Why in the world has it taken this long to do a comparison for heaven's sake ?
"But Sanders' call for universal healthcare, a higher minimum wage and subsidised higher education are hardly radical by British standards."
The first one is true, the second one is also true but with complications, but these days subsidising higher education does seem to be an idea going against the grain, if not actually radical.
"Sanders has expressed doubt over the need for America to have thousands of new nuclear warheads but, unlike Corbyn, he is no unilateralist. That really would be political suicide for a would-be American president and commander-in-chief."
I'm not sure it's doing Corbyn any favours either. It wins him support from a minority who agree with him but that's about it.
"The Clinton/Blair era of safe, "centre ground" politics appears to be over on both sides of the Atlantic."
Well across the pond it seems to have been over for decades, but as for Britain I'm not so sure. I think we've seen some very clever shifting of the goalposts on both sides, or, more subtly, some clever shifting of where the goalposts are perceived to be. "This idea isn't radical, that one is !" In the rush for the centre by the two largest parties, the true centrists - the Lib Dems - got squashed. Now it's a war to tell people what the centre ground really is and how - coincidentally - whoever's telling where it is happens to be standing right on it. Hence the Tories can claim, absurdly, to say that they're "the party of Labour" while Labour can claim that throwing away a major defence policy of the last few decades is a perfectly sensible thing to do that will make the world a better place.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35293178
Steve S
ReplyDeleteThanks. I've seen Corbyn compared to Sanders before, but only in passing, not detail.
ReplyDeleteFareed Zakaria did a segment about Corbyn from the perspective that the electorate isn't on the far left or right; it straddles the centre.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cnn.com/2015/09/22/opinions/zakaria-center-politics/
I'd agree that the Tories are left of the Republicans but that's not hard right now. Some major caveats to that article though :
ReplyDelete"Corbyn is for the abolition of the monarchy,"
But has said that's not something he's going to campaign for and has joined the Privy Council.
"nationalization of key British industries,"
Considering how expensive British train services have become under the private system, this is not likely to be an unpopular move.
"and he calls Hamas and Hezbollah "our friends".
Yes, but he calls everyone "friends" in order to negotiate with them.
As for the Tories :
"It has moderated its austerity program once its debt and deficit became more manageable."
- Dubious at best. Corbyn's anti-austerity is by far and away his most popular policy.
"It promised to increase spending on the National Health Service."
True, but they also want GPs to work on weekends without hiring more GPs. They're also on a slightly mad campaign to get more staff in general working on weekends despite the fact that most of them already do.
"It actually raised some taxes."
But gave tax cuts to the richest.
" It announced a minimum wage rise to around 9 pounds an hour by 2020 for everyone over 25. "
But is also cutting benefits, and will actually make people worse off as a result.
"Cameron speaks urgently about global warming and has set annual carbon budgets."
Speaks, yes. And has stopped subsiding wind and solar power.
To his credit, Cameron is indeed an advocate of gay marriage. It would be pretty hard to interfere with other people's sex lives after that incident with the pig.