Topic: Labour Thread

[TepidT2O]

Can someone explain why the landowners don’t want people to roam on their land? What’s the downside for them that they are against it?

They would say crop damage, damage to fences, walls, livestock being upset, inability to sunbathe nude …etc etc.

[jillcwhomever]

I’m sure it is, but I’d refer you back to the excellent post above from oldfordie, we have bigger fish to fry right now like the most basic of public services we all used to take for granted, that’s where we are. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against the right to roam, I just think it’s a bit of a distraction when a Labour government is going to have a to do list longer then my arm.

Yes, I understand the point people like you and Andy are making and I am not saying this should be the first thing to be done. But you have to understand wildlife welfare and protection is already seriously buggered up, the moment we came out of Europe the Tories were hacking everything apart. Another few years down the line yet more damage done that can't be changed at a later date. I worry the further all this gets shoved aside for something else it will already be too late for so many habitats.

[jillcwhomever]

They would say crop damage, damage to fences, walls, livestock being upset, inability to sunbathe nude …etc etc.

That's even before you come to the shooting estates who get up to all sorts of illegal practices. We can't have the riff raff reporting us, etc etc.

[Ma Vie en Rouge]

I'd say the rich and powerful's control of the media is way more significant than their control of land. We live in a democracy. The latter doesn't impact that. The former does.

And yet they keep buying more land...

Land, in part, means resources. Water, fuel, space to build, space to grow crops, materials to produce things, freedoms. Control of land is very powerful indeed.

Symbolically, of course, it's equally powerful. And if a future Labour government is already bending to the will of the tiny minority who control land in this country, it is very much not a good thing and doesn't bode well.

[jillcwhomever]

And yet they keep buying more land...

Land, in part, means resources. Water, fuel, space to build, space to grow crops, materials to produce things, freedoms. Control of land is very powerful indeed.

Symbolically, of course, it's equally powerful. And if a future Labour government is already bending to the will of the tiny minority who control land in this country, it is very much not a good thing and doesn't bode well.

Dictating what everyone sees in that land as well, there is a manipulation in this as well.

[Sangria]

They would say crop damage, damage to fences, walls, livestock being upset, inability to sunbathe nude …etc etc.

Surely sunbathing nude would upset the livestock.

[killer-heels]

A lot has been said about concentrating on public services and the NHS. But what exactly is Labour’s policy on that? They have said there will be close to no extra money.

[Red-Soldier]

I'd say the rich and powerful's control of the media is way more significant than their control of land. We live in a democracy. The latter doesn't impact that. The former does.

No.  The ownership of land is very significant.  In the same way that the ownership of fishing rights is.  You have a select few, conrolling the majority.

There are many inequalities in the UK, and land ownership, and access rights, are two of them.

[PaulF]

I will give you a more considered answer to the roaming question John later on. My prime concern with all of this is regarding the importance they are giving to organisations like the Countryside Alliance which basically represents the hunting and shooting lobby and have their own agendas, in so much of what goes on in the countryside. The Labour party should not be giving these people all this power when they are already disregarding the law whether this involves hunting practices or shooting ones. The wildlife question you asked is a fair one but I would hope that they would get the respected conservation groups involved, so if there was any concern over a particular time of year with regards to wildlife there could be limitations as to when people are allowed to roam around. What people need to understand is the majority of land is owned by a comparatively few very rich land owners, who would prefer to close other areas as well.

Another thing to consider Britain is made up of 60,000,000 acres of land, of that the top 50 landowners control up to 7,331,243! It's madness to give one group so much power and influence, goes way beyond what it should. It pretty much sums up this country and it's politics that a small bunch of money mad people have influence way beyond what they should.

Doesn't the crown estate own about 50%?

[jillcwhomever]

Doesn't the crown estate own about 50%?

They certainly own substantial parts of it, I will try and get some figures.

[jillcwhomever]

Doesn't the crown estate own about 50%?

This is revealing, the Duke of Westminister owns 133,100 acres of land that is 0.22 of the UK's land. The Queen when she was alive owned 19,768 acres by comparison.

[PaulF]

Far far less than I thought.

[jillcwhomever]

Far far less than I thought.

There are a number of other aristocratic land owners including the Duke of Buccleuch & Queensberry who owns 240,000 acres, the Trustees of Dukedom of Atholl who own 145,000 acres, Charles comes in third with 133, 602 acres. Doubtless a number of others that's scratching the surface.

[Elmo!]

The Crown Estate is separate from all of those, which are private holdings.

[TepidT2O]

The Crown Estate is separate from all of those, which are private holdings.

much of the crown estate is open access to be fair and much to the disgust of my dog

[Dr. Beaker]

This is revealing, the Duke of Westminister owns 133,100 acres of land that is 0.22 of the UK's land. The Queen when she was alive owned 19,768 acres by comparison.

But it's literally Mayfair and Park Lane and much much more.

[John C]

I think we should be concentrating on the policy rather than the land ownership. (there's probably no disagreement about that status)
I'd still be interested in any answers to my initial two questions.

[Indomitable_Carp]

I haven't got any views on this subject so I'm open minded and wish to learn. I have two questions:-

1/ to you Jill; doesn't the right to roam actually threaten wildlife and potentially disturb their habitats with increased footfall?

Potentially. But the UK is already one of the worlds most nature-depleated countries, even without the right to roam. That is on landowners, our agricultural policies, and our propensity to set aside huge areas of private land for the purposes of rich people being able to hunt stuff.

As in Scotland, the right to roam would have to be matched by a big campaign on how to roam responsibly. It requires a decent degree of trust in the population to follow that advice. The other idea is that exposing people to nature makes people more committed to protecting nature.

2/ to everyone else; when and where was the last time you had access denied which you desperately wanted to venture through?

The main issues I have faced have been wild camping where, after setting up tent for the night with my brother, we've been told to move on. I also remember me and my wife being confronted by an angry farmer in the Yorkshire Moors (near Hebden Bridge) after we tried to skirt the edge of his field to reach a green wooded valley so we could walk back to town. The alternative was backtracking across the country roads with cars whizzing past you at 60mph. In the end we basically told him we were going to green wooded valley anyway, but it wasn't a nice confrontation.

One of the issues of our current distribution of publicly acccessible land is that a lot of it is located in "islands" in which it is surrounded by private land. This means you need to cross private land to reach it. One of the points that right to roam campaigners have made is that right to roam is the cheapest and most efficient way to open up these areas. Trying to negotiate the distribution of accessible land with landowners across the width and breadth England on a piecemeal basis will be an expensive, time-consuming and bureaucratic mess.

Scotland has already shown right to roam works, so there's already a perfectly good working example we can copy right across the border. Granted, England has a lot less wilderness than Scotland. But that is why it's important people are able to reach what little we have. The benefits of exposure to nature on mind, body and soul are well studied.

[Red-Soldier]

I think we should be concentrating on the policy rather than the land ownership. (there's probably no disagreement about that status)
I'd still be interested in any answers to my initial two questions.

You deleted this, in your cull yesterday:


What a Labour government would mean for the right to roam
Published: August 31, 2023 3.43pm BST

The Labour Party has promised to introduce a Scottish-style right to roam over the English and Welsh countryside if elected to government. How might that change your ability to enjoy the great outdoors and what lessons does Scotland offer?

The debate over public access to the British countryside received fresh publicity in 2023 after a landowner in Dartmoor, a moorland in the county of Devon in southwest England, brought a legal challenge to the rights of wild campers to stay on his 1,619 hectare estate. While the landowner lost on appeal and the right to camp was restored, the right to camp still applies only to common land in Dartmoor National Park.

Most visitors to the countryside in England and Wales have very limited rights of access. We have a right to walk on footpaths and a “right to roam” over mountains and open countryside, but this is usually restricted to walking and does not include higher rights of access such as camping, swimming or paddling.

In fact, a visitor who exceeds the rights provided by the existing law would become a trespasser and a landowner is entitled to use “reasonable force” to eject them. Campaigners estimate that this right to roam covers just 8% of English land.

A Scottish-style right to roam would provide better access to the countryside than these existing rights and is likely to include a right to walk over a much wider range of farmland, including grazing land, and the right to wild camp, swim or paddle a boat across rivers and and other waterways.
Labour and the right to roam

It should come as no surprise that the Labour Party has thrown its weight behind the campaign for wider access to the countryside. The history of the Labour Party and the right to roam are heavily entwined.

Many of the most vocal rambling activists from the early 20th century were members of left-wing Clarion Clubs, which demanded greater rights for walkers and cyclists in the English countryside. Some form of wider access to land has been promised in every Labour Party general election manifesto published since 1950.

If Labour was to win a majority of seats at the next general election, comparisons will inevitably be drawn with Tony Blair’s landslide 1997 victory for New Labour. His government introduced a new right to roam under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (CRoW Act). People in England and Wales gained the right to walk on mountains over 600 metres and over moorland, heathland and downland – land traditionally used by landowners for shooting game birds such as grouse and for grazing sheep.

The CRoW Act balanced a limited right of access on foot with significant powers for landowners to close their land temporarily. These compromises weakened the new right to roam, which was not extended to more accessible lowland areas, other farmland or woodland.

Opponents to a wider right to roam often cite the risk to the environment, farming and the privacy of landowners. The parliamentary debate on the CRoW Act included several contributions from members of the House of Lords who were concerned about walkers causing damage to their land.

There is some evidence that wider access since 2000, combined with a lack of investment in rangers and bins, has led to an increase in littering. Even Scottish rights of access have been limited due to concerns over fire lighting and wild camping in more accessible beauty spots such as Loch Lomond.

Supporters of wider access to the countryside can cite several examples of landowner misfeasance to demonstrate that farming and hunting are also damaging for wild and beautiful places. Recent mass trespasses of private land by campaigners have frequently included time spent picking up existing litter.
What can be learned from Scotland?

For a short time during the early 21st century, the laws on access were more generous in England and Wales than in Scotland, at least on paper. This was until the Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003 introduced a generous and sweeping right to roam.

Scottish rights of access are based on a small number of exceptions which tell people where they cannot go, such as private gardens or crop fields, rather than the English and Welsh model which allows access on specified types of land only. This simplifies access rights and removes the need for complex signage and maps full of dead ends and no-go areas.

The Scottish Land Reform Act makes an explicit connection between wider access and cultural heritage. And in truth, the people of Scotland have always enjoyed more generous rights of access through traditions and practice. Even before the act was introduced, it was common for people to enjoy walks across open Scottish countryside without needing to follow specific footpaths. In this way, new laws simply codified an existing freedom that few landowners would have challenged.

This might suggest the key to a successful right to roam is cooperation between walkers and landowners, and the discovery of common ground. Instead of conflict between enemies, there should be agreement between different types of land users who share a common goal in the protection of the countryside.

https://theconversation.com/what-a-labour-government-would-mean-for-the-right-to-roam-211214

[jillcwhomever]

I think we should be concentrating on the policy rather than the land ownership. (there's probably no disagreement about that status)
I'd still be interested in any answers to my initial two questions.

I will give you a more considered answer to the roaming question John later on. My prime concern with all of this is regarding the importance they are giving to organisations like the Countryside Alliance which basically represents the hunting and shooting lobby and have their own agendas, in so much of what goes on in the countryside. The Labour party should not be giving these people all this power when they are already disregarding the law whether this involves hunting practices or shooting ones. The wildlife question you asked is a fair one but I would hope that they would get the respected conservation groups involved, so if there was any concern over a particular time of year with regards to wildlife there could be limitations as to when people are allowed to roam around. What people need to understand is the majority of land is owned by a comparatively few very rich land owners, who would prefer to close other areas as well.

[PaulF]

I haven't got any views on this subject so I'm open minded and wish to learn. I have two questions:-

1/ to you Jill; doesn't the right to roam actually threaten wildlife and potentially disturb their habitats with increased footfall?

2/ to everyone else; when and where was the last time you had access denied which you desperately wanted to venture through?

Not as amusing as the strip-club answer, but almost certainly a VIP lounge or something like that.
I don't recall ever wanting to go onto 'countryside' that I wasn't permitted to access.  But then I'm a city person. I enjoy a parkrun in the woods, but really have no interest in the countryside.

[Jiminy Cricket]

You deleted this, in your cull yesterday:

What a Labour government would mean for the right to roam
Published: August 31, 2023 3.43pm BST

https://theconversation.com/what-a-labour-government-would-mean-for-the-right-to-roam-211214

[thaddeus]

Storm in a teacup incoming.  Tory chairman Greg Hands however thinks it's "potentially very serious" and Rachel Reeves needed to "explain herself urgently".

Rachel Reeves denies claims of plagiarism in new book

Rachel Reeves has denied claims of plagiarism, after it emerged some passages of her new book were lifted from sources including Wikipedia.

The Financial Times reported the shadow chancellor's book included reproduced material without acknowledgment.

...

The Financial Times said its reporters had spotted more than 20 examples of apparent plagiarism in the book, including entire sentences and paragraphs.

It said these mostly contained biographical information.

...

At the book's launch event, which took place the evening before the Financial Times article was published, Ms Reeves was asked how she found the time to write it.

In response she said: "My day job is pretty consuming and I've got two primary aged children but I wanted to carve out time to write this book.

"In the acknowledgements I acknowledged the research assistants that I had, particularly on the facts and the detail that went into the pen portraits of the women that I speak about.

"And that came from a range of sources, from books, from interviews, from articles, from Wikipedia."

I don't know whose responsibility it ultimately is - Reeves as the author or Basic Books as the publisher - but evidently the research assistants cut some corners.  The FT were able to find the plagiarised sentences, presumably with an off-the-shelf tool, so it's poor that the publishers didn't do the same.

Whatever way it came about it's a dumb thing to do but pales into insignificance compared to the goings on throughout the Tory party.

[Red-Soldier]

Storm in a teacup incoming.  Tory chairman Greg Hands however thinks it's "potentially very serious" and Rachel Reeves needed to "explain herself urgently".
I don't know whose responsibility it ultimately is - Reeves as the author or Basic Books as the publisher - but evidently the research assistants cut some corners.  The FT were able to find the plagiarised sentences, presumably with an off-the-shelf tool, so it's poor that the publishers didn't do the same.

Whatever way it came about it's a dumb thing to do but pales into insignificance compared to the goings on throughout the Tory party.

I'd say the author.  Either it's your work, or it isn't.  And if you got the ideas from somewhere else, then cite it.  It's no big deal.

Not referencing sources is a poor look.

Obviously, it's small potatoes, in the grand scheme of things and Hands is scrambling around, trying to grab that last straw.

[John C]

You deleted this, in your cull yesterday:

As I said, I cleared the thread and there would be casualty posts.

[thaddeus]

Diane "they're all as bad as each other" ranting and raving on Question Time is what Labour are up against.  The greatest weapon of absolutely shit governments are people like her and the similarly minded person next to her.

Another soapboxer later on proclaiming he's going to spoil his vote like he's some great freedom fighter.

I'm lukewarm towards Starmer's Labour but I can't fathom how anyone can be ambivalent to this government.

[west_london_red]

Diane "they're all as bad as each other" ranting and raving on Question Time is what Labour are up against.  The greatest weapon of absolutely shit governments are people like her and the similarly minded person next to her.

Another soapboxer later on proclaiming he's going to spoil his vote like he's some gerat freedom fighter.

I'm lukewarm towards Starmer's Labour but I can't fathom how anyone can be ambivalent to this government.

Diane is blatantly a Tory

[oldfordie]

Diane "they're all as bad as each other" ranting and raving on Question Time is what Labour are up against.  The greatest weapon of absolutely shit governments are people like her and the similarly minded person next to her.

Another soapboxer later on proclaiming he's going to spoil his vote like he's some great freedom fighter.

I'm lukewarm towards Starmer's Labour but I can't fathom how anyone can be ambivalent to this government.

She either has the memory of a Goldfish or she has never bothered following what's happened since the Torys took over. all as bad as each other, a opinion for every occasion when you know f.. all about Politics that always goes down well with the clueless cynics. am putting it down to having the all as bad as eachother excuse to not follow politics while swallowing the odd my flip flop attacks.
 came out with Boris Johnsons Mr Flip Flop shit to attack Starmer. that will brighten up a few Torys MPs.

[A-Bomb]

https://www.google.com/search?q=the+great+realisation&oq=the+great+reali&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqCggAEAAY4wIYgAQyCggAEAAY4wIYgAQyBwgBEC4YgAQyBwgCEC4YgAQyBggDEEUYOTIHCAQQABiABDIHCAUQABiABDIHCAYQABiABDIHCAcQABiABDIHCAgQABiABDIHCAkQABiABNIBCTE4NTQ1ajBqN6gCALACAA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

We missed a chance to make a change - let's hope we don't again.

[PaulF]

There's more than a few in here that despair at the number of u turns starmers' Labour party have made. You can see why the mister flip flop moniker might stick. The always pragmatic leader might have to think about that in terms of votes before future about turns.
Admittedly the concern in here is mostly about the U-turns. individually being bad changes of policy rather than the potential loss of votes for a leader perceived to flip flop.

[TSC]

Diane "they're all as bad as each other" ranting and raving on Question Time is what Labour are up against.  The greatest weapon of absolutely shit governments are people like her and the similarly minded person next to her.

Another soapboxer later on proclaiming he's going to spoil his vote like he's some great freedom fighter.

I'm lukewarm towards Starmer's Labour but I can't fathom how anyone can be ambivalent to this government.

From a Labour perspective I doubt they’ll place too much focus on the beeb vox pops, which is what QT has become. Remember the series of ‘Brexit’ vox pops? That was a car crash then and look how Brexit turned out.

[west_london_red]

She either has the memory of a Goldfish or she has never bothered following what's happened since the Torys took over. all as bad as each other, a opinion for every occasion when you know f.. all about Politics that always goes down well with the clueless cynics. am putting it down to having the all as bad as eachother excuse to not follow politics while swallowing the odd my flip flop attacks.
 came out with Boris Johnsons Mr Flip Flop shit to attack Starmer. that will brighten up a few Torys MPs.

She was a Tory and a Brexiteer, she can’t defend her own choices or take responsibility for them so it’s then mental damage limitation/gymnastics of its not my fault because they are all as bad as each other. It’s a coping mechanism for previously voting and probably continuing to vote Tory.

[oldfordie]

There's more than a few in here that despair at the number of u turns starmers' Labour party have made. You can see why the mister flip flop moniker might stick. The always pragmatic leader might have to think about that in terms of votes before future about turns.
Admittedly the concern in here is mostly about the U-turns. individually being bad changes of policy rather than the potential loss of votes for a leader perceived to flip flop.

The Mr Flip Flop tag came from Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson not long after Covid hit the country 3 yrs ago. Johnson also claimed Starmer has no policys or solutions, many Labour supporters who hate Starmer have been repeating Johnsons words to attack him. mr flip flop one minute, then Starmer has no policys the next.  Starmer has said everything depends on the economic situation when we take over, none of that matters to his critics. they want to  something to attack him over. the last Labour leader did u-turns on the same policys as Starmer. single market. nationalisation and other issues, it happens but nobody stooped to repeating Tory attack names to criticise him.
Am sure some can bring up a long list of Starmers u-turns. big deal. Johnsons u-turns was longer than Starmers as his policys failed but no mr flip flop tag for him/ Corbyn changed course as well, it happens.

Point is does anyone really think that woman could back up her Mr flip flop attack with examples. she had already said they are all as bad as each other, anyone who says that hasn't followed what's happened since the Torys took power. people are given opinions they accept without question. I wouldn't give her attacks any credibility by arguing she has a point.