Before this develops into the immigration argument here's a couple of articles from last week about the issue.

rlStudy refutes claim that foreign nationals are depriving British-born workers of jobsrl

rlInflux of non-EU workers linked to 'native' job losses, but even these are only temporary, say expertsrl

There are parties on the left that have more traditional left stances, but the left in the UK is – as in many other places – fractured. There's no one party that, even now, comes close to challenging Labour.

But Labour, when in government, continued the basic political-economic philosophy of neo-liberalism that had initially been put in place at the beginning of the 1980s by the Conservative government of the time (which included de-industrialisation as a key tenet). New Labour continued with deregulation and privatisation.

The so-called 'third way' was really (as I see it) about using improved public services (some via privatisation and schemes such as the Private Finance Initiative – which has a toxic legacy) to try to balance out some of the problems being caused by those same policies. But a fair bit of that was simply making up for the state that services were in by 1997 – people dying on hospital trolleys; schools in a state of serious disrepair etc.

In a lot of way, it's understandable that Labour went down this route. The electorate had already rejected Michael Foot's much more traditional Labour Party, plus the version under Neil Kinnock. Having said that, perhaps something more like the former would have been elected anyway in 1997, given that it was less about a Labour victory and more about the country simply having had enough of the Conservatives. And of course, we never really had the chance to know what John Smith would have been like.

I don't think that the Labour government under Blair had any idea of how to deal with that loss of so much decently paid, skilled manual work. He was obsessed with the idea of the 'e-economy', for instance, presumably believing that this would solve all our problems and provide a way forward.

One of the problems with the idea of de-industrialisation (and letting the developing world do all that manufacturing stuff in order to develop their economies) is that it leaves huge swathes of people without comparable labour, income and, indeed, dignity. I had a couple of trips to Glasgow last year for work: on both occasions, because of where the hotel was, I had to use cabs to get anywhere. Most of the cabbies are former shipbuilders. They're not workshy – but they are utterly brassed off at having had a skilled job stripped away from them, finding themselves on greatly reduced incomes – and where those incomes are reducing even further, gradually but steadily. What alternative was – or is there – for them?

Add into this mix the rise of consumerism – indeed, the retail sector is massively important for the country's economy as a whole now (the service sector accounts for approximately 75% of the economy, if I remember correctly). So in other words, we actually need people to buy things. I think the last 30 years has seen a real increase in what may see as 'aspirationalism' – but a great deal of that has been about effectively saying that rampant consumerism is good. And with it, if you want more things, you have to get a better job. But where are all these 'better' jobs? And what is wrong with any job in the first place, so that some people deride people in lowly jobs? Even work, in other words, can be derided.

I think Mike made a number of very good points. One of those is snobbery. I touched on that in the previous paragraph, when I mentioned the snobbery against certain types of work. Well, that's always been around, but I do think it's got worse – at exactly a time when more people are having to take lowly work.

The entire 'chav' thing is really quite depressing. On the one hand, it's arguably an attitude toward what would classically have been known as the lumpen proletariat (so yes, the 'workshy', the 'feckless' etc), but it's also been code for something much wider. I've seen, on here, people being condemned as 'chavs' etc simply for wearing the 'wrong' jewellry – how dare they wear an Argos clown pendant – even when they're actually in work. Shopping at Iceland is another mark of someone to be abused.

It seems to me that, one of the results of a 'greed is good' consumerist society is a new strata of people to be derided: working people who don't dress the 'right' way or buy the 'right' things or buy enough etc. And of course, the internet makes it easier to spread such a culture of nastiness.

There are loads of other things I could add – many expanding on the points that Mike made – but that's quite enough at present.

Suffice it to say that we need a serious economic alternative that doesn't just work for a very small number in our society.

There is an image which can easily be conjured up, even by those who never experienced anything like it, of (as just one example) Welsh miners, coming up from the pit, black bright, off to play a game of rugby league, then down to the smoke-filled pub for 10 pints, and at weekends smrten up and go to choir practice. And some would say die at 40 of pneumoconiosis.

You could tell similar tales in relation to shipbuilders on the Clyde or Tyne, steelmaking, etc.

Setting aside nostalgic rose-tinted viewing apparatus, there is no doubt that many thousands of men and households lived in proud, close-knit communities, founded on hard honest graft.

This could have been updated to the 21c, by providing safer working environments, better pay and conditions, improved housing and schools etc. Instead (and for a variety of reasons) the possibility of earning a living through hard graft was, for the majority of such communities, slowly removed and never replaced with any reasonable alternative.

I am not claiming that the entirety of what used to be a superb and highly skilled industrial workforce could all have had their jobs preserved in aspic, but in general, I consider the total destruction of this part of our society and the wholesale throwing of that part of the workforce effectively on the scrapheap to be a massive crime, for which our society has paid and is paying dearly.

Indeed.

And again setting aside any romantic notions, we're also now seeing other ramifications from those decisions, in terms of the impact on the national economy, for instance. I don't think many people would claim that such reliance on the service industries is a good thing – or that it hasn't been one of the reasons for the financial crisis, which we're still in.

Equally, one could look at the question of fuel needs and – with the technological advances that you mention – we could ask whether or not it would have been better for the country if we had continued to do things such as mine our own coal reserves.

The two nationalist parties in Wales and Scotland have done a fine job of challenging Labour, in fact the SNP is some way to the left of Labours current stance.

I'd sure like to ask those black Somali girls why they kicked the crap out of that white girl in the street while shouting ''you white b*tch''. At least that wasn't a racist attack

Maybe you should read the newspaper court reports, its all explained quite clearly in there.

I agree with you re the woman herself. She has clearly become bitter and very angry and has formed racist opinions. And it may have got far enough for her to require help. I don't come on here very much, but I think it was you who on the matter of the riots of last year was for open discussion with the rioters and their grieviances. I agreed with that sentiment. However where I differ is that I would take stand and actually talk to her. I believe that one of the ways in which we can work with people like her is open and frank discussion, like you suggested we should engage in, with the rioters that KILLED 5 people and caused around £200 million of pounds of damage. I would listen to her and people like her and what were referred to as the White Working Class. There is clearly anger and resentment among these people feeling like they do not have a voice. This, I suspect may actually help people who may be right wing, from going further right into the far right and then extreme right.

Maybe there will be a party to represent them and other working class people that can pull them back from heading to the far right. It's when they go far into either end of the political spectrum that has shown to cause problems throughout history.

I hope this sort of gets across my position on things. I have a fascination with human behaviour and am training to be a counsellor at the moment.

So you think the current situation is sensible or sustainable or even – heaven forfend – fair?

Or do you really believe that 'there is no alternative'? You think it entirely acceptable that we no longer have skilled, manual jobs that paid a decent wage – and it's brilliant that, instead, so many more people can now become shelf stackers and till jockeys in all the extra shops that we have, which the economy is now so dependent on.

Now that might mean a greater percentage of people on lower incomes, which in turn means reduced spending power, which is a bad thing when you need people to spend, spend, spend for the sake of the national economy, but then that's why we have cheap credit, isn't it?

rlOne of the ways that we get cheap clothingrl – which, of course, encourages people to go shopping every week and boost this consumer-based society.

No wonder the old textile industries in the north were "uneconomic" – they can hardly undercut child labour. Presumably you're happy with that.