It’s notable how much more comfortable he looks doing this compared with when he’s doing the nonsense pandering.

Glad The London Economic is reporting on the news that really matters to Londoners (a councillor in Wales has switched parties).

The more democratic socialists, the better, as far as I’m concerned, in whatever party!

Sorry, I should’ve said that I was referring to the membership of the Greens rather than the voters. All parties’ memberships are very middle class, including Labour’s (Exhibit A: me!) - but that’s exactly why Labour having the union link is absolutely vital. However weakened it’s been over the years (for various reasons, some going back decades), that link is still there and I think it genuinely shows in the policies I’ve cited above and elsewhere.

Firstly, thank you for taking my views at face value. I talk to a lot of people here who seem to think I’m some sort of mindless centrist/closet Tory, and you obviously have read the things I actually say and taken them seriously. I genuinely appreciate that!

Respectfully, I disagree with your assessment. What I believe in fundamentally is the organised workers’ movement (first) and the co-operative movement (close second). Those organisations are and should be diverse in their views, but they still back the Labour party and with good reason: both the Renters’ Rights Bill, which has just passed, and the Employment Rights Bill (now in its final stages), in particular, show that the party is still serving the interests of the working class. The specific approach being taken to environmental matters is also in line with labour (and Labour) values: a focus not just on green energy but on job creation and keeping bills lower is the exact right approach.

The Greens’ approach is flawed because it doesn’t have that link with the workers’ movement to keep it on track. This is why they have so often ended up, both at the local level and through their MPs, as a glorified NIMBY party, opposing green infrastructure for spurious reasons: they serve an essentially bourgeois constituency. I don’t mean bourgeois as a pejorative, I mean literally: the Greens represent people who don’t mind seeing their bills go up in order to get more green energy, but who also want their capital assets - primarily their house value - protected. Hence the NIMBYism. Again, I’m not speaking pejoratively, here: it’s entirely understandable to act this way, but it doesn’t represent the values I think are most important.

As for Your Party, I have many serious ideological differences with them - but also much in common. If they create a union link and win the backing of especially the more radical unions (or my current union), I will have to seriously consider them. But I don’t think that’s going to happen.

As always, the only sensible response to claims like these is: maybe.

Labour need to do more to give left-leaning voters a reason to vote for them! And, to be clear, by ‘do more’ I mean ‘Let Ed Miliband run the government’.

You’re right, that specific factor is more thin on the ground. This is one example, for making buses in particular more affordable, while they’re also investing in more electric buses (which are already the most affordable and the greenest form of public transport). The new ones we have in London are excellent! There’s also the fact that a lot of our rail is already electrified, so the general push to shut down fossil fuel power stations will make trains even more eco-friendly, even if there’s zero other investment to do so (which isn’t the plan, as per, e.g., this document from Network Rail).

Anyway, I think we’re in general agreement: affordability and accessiblity go hand in hand, and electric cars are basically a bit rubbish, so shouldn’t be the focus of the government’s efforts! However, even while focusing too much on privately owned EVs, they’re still doing some good stuff in other areas, which is to be applauded.

Public transport’s in a different ministerial portfolio, but spending on public transport and cycling is also a big part of what the government is doing. Since nothing in Miliband’s statement contradicts the previous statements on public transport, I think it’s all still going ahead as planned.

Guys, this coffin can only take so many final nails.

Ah, yes, I forgot about that. Totally disqualifying.

I still think he should be PM!

Possibly the one person in the government - the country? - who knows what he’s doing, how to do it and why he’s doing it.

Inferior in most ways, IMO. But if she knows how to fill out a tax return… could be a slight improvement.

Honestly, I don’t see why we’re waiting for a wipeout. If thinks haven’t improved eight weeks out from the locals, get rid of him and try someone new.

The better option, just in that we need a change of direction and Powell’s marginally - marginally! - more likely than Phillipson to argue for the right thing.

Neither! Formery Trotskyist, now a Labour party member.

I’m also now on Linux since Microsoft started shoehorning chatbots into Windows!

Gmail is a real pain to get rid off. That and WhatsApp are the two hardest ones to break.

Aside from your odd definition of capitalism and its outcomes, which other people have addressed, the answer to the headline question is: yes.

Karl Marx, for example, believed that you could not have capitalism without exploitation and that it was therefore an unethical system that should be defeated. He also held that capitalism was inherently contradictory and that it therefore not only should be destroyed, but that it must be destroyed.

However: Marx also believed that capitalism was an enormous improvement on the previously existing social system of feudalism, because it produced far greater wealth through the development of new technology. This is a key difference between Marxism and the earlier ‘utopian socialism’ (which his theories largely replaced), which saw technology itself as an evil.

Marx also welcomed the fact that capitalism destroyed (as he saw it) some earlier forms of oppression (albeit while introducing new ones). Marx’s letter to Abraham Lincoln congratulating him on his re-election discusses the American Revolution and Civil War in precisely these terms.

So, you can enjoy the greater (obviously not ‘infinite’!) abundance of goods that capitalism has produced, you can acknowledge its positive impact on technological development and its material improvements of the lives of millions of people and be not only a leftist but a fully orthodox Marxist… just so long as you also acknowledge that capitalism is also an exploitative and self-destructive force that should, can and must be defeated.

They released Polygondwanaland for free ages ago and it’s a banger, if you want to check out more of their stuff.

This is very good, although I do think they should also jail some of the thieves!