate with one sentence.

Source? Let me guess it must be Fox News. Educated and well informed: fair and balanced view reported by Fox News. 

In theory, the far left is rosy and perfect and we all hold hands and sing Hallelujah before falling asleep in a nice peaceful glade with no global warming or war or rebellion or tax etc. etc. etc. etc.

That doesn't happen. What happens is what happened in the Soviet Union. You get a long line of crackpot dictators who cling to power and kill everyone who opposes them because they know that the moment they hold an election, they will all be kicked out of power and hanged for treason. Then, eventually, you get a half-decent leader who brings the whole thing crashing down when he tries to change it to make it even slightly fair.

Now, this about people with absurdly high incomes. Sure, tax them. Please. They don't need their millions and billions of pounds. Oh, what's that? You don't tax them, because there are loopholes which end up giving you more money? Oh, then I suppose that's fine, Labour, you lovely equality-promoting pieces of perfection.

But where do you get the money from? Hmm? The middle class? Sure! They don't have enough money or power to complain! But they still have money! We'll take money from them and give it to the working class!

I would have no problem, none whatsoever, if Labour took money from people who didn't need it. No. They rip the money out of the hands of people who have worked hard all of their lives to earn it, and put those people on an equal level with lazy manual labourers who have grossly inflated senses of self-entitlement.

People not working isn't even the problem. You're right. They're in a minority. People not working hard is a problem. Why do immigrants take British jobs? Because they are willing to work! They put in effort! They are willing to work any hours to get their fair pay, and don't complain when they don't get enough! But, of course, once these immigrants become integrated into the country, they realise that they can cheat the system, and they get onto benefits that they don't need.

I am not a dictator. I am not a nationalist. I am not a fascist. Hell, I'm not even really a conservative. I am (much as I despise this word for connotations with Ron Paul) a Libertarian. Freedom of the market, freedom of the people. Ensure a base standard of living (one which will guarantee that people stay alive). Give free healthcare. Give free education. Give nothing else, because you have no other responsibility.