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Posted by: Brett-Butler 9th July 2016, 12:55 PM

Time for a new Labour related tomfoolery thread.

Angela Eagle has announced that her leadership big begins on Monday. Let's see if she changes her mind again.

Posted by: Qassändra 10th July 2016, 11:44 AM

The word is that the NEC is going to make Corbyn need to get nominations. This is going to end badly.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 10th July 2016, 12:23 PM

If that happens, and Corbyn doesn't get enough nominations, where will that leave him and the £3 socialists that supported him? What are the chances that he'll be the one that splits away and forms his own party with the affiliated joining for the ride (or joins the Socialist Worker's Party, given that almost all the placards from his most recent rally seem to come from them), or will he stubbornly stay in Labour, as the brand is much more valuable than Corbyn's?

Posted by: Suedehead2 10th July 2016, 12:28 PM

The other rumour (albeit with no named individuals quoted) is that pro-EU Tories could join with like-minded Labour people to form a new party. OTOH, they could just join the Lib Dems.

Posted by: Danny 10th July 2016, 12:42 PM

LOL, the fact the Labour "moderates" are now trying to fix the election by keeping Corbyn off the ballot says it all.

How the hell is Angela Eagle going to win a general election, if she evidently thinks she can't even beat Corbyn in a proper election?

Posted by: Brett-Butler 10th July 2016, 01:20 PM

I'm guessing that she's presuming that she'll have a message that's more in line with and will connect with the general public more than Jeremy Corbyn. I think she could, but not to the extent that she could win a general election. Labour better hope they've got someone else lined up if the leadership contest is forthcoming.

Posted by: Qassändra 10th July 2016, 02:25 PM

By that token everyone who ever won a leadership election was de facto the most electable candidate with the public. Obviously nonsense.

However, you're right for the wrong reason. It's highly unlikely Angela Eagle would've won a general election even had she beaten Corbyn in a fair fight (as may well still happen - a fair fight, that is). The party is going to be obliterated for quite some time by the split if Corbyn is kept off the ballot. Short of an obvious environmental disaster, I can't think of any one thing that would do more to make the Greens a significant force.

Posted by: Qassändra 10th July 2016, 02:27 PM

Why would they leave a party on the basis of a crap ineffectual leader to join another party with a crap ineffectual leader?

Posted by: Danny 10th July 2016, 04:28 PM

But, at the end of the day, an election is an election, and the truly talented politicians manage to win over any electorate. Blair and Cameron had no problems winning over their party electorates, after all, despite party members' disagreements with them. If a politician doesn't have the skillset to even make arguments that are convincing to their own party, they sure as hell won't be able to convince the general public.

Plus, I come back to the point that the failure of the Remain Campaign showed us how much appeal the Labour "moderates"' platform has with the public -- i.e. less appeal than Corbyn had in the May local elections.

Posted by: Danny 10th July 2016, 06:53 PM

Incidentally, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Wallasey Labur Party formally deselects Eagle in the next few weeks.

Would that effectively invalidate her candidacy in the leadership election? After all, Labour could hardly put forward as their PM candidate someone who won't even be an MP after the next election.

Posted by: Suedehead2 10th July 2016, 07:20 PM

Assuming the next election isn't until 2020, there will be new boundaries in place at the next election. I'm sure she would be able to find a constituency party prepared to select her.

Posted by: #BJSCSLAYERRRRRR 10th July 2016, 07:23 PM

Angela Eagle can f*** off. She hasn't landed, she's fluttering around looking like a right old tit, and Jeremy Corbyn has the largest leader mandate in party history. He is a man of the people. She is an oligarch of the banks.

Posted by: Rooney 10th July 2016, 07:34 PM

He might be a man of the people, but he's fast killing the Labour party. UKIP and the Tories are pissing their pants at him.

Posted by: Qassändra 10th July 2016, 07:37 PM

An oligarch of the banks...who was nominated by John McDonnell for Deputy? She's a crap choice of unity candidate for many reasons, but yeah, that really isn't one of them.

(and no, he doesn't have the 'largest leader mandate in party history'. That would be Blair, who got well over a million votes in 1994)

Posted by: Qassändra 10th July 2016, 07:40 PM

It's kind of different if your party membership is leagues apart from the general public on the majority of issues. Blair and Cameron had party electorates that were happy to make compromises to win. The Labour Party membership - quite avowedly - is not. Which, okay, fair enough. But let's not pretend an inability to persuade that electorate is any sign of innate unelectability. Particularly when we're talking someone like Angela Eagle who has far bigger things you could point to to show that.

Posted by: Harve 10th July 2016, 07:45 PM

I can see this benefiting both sides in the long run.

We need a populist left party à la Podemos. I wouldn't necessarily vote for Podemos but...

Posted by: LexC 10th July 2016, 07:48 PM

I don't know if this is my tin foil hat moment but I feel like Eagle's purpose is more to just kickstart the nominations process (especially pertinent if the plan is to require Corbyn to get them and then fail) than to be a serious candidate for the leadership. You've got to respect her for being one of the first openly lesbian MPs ect but a galvinising and inspiring leader she is not.

Posted by: #BJSCSLAYERRRRRR 10th July 2016, 08:08 PM

She represents the status quo. For the Union to survive, we need Corbyn, we need to re-nationalise, we need to move to the left in line with Scotland and Wales, we need to clip the wings of Murdoch. Otherwise, oligarchs will rule, the gap between richer and poorer will widen and the same Eton toffs will rule and Scotland will go independent, taking the North East and maybe everything down to Liverpool with it, and nothing else will change and the Social State will be dismantled. Neo-liberalism must be challenged. Angela Eagle and other non-socialists must be challenged. Corbyn and fellow socialists are the way.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 10th July 2016, 08:28 PM

TUSC (Trade Unionist & Socialist Coalition) tried this in 2015, however despite fielding 135 candidates they only averaged 269 votes each. What's interesting about them is that their leader, David Nellist, is a former Labour MP who was kicked out of the party for his Militant tendencies, which I imagine that some people would like to find parallels with Corbyn et al. A look at his votes received in General Elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Nellist#Elections_contested should clearly demonstrate just how valuable the Labour Party name is to election chances, even if you have been a long-standing MP.

And if you saw TUSC's Party Political Broadcast last year, you'll know exactly why they failed so miserably. The only thing that I took away from it was "Thatcher, Thatcher Thatcher, boo, boo, boo", which did nothing to set the party as a forward-looking alternative to Labour, instead just continuing to be entrenched in the issues of 30 years ago.

Perhaps there is a market for a modern, forward-thinking, socialist party for the 21st century, but so far, all I can see are bored, tired rehashed versions of the 20th century models.

Posted by: Qassändra 10th July 2016, 08:39 PM

Why do we *need* a Podemos? Who benefits from Labour's vote being split?

Posted by: Danny 11th July 2016, 12:07 AM

Incidentally, the latest bit of evidence that Corbyn has had more of an impact than the "moderates" did when they controlled Labour in the last Parliament: now even THERESA MAY is saying that the big business fat cats need to be brought down a peg or two.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/11/theresa-may-to-call-for-unity-equality-and-successful-exit-from-eu

Posted by: Qassändra 11th July 2016, 08:41 AM

Osborne and Cameron were doing the exact same thing in terms of making Labourish noises *before* Corbyn was elected. It's called parking your tanks on the opposition's front lawn and obliterating them because you can, not responding to 'pressure from Corbyn' (which would be what exactly? The Tories are in bits and are *still* ahead of Labour. Do you really think Theresa May's doing this because she's waking up in a cold sweat at the threat from Corbyn?!).

Incidentally, both of the things she's suggested were David Miliband policy in his leadership campaign and were mocked as weak beer by Ed supporters at the time, before we end up on a nonsense spiel claiming Theresa May is now more left-wing than Labour was before Corbyn.

Posted by: Danny 11th July 2016, 07:10 PM

No, obviously she doesn't fear Corbyn is going to win the election, but the point is that he has shifted the WHOLE of the political debate to the left. It is now not considered reasonable for mainstream Tories like May to NOT say that the super-rich are out of control, and that big businesses need to start thinking about the country rather than just their own pockets. That's a far cry from before 2015, when Miliband & Balls were endlessly chasing the Tories to the right, thereby making the Tories' ever more extreme spending cuts and fatcat-toadying seem more legitimate by comparison ("we're only a little bit more right-wing than Labour's positions, so we can't be that right-wing can we?")



Eh? Genuinely, when did Ed Miliband ever promise to bring down pay for the top private-sector bosses? Instead all we got from him were idiotic comments like http://www.cityam.com/article/ed-miliband-i-applaud-rich-and-wealthy.

Posted by: Qassändra 11th July 2016, 08:41 PM

Again, this narrative you've set up doesn't really fit with Cameron and Osborne doing a similar land grab in last year's budget *before* Corbyn.


Ed Miliband never promised to 'bring down pay' for the top private-sector bosses, but that isn't what Theresa May is promising either. Shareholders getting to vote on executive pay and workers being on company boards are the policies here - both were proposed by Ed and David respectively during their leadership campaigns, and workers being on remuneration boards was in the Labour manifesto last year!

And again, you're seriously cherrypicking if you think 'all' Ed ever had to say about business was 'I applaud people getting filthy rich'. Laughably so.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 11th July 2016, 09:02 PM

Osborne and Cameron said EXACTLY the same sort of thing back in 2010 - it's all part of their 'move to the centre, then move the centre' shtick and May is no different. Kind of has nothing to do with Corbyn at all IMO.

Posted by: Danny 12th July 2016, 02:05 PM

When did Cameron or Osborne EVER say that big businesses were acting irresponsibly? All they did was some token talk about how "inequality is bad", before then pushing forward policies that would make inequality worse.

Posted by: Danny 12th July 2016, 02:06 PM

Rou ReynoldsVerified account ‏@RouReynolds 4h4 hours ago
I’m no blinkered Corbynite but how on earth can anyone believe Angela Eagle offers the charisma & leadership panache that Corbyn lacks?!

Posted by: burbe 12th July 2016, 08:12 PM

^this.

I can't believe Angela Eagle is the only alternative being offered. We're better off with Corbyn

Posted by: Rooney 12th July 2016, 08:49 PM

So-long Labour party... Lib Dems and UKIP probably partying right now

Posted by: Qassändra 12th July 2016, 09:13 PM

We've still got freedom of movement to Dignitas right?

Posted by: Doctor Blind 12th July 2016, 09:25 PM

Aw, I was hoping for the even more farcical situation of Angela Eagle being the only name on the ballot paper. : (

Posted by: Qassändra 12th July 2016, 11:16 PM

At this point I think the only hope is for a candidate like Keir Starmer to come forward and give a proper plan for what Labour would do to make Brexit work for ordinary people. It's probably the closest thing Corbyn has to a blind spot (I can imagine him just talking in generalities on it) and it's something where there's the room for a proper competing Labour vision against the Tories.

Posted by: Harve 12th July 2016, 11:22 PM

It'll get even more farcical once Corbyn gets re-elected right?

Like I don't see how the Labour party is going to survive this.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 12th July 2016, 11:47 PM

Well you are making an assumption that Corbyn has enough support to be re-elected, I don't think that will necessarily be the case should someone (please GOD not just Angela 'Lynn from Alan Partridge' Eagle) come forward with a credible alternative that speaks to, and inspires the membership.

Sad to see John McTernan lose it on BBC News this evening ('the Labour party is dead') and Alastair Campbell swear at Paul Mason on that Twitter thing. I think people need to calm down!

Posted by: Danny 13th July 2016, 02:20 AM

We all would ideally want a candidate like that, but the thing is that, if such an alternative candidate existed who could vaguely inspire the membership at the same time as being a plausible election-winner, Corbyn would never have got elected in the first place.

Most Labour members are not Trots who think Corbyn is the new messiah. The average Labour activist was well aware of Corbyn's many flaws when they voted for him a year ago, but they just saw him as a lesser evil when compared to a bunch of "career politicians" who didn't even have the spine to stand up to the Tories on something as basic as protecting vulnerable benefit-claimants, and who didn't possess anything like the charisma or gravitas to have a hope of winning a general election. It's hard to see how anything's changed on that front in the past year, especially when the PLP just gave us another look at their dire political judgement by enthusiastically backing the doomed Remain campaign.

Posted by: Liаm 13th July 2016, 03:07 AM

Angela Eagle, christ no. I just hope a more viable candidate who can unify the party stands before its too low because otherwise we'd just be better staying with Corbyn. Not that Corbyn is going to work as a leader either the way the party is going, god knows what is going to happen, it's a case of just waiting and seeing how much worse it gets atm

Posted by: Rooney 13th July 2016, 09:31 AM

The country is at it's strongest with a strong Labour opposition (or vice-versa). I don't think Angela Eagle is the answer, but I think she would steady the ship and stop a lot of pro-EU Labour supporters from jumping away to the Greens/Lib Dems. There are a lot of Labour supporters understandably upset at what Corbyn is doing to the party, but keeping him in charge is just going to do more damage for the longer term.

Posted by: Iz~ 13th July 2016, 09:47 AM

It's going to take a long time for Labour to come out of this, I'm frustrated because they're all people I'd happily see leading the country over May but they're all lacking in charisma and the drive to actually do anything that isn't fighting each other.

If a better option than Eagle exists, I'd take it, but really I just want the leader, whoever it is, Corbyn, Eagle or someone else, to start holding the government to account and get the party acting like a credible opposition. Although I'm wondering at this point whether the only way they'll go back to being stable and not prone to foot shooting is to disastrously lose in an election.

Posted by: Qassändra 13th July 2016, 10:09 AM

Danny - what are your thoughts on Owen Smith?

Posted by: Silas 13th July 2016, 10:17 AM

This is gifting May the chance to hold an early election and gain a mandate. Labour aren't in a position to boil a kettle right now and the longer this farce continues the more of a gift this gives the Tories.

Posted by: Danny 13th July 2016, 10:19 AM

I know very little about him. Watching some videos this morning, although he's not exactly overburdened with charisma, he does atleast seem an OK speaker I suppose (unlike Angela Eagle, who I genuinely think is more of a presentational disaster than Corbyn). Maybe there's a few shreds which say he could do OK in a general election, if you squint hard.

But I'd need to see a lot more from him to be reassured that, even if he compromised on some things, he would still have some basic red lines (such as protecting the poorest from welfare cuts) which he would always fight for, no matter how much the Tories try to bully him out of it.

Posted by: Qassändra 13th July 2016, 10:37 AM

He's said Labour 'should make the progressive case against freedom of movement' and there were early whispers that he might have been the left candidate last year. I have a feeling the statement will disqualify him with the membership, but it seemed a little more up your street than it would be for most members.

Posted by: Danny 13th July 2016, 01:10 PM

Admittedly it might be completely different in London (where, who knows, the majority of Labour membership might well be concentrated these days), but you'd be surprised how many takers a "reduce immigration" ticket would get from my CLP. There's even a few old guys there who, in a debate on Syria last year, made some comments about Muslims that would've made Farage blush.

Posted by: popchartfreak 13th July 2016, 01:37 PM

Sorry, history is repeating, the same activists who destroyed Labour's credibility in the 80's are manipulating the new generation of idealist johnny-come-latelys. That in his short term as leader the only time Corbyn has been fired up about anything is when his own job was on the line speaks volumes.

Exactly who does he think he is appealing to in the broader electorate? For example, I support the council house mass building programme, but will people generally? Those on waiting lists will, and those who want cheap housing to get on the housing ladder. Those who want expensive houses that hold their value won't - that's every property-owner in the country, every investment bank, and the rich press press that depend on them to survive, tax payers who will have to fork out to build the houses....

It don't come for free. People see him as lacklustre, stubborn, dodgy foreign-affairs credentials, he is just such an obvious loser who will take Labour out leading to a massive Tory majority, who will then have carte blanche to decimate every Labour achievement. The reason the PLP are doing this isn't out of spite or being anti-lefties in principle, it's because they see the bigger picture - something Labour leadership has had a problem with for many years and why it's in a mess now. Corbyn is of the "at any cost" generation. He knew the make-up of the party he has stuck with and been a thorn in the side of, including it's democratically leaders who he now wants to see tried as war criminals. Other MP's are perfectly entitled to stick with their principles and be a thorn in HIS side.

To fail to see that is to be a massive hypocrite.

Posted by: Suedehead2 13th July 2016, 02:13 PM

If we had a Like button, I would have just used it. The parallels with the 80s - particularly the attitude that it is better to be ideologically pure than to make the compromises necessary to win an election - are all too clear.

Posted by: Danny 13th July 2016, 02:15 PM

Wasn't this exactly the attitude you were advocating Labour should take on the EU?

Posted by: Soy Adrián 13th July 2016, 03:03 PM

Owen Smith could be great. My Corbynite friend said last autumn that he was probably the shadow minister closest to me in views, which was meant to be vaguely complementary. If nothing else, we could swap John Oliver in for him for PMQs and aside from the accent no one would notice.

Posted by: Qassändra 13th July 2016, 03:09 PM

Again, a one-off referendum (especially on such a seismic issue) is a slightly different circumstance for policy than the run up to a general election.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 13th July 2016, 03:11 PM

Or Ben Elton.

Posted by: Suedehead2 13th July 2016, 03:26 PM

No. On the EU, I was saying that it would be ridiculous for the overwhelming majority of MPs and the membership to undertake a complete U-turn. In the 1980s, the Labour left were the ones calling for wholesale changes in long-standing policy.

Posted by: Danny 14th July 2016, 02:35 PM

Sorry, but again, yours and Suedehead's whole arguments are based on your own "idelogically-pure" beliefs.

From my (ideological) perspective, a family not being able to afford food and electricity after having their welfare cut is much more "seismic" than whether British politicians get to attend Brussels summits anymore.

Posted by: Qassändra 14th July 2016, 03:23 PM

Yes, the knock-on effects of leaving the EU are solely limited to politicians going to Brussels summits.

Posted by: Danny 14th July 2016, 03:55 PM

OK then, some very wealthy people also might lose jobs with multinationals when they "go overseas", and have to suffer the horror of downgrading to a pleb job which only pays them a shockingly small salary of £50,000 a year or something. And some smug middle-class students might have to suffer the indignity of not being able to go backpacking across Europe as easily.

I still think the safety net for the very poorest is much more important.

Posted by: Soy Adrián 14th July 2016, 03:58 PM

Job losses from us leaving will affect every sector and every pay grade. You're clueless.

Posted by: Danny 14th July 2016, 04:00 PM

For a lot of people, there are no decent jobs to lose in the first place.

Posted by: Qassändra 14th July 2016, 04:17 PM

When food futures roll over, the poorest will be facing a 20 percent hike in the cost of their weekly shop because of the collapse in the pound. If interest rates have to go up if we stay in stagflation, people who suffer a rent hike when their landlord has to pay extra to cover their mortgage each month will be the ones hit the worst. And of course, if companies decide to relocate to an EU country when it no longer makes economic sense for them to be based in a country where they can't trade by right with the rest of the EU anymore, plenty of secretaries, cleaners, and people employed by businesses that they buy things from will be out of a job.

The effects of leaving the EU are absolutely not limited to a few middle class people losing perks. It is also, unlike general election rhetoric, a permanent decision which will translate into direct policy and cannot be shifted during the course of a government. It is only ideological to describe it as more seismic in the sense that 'more people will be hurt and it is not reversible' is an ideological basis on which to judge one policy as worse than another.

Posted by: Danny 14th July 2016, 06:37 PM

The stuff in the first paragraph is mostly just your own subjective opinions about what Brexit will mean, based on your ideology. Though for what its worth, from my perspective, welfare cuts and inequality in general is still the policy where more people get hurt and is not reversible -- to state the obvious, even if welfare cuts are eventually reversed years down the line by a different government, that won't erase the years of misery while those cuts were in place, nor does it account for the possibility that the person might have permanent health problems caused by those years of misery, which still affect them even if their material circumstances eventually improve.

Similarly, people who think unilateral disarmament is the biggest issue (not me) also probably think that renewing Trident is a "seismic and irreversible" decision -- just as you see Brexit as inevitably meaning stagflation and economic depression and all the rest of it, they see Trident renewal as inevitably leading to another arms race which will eventually spin out of control and result in destructive world wars.

The point is, you're more than entitled to your own ideological beliefs, but the 'moderates' really need to drop the whole moralising about how they think "the hard left are just about making themselves feel good, instead of wanting to win elections" -- the socalled 'moderates' have their own ideology on which they're not willing to compromise just as much as anyone else.

Posted by: popchartfreak 14th July 2016, 06:39 PM

well said all. The poor, as they always are, will be hit the hardest by Brexit. The rich always do well, no matter what. The irony is, the poor voted for it themselves this time (on the whole), and have no-one else left to blame other than the people who have created the problems in the first place: The Rich, The Powerful. Any hand the EU had in poor people's misfortune is relatively minor (if any), and they actually supported hard hit areas more than the caring sharing Tory party will, or have done.

Oh yes, immigrants will also still keep coming because there aren't enough skilled and educated people in the UK, and those that there are will bugger off to better-paid jobs elsewhere. So unless someone stacking shelves in Tesco with no GCSE's gets a move on and grabs some serious medical qualifications or learn how to service cars, they will continue to stack shelves for the forseeable future, and they can't expect to get paid huge wages without either the cost of stuff sold going up, or the company going bust as everyone votes with their feet and chooses LIDL cos it's cheaper. Same reason everyone shops on tax-dodging empire Amazon, when they could shop in rate-paying High Street shops who are slightly more expensive, but who help the economy.

Posted by: Qassändra 14th July 2016, 07:25 PM

A fall in the value of the pound causing an increase in the cost of imports is not a subjective opinion. It is mathematics. And it de facto hurts more people - literally everyone buys things that are imported. It is irreversible and, failing the kinds of policies that you aren't particularly amenable to being enforced in order to encourage people abroad to want to buy the pound, permanent. Except those policies would be to get us back to where we were *before* Brexit, not to add any gain on where we were to begin with.

They can say that all they like. There is scarce evidence that Trident renewal will lead to another arms race (after all, we've had it for 60 years without it doing so). There is plenty of evidence or already existing proof that the first paragraph of my post will lead to its consequences. I am not willing to compromise on something that was both a. eminently winnable and b. had firm and solid evidence for its permanence in making pretty much everyone but the most well-off worse off for the next ten years, no.

Posted by: #BJSCSLAYERRRRRR 14th July 2016, 07:40 PM

Corbyn is a man of the people, and changing the rules like the DNC to win, when they know HE is who WE want, then this is a disgrace and a mockery of democracy.

Posted by: Qassändra 14th July 2016, 07:58 PM

If the rules were changed by the NEC to 'stop Corbyn winning' they would have made him need nominations rather than be on the ballot automatically.

Posted by: Danny 14th July 2016, 10:41 PM

Everyone thinks their own ideology has "firm and solid evidence" supporting it. That is the nature of ideologies: subjective opinions are blown up in the person's mind to certainties, the ideology become self-evidently true to the person even while it looks completely irrational to other people. After all, if people didn't think there was plenty of evidence to support their own beliefs, then by their very nature they wouldn't have those beliefs anymore.

Posted by: Qassändra 15th July 2016, 12:16 AM

The difference being that NUCLEAR WAR ISN'T HAPPENING AS WE SPEAK!

And there is no firm and solid evidence of the permanence of being on low welfare. I can testify to it not being an enjoyable existence at all, but it's not something that lasts forever once you're off it. Leaving the EU, with all the economic knock-on effects, is something that is going to last years. Not every bad thing automatically becomes equal just because they're all 'ideologies' - it's a little like saying 'okay, so you've got no money for healthcare in the US, but have you considered that someone else feels really strongly about KFC? The death of all those chickens is permanent'.

You measure - funny this - on the basis of things like how many people something affects. How strongly affected those people are. How avoidable a given scenario is. How reversible it is. What the benefits of it in exchange for the downsides are. I consider campaigning to remain in the EU on a totally different level to something like workfare because I think in terms of sum losses to society (at *all* class levels), one is infinitely more damaging than the other. If you're at the bottom, paying a sizeable chunk more on literally anything that's imported as soon as the food futures supermarkets bought current products on expires is going to be far, far more damaging to everyone on the bottom and more acute in its severity for them than some people on long-term JSA working in a charity shop for notionally less than the minimum wage.

You can't just dismiss that as 'ideology' or 'subjectivity' - it's something that *is* going to happen unless the pound rockets back up. You're not going to like it when it does, and you're definitely not going to like what the government would have done to make the pound rocket back up if it doesn't. And at that point when you consider 'what have we actually gained for all of this?', you'll understand why I consider this to be one of the most seismic events that we should have done everything in our power to prevent. And I don't even bloody LIKE the European Union all that much!

Posted by: popchartfreak 17th July 2016, 08:21 PM

For anyone interested in corbyns leadership ability...

https://m.facebook.com/thangam.debbonaire/posts/10157204442320083

Posted by: popchartfreak 18th July 2016, 06:46 PM

...or this...

http://www.liliangreenwood.co.uk/lilian_s_speech_to_nottingham_south_labour_party_members

Posted by: Doctor Blind 18th July 2016, 08:44 PM

Labour is just a car crash at the moment - I don't particularly feel like this leadership challenge is going to improve things either as the two challengers would make equally weak leaders IMO. Jeremy clearly has insurmountable issues with communication, particularly engaging with those who disagree with him. Although I agree and support a lot of the issues he is raising, and there clearly is a groundswell of support behind him - he is definitely not the best person to lead the party.

I don't know what the solution is either, except going back in time and replacing him with Yvette Cooper.

Posted by: popchartfreak 19th July 2016, 12:22 PM

my solution would be to get Labour to return to collective responsibility for policy, not one central figure making it up as he goes along. In that respect Corbyn is like a mirror-image of Blair (albeit much more disorganised, but just as pig-headed that he is right and everyone else is wrong). It's an impasse, Corbyn can't govern, in any sense of the word, and will destroy the Labour Party if he stays. That means it's up to the MP's to decide whether it's worse for the party and country to follow him blindly into self-destruction, or whether they keep the stress up till he has a heart attack one day at the allotments, or else they start a new centre-left party and risk both failing.

Posted by: Qassändra 19th July 2016, 04:30 PM

Angela Eagle drops out of the leadership race.

Posted by: Soy Adrián 20th July 2016, 08:01 AM

A shame, although I was backing Smith anyway. A wider debate would have been good but you can understand why the PLP only wanted two candidates.

Posted by: Steve201 20th July 2016, 09:59 AM

It also would have been ridiculous for them to field a right wing candidate like Eagle against Corbyn - there would have only been one winner - at least Smith (although being two faced on alot of issues) sides himself with the left of the party like Dugher, Nandy and the like.

Although it would have been good to have a woman leader for a change.

Posted by: Soy Adrián 20th July 2016, 04:51 PM

The actual right of the party would have been mortified if you'd told them a year ago that we'd be having a leadership contest between Corbyn and Eagle. They'll like Smith even less.

Posted by: Qassändra 20th July 2016, 04:54 PM

A reminder also that Angela Eagle was the left's candidate in the deputy leadership election. Soft left =/= 'right wing' unless words have no meaning anymore.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 20th July 2016, 08:44 PM

183,541 people paid £25 to become registered supporters and qualify for a vote in the contest between existing leader Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith

Source: BBC News.


A quick calculation reveals a revenue of £4,588,525 raised in the past 48 hours for Labour

Posted by: Silas 20th July 2016, 08:46 PM

Say what you want about Corbyn but that's one hell of a war chest the party is building up.

Posted by: Soy Adrián 21st July 2016, 07:56 AM

Apparently it cost more than £3 per head to vet the registered supporters last summer, so possibly not.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 22nd July 2016, 07:28 AM

Q) How does the Labour Party leader, in 2016, intend to bring about discipline among an unruly MP?


If you answered "https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/labour-party/news/77559/conor-mcginn-i-can-no-longer-tolerate-jeremy", then well done!

Posted by: popchartfreak 22nd July 2016, 11:57 AM

coulda been worse. At least they've dropped the knee-capping and worse these days...

Posted by: popchartfreak 23rd July 2016, 07:12 PM

The Ever-Happy-To-Demo-Hypocrisy Private Eye has done a fab series of quotes from Corbyn, Abbott & co dating back to Kinnock and every Labour Leader: the gist is, it became a running joke that "if it's August it must be Corbyn plotting/pushing/demanding a leadership campaign" (because he has been doing for 25 years at least), while Abbott was supportive of "Going For The Kill" leadership qualities in the world of Labour Party politics during Brown's tenure.

Funny how they have both changed their minds, even though any MP of substance thinks they are utterly useless and about to cast the Labour Party into irrelevance. Loved the Eye cartoon, explaining how the brick went through the window of Angela's office. Apparently it was physics, using Momentum.


PS Diane made a horrific racist comment about blue-eyed blonde Scandinavians not long back working in black communities in the NHS. Apparently (I assume) black people have totally different biology to white people, and the black patients will be scared, or the white nurses must be racist as there are no black people in their country. She did apologise for the comment so that makes it all OK.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 4th August 2016, 06:19 PM

Corbyn vs Smith is on BBC News at the moment. Anyone watching it?

Posted by: popchartfreak 4th August 2016, 07:33 PM

Only if it's in a boxing ring....

Posted by: Steve201 4th August 2016, 09:51 PM

Gutted I missed this must check for a repeat!

Posted by: Qassändra 4th August 2016, 10:29 PM

Better things to do with my life than watch a fish attempt to put up a fight from the barrel.

Posted by: popchartfreak 9th August 2016, 11:45 AM

s that's it then, the New Left inherit Labour for the next decade or so till they realise the population is no more left-leaning (in an almost horizontal sense) than it was in the 80's.

In the meantime, the country will lurch even farther to the right while they are out of power, unions castrated, workers rights eaten away, the NHS quietly gradually privatised, and the young poor excluded from achieving thanks to lack of financial support, and Council houses done away with piecemeal fashion.

Withut the EU (thanks Corbyn for your lack of supprt) I have no optimism that there will be any more brakes on unbridled Tories, heaven knows Corbyn and his idealists have done nothing of any practical help, unless you call mutual admiration amongst the converted "practical", mixed with a slice of demonisation of those that don't tow the party line (like the hypocrite Corbyn wasn't when he was the one doing the criticising).

sighs....

Posted by: Soy Adrián 9th August 2016, 02:48 PM

I'm feeling slightly more optimistic about the future of Manchester today. So that's nice.

Posted by: Danny 10th August 2016, 12:59 AM

And once again you contradict yourself. You can't call for a more pragmatic Labour Party, at the very same time that you bemoan them being TOO pragmatic and too in line with public opinion on the EU, even when being passionately in favour of it would've been suicidal for the party.



If only the Labour mainstream (a) had more MPs like Andy Burnham rather than the talent vacuum they've currently got, and (b ) Andy Burnham himself hadn't spectacularly lost his nerve last summer and based his leadership campaign on a Progress dream manifesto, then the party would be in a much better place.

Posted by: Soy Adrián 10th August 2016, 07:53 AM

Andy Burnham's not necessarily any more talented than a lot of the others, he was running for a position where it would have been counterproductive to oppose Corbyn.

Also, grad tax and rail renationalisation. Open Labour dream manifesto more like.

Posted by: Silas 10th August 2016, 09:05 AM

Those are both pretty popular policies outside of the westminister circle jerk. Although I'm not convinced renationalisation will fix the problems with the railways. The franchise system is fairly flawed in that we basically have a bunch of small monopolies but that's another topic for another time.

Posted by: popchartfreak 10th August 2016, 09:16 AM

"Once again"? Contradiction (or opposing views held at the same time), is part of life, it's called looking at the Big Picture, as opposed to simplistic black and white. The world is grey....

The Labour Party policy, as voted for by MP's, was pro-EU. Virtually no-one was aware of that due to massive failure by Corbyn (on the grounds that he actually wanted immediate withdrawal the next day regardless of the consequences of being utterly unprepared for it). The party is on a suicidal heading right now, being seen to be pro-EU wouldnt have changed that. Trying to pander to anti-EU voters who feel alienated will lose the mainstream and they will still prob vote UKIP anyway. Had Corbyn pointed out the lies strongly by the anti-EU campaigners, then right now we could well not be faced with leaving. The country was split down the middle, with slightly less people wanting to leave overall than those who wanted to stay or weren't bothered enough to vote (expecting remain to win).

Corbyn doesn't engage with people. He's had too many mad policies over the decades to be anything more than a niche candidate. He's a huge hypocrite. He has no leadership skills. He will be gone sometime after the next general election. He does however help give the English electorate clear choices for the next election:

Far Left.
Centre.
Far Right.

That is all.

Posted by: Danny 10th August 2016, 10:46 AM

As well as saying the mansion tax was "politics of envy", saying Labour needed to be tougher on the "workshy", saying Labour should worship the super-rich, saying Labour should dance to the Tories' tune on austerity even more than Miliband and Balls did, etc.

Posted by: Danny 10th August 2016, 10:57 AM

But passionate support for the EU is considered by the public to be a "mad"/"niche"/extreme policy. Your personal opinion on Europe is not the "mainstream" opinion, as the referendum showed.

Once again, you (and many others like you) can't give high-minded lectures about how Labour should compromise more to be seen as appealing to the public, but then when it comes to an issue that you personally happen to think is important, demand that Labour should throw all pragmatic concerns out and become an obsessed pressure group about it, no matter what the huge damage it does to the party.

Posted by: Soy Adrián 10th August 2016, 03:04 PM

48% isn't mainstream? Give over.

Posted by: Danny 10th August 2016, 07:17 PM

How much of the 48% do you think were passionately in favour of the EU and considered it their top political priority that should be fought to the death for, rather than (like Corbyn, ironically enough) thinking the EU had a whole load of flaws but on balance there were a few too many unanswered questions about Brexit, and that there were a few too many racists supporting Brexit which people didn't want to associate themselves with?

Posted by: popchartfreak 10th August 2016, 07:23 PM

What Soy Adrian said.

Tories managed to combine both extreme Brexit and extreme Remain....is the party hugely damaged by that?

a) not with the public
b) unified front afterwards

They were on both sides, if nothing else, passionate. Labour as a party was a wet fish, and it hasn't helped them in the slightest having a leader that was a flounder amongst an ocean of sharks, just flipping and flopping a bit trying not to attract their attention. As I've said before, the only passion Corbyn has demonstrated so far for anything, is a passion to keep his job. He's VERY committed to that one....

Posted by: Soy Adrián 10th August 2016, 08:40 PM

There was a referendum on our membership. Invariably that means that most politicians and parties would pick a side and argue for it - that's kind of their job.

Posted by: Danny 10th August 2016, 10:00 PM

That's the point -- the Tories represented BOTH positions, so voters on either side didn't feel disenfranchised by the party. You are suggesting Corbyn/Labour should've been uniformly and loudly pro-EU, which would've thus disenfranchised two-thirds of current Labour seats (most of which were happy to vote for Corbyn's Labour as recently as May's local elections, incidentally, probably because he wasn't alienating them by telling them their opinion on the EU was stupid/racist/antithetical to Labour, and that people should mindlessly obey their superiors in London on whom the rest of the country are supposedly dependent).

Again, if you really feel being in the EU is one of the most important issues of all, then you're entitled to your opinion - but do you really not see how "Labour should care about winning elections and not being 100% pure on issues, unless it's an issue that I care about like the EU, in which case they should've been willing to destroy themselves as a party for the sake of being on the morally-right side of the argument" is a ridiculously hypocritical stance?

Posted by: Soy Adrián 11th August 2016, 08:28 AM

Resentment of Corbyn in those areas was almost as high as resentment of the EU, just for the record.

Posted by: Danny 11th August 2016, 11:11 AM

That's not borne out by a comparison of Labour's results in May, to Remain's results in June.

Posted by: popchartfreak 11th August 2016, 11:45 AM

I'M not the one who chose to pretty much ignore LABOUR party policy, of which he was the leader. That includes Unions and many working class voters. You are the one implying that all working class voters are anti-EU and that by not committing to the issue one way or the other that is of any help to either viewpoint. Just as many were well-off Tory supporters and racist, that doesn't mean Labour should try and pander to get their votes either. A SANE passsionate labour voice could have made all the difference, and we will all pay for Corbyn's stance over the next 10 years. Including the very same poor people who didn't quite get what they think they were voting for.

I pretty much have said since I joined Buzzjack that the Labour Party needs to look at the bigger picture. The reason it's in a total infighting mess is precisely because they don't look at the bigger picture. I'm a lifelong union member, and I financially support the Labour Party, so yes I am entitled to my opinion - been there longer than all the recent johnny cum latelys and johnny-cum-back-agains that ruined the Labour Party (and as a byproduct, the Tory-dominated country) in the 80's. Been there, done it, been on strike, seen it all before.

I'm left of centre, and sometimes you have to take a practical view on what you are willing to compromise on for the greater good. There were 3 million of us on the dole in the 80's (2 and a half years myself) so I pretty much know what it's like to have nothing, not even full benefits (which were rubbish back then). Even despite that, Labour STILL self-imploded under Lefty idealists who just alienated huge swathes of the population with their militant comrade-cum-the-revolution-first against-the-wall rubbish.

History, despite Corbyn's own hazy memory of events, does repeat. Labour run the risk of being replaced as an electoral force (albeit one that sticks to it's idealised left principles), that's how serious the issue is....

Posted by: Soy Adrián 11th August 2016, 01:53 PM

Turnout in the locals was around half of what it was in the referendum. Did you miss the bit where loads of non-voters (many of whom used to or culturally would be expected to vote Labour) turned out to vote to leave because they were generally angry at all politicians including Corbyn?

As an aside, winning those sorts of people over was meant to be his trump card. Looking at his past views, I suppose he did in a sense.

Posted by: Qassändra 11th August 2016, 06:00 PM

One got 31%, one got 48%. Which one's supposed to be the unpopular viewpoint again?

Posted by: Danny 11th August 2016, 06:23 PM

Firstly, disingenuousness aside, I'm pretty sure you see the difference between getting 48% out of just TWO options (and coming second), and getting 33% and coming first out of over ONE HUNDRED options? By your logic, Mitt Romney was more popular than Tony Blair since he got a higher % in his election, if you ignore the context of how many opponents there were in the different elections.

Secondly, we were talking specifically about Labour heartland seats, in most of which Corbyn's Labour did better than Remain in absolute terms as well as in relative terms (e.g. Labour averaged more than 50% in Sunderland in May, compared to Remain getting 40% there).

Posted by: Soy Adrián 12th August 2016, 07:33 AM

Again, turnout.

Posted by: Danny 12th August 2016, 02:36 PM

I'm really struggling to understand what your point has been in your last few posts. Are you genuinely trying to argue that a passionately pro-EU stance WOULDN'T have damaged Labour in their Leave-voting heartland seats?

Posted by: Soy Adrián 12th August 2016, 03:11 PM

No, you're trying to turn the argument again back to something which no one has actually said.

You denied that people in Labour heartlands resented Corbyn anywhere near as much as they resented the EU, and pointed to the fact that in May we were the largest party in many of our heartlands, which would then go on to vote Leave in higher numbers than many other places. I don't think there's much evidence for that, partly because of evidence from knocking on doors in the run up to the locals where Corbyn was just as much a negative as Europe, but mainly because the local elections saw a far lower turnout where many of the "Labour" people who went on to vote Leave a month later simply stayed at home.

Posted by: Danny 12th August 2016, 03:38 PM

The local elections turnout were average for local elections though? Turnout for locals is lower than in general elections/referendums across the board, across parties and across demographic groups. It's an incredibly spurious line of argument to start saying a lower turnout means the elections are a less reliable guide -- look at the recent Scottish elections -- despite turnout fluctuating wildly (85% for the referendum, 70% for the 2015 general election, 56% for this year's Scottish parliament), the YES/SNP % is eerily constant in most areas throughout, because, like with all contests, there's an equal drop in turnout with SNP/independence supporters as there is with everyone else. And it's exactly the same with local elections - they have generally been shown to be a representative mood-check despite ALWAYS having much lower turnout, because turnout is down pretty much equally among all groups (except usually a little more down with supporters of the government of the day).

The bottom line is, Corbyn's Labour won the Sunderlands of the world handsomely in May, before the Leave campaign swept them in landslides a month later. I can't for the life of me understand how that comparison of the elections/referendum, JUST A MONTH APART, could possibly not prove that it's not blatantly obvious that Labour had a lot of room for damage in those places (well beyond any damage Corbyn may or may not have done) if they'd aggressively campaigned for Remain, and essentially suggested supporting Leave was incompatible with supporting Labour (like they suggested supporting Yes in Scotland was incompatible with supporting the party).

(Plus, if you're going to raise the anecdote of people on doorsteps, then I'll give you the anecdote of people at my work, where people have barely ever mentioned Corbyn but were filled with fury and contempt at the EU, the Remain Campaign, and rich Londoners thinking they're better than everyone else and trying to tell people what to do - and that includes people who voted Remain in the end.)

Posted by: popchartfreak 12th August 2016, 04:24 PM

Supporting Tory is entirely compatible with voting Leave or Remain. people voted for a million different personal grudges or reasons, and gnerally being fed up with all politicians. UKIP anyone, hardly Labour policy in any shape or form! More right-wing than Tories....

Supporting Labour should be no different in principle. Hoping the Tories mess up to win back lost Labour voters is not a great policy. If the Leave voters get what they want, they will credit the Tories/UKIP and not vote Labour. If they don't get what they want (which is largely immigration) they will vote UKIP unless Labour adopts a looky-likey policy. Is that seriously likely? labour an anti-immigrant party? Cos that, talking to most working class people, is still the main issue, t'other being fed up being told what to do by the EU. 5 years of being told what to do by the Tories might alter that viewpoint. Labour would need to become UKIP to win them back.

Posted by: Soy Adrián 12th August 2016, 04:30 PM

You're behaving as if the campaign that Corbyn ran was clear and balanced on how complex the issue of the EU is for Labour, how there were many good Labour people on either side and that both campaigns had their merits and their flaws. It would be one thing if he'd have done that, and that would have indeed been a better way of approaching it than this bizarro version of a strong Remain campaign you think we're advocating where it would be suggested that voting Leave was incompatible with supporting Labour.

The only problem is - that's unequivocally not the campaign that took place. Instead, he squandered his unique position as the party leader by showing all the complete lack of understanding of how the media works that his leadership in general has been defined by, with an extra sprinkling of refusing to make appearances which he thought beneath him and allowing/telling his staff to delete pro-EU sections of his speeches. It was the worst of both worlds.

Posted by: Danny 13th August 2016, 01:15 PM

As far as I see it, the message Corbyn tried to send out was "I'm for Remain, but I don't care about it that much and it doesn't bother me if you have a different opinion". That was by FAR the stance that was in Labour's best interests as a party, when so many of their voters were going for Leave - and frankly, I honestly think Tony Blair would've taken a similar stance if the referendum had happened while he'd been leader (or atleast, it would've been Blair's stance before he became a deranged ideologue himself in his later years).

Also you can call it "bizarro" when I say the Labour EU-obsessives wanted to suggest voting Leave was incompatible with voting Labour, but that would've been strongly implied by the sort of campaign they'd have been running. If Labour had been going on and on and for a year about how desperately they wanted to stay in the EU, making clear it was their top priority above anything else, and suggesting they found it incomprehensible that anyone could have a different opinion on the matter, then quite obviously people who were voting Leave would've been majorly put off the party, and possibly felt quite insulted by them. As it is, as May's local election results showed, Corbyn actually showed some uncharacteristic political savviness on the issue which meant Leave voters still feel comfortable with Labour, since the leadership didn't give the impression the EU was a "make or break" issue for them - which is a damnsight better than the situation would be if one of the hapless "moderate" MPs was in charge and they'd been running a "passionate" and "unequivocal" campaign on the EU.

Posted by: Suedehead2 13th August 2016, 02:16 PM

When people were being bombarded with messages saying that the referendum was the most important decision voters had been given for decades (a reasonably fair assessment for once), how was going around saying "not really bothered" a good idea?

Posted by: Soy Adrián 13th August 2016, 02:27 PM

Quite.

Also find it quite funny that you're convinced Blair would have been fairly ambiguous about staying in the EU.

Posted by: Danny 13th August 2016, 05:13 PM

Because it saved Labour from being annihilated, as the comparison between Labour's results in the local elections in May, and Remain's disastrous results in those same places a month later, shows.




Why? He used to be a pragmatist, and he would've foreseen how disastrous it would be for Labour to sound like being pro-EU was an article of faith for the party.

In fact, that isn't completely hypothetical -- we actually did see Blair act in a similar way to Corbyn on the Euro question. Blair privately thought it was essential to join the Euro (and remember, the same kind of economists and big business people who were going into hysterics at the prospect of leaving the EU, were acting in the exact same way about the prospect of Britain being left out of the Euro not so long ago), but even so he kept kicking it into the long grass and was always more than happy to give in to Brown whenever he started kicking up a fuss about it, because he knew how hard a sell it would be to the public, and he didn't want to ruin his own reputation and Labour's success for the sake of it.

Posted by: Qassändra 15th August 2016, 05:21 PM

Absolutely nobody was acting like the UK not being in the Euro was equivalent to the UK leaving the EU, apart from maybe a couple of deranged Lib Dems.

Posted by: popchartfreak 15th August 2016, 06:39 PM

dunno about the deranged libdems (as if there could be such a thing ) but yes nobody was too bothered about staying out of the euro, it was one of those "wouldn't mind" or "not in a million years" issues. The man in the street was hardly ranting about it - he didn't even talk about it much.

Posted by: Danny 15th August 2016, 07:51 PM

Indeed, just as the man on the street wasn't ranting this time about how important staying in the EU was and how it would be a complete disaster if we left (or atleast, the man on non-London streets hasn't been ranting about that anyway).

In the case of both Brexit and the Euro, though, there was a big difference between the "man on the street", and a certain section of the liberal commentariat and big businesses, who in both cases were going into meltdown about how "Little England" would be left behind if they didn't "sit at the top table", and about how all businesses were supposedly going to flee the country if it wasn't done.

Posted by: Qassändra 15th August 2016, 08:29 PM

You may have noticed that we don't know the terms on which we'll be leaving yet. I wouldn't count your chickens on the outcome not meaning anything.

(And again, no, no big business ever said it would leave the UK if we didn't join the Euro.)

Posted by: popchartfreak 15th August 2016, 10:01 PM

Well, speaking as a man in the street, I and plenty of others were livid about having all of our EU rights taken away from us, it's caused massive family, work and friend arguments and splits. Just as the country was split. There has been nothing remotely as divisive amongst the general population during my lifetime - not even close.

Now some geographical areas are more leaning one way than the other, but both sides are pretty convinced the other side is nuts, still. We just agree to disagree to avoid further argument.

Posted by: Qassändra 22nd August 2016, 04:51 PM

I voted for Owen Smith, but at this point I'm almost past caring who wins. Burn it to the ground, salt the earth and start again.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 22nd August 2016, 05:15 PM

If Corbyn wins, are you going to leave Labour, or are you too institutionalized at this point?

Posted by: Silas 22nd August 2016, 06:44 PM

Kezia Dugdale has publicly backed Owen Smith, although at this point does anyone really give a shite what the Edinburgh branch office thinks? Scotland certainly doesn't.

Posted by: Qassändra 22nd August 2016, 09:08 PM

Ever bought a fake painting? The more you pay for it, the less inclined you are to doubt it. Silly, but there we are.

Posted by: Danny 22nd August 2016, 11:17 PM

It's really hilarious how SHE of all people thinks she can give out lectures on how to win elections.

Posted by: Soy Adrián 23rd August 2016, 07:37 AM

I know! And that pesky Sadiq as well.

Oh wait.

Posted by: Qassändra 23rd August 2016, 08:20 AM

Well it's not like people listen to the ones that can either.

I also love how Corbyn within six months went from being the one who would single-handedly bring back Scotland to having absolutely nothing to do with the result because it was all systematic and generations in the making (but at the same time entirely Jim Murphy and Kezia Dugdale's fault)

Posted by: Danny 23rd August 2016, 10:43 AM

Khan actually did worse (in terms of improvement on the 2015 performance) in May than Corbyn did in the local elections. Khan had a lead of 9% over Goldsmith, which is pretty much identical to the lead Labour had in London in 2015; Corbyn led the Tories by 1% in the locals, which is a 4% swing to Labour compared to 2015.

Admittedly racism probably was a bit of a drag on Khan's performance, but even so, only matching Ed Miliband in London is hardly evidence that Khan is some electoral wizard who knows how to appeal to northern "traditional" Labour seats and to non-metropolitan swing voters - especially since one of the reasons he gave was that Corbyn wasn't enough of a cheerleader for the Remain campaign.

Posted by: Soy Adrián 23rd August 2016, 10:56 AM

His personal ratings in London compared to Corbyn's kind of put paid to the idea that the latter was actually a help during Sadiq's campaign.

That aside, it's pretty damning when the leader of the party is basically at war with its most popular elected politician. Especially given that (unless May does actually abandon them) we'll be seeing a number of probably Labour mayors over the next couple of years with their own direct mandate from such leafy "metropolitan" areas as St Helens, Rochdale and Middlesbrough. The likes of Khan, Burnham, and co will be far more in touch with their electorate than Jez will.

(also let's not get trapped into thinking that just because it's got a lot of hipsters and skyscrapers in some areas, none of London has anything in common with the swing areas elsewhere)

Posted by: Danny 23rd August 2016, 11:02 AM

I didn't actually say Corbyn was a help to Khan, as such. I said that Corbyn performed better in the contests he was responsible for (the English council elections) than Khan did in the contest he was responsible for, if improvement on 2015 is the metric.

And I think the EU Referendum showed that London really is completely different politically to the rest of the country. Though for what it's worth, Khan didn't do well in the remaining swing boroughs in London either, except for Wandsworth (where he might have had a "hometown" bonus) -- he got beaten heavily by Goldsmith in Croydon, Harrow and Barnet, which all have top marginal seats.

Posted by: Qassändra 23rd August 2016, 11:17 AM

Measure it by absolute percentage rather than relative lead and it's not as cut and dried. 32% is unprecedentedly poor for an opposition one year in. Nobody seriously thinks the Conservatives will get 31% at the next election, whereas it's rare to find an opposition that gets a higher percentage of the vote at the general election than it did at the local elections one year in. The boroughs argument ignores that there are plenty of safe seats that skew the vote in those boroughs as well (you're never going to catch a Labour politician coming within a sniff of winning in Croydon South, for example), so without constituency data it's not really a fair comparison. Although the ward data is out there, so if anyone's got a lot of time on their hands...

Posted by: Danny 23rd August 2016, 11:27 AM

People on Politicalbetting and UK Polling Report did have that time on their hands, which is what I'm basing my comments on The ward data excludes postal votes, which is fair to say would skew heavily to the Tories - yet, even without postal votes, Khan still narrowly lost Croydon Central, which is #3 on Labour's target list. Compare that to Corbyn notionally "winning" constituencies as far down as Milton Keynes (#83 on the target list) on the same day.

The only (semi-)marginal Khan showed significant improvement on 2015 was in Battersea, but again it's unclear how much of that was influenced by it being next door to Khan's own seat.

Posted by: Qassändra 23rd August 2016, 01:32 PM

The other caveat being that in an election where voters are given two votes (and therefore the freedom to vote for who they like most first if they would ordinarily vote tactically), an increase in the vote on first preferences alone on the year before isn't a shabby result at all. He won Croydon Central on second preferences.

By comparison, Labour lost council seats in Milton Keynes this year (and both parliamentary seats have 8,000+ majorities). Interrogating the validity of Labour's few winners at the moment feels a little like replying to the offer of a fizzy drink in the desert with a question on whether it's been in the fridge or not.

Posted by: Danny 23rd August 2016, 02:18 PM

The idea that AV affected things isn't very convincing, especially since the combined Labour+Tory share of first preferences in the mayoral election was actually slightly more than in the 2015 election. In any case, if we're talking a direct comparison with 2015, then since that election didn't use AV, surely first preferences is the only reliable way to do it - and on that score, Khan showed no progress or perhaps with postal votes included even slipped backwards from the 2015 performance in Croydon Central.

Labour lost council seats in Milton Keynes compared to 2012, which is again not a like-for-like comparison since that was the mid-term of a parliament compared to Year One of a parliament where the government always has a honeymoon effect lingering. The ideal comparison for this year's local elections is with 2011 - but since there were no London elections in 2011, the best that can be managed to see who did better between Corbyn and Khan is a comparison with 2015 - and on that score, I really can't see how it's in question that Corbyn winning well over half of Labour's top 100 target seats (including seats right near the bottom of the top 100 like Elmet & Rothwell, Milton Keynes South and Redditch with swings of 8-9% from 2015) is empirically better than Khan losing in every London target seat bar a wafer-thin win in Battersea, with most targets showing zero or a negative swing from 2015.

You're right that actually picking potential winners of general elections from Labour right now is like trawling through a desert, but it's about who can get the least-bad result - and May's results show Corbyn has a better idea than Khan does, and certainly a MUCH better idea than Dugdale does.

Posted by: Qassändra 23rd August 2016, 03:41 PM

Because the result Corbyn got in those seats didn't indicate Labour strength so much as Conservative weakness? We got 31% of the vote nationally - historically appallingly low for an opposition a year in. That the Conservatives fell 7 percent but Labour gained 1 percent in vote share should be the giveaway that the swing and the result don't represent Corbyn's strength and ability to win those votes. Governments always lose support in the mid-term. What does it say when the opposition isn't the one benefiting from that? Particularly when oppositions almost without fail do worse in the general election on vote share than they do in their first set of council elections - and when governments almost without fail do better.

I will also add that it's a slightly unfair comparison, in that had Labour performed nationally in its target seats as it had done in its London targets in 2015 it would've probably been the biggest party - a 7 percent swing and four of its seven seats lost in 2010 to the Tories taken back (plus the Lib Dems, but then we took those seats everywhere so those aren't especially London-centric successes). Take London out of the equation and Labour had a net loss of seats to the Tories in 2015 (and Sadiq was in charge of the 2015 London campaign, but obviously your mileage may vary on how much credit he can take for the result), so it feels a little harsh to condemn him for equalling what was one of the few areas where we actually did okay in 2015.

Posted by: Qassändra 23rd August 2016, 03:44 PM

Also before we get all the revisionism in, Kezia Dugdale's entire platform for Scottish Labour this year was predicated on the 'go left' prescription. Probably not the platform she'd prescribe for the national party at a general election, given the choice. And given her weaknesses as a candidate (poor delivery, lack of gravitas etc) can be boiled down to things that are pretty much irrelevant to the things she's advising for the national party...

Posted by: Danny 23rd August 2016, 04:11 PM

To be pedantic, you still seem to be using the early BBC estimate which was made before all the results were in - the final Rallings & Thrasher figures for the national voteshares were Labour 33%, Conservatives 32%. Not that it really matters, since on either set of figures, Labour had a 1% lead, and the only thing that matters in elections is how you do relative to the competition, especially in a first-past-the-post system.

It's also not true at all that governments typically do much better in a general election than they do in their honeymoon first-year local elections. The Tories in 2015 actually did slightly worse than they did in 2011, and even in Thatcher's first term (the textbook example of a government recovery), they only did 3% better in the general election than in the 1980 locals. If history's any guide, 32% will be quite close to what the Tories get at the next election if the parliament runs to full term (I'm assuming we don't think Theresa May's current honeymoon polling is any more predictive of the next election than Brown's double-digit leads in the summer of 2007).

Posted by: Danny 23rd August 2016, 04:16 PM

I'm not sure I understand your point here? London was one of Labour's successful areas in 2015, because it's trending long-term towards Labour, just like big cities are trending to left-wing parties right around the world. That doesn't change that Corbyn managed to add more votes to Labour's 2015 "baseline support" in most English local councils, than Khan managed to add to their baseline support in london.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 23rd August 2016, 04:56 PM

After all the things that should have damaged Corbyn's reputation, which includes, but is not limited to, terrorist sympathizing, being employed by Iran's propaganda network, not doing enough to challenge the revival of Antisemitism within the Labour Party, the allegations of allowing racism in the party to go unchallenged, not playing a big enough part in keeping Britain in the EU, losing the support of the majority of his MPs and seeing the majority of his front bench ditching him, it would be amazing if the one thing that finally pushed him out of the Labour leadership was lying about his experience on public transport.

Posted by: Qassändra 23rd August 2016, 05:40 PM

I was going to caveat 2011 as the obvious exception given the Lib Dem collapse and the rise of Ukip but Wikipedia LIED to me and told me they got 35% when I thought they were using Rallings & Thrasher so I FOOLISHLY GAVE IT A MISS

The only thing that matters in general elections is how you do relative to the competition. That doesn't apply to midterm elections for the very obvious reason that a small lead for the opposition at a local election doesn't give any indication that the opposition is going to do well in a general election. Therefore the kinds of things you want to be looking for are a. *big* leads, b. preferably big leads based on votes taken away from the governing party (this is entirely anecdotal but I would be astounded if many other seats contradicted the experience of everyone I know of the 2016 locals as an 'L T Y'-free zone when it came to canvassing sheets), and c. voteshares above what you would expect at the next general election. The Rallings and Thrasher graph of the last 30 years has a certain rhythm every five years, and it isn't a pretty one for opposition parties that don't feature the above three factors in their result.




I think it is likely to be more predictive, but mainly as I think Theresa May is a less flawed politician and far more competent operator compared with Gordon Brown. Plus, I think that the principles of the general political outlook of 'Mayism' command more public support than...whatever Brownism in government rather than theory turned out to be in the end (QUICK, LAUNCH ANOTHER INITIATIVE)

On the other hand, she'll have to deal with problems Brown never had to deal with (everyone's shopping basket going up by about 15% over the next year as hedging and futures contracts expire; a majority of 12; a public that prefers Brexit to the EU, prefers the EEA to hard Brexit, but prefers the EU to the EEA, meaning it will therefore likely be pissed off with whatever option we go with - but then, she gets to choose the one that likely does Tory support the least damage). But I would be shocked if she had the kind of implosion that Brown had, especially given that implosion came from Brown doing something that completely cut against everything he sold himself as up until that point. I have a feeling Theresa May is probably more canny than that.


Big cities trending towards Labour didn't really aid Labour in many city swing seats against the Tories elsewhere in the country. Labour's result in the capital outdid the party's performance at the council and EU elections the year before hugely, which makes me think that there were factors involved beyond just demographics. Nonetheless, I take the view that someone who advanced a little on a fairly good result (which they oversaw to begin with) is probably better placed to talk about electoral success than someone who pretty much stood still on an awful result the year prior despite the collapse of the other party nationally.

Posted by: Qassändra 23rd August 2016, 05:40 PM

It would be, but then it won't.

Posted by: Danny 23rd August 2016, 06:28 PM

But the thing is that Prime Ministers who take over in mid-term, without a general election, seem to have a particular advantage at first. They get the best of both worlds, because they get all the authority that being PM and going to summits with Angela Merkel provides, but, because they haven't (yet) been seen grubbing for votes in general elections, they're also viewed as not being "typical politicians" who are saying things to protect their position - essentially they get seen as like benevolent and un-corrupt monarchs. But that will change when a general election is coming, because, whatever her other strengths, the very fact she'll be competing in a campaign will drag her much more into the "typical politician" sphere than she is right now (even if she doesn't implode as spectacularly as Brown, there's also the example of John Major, whose honeymoon polling got close to 50% - well above the actual result in the '92 election).

Posted by: Danny 23rd August 2016, 06:33 PM

Also, why do you say that Labour's results in 2015 in London were better than in 2014?

Posted by: popchartfreak 23rd August 2016, 07:52 PM

Had a mutually assertive expression of points of view with a long-time good friend t'other weekend at our comics fanzine collation in London: he's a fairly moderate staunch Labour activist, gets to meet those members who bother to turn up to Enfield, but seems to be of the view that 170 Labour MP's are just trying to get rid of Corbyn to save their own skin, (and by inference lying about his leadership qualities). My view is that by inference that means the official Labour Party is essentially saying "don't vote for these 170 lying MP's" in a sort of mass suicide pact, and that Jeremy Corbyn is a paragon of virtue who wouldn't DREAM of campaigning to get rid of the duly elected leader of the party. Except for Kinnock. Oh, and Smith. Blair he wants tried as a war criminal so we could expect that one. Brown too, of course, not keen on him. Miliband? There MUST have been one he supported....!

Posted by: Qassändra 23rd August 2016, 10:10 PM

This, actually, is part of the reason I think she'll do quite well - because I think she'll be good at avoiding looking like a typical politician (unless she goes ahead and calls that snap election for electoral advantage without a government confidence issue being at stake).

She 'panders' (to whatever extent you can call it that, given I think she genuinely believes it) to popular issues in ways that the public isn't used to being pandered to, because politicians haven't pulled those levers in a long time: grammar schools, actually going all out to cut immigration, cutting down on cronyism and doing something about the House of Lords, generally favouring social order and stable society over unfettered capitalism. She's generally been profiled as someone who doesn't let go of an issue until she's achieved the goal, which is the kind of thing that I can imagine earning grudging respect - and, crucially, would also add to a view that she isn't typical given it's not a trait most people would ascribe to the last few Prime Ministers.

The difficulty it probably raises is that a lot of those policy objectives and aims have been left well alone for good reason - because they're counterproductive or have big knock-on effects that are fairly costly. It will be interesting to see if those kinds of policies have an impact on her popularity when the negative consequences come out, in the long-term.

Posted by: Qassändra 23rd August 2016, 10:11 PM

Higher percentage of the vote and bigger swing compared with 2010 between the two elections.

Posted by: Danny 23rd August 2016, 10:25 PM

They got a higher share of the vote in 2015 than in the European elections EVERYWHERE (except Scotland) - 24% across the UK in the 2014 Euros, compared to 30% in the general election. Their performance in London relative to the rest of the UK was pretty much the same both years (they did 12% better in London than in the rest of the UK in 2014, and 13% better in London in 2015).

I really don't think Labour's performance in London in 2015 was particularly exceptional, over and above the long-term trend to Labour in London which was shown in both 2010 (where they held onto more marginal seats than they did elsewhere) and in the 2014 elections. Thus, since 2015 wasn't exceptional, it's pretty damning Sadiq Khan failed to perform any better than that 2015 baseline, whereas Corbyn atleast managed to make some modest (albeit unspectacular) progress on the 2015 baseline in the elections he was responsible for, in generally much more unfriendly territory than London.

Posted by: Danny 23rd August 2016, 10:45 PM

Anyway, as somebody who didn't even vote for Corbyn last year (or even gave him my 2nd preference), I've now cast my vote for him this time.

Not because he's remotely surpassed my expectations, but because the MPs have proven even more politically inept, and generally much worse human-beings, than I would've guessed a year ago. The outright lies from some of them about "death threats" and "John McDonnell broke into my office" and "Corbyn fired me because I'm black" were the last straw.

Posted by: Qassändra 23rd August 2016, 11:51 PM

Council elections in London, not Euros. I didn't count Euros as FPTP vs PR is an unfair comparison. But the council swing from 2010 to 2014 was a 4.5% swing to 36%, compared with an 8% swing for the general election to 44% (or thereabouts IIRC)

Posted by: Qassändra 24th August 2016, 12:04 AM

That isn't Chi Onwurah's claim - as you would know if you read her article/had read it but weren't being obtuse. She said that any major company that treated her and Thangam Debbonaire the way they had been done, coincidentally identically, as two of the very few BAME women in the PLP, would have been investigated for professional misconduct, with racial discrimination investigated as well. And they would have done. Most companies would be mortified to be accused of racism, but plenty would still likely be capable of an action which looked exactly like it couldn't tell two black women apart and had gotten them mixed up in a decision with huge professional repercussions.

Nonetheless, that Chi is one of the MPs going vocal with such criticisms shows exactly how shatteringly incapable Corbyn is of operating as a remotely functioning leader. She is the epitome of "won't say boo to a goose, loyalty to the leader first, don't rock the boat" soft leftism (hell, probably even a bit lefter than that). She is nobody's idea of a Blairite stooge trying an 'evil stitch-up'. She is exactly the type of MP that really tried to make it work with Corbyn. And yet he refused to meet her, refused to co-ordinate with her, trod all over her work, gave away half her job without even speaking to or calling her, and treats her as non-existent. If Corbyn can't make it work with someone like Chi Onwurah, it is difficult to think who he *could* make it work with who he didn't agree with chapter and verse.

That kind of leader isn't going to make it through a general election alive. I don't know what planet you're on that you think anybody who can't even command the confidence of the soft elements of their party who try to make it work with them is going to be the figure best placed to get the least bad result.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 24th August 2016, 06:54 PM

There's an interesting article in The Spectator from an anonymous Labour supporter http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/08/shouldnt-vote-jeremy-corbyn/?_ga=1.201280430.1042205660.1469743466. A lot of it is stuff that I was already aware of, but it's amazing to read it all in full. Not that any of it will change the views of any of the devout Corbynistas, mind.

Posted by: Silas 24th August 2016, 07:54 PM

Dugdale's record thus far is to fall to 3rd in Holyrood when days before the election she was confident of being biggest party. Basically anything she says, do the opposite.



Has everyone seen the Virgin Trains debacle?! Neither party are looking particularly great in the debate, although most of the critics are only mouthing off to their own echo chambers.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 24th August 2016, 08:07 PM

I wouldn't say that everyone has suffered as a result of "The Train Thing" (I refuse to use that suffix) - Virgin Trains have just been gifted millions in free publicity. I can almost imagine the ad now - Choose Virgin Trains, the train where you're guaranteed a seat, because of all the twits that refuse to take one.

Posted by: popchartfreak 24th August 2016, 08:23 PM

It's all pretty damning and well-documented fact. I just dont understand how intelligent people who wish to change the world for the better are utterly blinkered into believing that none of the facts matter and that Corbyn is anything other than a snivelling, useless, two-faced, terrorist-supporting, hypocrite with a calm demeanor. Being quietly-spoken does not mean you are a wonderful human being in any way. Supporting SOME good causes (end of Right To Buy, rail nationalisation) does not forgive your past and current behaviour. What you DO and have done is what you should be judged on, and he's a sorry excuse for a man determined to wreck the Labour Party, despite having seen his personal heroes (who were much less extreme than he) do exactly the same in the 80's. He has never shown any personal loyalty to his colleagues, or to the safety of his constituents in the face of his warped idealism.

Posted by: popchartfreak 24th August 2016, 08:29 PM

has no-one heard of all the munchkins that were on board that day? All those suitcases had reserved seats, they needed to be on the seat instead of the luggage rack or floor! Peopel never ever EVER try to grab some personal space by putting their luggage on the window space and sitting on the aisle seat. No, never happens. Not ever. And if they hypothetically did do that and were asked to move the luggage so someone over the age of retirement can have a seat, they would obviously say "Piss off" because they have a right to have 2 seats and no-one ever asks them to move the case please.

Anyone who has ever travelled on a crowded train (and yes they do get crowded - they also get crowded on nationalised rail services too, not that I'm in any way suggesting one is better than the other, I like nationalised rail services) knows the ground rules. Perhaps Corbyn just doesn't know how to ask anyone to do something, he's used to lackeys just bending over at his bidding, or he's too important...

Posted by: Qassändra 24th August 2016, 08:33 PM

Again, given the entire point of the Scottish manifesto was to disprove the idea in Labour circles that SNP success was based on them being a radical left wing alternative (which it did resoundingly), I'm not sure that's reason to dismiss her appeal to go away from that politics. It's like saying 'how can we trust the burns victim to tell us how to avoid the fire?'. They have something to say about it. They know where the fire is.

Posted by: popchartfreak 27th August 2016, 10:37 PM

Good to see corbyn tweeting his best wishes to brighton pride. He is less forthcoming on requested responses to the execution of a 19 year old in iran for being gay. He was of course an iran regime tv paid contributor for years so i assume hes both in favour of gays being executed and yet simultaneously trying to get the british gay vote by avoiding the subject as he always does when it might lose him his foreign supporters, frequently those organisations not overly bothered about killing innocents.

He will get my vote when hell stops freezing over and thaws out his cold dead hypocritical heart.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 2nd September 2016, 05:13 PM

People - Mr Corbyn, over the past few days, your links to an Iranian state broadcaster, Press TV, has been called in to question, and you have failed to give a satisfactory answer to the question. You took over £20,000 in fees from them over a 2 year period, which is more than many of the working families you claim to care about take home, and during the time you were a presenter on their propaganda network, many homosexuals were put to death, and there is no evidence to suggest you challenged this whilst working for them, which flies directly in the face of your claims to care about LBGT rights. Now, no more dodging the question Corbyn, we want honest answers regarding this, and nothing else. We demand a proper explanation!

Jezza - Umm...after-work drinks are sexist!

Half the people - yay, that's right! Women with children are seriously disadvantaged by these events!

Another half of people - are you kidding, Jeremy? That's a ridiculous thing to say!

*Back and forth for the whole day, until*

Lone person - hey wait a minute Corbyn, are you once again trying to distract us from the very serious allegations regarding Press TV by once again changing the subject to one that's likely to get people talking intensely, in the hope that people will stop bringing up your serious failings in the past? Now for the final time we want a straight answer, explain why you accepted money from...

The people - shut it you. We're all talking about a serious issue here.

Corbyn - he he he.

Posted by: popchartfreak 2nd September 2016, 06:52 PM

not to mention his latest brainwave headline-attempt-grabber, the assurance that he's going to set up high-speed broadband in the country for everyone. He doesn't say how it's going to be paid for, who'll do the work, how much connecting that pub on the top of the Pennines will cost, nor does he mention his invention of secure on-line personal cards is a rewrite of the ID Card fiasco which down very well, as I recall.

Presumably his mates in Moscow, the Middle East will assure everyone all of their citizens wont get past any online ID fraud blocks, just as the military net links are utterly totally secure from other government attacks.

I wonder why he has no comment on Syria? personally conflicted? well, they deny women rights and kill gays (IS) just like Iran, Russia is taking action (no criticism there then) and so are other countries (Hi UK & USA).

It's a good thing we have an honest straight-talking caring leader of the Labour Party to slag off those selfish fellow MP's who only joined parliament for their own interest, not like saintly Jezza who's stuck to his principles throughout: he's always hated his fellow MP's since Kinnock booted out his bestest mates; he's always said you have to fight (as in kill innocent people) to get political justice; and he's always loved allotments, drain covers and empty train rides...

wattaman!

Posted by: Suedehead2 2nd September 2016, 07:04 PM

It'll come from the same magic money tree as all that money the Leave campaigners promised would be spent on all sorts of wonderful things.

Posted by: Soy Adrián 4th September 2016, 05:38 PM

There's also already plans to roll out superfast broadband across the whole country, it's just going rather too slowly. If Jez could have acknowledged that and set out a decent plan on how to improve it I might have been impressed. As it is, it just comes across like he's making it up on the fly.

Don't even get me started on this after-work drinks fiasco.

Posted by: Danny 4th September 2016, 07:56 PM

Another thing where Labour MPs have been flat-out lying (Corbyn never said he wanted to ban after-works drinks), to go with their lies about racism/sexism/break-ins/death threats/etc.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 4th September 2016, 08:19 PM

Please go into the detail about what lies MPs have been telling about those issues. Because as far as I am aware -

- Labour does have a racism problem, particularly in anti-Semitism since Corbyn took over as leader
- Labour does have a sexism problem, with female MPs being targeted with abuse from Corbynistas (with some also being mixed with point 1, like Ruth Smeeth)
- There have been death threats made against MPs, including the MP mentioned in point 2, and it as got to the point that at least one MP has installed a panic room for safety. And let's not forget that it's barely been three months since an MP was murdered, so I'm in mind to take any death threats against elected representatives reasonably seriously.

Posted by: popchartfreak 4th September 2016, 09:10 PM

So, effectively, Corbyn is saying "Don't vote for those lying gits". Not a terribly clever way of winning an election and keeping yourself from having to stand down immediately afterwards.

I've read some of those heartfelt "lies". He is just a terrible leader and won't admit it because his grassroots supporters (new to politics or kicked out previously) are blindly in love.

He's a terrorist sympathiser, has no respect for human rights in awful regimes, has never supported any leader of his party since Michael Foot took Labour down trying to keep the party extremes together (failed) and supported policies which made Labour unelectable and gave us Thatcherism and everything that that has led to since.

He's learnt nothing from his own parliamentary history and is just repeating the whole scenario again. Has no coherent, financed policies. Has no parliamentary support. Refuses to engage with the media and general public. Appears quite happily on Eastern and Middle Eastern TV. Does that strike any Corbynistas as a bit strange? Or is it a case of Jezza says bend over, followers say "how far"?

I suggest a quick viewing of The Life Of Brian*.

(* He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy)

Posted by: Danny 4th September 2016, 09:41 PM

On racism, there's the example of Chi Onwurah absurdly claiming that she was racially discriminated against because she was supposedly mistreated by Corbyn, without providing any kind of supporting argument/evidence, beyond "I happen to be black and I was treated this way". There's been similar claims from female Labour MPs that they've been discriminated against because of their gender. It's quite obviously nonsense, and not just to Corbynistas -- if you asked the general public, my guess is that even the many people who think Corbyn is useless and would hate for him to be PM, would still say he obviously wasn't a racist or a sexist (if anything, you'd probably get more complaints that he was too "politically correct" on those issues). And Labour members certainly haven't fallen for it; hilariously, in the light of the nonsense MPs have been spinning, the YouGov poll last week showed Corbyn doing considerably better with women members than with men.

On death threats, the best example of these MPs constantly crying wolf is when Thangam Debbonaire claimed that someone telling her to "get in the sea" was a "threat to kill" (even when any vaguely regular Twitter user, which she is, would know that it's a meme): https://g1rm.wordpress.com/2016/08/13/bristol-mp-thinks-popular-internet-meme-get-in-the-sea-is-a-threat-to-kill/

I forgot to mention the lies from MPs that various Labour election losses are due to "Corbynites", http://www.politics.co.uk/comment-analysis/2016/07/29/no-a-corbynite-takeover-didn-t-cause-labour-s-loss-in-totnes, and of course the most egregious example, the claims of John McDonnell breaking into someone's office, on which even John Bercow told the MP in question to stop being so ridiculous.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 4th September 2016, 09:52 PM

I would as well, although for slightly different reasons. The Judean Peoples' Front/ People's Front of Judea segments was a satire of left-wing politics and its tendency to split at a moment's notice at the time, and even now a lot of it still rings true.

Posted by: Qassändra 5th September 2016, 08:43 AM

The below still stands.

Posted by: popchartfreak 5th September 2016, 12:01 PM

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2016/07/thangam-debbonaire-mp-why-i-have-no-confidence-jeremy-corbyn-s-leadership

So, either she is lying about her experiences with Corbyn (he hasn't addressed any of these comments) or he really is useless....

I know who I believe.

Posted by: Danny 5th September 2016, 06:06 PM

Sorry, but I really don't believe any tribunal would seriously consider claims of "racial discrimination" purely on the basis that one person who was black was shoddily treated. There would need to be atleast some kind of argument made that the employer was motivated by racism in their treatment of the person, or that the employer had a history of not appointing black people to top positions - neither of which remotely applies to Corbyn. Far from providing any concrete evidence, Chi Onwurah doesn't even allege any specific incidents or aspects that would back up that Corbyn was motivated by racial discrimination -- her whole case is "I'm black and I was treated this way", which is quite obviously not good enough, any more than it would be OK for Corbyn to claim that Labour MPs are against him because of ageism without providing any supporting arguments.

Posted by: Soy Adrián 5th September 2016, 09:31 PM

Seriously trying to compare racism with ageism? Okay.

Posted by: Danny 5th September 2016, 09:56 PM

Not really? I'm not comparing them in the sense of saying racism and ageism are the same or are equally big problems, I'm just making the point that there's no more evidence that Corbyn discriminated against Chi Onwurah on the basis of her race, than there is that Labour MPs are discriminating against Corbyn on the basis of his age.

Posted by: Qassändra 5th September 2016, 10:25 PM

No, no tribunal would consider claims of racial discrimination on the basis that one person who was black was shoddily treated. Which is why the fact that it was two black women who were treated badly - and in an identical manner - is central to her whole point. As, again, she says in those exact words in the article. Who are we accusing of misrepresentation again?

Posted by: Danny 5th September 2016, 10:57 PM

The point still stands: she makes no arguments to support her case that she was mistreated on the basis of race.

To amend the previous analogy, it's no different to saying Labour MPs are treating both Corbyn and McDonnell badly, two men of pensionable age, in a "coincidentally identical manner", and drawing an automatic conclusion that they are treating them badly because of ageism.

Posted by: Soy Adrián 6th September 2016, 07:57 AM

Except that one of her central points is that it wouldn't look good for him given that she and Thangham Debonnaire are two of the only black women in the Shad Cab, and one of relatively few to ever hold a position that senior. Can't really say the same about white male pensioners.

Posted by: popchartfreak 6th September 2016, 11:55 AM

I'm willing to give Corbyn the benefit of the doubt given one of his drooling fans is Ms Abbot to his Costello.

He's probably not racist. Just useless.

Posted by: Danny 6th September 2016, 12:27 PM

Again, all you're doing here is showing racism is a more pressing problem than ageism -- but just because one problem is more serious, that doesn't mean the burden of proof on the accuser is any less. I come back to that if Onwurah's and Debonnaire's race in itself is the only thing to suggest Corbyn is guilty of racial discrimination, then the very same logic would mean that Corbyn's and McDonnell's age is enough to suggest Labour MPs are guilty of age discrimination.

But this is pretty pointless, because Chi Onwurah herself quite obviously doesn't believe she was sacked on the basis of being black -- all the lies that Labour MPs have been telling all summer are not a coincidence.

Posted by: Soy Adrián 6th September 2016, 12:48 PM

Her point was never "he sacked me because I was black" though. Not even close. She was saying that had someone in a role as senior as his in almost any other profession acted as incompetently as he has, any investigation into their conduct would almost certainly touch upon the issue of race.

Do you think she was lying about the rest of her story as well?

Posted by: Brett-Butler 6th September 2016, 03:30 PM

And in today's episode of "Satire Is Dead, brought to you by the Labour Party" -

Jeremy Corbyn holds a press conference, where he gets the endorsement of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" hitmakers UB40. However, due to various legal reasons, there are actually two bands that currently perform under the name UB40, with the one which is fronted by Ali Campbell (i.e the version that had the person who sung on all their biggest hits) http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/sep/06/jeremy-corbyn-fails-to-win-backing-of-other-ub40?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_b-gdnnews#link_time=1473173889.

Posted by: Suedehead2 6th September 2016, 05:06 PM

Congratulations on mentioning UB40 without mentioning the other Ali Campbell (Tony Blair's mate)

Posted by: Danny 6th September 2016, 07:46 PM

No, but the rest of her story isn't anything out of the ordinary for politics. There's been tons of those types of mistakes in reshuffles -- Blair sacking Angela Eagle by mistake after "forgetting she existed", Thatcher appointing John Patten to a job once because she got him mixed up with Chris Patten, Cameron misreading Chloe Smith's CV and appointing her to an economics job because he thought she used to be an accountant. Cock-ups like that are inevitable when the expectation (rightly or wrongly) is that you put together a team of about 80 people within a few days - especially when, in the particular Corbyn case, one of the people in question was off work ill and so couldn't be easily contacted to confirm her recruitment (which isn't her fault, but nonetheless would still make things more complicated even for the most competent party leader). Chi Onwurah might be right that, in a "normal job", Corbyn would be in trouble for constructive dismissal, but in a normal job he would've been given weeks/months to decide on all the appointments, so the mistake would've never arisen in the first place.

The only aspect of the story which would've made this more than "standard cock-up in the usual rushed reshuffle" was the bogus claims of racial discrimination - which Chi Onwurah probably knew, given, again, it fits into the pattern of Labour MPs lying about Corbyn and "Corbynistas" all summer.

Posted by: popchartfreak 6th September 2016, 08:46 PM

One would have hoped that MP's campaigning to lead their party would take the trouble to find out who they have been working with for the last few years, or at least getting someone competent to advise them about the people they can't be bothered to talk to/find out about/google....

Just cos some other git did it too doesn't make it any less excusable.

Posted by: Soy Adrián 6th September 2016, 10:57 PM

To be fair to Corbyn, most of the people he wishes were in his Shadow Cabinet are probably dead.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 8th September 2016, 08:12 PM

Anyone watching the last dying fart of the Labour Party Corbyn/Smith debate on BBC1 tonight? I'm guessing it's going to be one that shows more heat and light, and I imagine that some of the major claims against Corbyn (Iran TV, racism etc) won't be breached, or will be glossed over.

Posted by: Steve201 8th September 2016, 11:25 PM

So Jeremy Corbyn is a terrorist sympathiser - that point really winds me up most by the Anti-Corbyn folk on here

Posted by: Qassändra 8th September 2016, 11:38 PM

...were the IRA just playing with firecrackers then?

You can argue until the cows come home whether it was justified or not, but there aren't many definitions of terrorism that don't cover the IRA's actions. And there aren't many definitions of 'sympathiser' that 'board member of an organisation that endorsed the IRA's UK bombing campaign' (as Labour Briefing did) wouldn't cover.

Posted by: Soy Adrián 9th September 2016, 07:45 AM

Anything on topic?

Posted by: Steve201 15th September 2016, 11:22 PM

I'm pretty sure JC met members of SF back then to bring them into the political arena which that's right the Thatcher/Major government did anyway only behind the scenes.

The IRA didn't play with firecrackers of course but neither did the British Army/RUC/UDR.

Posted by: popchartfreak 19th September 2016, 06:40 PM

Jezza's latest brainwave is a gem: let's get working mothers out campaigning by giving them free child-care. Not only do they get someone else to look after the kids, the kids get brainwashed into leftie-ism as a bonus to boot!

This is a tried and trusted policy of Communism and dictators, grab the kids while young and indoctrinate state policies and principles on them (much as the Tories do with Private Schools).

I can see the fun and games now:

Momentum Monopoly:

hours of fun collecting cash and building houses and hotels - all paid for by the State, no need to even throw the dice! No money for passing Go, as with no evil private enterprise dice throwing everyone gets a six every time! Result! Just to add a bit of excitement, anyone expressing an opinion that isn't state policy gets a brick through their house window to demonstrate the laws of physics: Brick + momentum= broken glass! Smashing!!

Haven't-Got-A-Cluedo:

In which 170 Labour MP's are murdered, but the fun is sorting out which of the 500,000 suspects did it! (The ultimate detective game of Whodunnit!) - anyone who guesses it was the Shadow Leader with a large majority will of course be expelled from the game, we can't have the saintly Jezza under suspicion even in a children's board game!

Reverse Risk:

In which the removal of weapons and forces in the bit with the UK on it means everyone else fights over invading them first, the population being in a defenseless post-Brexit state as all the farmers subsidies ran out and they all sold their land to the Chinese Government for Nuclear Power Stations. "Hurry Up And Get Out Of Europe" cries a Jezza doll each time anyone tries to leave the island.

and of course

Snap!

This one is vintage 1980's, carefully kept pure and fresh inside a plastic bag since the day Neil Kinnock ruined the Labour Party for true believers.

Posted by: Steve201 19th September 2016, 10:40 PM

That's 'Lord Kinnock' il have you know....

Posted by: popchartfreak 20th September 2016, 07:23 AM

well, if you'd prefer the unelected 2nd House to be populated entirely by Right-wing tax-dodging Tories, inherited titles and bishops, then yes, LORD Kinnock.

Personally I'd rather have as many non-right-wing reps as poss until it gets replaced by an elected chamber, but that's just me

Posted by: Rooney 24th September 2016, 11:09 AM

Bye bye Labour Party.

Posted by: skankhunt42 24th September 2016, 12:40 PM

Yesss!!

Jez. We. Can.

Imaaagine the percentage if the Establishment Plutocats weren't saturating the media with anti-left anti-Corbyn shet and didn't purge the membership?!

This whole fluttering Eagle business should never have staeted and thye should have been united following the referendum to weaken the Tories. Now let's get on with it! Tory Lite Labourites OUT. Left Wing is back, neo-liberalists.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 24th September 2016, 12:48 PM

Worryingly in the interviews I've seen he doesn't seem very keen to change his leadership style (chaotic, ineffective communication, failure to engage with the wider party etc.), which he must do to bring the party together and move forward. The result was a foregone conclusion though and IMO a complete waste of time, likely only strengthening Corbyn's position.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 24th September 2016, 01:08 PM

I can't say anyone will be surprised by that result, the key thing now is what happens now. I imagine that the majority of Labour MPs will "do a Trump" by falling straight back in line with following Corbyn, albeit a few will try dragging their heels a little bit. I doubt there'll be any MPs leaving Labour, defecting, or starting a new party, although I imagine we'll hear a few stories of Labourites who seem familiar but hold no political power doing so.

Posted by: Harve 24th September 2016, 02:38 PM

But would you as a voter really have faith in a party where a majority of their MPs try to oust their leader and then quietly settle down and pretend that everything's fine once they realise they've failed? The disingenuousness* ain't that compelling. It feels like a lose-lose situation, but I still cling to the hope that Corbyn can launch a new era for the party/shift the Overton window even if he fails to win the next election. I can't help but be interested in the tentative return of an opposition offering actual socialism.

*definitely a word

Posted by: skankhunt42 24th September 2016, 02:44 PM

Preach, Harve!!

Posted by: Brett-Butler 24th September 2016, 03:29 PM

I wouldn't, but then again I am not the average voter. If this is indeed the only attempted coup before the next general election, the electorate will have forgotten all about it and vote solely on the "strength" of Corbyn & Labour. The average voter have short-term memories, and will more than likely vote based on the most recent set of information available to them, which won't be this if they fall into place.

Although it's a moot point anyway, as I can't vote for Labour, even if I wanted to (which I almost definitely don't).

Posted by: popchartfreak 24th September 2016, 04:00 PM

The Future:

Momentum carry out a cull of centrist MP's under the guise of boundary changes. Corbyn does and says nothing helpful (as usual). The labour Party ceases to be a broad church of left-of-centre opinion for the first time.

A party that can't cope with a wide variation in opinion is doomed to disappear up it's own arse. let's not forget that Corbyn wasn't just tolerated for 30 years (everytime he voted against party policy and every previous leader since he was elected) they actually (rather suicidally) put him on the ballot paper in the first place.

Intolerance is not the way forward. Whatever policies Corbyn puts forward have to be costed (so far he has done nothing about that) the way forward for the UK out of Europe has to be planned (nothing concrete there, just "leave immediately" - dick!), and he can prattle on about policies most would agree with (more housing, nationalised railways, no more cuts to local gov and NHS and benefits) but he's been noticeably short on details and how to achieve it.

I'm not going to forgive him for taking us out of Europe with his belated 6 or 7 out of 10 bollocks, his lack of backbone, vagueness and confused foreign policy opinions. Blaming the right-wing press for all his troubles is very convenient, but he refuses to engage, preferring to preach to the converted. that is also a suicidal policy.

He won't win a general election but he will make sure the Labour Parties changes enough to never move towards the centre again. If Scotland leave the UK, that will be a permanent situation and Tories will get free reign for the rest of out lives.


Wonder what he thinks about an Indie pro-EU Scotland now.....

Posted by: Suedehead2 24th September 2016, 04:11 PM

As opposed to a Tory party that expects half its MPs to vote for something they don't support, i.e. leaving the EU. As ever, Tory divisions have been swept under the carpet.

Posted by: popchartfreak 25th September 2016, 01:02 PM

suggests the real possibility of 2 split main parties infighting leaving centreground options for anyone feeling like there's no-one to vote for. Of course the Libdems could split in 2 too, 3 and a half wanting Brexit and moving towards the left, 3 and a half opposing Brexit and moves to the left

let's put it this way - the only way is up for centre parties (all one of 'em) cos there are no longer any other mainstream parties and the rest will all be fighting over the left and right wing votes. Silver Linings....!

Posted by: Steve201 25th September 2016, 04:17 PM

I'd like to ask Labour supporters here who would you like as PM in 2020 Corbyn or May?

Posted by: Brett-Butler 25th September 2016, 04:26 PM

Holy false dichotomy, Batman!

Posted by: Qassändra 25th September 2016, 04:44 PM

Hemlock.

Posted by: Danny 25th September 2016, 06:13 PM

Quite. I honestly don't think people really care about how "divided" parties are; much as it's forgotten now, Labour were always (publicly at least) "united" in the 2010-15 parliament, whereas the Tories were always having splits on policy and chatter about Cameron being overthrown, yet when it came to the election none of that made a shred of difference.

Posted by: Soy Adrián 25th September 2016, 08:25 PM

When elections come around, the main parties are ultimately judged on competence. That's not necessarily synonymous with unity, particularly if you're the Tories.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 25th September 2016, 08:31 PM

The Conservatives have (mostly) united behind their leader however, without any ridiculous votes of no confidence or mass resignations designed to undermine the leadership.

Posted by: Qassändra 25th September 2016, 09:18 PM

In what sense is it ridiculous to declare a vote of no confidence in a leader registering the worst approval ratings of any leader of the opposition? You can argue the toss over the timing and organisation, but it wasn't exactly an illogical course of action.

Posted by: skankhunt42 25th September 2016, 09:21 PM

Yes it was as CLEAARLY he has the will of the people.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 25th September 2016, 09:23 PM

It's really helped hasn't it?

I don't particularly like Corbyn but it WAS ridiculous - the poll ratings collapsed because of the coup not the other way around.

Posted by: popchartfreak 25th September 2016, 09:26 PM

seem to recall divided Labour being obliterated in the 80's, and divided Tories in the 90's....

Corbyn has learnt one, and only one, lesson from the 1983 election: keep the party together at all costs. How that will translate into Momentum people behaving themselves is dubious (a good mate joined them the other week for "saint" Jeremy and intending to deselect the 170 traitors - normally a very fair and thoughtful, kind person - so I'm kind of suspecting there's a sort of group mass hysteria going on which has utterly wiped out the capacity for rational thought among the (not very experienced and hot-headed) membership and which has spread to those who do have experience). We had our first ever slightly heated discussion: "do you not see that attacking 170 MP's as liars and traitors is electoral suicide?"

Sigh.

I don't trust people who can't accept views not shared by them. I don't believe in herd mentality.

Posted by: Danny 25th September 2016, 10:26 PM

How about because it was disrespectful to the members who they're supposed to represent? Whether or not him staying as leader is best for the party, the fact is that it's not the MPs' call to make. They breached the unwritten rules of any modern (democratic) political party by trying to overrule their members' choice of leader.

Posted by: Soy Adrián 25th September 2016, 10:29 PM

That's highly debatable, and even before the referendum we were behind in the polls - six years into a Tory government and 10% behind Miliband at the same stage. And Corbyn's personal ratings were still the worst on record.

Posted by: Danny 25th September 2016, 10:32 PM

But in the only set of proper elections we've had so far, Corbyn did better than Miliband's first round of elections (and if the last few years should've taught anything, it's that real elections are much more reliable than polls).

Posted by: Silas 25th September 2016, 11:14 PM

I'm at least 98% certain that I've read at least 1,000 times in this here forum that the first round of elections under Corbyn are not in anyway comparable to the first set under Ed and thus the comparison is a crock of shite. If I, as someone who has spent decades looking at Scottish Labour and thinking that slitting my own wrists would be a better decision, can take than in then surely you as a labour voter and someone who seems to care a lot about the party and it's future would have grasped this by now.

Posted by: Danny 26th September 2016, 12:27 AM

But they are, though. It was the first set of local elections that both leaders fought, both a year on from a general election, which is what makes them comparable. And Rallings & Thrasher (the people whose whole job for the past 40 YEARS is to work this stuff out) calculated that, extrapolating the results out over the whole of the UK, Corbyn narrowly beat the Tories, whereas Miliband narrowly lost to the Tories in his first elections.

Admittedly they were significantly worse this year in Scotland than in 2011, but elsewhere it was an improvement.

Posted by: Soy Adrián 26th September 2016, 05:59 AM

I know it's convenient to completely ignore opinion polls, but the basic question remains - if the polls before 2015 were overestimating us and their methodology hasn't significantly changed, how on earth are we going to do when we're actually behind in the polls?

Posted by: skankhunt42 26th September 2016, 07:46 AM

This is the fault of Oligarchs controlling the media, the Establishment's neoliberal status quo and of course the status quo MPs who decided REET QFTER THE EU VOTE!! would be a good time for naval gazing.

Posted by: Qassändra 26th September 2016, 09:49 AM

He had some of the worst ratings of any opposition leader before the coup as well. They have become worse since.

Posted by: Qassändra 26th September 2016, 09:55 AM

Like the Tories breached it in 2003 with Iain Duncan Smith?

And it's not really an unwritten rule. At least, no more so than the other unwritten rule that any leader who doesn't carry the confidence of the vast majority of their colleagues recognises the situation is untenable and steps down.

Posted by: Danny 26th September 2016, 10:08 AM

The methodology of most opinion polls has been changed significantly since the last general election. They now weight their results according to the exact turnout of each demographic group in 2015 - which is probably a mistake, because, as the EU Referendum showed, you can't be sure that groups that didn't turn out previously, won't turn out in future if there's more of an appeal made to them. And indeed, on the basis of this year's local election results, it does seem that young people are more enthused by Corbyn than they were by Miliband (based on Labour doing especially well in places with high numbers of "millennials", including in southern marginals like Milton Keynes and Reading), and so are now turning out in higher proportions than they did - which means the new poll methodology might be understating Labour by assuming young people will still be at the piss-poor turnout they were in 2015.

For what it's worth, some pollsters still publish their "un-adjusted" polling figures (i.e. pre-2015 methodology), which always show better Labour results. That's before even getting into that current polls are taking in Theresa May's honeymoon effect (which literally EVERY new mid-term PM - Callaghan, Brown, Major - has benefitted from, before it fades away).

Posted by: Danny 26th September 2016, 10:10 AM

But he hasn't lost the confidence of his colleagues (i.e. everyone in the party), as Saturday's result showed. As much as they have an overinflated sense of their importance, 232 MPs don't outweigh 600k members.

Posted by: Qassändra 26th September 2016, 10:29 AM

This is...a creative redefinition of the meaning of the word 'colleagues'.

And it takes something to go from '232 MPs don't outweigh 600,000 members' (they don't, but 600,000 members don't support Corbyn - 300,000 do) to 'the overwhelming opposition of the vast majority of his colleagues should count for absolutely nothing'.

Posted by: Qassändra 26th September 2016, 11:23 AM

After a lot of thought on it, I've left the Labour Party. And it wasn't Corbyn that made me go.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 26th September 2016, 11:26 AM

Welcome back to the political hinterland. Are you looking into joining another party, or are you given the whole politics thing a break for the time being?

Posted by: Qassändra 26th September 2016, 11:36 AM

Dunno. Depends whether I can stomach returning to the Ed Miliband years (but moreso) by joining a party led by Tim Farron.

Posted by: Soy Adrián 26th September 2016, 11:45 AM

Was it Dr. Eoin?

Posted by: Qassändra 26th September 2016, 12:04 PM

Nope. The likes of Chuka Umunna giving in and calling for an end to freedom of movement. When even the so-called Blairites can't even make the case for immigration and avoiding hard Brexit anymore, what am I supposed to be staying and fighting for?

Posted by: Silas 26th September 2016, 12:29 PM

The nationalists accept English members. Just throwing it out there.

Posted by: Qassändra 26th September 2016, 12:56 PM

Not until they run nationally.

Posted by: popchartfreak 26th September 2016, 06:46 PM

...just as undemocratic as Corbyn trying to remove Kinnock, Smith, Blair and Brown while they were in power. Voting against Labour policy hundreds of times. You CANNOT do one thing and criticise others for doing exactly the same thing you've done again, and again, and again, and again. That's called hypocrisy. The only difference between the 170 MP's and Corbyn is in the numbers. 170 vs a handful. No difference whatsoever.

Posted by: popchartfreak 26th September 2016, 06:51 PM

condolences on being disheartened. And ditto on SNP. If they ran nationally the raison d'etre to leave the UK would disappear as they could influence politics over the whole of the UK. That would be an interesting hypothetical question : would the SNP give it up if they could win an election in England....

Posted by: burbe 26th September 2016, 06:54 PM

He's got the will of the radical lefties and luvvies only. The wider public won't vote for Corbyn and Labour will have their worst General Election performance for quite some time in 2020. I think Theresa May might step down by 2020 which would be another nail in Labour's coffin. That's even if they make it that far without splitting of course. I'd be more likely to put money on a significant Lib Dem resurgence than Labour coming anywhere near to winning in 2020 under Corbyn.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 26th September 2016, 07:07 PM

I doubt that they would, but if the SNP do successfully run for election in England, it wouldn't be a first time that a regional party has had an MP based in England. Andrew Hunter, who represented the constituency of Basingstoke, switched his alligence to the DUP in 2004, although he did not stand for re-election for that constituency in 2005. Although they're a unionist party, so it's not really a fair comparison.

Posted by: Silas 26th September 2016, 10:15 PM

While there is a place for the SNP in rUK and I have no doubt they'd do well, there only way I can see them expanding south is if they were to start standing in London following the defection of the Mayor and moving ahead with ScotLond as a new EU memberstate and thats about as likely to happen as Corbyn winning the next election.

They'd never do it. They want Indy, it's always been their primary target. Power at Westminster has no appeal to them, although it didn't stop them petitioning to be the official opposition when Labour was in full on coup mode.

Posted by: Steve201 26th September 2016, 10:19 PM

TP O'Connor stood as an Irish Nationalist in Liverpool and only lost his seat in 1929 I think (he stood as an Irish Parliamentary Party candidate which was the constitutional nationalist party of the era)!

Posted by: Steve201 26th September 2016, 10:21 PM

You've forgotten to mention the 100s of times he voted with the Labour Party when they put forward progressive legislation but sure....

Posted by: Danny 26th September 2016, 10:53 PM

Did Corbyn actually ever try to remove Smith or Brown? Hell, I'm not even sure he ever was really involved in a serious plot to get rid of Blair (admittedly that might've been because there was no chance of a coup against him succeeding for most of his leadership).

As far as I know, the only serious coup Corbyn was involved in was against Kinnock, and, although he was wrong to do it, that atleast was 5 years after Kinnock had been elected, after he'd been defeated in a general election, both of which are more reasonable grounds to think a mandate might have expired than the grounds for the coup against Corbyn.

Posted by: Soy Adrián 27th September 2016, 06:15 AM

Was that why he did it?

Posted by: popchartfreak 28th September 2016, 08:33 PM

https://www.reddit.com/r/LabourUK/comments/4tp59f/private_eye_on_jeremy_corbyns_loyalty_to_the/

Obviously pissing in the wind in terms of actually getting what he wanted, but the intent was there...

Posted by: Brett-Butler 9th October 2016, 08:06 PM

Only three days into Corbyn's new shadow cabinet and already he's had his first two resignations. Two of Labour's assistant whips, Holly Lynch & Conor McGinn (the man whom Jeremy Corbyn tried to get to fall into line by threatening to call his dad) have stepped down just days after the chief whip, Rosie Winterton, was replaced by famous Pointless answer Nick Brown.

In other news - Diane Abbott as shadow Home Secretary - thoughts?

Posted by: Suedehead2 9th October 2016, 08:12 PM

It's about time Labour had a Shadow Home Secretary whose main aim was not to be even more right wing than the actual Home Secretary, a trend that started under Tony Blair's leadership. That said, I'm not convinced that Diane Abbott is the best person for the job.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 9th October 2016, 08:24 PM

About as sane an appointment as Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary or Donald Trump as PotUS.

Posted by: popchartfreak 9th October 2016, 08:30 PM

In theory Abbot should be good on TV when being interviewed. In practise she always comes over as condescending and neither convincing nor endearing.

Posted by: Qassändra 9th October 2016, 08:38 PM

Come on now.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 9th October 2016, 08:48 PM

OK, you got me. I do love a bit of Sunday evening hyperbole.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 9th October 2016, 08:56 PM

I also love a bit of Sunday evening hyperbole. I love it more than oxygen.

Posted by: Suedehead2 9th October 2016, 09:10 PM

Ah yes, the Sunday evening hyper Bolly

Posted by: Brett-Butler 25th October 2016, 07:25 PM

So for months, some Labour activists have been banging on about the Conservatives failing to declare their proper expenses during their election campaign and claiming that the election in those seats should be re-run. Some of them even asked for journalists to look into the expenses filed during the campaign for proof of overspending.

Well, those journalists went away, did their research, and...well, this is awkward...

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-37760562 for failing to declare over £100k worth of expenses during the 2015 election campaign, including the infamous "Ed Stone". I'm sure that those same Labour activists, in the spirit of fairness, will now demand that all Labour MPs resign so that the elections can be run on a level playing field.

(I should add that there are legitimate questions to be raised regarding the Conservatives' expenses. However, I do think it's funny to see the hypocrisy in action. Matthew 7:3 is springing to mind)

Posted by: Doctor Blind 25th October 2016, 07:42 PM

97K of that was wine expenses for Tyron.

20K seems a bit of a paltry penalty, but then it isn't the “knowingly or recklessly” illegitimate returns that 20 Conservative MPs are under investigation for. There is a likelihood of prison sentences for those Conservatives. *Bays for blood*

Posted by: Suedehead2 25th October 2016, 09:04 PM

The £20K was on the national campaign. The accusations against the Tories involve spending at constituency level and, in some cases, would take them over the spending limit. That is a far more serious matter than Labour's offence.

Posted by: popchartfreak 26th October 2016, 01:31 PM

A few questions for the Labour Party to answer from the Independent....

...cos if they don't they come over like lying hypocrites.


"Shami Chakrabarti and Jeremy Corbyn were the loudest critics of the Snooper’s Charter – but now theyre in power, they’ve gone quiet
Theresa May’s first attempt to spy on us began in 2012. Four years on, it looks as though she has finally ground Parliament into submission. No wonder voters are so cynical

Just six months ago, Shami Chakrabarti said the Government must ‘return to the drawing board’ on the Investigatory Powers Bill Getty
If you’re concerned there will be no opposition to Brexit, or that the Tories will abandon the Human Rights Act, or we face a militarised police by stealth, then frankly you should be very worried indeed. Britain is now a one party state and the people you expected to stand up for our fundamental liberties are absent on duty.

In the coming fortnight, the illiberal Investigatory Powers Bill will pass through Parliament, making it easier for the British Government to spy on citizens entirely innocent of any crime.

The bill will allow the Government to hand UK tech firms top-secret notices to hack their customers; the police will be able to look at your internet browsing history, and your personal data will be tied together so the state can find out if you’ve attended a protest, who your friends are, and where you live. The most authoritarian piece of spying legislation any democratic government has ever proposed has sped through Parliament with only a whimper of opposition.

What makes this all the more incredible is that some of the most prominent and respected voices for liberty will abstain from voting this draconian legislation down. The Investigatory Powers Bill, a Snooper’s Charter, is the canary in the coal mine for our diseased democracy.


What is the ‘Snoopers Charter’?
Shami Chakrabarti spent 13 years as Britain’s most prominent human rights defender. Just six months ago, she told the media that the Government “must return to the drawing board” with its illiberal Investigatory Powers Bill, because to do anything else would show “dangerous contempt for parliament, democracy and our country’s security”.

Jeremy Corbyn, in his column for the Morning Star, denounced the extension of state surveillance rushed through parliament two years ago, describing it as a “travesty of parliamentary democracy” and praising Liberty (then run by Shami Chakrabarti) for lobbying MPs to oppose it. Diane Abbott agreed, writing in June this year that this “Snoopers’ Charter will target minorities – and do nothing to make us safer”.

The Queen's Speech was the most illiberal for a generation
Abbott added: “My own privacy has been violated because of the political whims of unknown state officials, when they decided to monitor my emails, calls, texts, browsing history for years.”

Jeremy Corbyn was also put under surveillance, as was his fellow Labour politician Baroness Doreen Lawrence, who was spied on by the Metropolitan Police as she grieved for her son who had lost his life in a racist attack.

Shami Chakrabarti is now the shadow Attorney General, the law officer for Her Majesty’s Opposition. The two politicians who had been spied on, Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbott, are now the Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition and shadow Home Secretary, respectively.

You would think that given three of the most high-profile figures to oppose state snooping were now at the very top of the Labour Party, the opposition would be tearing the Government apart.

Not quite. Instead, it was announced yesterday that Labour would neither be tabling major amendments to the legislation in the House of Lords to make it fit for purpose, but – worse – nor would the party be voting against the new powers contained in the bill.

Chakrabarti is Labour’s law officer. Just months ago, the human rights group she ran argued that the “proposed new law breaches our human rights”. If this is the case, how on earth can she stay quiet while Labour abstains?

Theresa May is about to get away with the largest expansion of state surveillance powers in peacetime, and no one can quite explain why Labour politicians who have been spied upon still sit on the fence.

Across the Western world, faith in politicians from across the political spectrum is ebbing away. Instead, populists such as Donald Trump tell us the elites are lying and that politicians say one thing and do another. Yet when politicians who do genuinely oppose intrusive surveillance powers stay quiet in the face of draconian legislation, it feeds conspiracy theories that democracy is a fix.

If social democrats are too frightened to stand up for what they believe in, then why bother voting for them? Jeremy Corbyn was re-elected by Labour members who wanted to see the party change direction. It’s hard to see how giving the Tories a free pass to give the state unjustified powers is part of that mandate.

Labour has just weeks to get this legislation right. Chakrabarti, Corbyn and Abbott can with no good reason abstain – they must work with the Liberal Democrats, the SNP and independent members of the House of Lords to make amendments to remove some of the worst elements of this bill; from police access to our web browsing history through to the request filter (which is like a powerful search engine, except it can trawl through the data of innocent citizens). If they fail, it will embolden the Mayist Tories to continue their permanent revolution against liberty and liberals.

Theresa May’s first attempt at the Snooper’s Charter began in 2012. Four years on, it looks as though she has finally ground parliament into submission. If she wins this battle unopposed, you wonder which other freedoms we shall lose.

Mike Harris is the founder and director of 89up and the former head of advocacy at Index on Censorship"

Posted by: popchartfreak 16th November 2016, 02:30 PM

just to underline how useless Corbyn is, official Labour Party policy is now to accept the sovereignty of Parliament is dead and buried and give the government a green light to do whatever they want to with regard to Brexit, no matter how much it harms the country, or voters.

The only English Party leader with decency and integrity and respect for the British Constitution and the wellbeing of the UK is Tim Farron.

Corbyn. Worst. Labour. Party. Leader. Ever. Clueless, harmful to our health, lazy, charmless, myopic, small-minded, hypocritical, waste of space. In his own way equally as bad as Theresa May, albeit for different reasons.

Democracy is really f***ed up in 2016....

Posted by: Soy Adrián 2nd December 2016, 09:27 AM

http://speri.dept.shef.ac.uk/2016/12/01/the-odd-case-of-jeremy-corbyns-increasingly-right-wing-labour-party/

This is interesting.

Every Labour shadow chancellor winds up with the same policy, one way or another. At least Balls actually believed it.

Posted by: popchartfreak 2nd December 2016, 12:56 PM

yes, interesting piece. It comes over as quite accurate in assessment...

Posted by: PeaceMob 9th February 2017, 02:43 PM

Even Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn says the BBC are fake news.



Lefties turning on each other and the slow death of the BBC and Labour is a beautiful thing to see. New world order folks,

Posted by: Qassändra 9th February 2017, 03:17 PM

You'll lose eventually.

Posted by: burbe 9th February 2017, 05:11 PM

Pretty sure he'll be resigning in the next few months, once the rumours begin it's usually for a reason.

Also @PeaceMob, why are you cheering the slow death of the BBC? It's a tragedy what the Tories have done to it.

Posted by: Soy Adrián 9th February 2017, 05:50 PM

Aside from about a million other things, he didn't even accuse them of being fake news.

Posted by: PeaceMob 9th February 2017, 07:23 PM

I actually didn't mind the BBC... until Brexit. Now they've shown their true colours, tbh I should have known really after the Savile scandal just how messed up the BBC really is. There's a growing development now from the British public to boycott paying their tv licence, even if that doesn't eventually happen then the rapid growth in people choosing to watch on media streaming instead like Netflix and Amazon Prime will finish off the BBC anyway.

Posted by: Suedehead2 9th February 2017, 08:58 PM

Yes, the BBC's reporting of the Leave campaign's lies without any comment was very frustrating.

Posted by: burbe 9th February 2017, 10:05 PM

Without the BBC, we'd be stuck with Sky News as the main platform in the UK which would be awful. I seriously hope the government blocks the purchase of Sky by 21st Century Fox. We do not need to be giving Rupert Murdoch more power over the media.

Posted by: Silas 9th February 2017, 11:02 PM

The government is in his pocket! No way that gets blocked, not without Vince Cable standing in the way.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 5th March 2017, 10:54 PM

Jeremy Corbyn has released his tax return, in an attempt to encourage other politicians to be more open about their own financial dealings.

However, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-39175570

It looks like someone's sacking their accountant in the morning.

(Another interesting point that isn't mentioned in the story but I noticed on the tax return is that he's used his charitable donations to give himself a more generous lower tax band).

Posted by: Brett-Ocat 5th April 2017, 07:12 PM

So yesterday Labour launched its campaign for the local elections ahead of next month's vote. Now you'd think that the best time to launch the campaign is when the press doesn't have anything else to concentrate on your party so that their full undivided attention is on you.

Well, you'd be wrong, because for reasons known only to themselves, they decided to launch their campaign the same day that the decision over Ken Livingstone's membership of Labour was to be made, meaning it was heavily overshadowed.

On top of this, Ken Livingstone, who was suspended for Labour for two years (one year of which he'd already served), went ahead and repeated his claim that Hitler was a Zionist straight afterwards, and a new investigation is to be opened into that. By this point you'd have thought that someone would take him to the side and say to him to stop talking about the whole Nazi thing, as it really doesn't reflect well upon himself.

In other news, there was this interesting article looking at the failure of http://www.newstatesman.com/labour-bus-jeremy-corbyn-memes. I guess it could be worse - they could have "Dr" Eoin in charge of it.

Posted by: Suedehead2 5th April 2017, 07:48 PM

Corbyn's disdain for spin is all very well but there are times when considering what PR people would advise and then doing the complete opposite is not a good idea.

Posted by: popchartfreak 6th April 2017, 11:43 AM

...and he now wants to tax private schools to pay for free school meals for kids in public schools.

Even in the darkest days of poverty (the 60's) free school meals were meant for the very worst off (ie me and my free meal ticket handed in at lunch time) and they weren't universal by any means.

Most parents these days are more concerned that their kids get good teachers and facilities, not that they are getting ricketts from lack of a decent diet (and if they are it's usually parental ignorance on vitamins).

As usual living in cloud-cuckoo land and ignoring the real issues...

Posted by: Brett-Ocat 6th April 2017, 05:02 PM

Slightly related to what I posted yesterday, but I'm loving the videos of Corbynites protesting outside the offices of the New Statesman for being...too right-wing. I've only ever bought the New Statesman once in my life, but now I'm seriously tempted to buy the next copy. Well done, protesters.

Posted by: popchartfreak 6th April 2017, 06:17 PM

Ooh love the word Corbynite. Sounds like a new geological discovery - in its natural environment it comes over as a thick lump of rock that's surprisingly easy to push over as it has no sturdy supporting attributes. In a level playing field it will just sit there, where landscapes are more difficult has a tendency to roll downhill as it plummets to new depths. Corbynite. (Pronounced as a rhyme for fright, trite, shite...)

Posted by: popchartfreak 6th April 2017, 07:02 PM

..and a rather good piece of writing about why Ken L & his comments are (shall I be generous? Yes I shall, I still use my Oyster Card) UNWISE...

https://www.facebook.com/david.baddiel.1/posts/10155426143839505?pnref=story

Posted by: Emperor Silas 6th April 2017, 10:46 PM

It's not really taxing. It's closing a VAT loophole. Private Schools really technically should charge VAT as while the supply of education is typically exempt those institutions are by and large publicly owned or universities and colleges so run as nfp's. Private schools are more like education providers Kaplan who do charge VAT. I think this is something that should happen. VAT is a consumption tax and if you make the choice to send a child to private school you are buying a service at the end of the day so it's right that it should be treated as a taxable supply rather than exempt. [/VATAccountant]

There's some sketchy evidence that it helps with attainment. What it does do though is reduces the stigma of being on free school meals and provides a welcome relief to parents on the breadline or (who this is really aimed at) those in working poverty. A vastly growing number of people. It seems like a small measure but it could have a huge difference for a massive number of families across the country. It's a great policy and one of the first Corbyn policies thats very firmly grounded in reality and feasibility. (Probably coz it's stolen from Milliband, David).


Incidentally when the P1-3 free lunch entitlement was introduced north of the border Scottish Labour were rather scathing about it. Party is a f***ing mess.

Posted by: popchartfreak 7th April 2017, 11:50 AM

I agree about the VAT, I'm less convinced about where the money should be spent. Anecdotally some schools are struggling with providing teachers and courses for actual Education.

Re stigma of free school meals for those that really do need it (and I'm in favour of) - it's not a major trauma for Primary school kids, trust me, compared with plenty of other bullying issues, and there are ways of keeping it private and undisclosed. Spending money on relatively well-off family kids meals I just see as better spent on their education.

Posted by: Steve201 17th April 2017, 09:13 AM

Well at least he has started a discussion even amongst the gauranteed disbelievers!!

Posted by: popchartfreak 17th April 2017, 02:58 PM

oh Corbyn doesnt get slagged off for his basic bread n butter policies (such as they vaguely are) it's mostly because he's lazy and useless, charmless, has no leadership skills, no idea how to appeal to voters, has hare-brained schemes of minor inconsequential impact while ignoring glaring gaping problems and potentially catastrophic consequences to his apathy (eg Brexit).

I, would, however, be happy to watch him on a gardening TV programme, or jam-making bake-off. It's where he excels....

Posted by: Steve201 17th April 2017, 09:56 PM

It's as if you know him personally....

Posted by: Brett-Butler 16th August 2017, 04:39 PM

Following the Labour Party going a record 3 months without any major boo-boos, Labour's shadow Women's Minister Sarah Champion has http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-40952224 after penning an editorial for The Sun claiming that Pakistani rape gangs were targeting white girls in Britain. Not sure what was more key to her forced resignation - her racist writing, or the fact that she thought that a Labour MP writing a column for The Sun was a jolly good idea.

Posted by: popchartfreak 24th September 2017, 07:14 PM

so corbinman doesn't want us to stay in the single market as this will stop him nationalising stuff when he gets into power for 10 years. Blaming the EU for not being able to nationalise the trains. This must come as a shock to Spain's Renfe - which I travelled extensively on only yesterday and is fabulous - and the French energy companies that own British firms......

Does he actually know anything about anything? Basically telling lies, that he assumes will appeal to the fanboys and working class voters who quite fancy a bit of nationalising, as an excuse for keeping Labour away from anything that isn't a hard Brexit....(BTW no votes for Labour members on it).

Posted by: MoistSummerFruit 24th September 2017, 07:19 PM

Can we change the topic title?

Oh, Jeremy Corbyn thread would do

Posted by: Brett-Butler 24th September 2017, 07:25 PM

No.

Posted by: 5 Silas Frøkner 24th September 2017, 07:29 PM

Nor Deutsche Bahn who I've spent the week travelling on (on a lot of modern trains). DB subsidiary Arriva operates like 6 franchises in the UK...

Posted by: Brett-Butler 24th September 2017, 07:30 PM

Funnily enough this was something that came up during the EU referendum - in Andrew Neil's pre-referendum interview with Jeremy Corbyn, he mentioned that the EU would make it harder for the re-nationalisation of the UK's railways. It isn't something that I've looked into since then, so I am not sure whether there is any truth in it, so Corbyn may be right on this one. I'll have to do a bit of research to see if this is indeed the case.

Posted by: Suedehead2 24th September 2017, 09:17 PM

A lot of our rail system is already state owned. It's just that it's the German and Dutch states that own it.

Posted by: 5 Silas Frøkner 24th September 2017, 09:47 PM

We ran the East Coast Mainline as a state run operation for a time, so surely if it was against EU law, the EU would have come for us or we would have only run it for a very short period while a new franchisee was put in place. That ended up being years before a franchise thing was even run. So I'm not convinced by this argument.

It must be possible. The German Länder run their own regional rail services and it's all tendered (inter-Länder is run by a monopoly of DB) and DB has no issues successfully bidding for those franchises and indeed do run many of them. Notably, only NRW is the state where the majority of such tenders aren't in DB hands.

Posted by: Suedehead2 24th September 2017, 09:56 PM

It is almost impossible for a local council to bring services such as rubbish collection back in-house after that have been outsourced under UK law. Is that a reason for people to lobby for their local authority to leave the UK?

Posted by: 5 Silas Frøkner 24th September 2017, 09:58 PM

Well, a group of 32 of them did try in 2014!

Posted by: popchartfreak 25th September 2017, 07:24 AM

I understand a Labour legal advisor thinks it is not illegal to nationalise. Even if it were that's the sort of crucial topic that should be discussed up front to get clarity.

Besides which, Councils get round legislation all the time. Frinstance the disaster that is Right To Buy. Brand new homes just built by Councils state of the art at huge expense in Bournemouth are already being bought up by poor poor disadvantaged families scraping together the 150-200k together by going to food banks and scrimping and saving for 12 months (when they moved in).

So, the Council has set up it's own "private firm" of housing. Council staff, doing the jobs they have always done, but under a nice new banner for the vans. New housing is bought and then "leased out" to the company, who lease out to homeless. Net result: not subject to Right To Buy.

Clearly EU state-owned firms operate in much the same way as they can BUY UK COMPANIES AND BID FOR BUSINESS.

Posted by: popchartfreak 25th September 2017, 07:14 PM

...and back to Corbyn. Remember all those criticisms about Blair stage-handling conferences and making sure there is no dissent amongst Labour members?

Most important topic facing the future of the UK? Nah, doesn't exist.

Criticising Tories for being unprepared? Who, exactly, swished Article 50 through rather late in the day with no attempt to change it, or point out the gov was acting illegally? Who wanted to trigger Article 50 the next day with NO PREPARATION.

What. An. Effing. Hypocrite.

Posted by: Poked Pumpkin 3rd October 2017, 07:21 PM

KEISHA HAS GONE, I HEAR!!

No, not just kicked out the band in 2010, but also oot of Scottish labour!

Posted by: Brett-Butler 3rd October 2017, 07:34 PM

She stepped down as leader quite a while back, unless you claim she's left Labour completely?

Posted by: Poked Pumpkin 3rd October 2017, 07:35 PM

FIRST I HEARD OF IT!!

YASS!!

With a move to the left in Scotland, Labour can win outright.

Posted by: 5 Silas Frøkner 3rd October 2017, 08:43 PM

Yeah she went a while ago. She was awful, but by far the most competent part of SLAB. Party north of the border is an utter disgrace.

Posted by: Poked Pumpkin 3rd October 2017, 08:50 PM

They need to give it a COMPLETE overhaul.

Posted by: Harve 3rd October 2017, 08:57 PM

I can't find a source for this.

Posted by: 5 Silas Frøkner 3rd October 2017, 09:22 PM

She's still sitting in Holyrood for the party.

Posted by: Soy Adrián 3rd October 2017, 11:23 PM

Out of interest, who would you be more concerned about of the two leadership candidates?

Posted by: 5 Silas Frøkner 4th October 2017, 05:06 AM

Well that’s really the crux of my issue. Niether are particularly suitable. Having seen Sarwar in action, he’s nothing but a points scoring hypocrite who fundamentally misunderstands the 2014 vote and is devoid of actual policies. I can’t see him even restoring Labour to 2nd at Holyrood. Leonard on the other hand is woefully untested and you feel like he’s not really that serious about it. I’m sure that policy-wise he’d be more suitable than Sarwar but I don’t have confidence he’d survive the toxic party behind him. Especially when it appears his support is TU based rather than MP/MSP/MEP based. SLAB can Ill afford a set of toxic undermining and backstabbing like Corbyn went through.

They’ve been outflanked to the left by the SNP and the Greens (even though we all know the SNP is further left on paper than in reality, they’re still quite a bit to the left of the almost centre right leaning SLAB) and there’s no one with both the policies and substance to go toe to toe with Harvey and Sturgeon in the same policy area and win

Posted by: Soy Adrián 4th October 2017, 08:07 AM

From what I've seen over the last year or so, Scottish Labour has very much been attempting to outflank the SNP from the left - including the income tax proposals. That seemed like a conscious move from Kez to try and bring the party at least partially in step with Corbyn, and as an outside observer I'd assume there was room for a party to the left of the SNP economically to make headway.

Posted by: Poked Pumpkin 4th October 2017, 08:40 AM

They need a socialist in chargeand not one of these two flakes!!

Posted by: Soy Adrián 4th October 2017, 09:32 AM

I'll hold off on taking advice from someone who didn't even know the previous leader had been gone for weeks.

Posted by: 5 Silas Frøkner 4th October 2017, 05:13 PM

On income tax then yes SLAB were to the left of the SNP but Greens had them both beat. But on a lot of social issues the SLAB proposals were way off base. That they did so well in 2017 is more a reflection on Corbyn. I know this is anecdotal, but I do know a number of returnees to Labour in 2017 from the SNP and it was based on the national manifesto. Barely anyone even knew Kez and pals were doing anything with a Scottish manifesto. So I think whenever the next GE is, it'll be good for Labour in Scotland but they'll struggle at Holyrood without Corbyn.

You're very right, there is plenty of room to the left of the SNP. You can really see that in the advances that the Green's made at Holyrood. There very much is the space out there, but in my opinion there's no chance in hell Anas Sarwar goes for it. It'd be a massive vote winner. A properly Social Democratic platform would play really well in Scotland.

I must admit that since the GE I've back off a lot from Scottish politics. Ruth & Kez & their respective parties had made it so toxic and unpleasant. No way would I have voted SLAB in this GE, but I had no major qualms backing them down here.

Posted by: TheBattenburglar 23rd October 2017, 06:19 PM

I never thought that Michelle McManus would ever get a mention in this board, but Sheffield Hallam MP Jared O'Mera has been made to http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-41724540 he made on the Drowned In Sound forum back in 2004, saying among other things that Michelle McManus only won Pop Idol because she was fat.

This is why I could never run for political office - I'm sure some of the things I've said on Buzzjack could be easily used against me at some point if I ever ran for parliament.

Posted by: My Reputation 23rd October 2017, 06:23 PM

Michelle is actually an SNP member who sang at an Independence rally. Political queen!

Posted by: Suedehead2 23rd October 2017, 06:30 PM

No wonder they lost

Posted by: My Reputation 23rd October 2017, 06:39 PM

More likely the reason we won 56 seats in 2015 *.*

Posted by: Chop-part-freak 28th October 2017, 07:38 PM

Got to play fair in politics and criticise all sides. So, what would the Labour Party activists be prepared to do to get rid of the much-loathed Nick Clegg?

Put up a homophobic, misogynistic piss-head without doing any character-checks on-line or associates whatsoever, apparently. With MP's of that calibre, perhaps that qualifies as local-bullshit overtaking detailed credibility. Still, keeps the Momentum going, eh?

Yes I know it's a week late, but still worth mulling over...

Posted by: Suedehead2 28th October 2017, 08:01 PM

I suspect Labour thought they'd missed their chance in Sheffield Hallam in 2015. As they didn't expect their candidate to win, they didn't subject him to the sort of scrutiny candidates elsewhere may have received. Not a wise decision.

Posted by: Poked Pumpkin🎃 28th October 2017, 09:21 PM

That was the fault of defeatist centrists, the ones who aaid people like me were deluded for saying Labour would come veery close to winniny and the Tories would not be getting those Elite preeictions from the BBC etc of 300 seat majorities.

We can never go into another election with that attitude again. They put up any old candidates in some places.

Posted by: Suedehead2 28th October 2017, 09:24 PM

Of course, in O'Mara's defence, at least he didn't attempt to make a joke about rape on live radio.

Posted by: Poked Pumpkin🎃 28th October 2017, 09:27 PM

Or done half of what Boris Johnson's done or said whilst Foreign Secretary!

Posted by: vidcapper 29th October 2017, 06:34 AM

But will Labour deselect him for the next election (if he doesn't step down on his own)?

Posted by: Chop-part-freak 29th October 2017, 08:59 AM

Pure Momentum. Sorry. In what universe can a party dominated by the left blame centrists for something that was entirely down to local activists with at least 18 months to do a bit of preparation, and certainly an election was expected once the referendum result became clear. It's almost as if local candidates get chosen on the basis of who is mates with who.....

There are plenty of potentially good national left-leaning candidates (I know one who put his name forward in a London borough for Councillor but his face just didn't fit in with the local power-struggles between groups aligned along cultural ties rather than political). Of course Tories are even worse at choosing candidates. Mostly they just have to be rich....

Posted by: vidcapper 29th October 2017, 09:53 AM

Under STV parties would have to put a wide range of candidates of course - pro/anti Brexit, white/non-white etc, in order to maximise their vote.

Posted by: Suedehead2 29th October 2017, 11:11 AM

That's one of many reasons why I support STV. Of course, I would expect the Lib Dems to struggle to find many pro-Leave candidates in the same way that the Greens might struggle to find climate change deniers as candidates.

Posted by: Soy Adrián 29th October 2017, 06:11 PM

On the O'Mara thing - Hallam was my CLP for three years up to 2015 and from what I've heard, since then it's been deeply dysfunctional since then and was always likely to select a Corbynite candidate once it got down to a shortlist. Given that everything was pointing towards us struggling to hold seats let alone gain new ones, and given the tight timescale of the snap election, it's not surprising in the slightest that the NEC didn't get round to checking a load of archived 15-year-old forums to see if anyone on their longlist had said anything terrible. Hallam would have been an especially low priority given that there's still a very strong Lib Dem presence at the local level and the constituency backed Remain very heavily, so it was widely assumed (understandably) that we'd missed our chance in 2015.

That said, it's deeply disappointing for everyone who busted a gut to get rid of Clegg in both 2015 and 2017 that we've been let down by the seat's first ever Labour MP like this.

Posted by: Popchartfreak 14th January 2018, 07:45 PM

I think we can claim this is foot-shooting since I'm still not clear on what Corbyn's position on Brexit is, and it seems to be quite a thing to look forward to. A firm statement on what he stands for might help my confusion.

Perhaps someone can correct the attached tweet with some backed-up facts, or else it might appear he's angling for a Hard Brexit? Thanks.

@PaulBrandITV
Corbyn insists the single market is dependent on membership of the EU. Hm. But it’s not. Countries like Norway are in single market and not in EU. #peston
17 replies 160 retweets 218 likes


Corbyn has repeated this for months, despite it being totally false: feels like a way for him to square his dislike of the EU with the fact most of his members and voters feel otherwise.James Ball added,
Paul Brand
Verified account

Posted by: Andrew. 14th January 2018, 08:04 PM

Labour has let us young people who voted for them in such droves in June down with his Brexit policy. Apart from a vague 'transition period' of being in the single market/customs union (then swiftly exiting it seems) I fail to see the difference in Brexit policy between Labour and the tories?

Posted by: Suedehead2 14th January 2018, 08:06 PM

If only more young people realised that.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 14th January 2018, 08:12 PM

I think that through 2018 there will be a slow move from Labour towards maintaining single-market access & alignment with the customs union (in a bespoke arrangement), I don't think it'll be through the softening of public opinion but rather than crushing reality of the Republic of Ireland/Northern Ireland border and economic impact assessments.

We can all probably agree the Labour's position on the eventual relationship post-March 2019 are as muddled and deliberately vague as the Government's. REASSURING.

Posted by: Soy Adrián 14th January 2018, 08:17 PM

I'd like it to be something different, but it's not like it wasn't equally confusing and muddled before the general election.

Posted by: Andrew. 14th January 2018, 08:18 PM

I think the groans to call for Single Market/Customs union membership will increase from other Labour MPs this year but as long as Corbyn is in charge their policy won't change. For that reason I can see a not insignificant number of 2017 Labour voters flocking to either the Greens (momentum lot) or the Lib Dems (moderates)

This could be the first chance the Greens have to make a significant splash if they concentrate on the remain aspect of their platform in metropolitan areas where they had a stronger than average vote anyway (though they fell back to Labour a lot this year).

Posted by: Suedehead2 14th January 2018, 08:25 PM

The Greens' results in local by-elections since the general election have been mostly terrible.

Posted by: Andrew. 14th January 2018, 08:35 PM

They seem to have completely disappeared in general. Correct me if I’m wrong but their membership has gone way down since Corbyn became Labour leader. I honestly think they need a new leader with new ideas, Caroline Lucas is good but she seems to have taken back all the progress Natalie Bennet made electorally (even if not much of that was down to her). Patrick Harvey would make a good England and Wales leader but the Scottish Party would suffer without him, it says a lot that the second most well known Scottish Green is Ross Greer

Posted by: Popchartfreak 27th January 2018, 10:39 AM

As everyone asks about Labour's position on Brexit, how about a comment from a thoughtful intelligent sincere Labour MP?

"Chuka Umunna
‏
Verified account

@ChukaUmunna
21h21 hours ago
More
When Labour fails to lead and make the case for what we believe - equality, poverty reduction, internationalism and so on - public support for our values falls. We should not be led by polls and focus groups. That’s why we should make the case for Single Market membership."

Posted by: vidcapper 1st February 2018, 03:14 PM

Problem is, their leader is not exactly a Europhile...

Posted by: Popchartfreak 23rd March 2018, 08:29 PM

Owen Smith sacked for not being Jeremy Corbyn on Brexit and suggesting democracy is a thing.


(Just to underline, Jeremy Corbyn on Brexit is Theresa May on Brexit, give or take. Mostly Take)


Just to point out most Labour supporters seem to agree more with the sackee than the sacker.


"He's not the Messiah he's a very naughty boy!"

Posted by: Brett-Butler 23rd March 2018, 09:05 PM

Not tha doing so will make one iota of difference to the young Corbynistas anyway. At this point Jeremy Corbyn could do anything, even, to give a hypothetical and definitely made up example, express support for a vile, anti-Semetic cartoon on a secret Facebook group, and the Corbynistas would still support him whole heartedly, ranting and raving about the RIGHT WING TORY PRESS and the like.

Although I imagine if Jeremy Corbyn was to do such a hypothetical thing, true to form he would create a distraction by doing something major that would move the story away from such activity, something such as, to give hypothetical examples, an incredibly divisive new policy, or the sacking of a prominent shadow minister.

Posted by: Suedehead2 23rd March 2018, 09:52 PM

So you are saying that Corbyn is just Boris Johnson with a beard and a red rosette?

Posted by: Brett-Butler 28th March 2018, 06:16 PM

There are rumours that John Woodcock https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/labour-party/news/94017/excl-labour-mp-john-woodcock-planning-resign-party of Jeremy Corbyn, in particular due to his sacking of Owen Smith & his attitudes towards Russia. Ever since Corbyn was elected, there has been talk of the Labour "moderates" resigning and forming a new party (a move that I cannot say I am really behind), but this could be the first signs that it could be a reality.

Posted by: Popchartfreak 28th March 2018, 07:54 PM

well that would certainly hand the Tories power wouldnt it? It almost looks like he would prefer that to Labour actually doing what the majority of its supporters want and take a sensible Brexit stance and question the honesty in PMQ of the Leave financial campaign. I mean it's not as if it's of any significance or anything that the biggest political event of our lifetimes which split the country, the Labour Party and the Tory Party might have been run dishonestly or something, and Corbyn being a weak 7/10 on the issue of Europe clearly feels much more strongly about Vlad having an exit clause. One gets mentioned in Parliament, t'other doesn't, so he MUST feel it's a strong 8/10 that he doesn't point the finger at Putin till he's forced to and when the rest of the world seems fairly convinced (even Bestie Trump) that it wasn't some rogue Russian Mafia. Why would it be? Most of them live in London*

* NOTE: Sarcasm not a statement of fact. Other than incidental long lines of dead Russians or associates in odd circumstances all coincidentally not fond of Putin and definitely not at the hands of persons unknown (presumably expelled now)

Posted by: vidcapper 29th March 2018, 06:17 AM

It would be like 1983 again, with a fatally split opposition handing the Tories a large majority on a relatively modest share of the vote : 42.4% vs 27.6% for Lab & 25.4% for Lib/SDP.

This is something else that STV could help with, as Labour supporters could then choose between hard-liners & moderates (or Remainers/Leavers), without undermining the party's overall vote share. This would apply to other parties as well, of course.

Posted by: Suedehead2 29th March 2018, 11:02 AM

Trump has maintained a rare silence on the Skripal attack. The US has indeed expelled 60 "diplomats" but Trump himself doesn't seem to have found the time to bash out a Tweet with his stubby fingers.

Posted by: Suedehead2 29th March 2018, 11:05 AM

That has always been my principal reason for thinking STV is the best voting system. It has always seemed ridiculous that, for example, a moderate Tory voter in one part of Somerset has little choice but to vote for Jack Mogg while a similarly moderate Labour voter in part of what was once Middlesex has to vote for John McDonnell.

Posted by: Popchartfreak 16th April 2018, 04:48 PM

good to know that Corbyn has changed his mind about Parliament having a free vote on important matters, like sending missiles to Syria. I look forward to his adoption of this for the final critical vote of Brexit which will affect this country, rather than a foreign one that he no doubt wants refugees from to be let into the UK to help instead of sitting and doing nothing and allowing mass murder to carry on.

Posted by: vidcapper 17th April 2018, 06:52 AM

Is she an innocent victim of the 'nasty media' again?

https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/diane-abbott-criticised-after-using-fake-image-of-israeli-jet-over-tehran-in-syria-bombing-row-1.462370

Posted by: Same Ol' Andrew 17th April 2018, 04:58 PM

Yet another Labour abstention last night. Added to the others:

On a Tory bill for an early EU referendum
On retrospectively depriving workfare victims of compensation
On the right of civil servants to strike
On rejecting the siting of nuclear weapons in Scotland
On condemning the Iraq war
On free tuition for students
On minimum pricing of alcohol
On opposing the top-rate tax cut from 50p to 45p
On opposing savage cuts to public-sector pensions
On stopping fuel-duty increases
On maintaining concessionary bus travel for the elderly
On massive pay rises for councillors
On the criminalisation of squatting
On reducing VAT from 20% to 17.5%
On the Scottish budget
On brutal immigration reforms
On fracking
On the bedroom tax
On savage welfare cuts and the benefits cap
On welfare cuts again

WHEN will people wake up?

Posted by: Brett-Butler 17th April 2018, 05:38 PM

Hi Andrew, do you have a source to back up Labour abstaining on all (or most) of these issues? Because there are quite a few there that I am pretty sure that Labour voted against (plus I have a natural scepticism for long lists of allegations).

Posted by: Same Ol' Andrew 17th April 2018, 06:19 PM

I got the list from https://wingsoverscotland.com/trampling-on-graves/#more-102637, the evidence is hyperlinked and is mostly articles on the same website but they’re backed up by facts.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 30th April 2018, 07:19 PM

John Woodcock, who has been highly critical of Labour under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, has been suspended from the party over https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/30/labour-suspends-john-woodcock-over-sexual-harassment-claim.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 3rd July 2018, 05:12 PM

Jared "Michelle McManus won Pop Idol because she's fat" O'Mara has been reinstated as a Labour Party MP. Will be interesting to see if there is any blowback as a result of this - I imagine this is a possible "good day to bury bad news" story, given how many other big stories there are at the moment, including England's match this evening.

Posted by: Suedehead2 3rd July 2018, 05:32 PM

Does this mean he's actually going to turn up? I think it is fair to assume that the convenient timing is not a coincidence.

Posted by: Popchartfreak 3rd July 2018, 08:47 PM

A real credit to Corbyn's Labour Party, and no doubt a figurehead of the future.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 11th July 2018, 03:25 PM

Emma's Diary, a company providing support to pregnant women and new mums, has been fined over £140k for https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-44794635 ahead of the 2017 General Election.

Just as well there's a big football match on tonight, otherwise this may have been a bigger story.

Posted by: Popchartfreak 11th July 2018, 07:32 PM

Amazing. That gets spotted while Leave.UK and Aaron Banks connected crooked firms can use data provided by a car insurance online quote company (customers have to agree to share their data with "partners") and seemingly get away with it to date. Details in the Brexit thread...

Posted by: Doctor Blind 12th July 2018, 09:07 PM

Recently reinstated MP Jared O'Mara has quit the Labour party.

Well that lasted long - unfortunately no by-election in the offing as he is apparently going to stay on as an 'independent'. I get that he suffers from autism, but all his public statements have shown little contrition for his behaviour in the past.

Posted by: Popchartfreak 13th July 2018, 08:55 AM

Well done Sheffield Hallam, that went well didn't it?

Consequences are always a thing.

Posted by: Popchartfreak 15th July 2018, 08:37 AM

Here's a radical idea....

...from the alternate universe man who is now running the alternate universe UK in an election he won in 2015 in a non-Brexit universe.


"David Miliband
‏
There is another point: #PeoplesVote is the way to preserve public confidence in an age called post-truth. The 2016 Brexit offer was a lie. The real option(s) should be on the table."

Posted by: Popchartfreak 17th July 2018, 07:18 PM

Flipping it over to this thread. I think lack of communication with other parties and MP's voting with the government against party policy comes over as foot-shooting despite the sleight of hand trying to shift the blame. Immediately, and without mentioning Hoey, Lewie & Dewie.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 17th July 2018, 07:32 PM

KAte Hooey is a total disgrace- she apparently 'represents' Vauxhall, where 77.6% voted Remain, and yet she staunchly supports the government's pro-Brexit amendments and bills at every turn.

Not sure Corbyn can control them given he rebelled pretty much all the time against the Labour governments of 1997-2010.

Posted by: Popchartfreak 17th July 2018, 07:38 PM

I think you're probably right, and The Beast of Bolsover has always been a stroppy get - or as I used to call it back in the 70's when I lived in Mansfield and had the accent, "mekkin a' compleet bolls ovverit"

Posted by: Suedehead2 17th July 2018, 07:50 PM

That remains a major problem for Corbyn. It is hard for one of the least loyal of MPs to demand loyalty from others now that the boot is on the other foot.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 18th July 2018, 07:04 PM

So in Labour news today -

John Woodcock, a major critic of Jeremy Corbyn, has resigned from the Labour Party after being suspended from the party a few months back. The uber-Corbynites were no fan of him, quite possibly because his partner is an Associate Editor of The Spectator.

Margaret Hodge called Jeremy Corbyn anti-Semetic, and allegedly swore at him as well. Subsequently, a complaint was made and action is to be taken against her swiftly. Labour must have really improved their complaints system, as it took months for them to take action against friend of Hitler, Ken Livingstone, yet now they can do so in a matter of hours when it's someone who criticises Mr Corbyn.

Posted by: Popchartfreak 18th July 2018, 07:48 PM

bang goes another 2 MP's. Doing all you can to help the Tory majority, jezza? Poetic justice some might call it, having moaning disloyal MP's whinging about you all the time. Tony Blair may have a few tips on how to deal with Labour MP's slagging you off?

Posted by: Popchartfreak 18th July 2018, 08:11 PM

of course there are other views amongst Labour MP's than the Corbynites:

"J.K. Rowling liked

Chuka Umunna
‏
Verified account

@ChukaUmunna
21h21 hours ago
More
So let’s get this straight: Margaret Hodge, whose relatives were murdered in the Holocaust, raises concerns about racism towards her community in our party. Instead of engaging with her concerns,supposed party supporters seek to tear her character apart.Are these people for real?"

A good friend and otherwise lovely sane Labour Councillor seems to have fallen foul of this general view being circulated in the Labour Party that anybody standing up for what's right is a "traitor" or a "self-publicist". I am utterly convinced there is some sort of whipped-up self-perpetuating mass hysteria going on where calmness and reason have fallen victim, and been replaced with vitriol, intolerance and general ongoing moaning and complaining and blame-shifting rather than facing up to reality. A bit like Brexit, then.

Posted by: vidcapper 19th July 2018, 05:39 AM

Party loyalty is one thing, but when it is used as an excuse not to stamp down on views utterly abhorrent to the wider electorate, it can only be counter-productive.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 25th July 2018, 05:18 PM

The Labour MP for Peterborough, Fiona Onsanya, has been charged with https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-44957896, and will stand trial next month. Labour won the seat from the Conservatives with a majority of less than 1000, so Labour will be hoping she isn't convicted.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 25th July 2018, 06:10 PM

I believe Chris Huhne and Vicky Pryce both got 8 months once convicted. Perverting the course of justice is always treated very harshly (they basically throw the book at you) and I expect if convicted there would be a custodial sentence. Basically, don't ever lie to the courts!

Posted by: Popchartfreak 25th July 2018, 08:23 PM

so that's one DUP and one Labour not voting at the next set of Brexit wrangling....?

Posted by: vidcapper 26th July 2018, 06:03 AM

That could cause a potentially very interesting by-election...

Posted by: Popchartfreak 27th July 2018, 09:38 AM

"The Vauxhall constituency CLP have passed a vote of "NO CONFIDENCE IN KATE HOEY" tonight "UNANIMOUSLY!""

Hmmmm. I'm in Vauxhall tonight and Saturday night. I wonder if the streets will be flooded with her bitter tears.....

Posted by: Queef of Skreech 27th July 2018, 10:37 AM

I'm sorry but what did she expect?

Posted by: 5 Silas Frøkner 27th July 2018, 10:49 AM

Is this the first step towards recalling her?

Posted by: Suedehead2 27th July 2018, 02:18 PM

She can't be recalled unless she breaks parliamentary rules. There are no rules against making an idiot of yourself.

Posted by: vidcapper 27th July 2018, 02:18 PM

I doubt she'd meet the criteria...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30184066

Posted by: 5 Silas Frøkner 27th July 2018, 02:34 PM

Thanks guys. Wasn’t 100% on what they’d finally passed in the end so thanks for sharing and clearing that up

Posted by: Queef of Skreech 27th July 2018, 02:42 PM

She will be deselected for the next election.

Posted by: vidcapper 28th July 2018, 05:30 AM

But she could still stand (and possibly win) as an Independent - it's happened before.

Posted by: Summer Blossom 28th July 2018, 08:36 AM

Her remain constituency hates her? And the labour brand is far more powerful than her. She is no Georgw Galloway. They could deselect 90% of Blairites and clean up their seats and the Blairites know it.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 28th July 2018, 08:41 AM

Yes, it would be interesting to see if her standing as an MP in Vauxhall was as a result of support for her personally, or for the Labour Party as a whole ie would the constituents in Vauxhall make a Balloon on a Stick MP as long as it had a Labour rosette? Interestingly, Kate Hoey has comfortably gained over 50% of the vote in her 30 years as an MP, and even more interestingly despite being recognised as one of the few Labour Leavers, her vote actually increased in the last election, despite Vauxhall being extremely anti-Brexit.

Posted by: vidcapper 28th July 2018, 09:07 AM

I think you underestimate how much Labour support is centre-left, rather than hard-left.

Posted by: Summer Blossom 28th July 2018, 11:28 AM

No, Vauxhall is extremely anti-Tory and pro-Labour with a large momentum base. It isn't pro this Brexit MP.

Posted by: vidcapper 28th July 2018, 02:06 PM

Wrong again - just check the last (post-referendum) GE result...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vauxhall_(UK_Parliament_constituency)

She had a majority of over 20k, despite being a Brexit supporter in an apparently strongly Remain area.

Posted by: Harve 28th July 2018, 02:12 PM

It doesn't matter whether people are voting Labour because they're perceived to be centre left or hard left because Kate Hoey is neither - she has supported the Tories' brand of hard Brexit and has some other socially conservative views that make her a better fit for the DUP, rather than the MP of one of the most cosmopolitan and liberal parts of the country.

She'd struggle to even get 5% of the vote if she stood as an independent. Not just because she doesn't fit into the constituency, but also because the vast majority of the electorate vote according to the party and its leader. While most voters know a party's policies and what its leader stands for, few are engaged enough to know the views of their MP - many don't even know their MP's name.

Kate Hoey points to a wider problem of a constituency-based FPTP system when UK politics has become more presidentialised. Another reason why proportional representation or a presidential system would be better.

Posted by: Harve 28th July 2018, 02:14 PM

The 3.5% increase in her vote share was well down on Labour's average increase in London (+11%), thanks to a local anti-Brexit campaign from the Lib Dems. If we had a better voting system, this would have damaged Labour.

But the vast majority of Vauxhall voters wouldn't have known about their MPs views, so they're not really relevant until Hoey actually gets into the House of Commons.

Posted by: Summer Blossom 28th July 2018, 02:15 PM

They were voting Labour, not for that Tory.

Posted by: vidcapper 28th July 2018, 02:23 PM

They voted for her in large numbers, period.

Posted by: Summer Blossom 28th July 2018, 04:01 PM

For the party!

She is a Tory.

Posted by: Suedehead2 28th July 2018, 05:09 PM

They voted for her because she was the Labour candidate. It's not as if Labour supporters could vote for a different Labour candidate if they didn't like Hoey. After all, I wouldn't claim that every Tory voter in Surrey Heath was a strong supporter of everything Gove stands for.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 28th July 2018, 05:22 PM

Another Labour Leave MP, Frank Field, has https://labourlist.org/2018/07/brexiteer-frank-field-loses-vote-of-no-confidence-by-local-party/ at his constituency level. Although unlike in Vauxhall, his constituency, Birkenhead, voted in favour of Leave.

Posted by: Summer Blossom 28th July 2018, 05:27 PM

I have no idea who me mp (Labour) is. I vote Labour and put two fingers up at the aristocracy and landed gentry and that's that. I wouldn't even recognise their name on the ballot as an independent.

Posted by: vidcapper 29th July 2018, 05:29 AM

I suspect the candidates names might be mentioned in an election campaign, though...

Posted by: Popchartfreak 29th July 2018, 06:32 PM

or as they say locally (I also used to have the accent back in my childhood days) "Baihrken'ed". Or as I say for Frank, Burke'n'brexit.

Posted by: vidcapper 30th July 2018, 05:44 AM

Is it a coincidence that both those Labour MP's are long-standing, and locally very popular - just the sort of MP's resistant to Corbynite influence...

Posted by: Brett-Butler 30th July 2018, 08:41 AM

The odd thing is that Frank Field actually nominated Corbyn for leader back in 2015 (albeit he may have been one of those who nominated him to "widen the debate", which we can all say was a great success), and both him and Kate Hoey have been quite loyal to Corbyn so far. And of course the most ironic thing about the whole thing is that they've been censured by pro-Coybyn loyalists over voting for Brexit, when Jeremy Corbyn has been a known Eurosceptic for over 30 years as a backbench MP. Although there's no chance of him being deselected.

I can't comment if Kate Hoey & Frank Field are popular in their own constituencies outside their local parties, but if anyone on BJ lives in either of those areas (I do recall there is someone here who lives in Vauxhall?), I'd be interested to hear your input.

Posted by: vidcapper 30th July 2018, 10:23 AM

I was thinking in terms of the size of their majorities, for a start.

Posted by: Summer Blossom 30th July 2018, 10:26 AM

They vote for Labour. How many times!!

Posted by: vidcapper 30th July 2018, 02:17 PM

That's too simplistic an explanation - the longer an MP has served a constituency, the larger a personal vote they tend to build up. This can shelter them significantly from adverse national vote swings against their party. e,g Simon Hughes in Southwark & Bermondsey

Posted by: Summer Blossom 30th July 2018, 02:27 PM

Party allegiance comes before MPs. They might be persuaded not to swing against their party with a longstanding MP, but will not support said MP, especially after negative local press and calls of no confidence, vs said party. Completely different. Sorry.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 30th July 2018, 03:05 PM

STV in Westminster can't come soon enough.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 6th August 2018, 07:55 PM

Boris Johnston got into trouble today for making derogatory remarks about Muslim women who wear the veil. This news should be relief to Labour, as it should move attention away from Labour's racism problems.

So they'll be hoping that nobody picks up on the fact that Labour's John McDonnell is due to share a platform at a Momentum-run conference next month with Jean Luc Melénchon, an also-ran in the French Presidential election last year, who https://twitter.com/stephenkb/status/1026452980780998657.

Posted by: vidcapper 7th August 2018, 05:30 AM

I disagree - I can recall a couple of occasions where a deselected/disaffected MP has run against the official party candidate, and either won, or scared the sh1t out of them...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Taverne

It also happened in one of the Welsh valley seats.

Posted by: Popchartfreak 11th August 2018, 06:29 PM

fake news?

"Jeremy Corbin, Prime Minister
‏

@CorbynSnap
7h7 hours ago

Delighted to join in Islamic prayer as part of a ceremony honouring terrorists who brutally slaughtered innocent Olympic athletes. Obviously, however, I wouldn’t sing my country’s national anthem, as that would have been bad. Make me Prime Minister. #JC4PM"

As someone who watched the news footage of the murders with horror, I think I can say fairly that the terrorists weren't heroes, they were terrorists. That doesn't mean I support inhumane Israel policy on Palestine, nor does it mean I fail to recognise the Holocaust.

Posted by: vidcapper 12th August 2018, 06:11 AM

For the first time I have a little sympathy for Mr Corbyn - I know what it's like to be expected to express an opinion on anything I'm asked about, even if I prefer to keep it to myself because anything I say would appear to be just virtue signalling.

Posted by: Bilbo Ballbaggin 12th August 2018, 11:47 AM

Actually it was fake news.

He went to a memorial service of Palestinians killed on a bus in an 1980 airstrike

I think he should have sent a representative other than himself as he seems kinda clueless that the press and alt right facebook sites will use it to hound him

Sometimes you have to play the game

Posted by: Brett-Butler 12th August 2018, 12:32 PM

Jeremy Corbyn literally wrote an article saying that he was commemorating those terrorists. To quote someone on Twitter who put it better https://twitter.com/wjharte/status/1028232234128625664 - "Corbyn can do something, be photographed doing it, wrote an article HIMSELF about doing it, and his supporters will resolutely swear it didn’t happen. What hope do we have left as a country?"

Perhaps the media would stop hounding him if he didn't engage in such terrible behaviour in the first place.

Posted by: vidcapper 12th August 2018, 02:14 PM

Sounds like a certain POTUS...

Posted by: Bilbo Ballbaggin 12th August 2018, 02:16 PM

Where is this article?

His Facebook page actually says this was a misrepresentation in the press AGAIN. He was not commemorating terrorists.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 12th August 2018, 02:39 PM

It is this article https://morningstaronline.co.uk/a-98de-palestine-united-1. I was reluctant to post the link as it is from the Morning Star, but there you go.

Posted by: vidcapper 12th August 2018, 04:26 PM

I'd have though that would be Bilbo Ballbaggin's bible.

Posted by: Popchartfreak 12th August 2018, 06:16 PM

well just to be clear I don't attack Corbyn with lies, I prefer to use inconvenient facts that nobody has any rationale supporting him over.

well there's a thing part 2....

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/aug/11/more-than-100-pro-leave-constituencies-switch-to-remain

Makes great reading for Jeremy Corbyn fans and Labour supporters as the useless campaign he ran for the referendum (being as he hates the EU) means he needs to do an about face if he wants to actually have any voters.

"Trigger Article 50 immediately!!!" he stated the next morning, sweating with excitement that his dream had at long last come true, and having not an ounce of care what it would do to the economy, or else just being a bit thick about the most important voting event in British 21st century politics.

I know I'm repeating myself here, but facts is facts, and I'm going to keep reminding everyone about it until he's forced to do what his supporters actually want. Man of principle? No. Man blinkered by his own beliefs even when faced with the reality of economic destruction.

Why I don't like Corbyn:

He's a hypocrite (many examples previously given)

He has done almost nothing since gaining office other than allow old-time lefties to get a foothold again and allowed the troops to slander and attack fellow labour party members who tolerated his own disloyalty for 30 odd years without turning him into a target of loathing and vitriol.

He has in the past, recent and distant, supported terrorists. This is a fact. One can support civil rights and righteous issues in foreign nations without supporting terrorists and violence. To criticise some regimes for doing one thing and support others for doing the exact same thing does not make it right. The actions of a sensible leader is to use whatever peaceful means you have, and that means economic and political muscle. It's rather telling that the man he wants arrested as War Criminal is the man who brought peace to Northern Ireland (along with others), and he is now still supporting Brexit which threatens that achievement.

aaaand so on and so on....

Posted by: vidcapper 13th August 2018, 05:50 AM

What a pity a certain person doesn't believe in polls, or he might have made a big deal about this.

Posted by: Popchartfreak 13th August 2018, 01:34 PM

what a pity a certain person believes in democratic referendums when the polls clearly show a desire for same - unless he has the result he wants and suddenly doesn't believe in referendums when the polls show an even clearer desire for a referendum than the previous one....

Posted by: vidcapper 13th August 2018, 02:24 PM

Ah, but if a follow-up referenda produced the result *you* wanted, then public opinion changed again, back towards Brexit, wouldn't you resist yet another vote?

I should also point out that, when asked here, I haven't opposed the idea of a 2nd referendum. only the timing of it.

Posted by: Popchartfreak 13th August 2018, 04:07 PM

moved to EU thread...

Posted by: Popchartfreak 20th August 2018, 06:40 PM

Can I repeat an opinion poll that seems to reflect the general mood (of everyone Ive talked to about it over the last 18 months) on the leadership skills of our 2 candidates to run the country? I'm not sure on how the question was phrased, but I assume it was:

"Who is the best person to lead the country, a useless woman who said Brexit means Brexit, dithered over a fatal fire, called an unnecessary election which backfired disastrously, had major resignations from the party cabinet she is unable to unify, and has done virtually nothing in 2 years to prepare for the very things she promised, or Jeremy Corbyn?"

YouGov: May: about a third, Corbyn quite a bit less than a third.

The rest of the opinions opted for a strong, stable brick.

Probably.

Ooopsy Jeremy Corbyn, those leadership skills just not coming through yet as articles start to appear about his campaigning to free some terrorist bombers who targeted British Jewish buildings back in 1994. I presume he had some very good evidence of their innocence, other than the website links to an organisation that claimed Israeli intelligence was responsible for car bombing Jewish citizens in the UK. Certainly that would be a bit of a departure from the history of every Jewish organisation ever, and quite the scoop.

The 2 bombers remain in prison. Mr Corbyn hasnt clarified what evidence he saw that made his support so vital to a "miscarriage of justice" but I'm sure the police would love to see it.

Still, he has just slagged off a labour MP for anti-semitic remarks so it's all right then....

Posted by: Brett-Butler 20th August 2018, 07:31 PM

Correction - he just slagged off a FORMER MP for anti-Semitic remarks, which allows him to have the ambience of a tough line in anti-Semitism, without having to discipline any Labour MPs with actual power who may or may not currently represent a constituency in Derbyshire.

Posted by: Popchartfreak 22nd August 2018, 08:00 PM

a m'learned-friend's-opinion on what Corbyn is attempting to do on Brexit:

"Jo Maugham QC
‏
Labour has proposed not one viable alternative to Tory Brexit. It doesn't want a better Brexit; it wants to pin a bad Brexit on the Tories.

Damn those who will lose their jobs. And damn the austerity it will cause.

This is why you should be furious with the so-called OppositionJo Maugham QC added,


Jo Maugham QC
Missed in Jeremy Corbyn's car crash interview yesterday: he holed below the waterline Labour's pretence of wanting a customs union with the EU. "

It's true though, and I just don't get Labour supporters blinkered attitude to it, and all the non-policies that will result from the economy crashing, short of borrowing cash at ridiculous prices and hocking the country to Arab/Russian/a.n.other friends or banks.

Cos that went so well last time....

Posted by: Popchartfreak 23rd August 2018, 02:44 PM

OK. Corbyn's media "reforms". They aren't really "reforms" because that assumes the media is in need of reform.

On the plus side I can agree with any reform of private ownership of British-based media to exclude foreigners. But that isn't what he's proposing. He's VERY vague on the likes of Murdoch and the expat owners of The Daily Mail. These are the real problem areas because they don't have the interests of a country that they dont live in at heart, they have the interests of their own power and pocket at heart. He also says nothing about the propaganda of stations he has appeared on, such as Russia Today, as if they in some way are "unbiased" because they don't slag him personally off, instead of viewing all the obvious lies they push constantly.

So, failed on that basis.

So it's an attack on the BBC, basically. There is no need for legislation with regard to the BBC. If you think they are biased you get in power and sack those failing to do their job in being even-handed. It's really very simple.

In terms of legislating to make sure the public pays for a journalism service - we already do - it's called local radio. In terms of enforcing them to not criticise Corbyn and the Labour Party, that assumes that all journalists are wrong with their criticisms - they aren't. Some are politically based, in the right-wing press, but most comments are fair. Corbyn is useless with the media because they ask him questions he can't answer truthfully. Which he hates. he wants to control the discussions, and judging by the implication that the press can't criticise him ("a fair hearing") that involves political control, which is not a free press.

The Labour Party, the trade unions, and any wealthy individual can set up a left-wing press that tells the point of views he would approve of. There is no argument for a tax-payer-funded version of this. That is state control by any other name. we already have the BBC which can be, as we have seen, manipulated by the government in power, whichever one it is. He gives no real solution to this other than some sort of mad idea to rival netflix. We have the BBC to do that. Taking money off Amazon and other huge tax-dodgers to pay for this nutty idea is a crock. That tax is for the tax-payer benefit, for hospitals, care, roads, infrastructure, welfare, NOT to make sure everyone ends up paying more tax to pay for bloody internet-based entertainment. We already have a TV licence. Taking the cost from elsewhere just means we pay even more indirectly for something that isn't essential, and takes away cash from things that are.

So, the reason Corbyn and Labour get a bad press is that he's really not very smart. A lazy, hypocritical, interview-avoiding, terrorist-excusing, nutjob-scheme-creating silent opposition leader who doesn't give a shit about reality and how to achieve his more rational social aims while faced with the most useless government of my lifetime. In short, the most useless opposition leader of my lifetime.

Presumably he'll try and get Amazon to pay for Buzzjack so it can edit out criticisms like this.....

Posted by: Brett-Butler 24th August 2018, 09:19 PM

Jeremy Corbyn has put out another https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45301548 this week after a video emerged of him saying that "British Zionists have no sense of irony" (a video that earned him the praise of both Nick Griffin and former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke).

Funnily enough, for the 2nd time in as many weeks, he has waited until Friday evening to put out his statement, which means that it coincides with Shabbat, where observant Jews don't take part in any activities, which is highly convenient.

If you pardon my language, one would consider that something of a dick move, somewhere on par with putting bacon through the door of a mosque.

Posted by: Suedehead2 24th August 2018, 10:15 PM

Didn't the video only surface today?

Far too many people commenting on this seem to be confusing the words "Zionist" and "Jewish". If he had said British Jews lacked a sense of irony that would have been seen by most people as anti-semitic. Saying Zionists lack a sense of irony, OTOH, is more of a political statement. It is no more anti-semitic than criticism of Israeli government policy.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 24th August 2018, 10:19 PM

The video surfaced a few days ago, although it was ignored in many quarters as it first emerged in the Daily Mail.

Posted by: Popchartfreak 25th August 2018, 09:22 AM

That's Corbyn's belief too, though he also admits "Zionist" has been hijacked now by anti-semitics as code for getting away with anti-semitic statements. he then finger-wags everyone who doesnt agree with his comments to learn a bit of history.


More general thoughts from me:

As a non-religious person, I may not know what I'm talking about, but I thought Israel was originally the seat of Christianity and Judaism as well as a bit involved in Islam? Is he putting a sell-by date on claims to historic arguments on land? I'd love to know what the timescale is, as it might have an impact on other areas of the world and other religions.

To be clear, I'm not in any way supporting Israeli politics and their treatment of non-Jewish minorities, nor the British decision to help create a state for people not murdered by the Nazis and homeless and stateless. Nor am I supporting anti-semitic feelings and historic mistreatment and demonisation of them in other regions, the most recent mass murders having left a bit of an understandable sore-point and sensitivity. Gassing millions can have that effect, go figure! People, eh, so touchy about stuff.....

Just suggesting, however, that an awareness of British historic involvement in the Middle East might mean British politicians should be a bit more careful in choosing their words and showing support to some organisations while criticising others. A bit of history, then.

Posted by: Popchartfreak 26th August 2018, 09:14 AM

Without for one second excusing Israeli atrocities, here's one man's view of Corbyn meeting up with the man who organised the murder of his 16-year-old cousin...

"Adam Ma'anit
‏

I’ve been watching in quiet horror and with increasing anxiety as the Labour Party sinks deeper by the day into an antisemitic cesspit of its own making. Recently revealed details of Corbyn’s troubling past associations means I can no longer remain silent. This is personal.
Last week, a day after Jeremy Corbyn insisted to the BBC: “I don’t share platforms with terrorists,” @TheGolem_ revealed details of his 2012 trip to Doha where he shared and hosted platforms with numerous high-ranking terrorist leaders.
Among these was Husam Badran – a man connected with the murder of my 16-year old cousin.

Badran is a former leader of Hamas’ military wing and its current international spokesperson. He is widely regarded as the man who orchestrated some of the most horrific suicide bombing attacks against Israeli civilians in the history of the Israel/Palestine conflict.
Badran was released from prison as part of a controversial deal when 1,000 Palestinian prisoners were exchanged for the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. As part of the release agreement, Badran was exiled to Qatar where he now oversees funding and operations for Hamas.

At the “remarkable” Doha conference, this supposed ‘man of peace’ Corbyn described contributions from recently released “brothers” like Badran as “fascinating and electrifying”. I felt sick to my stomach at these words.
Badran’s targets included restaurants, discotheques and a Passover seder. The killings were as indiscriminate as they were cowardly. An Israeli-Arab restaurant was considered fair game. It was at this restaurant that my 16-year old cousin Orly Ofir was murdered. 7
Orly was having lunch with her sister and mother at the popular Israeli-Arab restaurant Matza in Haifa, when the Hamas suicide bomber detonated his explosives. Packed with screws and debris for maximum carnage, 16 people were fatally wounded.

The bomb blew the roof off the building as deadly shards of glass and metal pierced flesh and bone. The blood spattered into the street. Orly didn’t die immediately.
With her mother and sister, wounded but alive, there was hope she too would pull through. She was rushed to hospital where surgeons tried desperately to save her. After 2.5 hours of agonising wait, my uncle Yossi was given the grimmest news a loving parent could ever get.
According to a 2002 New York Times report of the bombing, “Hamas ignored the presence of Israeli Arabs in the restaurant and celebrated the bomber for exploding ‘his pure body in a crowd of the thieves of our homeland.’”

Badran, and many others like him behind these terrorists acts that have destroyed families like mine, Corbyn associated with, sat on panels with, ate takeaway meals with, taken selfies with, praised and called ‘brothers’ and ‘friends’.
Many of my Jewish friends are terrified about what’s happening. My daughter is nervous to speak Hebrew in public. I have been afraid to speak out for fear of censure from my own Left community. But after I learned about Corbyn’s Doha trip, I could stay silent no longer.
I know it’s hard for many of my friends who came out in support of Corbyn and who want to see a Left government come to terms with all this. But what are principles if we only ever apply them when it’s easy?
How can anyone on the Left sit idly by while this infectious strain of antisemitism takes hold. I’ve written about this over a decade ago in New Internationalist magazine, and it feels like it has only gotten worse since. https://old.newint.org/features/2004/10/01/keynote/ …
And now, since Corbyn’s leadership, it has gone mainstream. I hold Jeremy Corbyn and his enablers in the highest contempt because of this.
I will never forgive Corbyn for providing moral cover to the man who orchestrated the murder of my cousin and the pain and suffering her family carry with them over her loss. He is no ‘man of peace’ and I will no longer stay silent.


ADDENDUM: Thank you to everyone who's reached out and shared this. My concerns about Corbyn have to do with his responsibility for the antisemitism crisis ('socialism of fools') and his ideologically adolescent Manicheanism ('anti-imperialism of idiots').
This is not about the rightness or wrongness of each side in a complex decades-long conflict in Israel/Palestine. This is about a man who supports terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah and lends them moral legitimacy despite their immoral tactics and ideological extremism.
Do not use my words to bash Muslims or Palestinians. There are many heartrending stories of Palestinian children victims of this conflict too. As my old friend @markballard27 wisely said, "there is no way to peace over the bodies of dead children."
If there is one good outcome of the antisemitism crisis in the Labour party, it is the solidarity between Muslim and Jewish groups and individuals and other minority groups who understand the dangers and effects of othering and demonisation.
Thank you to everyone for your kind words and solidarity. If there is one thing I will agree with Corbyn on (even if I don't think he embodies it), is that he is right that we would all benefit if political discourse and disagreement were kinder and gentler. Peace."

Corbyn should stop moaning about the media and instead stop meeting with murdering terrorists, and apologise for his past behaviour. There is no difference between somebody bombing people in Israel and bombing people in Manchester, blaming ordinary people for political and religious historic problems and trying to polticise their causes. Imagine for a second he started campaigning for the terrorists behind recent UK bombings, meeting up with them, and demanding their release from prison... because that is something he has a history of, supporting terrorists bombing UK citizens and campaigning for them.

Labour is deluded in pretending none of this exists, or believing the ends justifies the means. That's what Blair believed, and we know what Corbyn thinks of him.....

Posted by: Popchartfreak 27th August 2018, 08:38 AM

The Zionist comment video is apparently edited down. His initial comments were more a bit more comprehensive, if this transcript is accurate:

https://twitter.com/AdamWagner1/status/1033467298135322626

Posted by: YOUSHALLNOTPEEN! 27th August 2018, 10:58 AM

Yes. I could have told you that but all my posts keep getting deleted!

This is nothing more than slander. It is disgusting to call a non racist racist whilst racism thrives in the Tory party. 1984 is here.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 27th August 2018, 01:48 PM

Posted by: YOUSHALLNOTPEEN! 27th August 2018, 01:49 PM

It's not a controversy. It's a right wing mud slinging conspiracy

Posted by: Doctor Blind 27th August 2018, 01:56 PM

Have you actually watched the video? Ashok Kumar makes some very good points in it which I think you'd agree with!

Posted by: YOUSHALLNOTPEEN! 27th August 2018, 02:03 PM

No I'm giving no airtime to thr bbtory and its COOONSTANT incessant anti Labour shit.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 30th August 2018, 07:22 PM

Frank Field has resigned the Labour whip. Even in spite of his support of Brexit, he will be a loss to the Labour Party. Plus, it could get the ball rolling on the new ‘centrist’ party everyone’s banning on about.

Am on a pilgrimage in Spain at the moment, so unlikely to reply to this thread for the next few days, so probably won’t be able to moderate this topic for the next few days, regardless of the quality of the conversation.

Posted by: Suedehead2 30th August 2018, 07:37 PM

Field was never a candidate for joining a new party though, so I don't think his decision makes that any more (or less) likely.

Posted by: YOUSHALLNOTPEEN! 30th August 2018, 07:39 PM

Disgusting there aren't rules to force an immediate byelection. Bye bye, landed gentry Tory in sheep's clothimg.

Vile beast of an mp.



Why are you doing the camino de santiago anyway??

Posted by: YOUSHALLNOTPEEN! 30th August 2018, 07:39 PM

He will ride the gravy train as long as he can. Unfortunately for him that is an extremely safe Labour seat lol. Bye bye mr Tory Pie!

Posted by: 5 Silas Frøkner 30th August 2018, 08:36 PM

It's SkyNews to be fair and actually pretty decent. Ashok makes a good defence of your pal Corbin.

Posted by: YOUSHALLNOTPEEN! 30th August 2018, 08:40 PM

Oh I'll watch it then

Speaking of the BBTory, look what the Ministry of Truth have been up to now to protect Big Brother:

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/top-stories/mandrake-tim-walker-gina-miller-uninvited-1-5673523

Posted by: YOUSHALLNOTPEEN! 1st September 2018, 05:09 PM

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/news/97884/new-centrist-party-backed-lovefilm-founder-splits-launch

Well that's that then

Posted by: Popchartfreak 1st September 2018, 06:06 PM

Meanwhile local Labour councillors and Frank Field-types leave slagging off the bullying going on in the party.

Just to be clear: no matter how many times Corbyn trolled every single Labour leader, and voted against so many Labour policies, and slagged off former Labour leaders as War Criminals, and met with prominent terrorists quite happily because the ends justify the means, he was never threatened with intolerance and deselection.

Deselection has become a rallying call of intolerance that can't stand anyone that doesn't agree with the Corbyn.

Posted by: Suedehead2 1st September 2018, 07:17 PM

This whole talk of a new party is just silly. If it took people from both Labour and the Tories, they would soon run into difficulties when they tied to develop policies apart from staying in the EU. It would be far better just to have a group of like-minded MPs (including the SNP and Lib Dems) agreeing to work together in this one issue. If their party chose to expel them, so be it. They would still remain MPs until at least the time of the next election (assuming Mayhem doesn't abolish elections).

Posted by: YOUSHALLNOTPEEN! 2nd September 2018, 07:19 AM

She will abolish them with the new rules/ seats they want which guarantee a Tory dictatorship forever with fake, engineered elections.

Posted by: vidcapper 2nd September 2018, 09:10 AM

Still obsessed with the Tories then😉

Posted by: 5 Silas Frøkner 2nd September 2018, 09:48 AM

The SNP were elected on a pro-Europe platform so I think they (and the LibDems too) would probably expel those who didn't work across the lines on this.

In Scotland it's literally everyone against the Tories and yet in England with a couple of tory defectors you'd have those numbers and Corbyn just refuses. He's baffling. The sooner he goes the better

Posted by: Popchartfreak 3rd September 2018, 07:29 AM

moves are afoot to force every MP to face membership reselection each year. That throws up the situation where a sitting government member could be removed, theoretically even if Prime Minister. Not that that would happen. What would actually happen is Labour would become a very left-wing party until it dies a natural death from lack of interest by the electorate. And we would be stuck with Tories for the rest of our lives. Even a useless shower like May & her Merry Men & Women can't be unseated by the hugely unpopular Corbyn and his brand of left-wing intolerance. This is no different from the 80's and the invasion of the unelectable militant tendancy giving us Thatcher for a decade until Labour got it's act together.

Sadly the younger side of Labour have never read the history books, reading instead the same myopic internal blame & shame game while useless Corbyn is worshipped from afar waiting for the economy to get trashed so he thinks he can step in and reshape A New England on the ashes of despair. I suggest a quick chat with everyone not a party member and ask them what they think about Corbyn, and stop blaming everyone else for a bad press when the basic problem is Corbyn and his limp response to everything, not least Brexit.

Still, gotta laugh, eh?

Posted by: YOUSHALLNOTPEEN! 3rd September 2018, 09:21 AM

You mean thr same Corbyn who got the biggeat vote increase since Attlee and would have had a landslide if nor for buoying Torybrexit? And was only 2k votes from winning?

Neoliberalism kills. We have unfettered late stage capitalism. People are sick of it. That is the difference. People want a left wing party, not more the same, a choice between this neoliberal or that neoliberal in a quasi dictatorship run by media and corporations. Also the media got so desperate rw Corbyn that people now don't trust it. They laugh at the BBC and the Murdoch press. That is another difference.

Have faith

Posted by: YOUSHALLNOTPEEN! 3rd September 2018, 09:22 AM

I did tell you years ago it had turned into a Tory mouthpiece!!

Posted by: Popchartfreak 4th September 2018, 12:27 PM

You have a lot of neo-political catchphrases but they lost the last election, against a hugely rubbish government of liars and charlatans. You either win or lose, there is no "almost". Labour is so engulfed in talking to itself and reaffirming their current core attitudes to everyone else they forget to go out and talk to voters. Jeremy Corbyn is not well-liked. People like me who generally support social policies are put off by him because he is useless at his job, is hypocritical, and doesn't explain how he's going to make a success of Brexit and make sure we have enough cash to pay for the many policies he wants to bring in.

He is deliberately doing nothing watching the Tories implode instead. That's his only policy. To win when they eff it all up and hope for the best that the damage is repairable before he pops his clogs. As his clogs are getting on a bit, I wouldn't bet on it....!

The BBC is not Murdoch press. Labour could complain to the governors giving clear examples of bias and they could force them to do something about it because the charter clearly states they should be unbiased. Murdoch can do what he likes because every government since the early 70's has let him. Vince Cable tried to clip his wings and got slagged off for it.

Posted by: YOUSHALLNOTPEEN! 4th September 2018, 01:06 PM

The ehole thing is run by Tories and completely biased. What it is and what it is meant to be are two wildly different things

Posted by: Popchartfreak 4th September 2018, 07:57 PM

So put in a formal complaint with examples. There are thousands of Labour supporters who feel the same, so bombard the Governors with examples. If you don't have examples then you are wasting everybody's time just moaning about it. There's a programme at the weekend on the BBC where they have to answer viewer complaints, get someone on it who's eloquent! They need a slap!

Posted by: Brett-Butler 7th September 2018, 10:46 AM

Two more Labour MPs have had motions of no-confidence passed in them, Gavin Shuker & Joan Ryan. Unlike previous no-confidence motions, neither of them supported Brexit, although both of them appear to have been critical of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. Momentum looks like it's winning.

Posted by: YOUSHALLNOTPEEN! 13th September 2018, 08:19 PM

BBTory is refusing to even mention Mad May forcing the Tories to be the only European power to side with Hungary, an actual anti semetic regime. I wonder whyyyyy

Posted by: Doctor Blind 13th September 2018, 08:34 PM

... or as mentioned by Simon in the other thread, that the Conservative Party under David Cameron in 2009 quit the centre-right mainstream European People’s Party (EPP) and formed the far-right friendly ECR.

Not that they can do anything because Article 7 requires all other states to agree to implement suspension of some its rights.. something they have yet to do when triggering it for Poland in December 2017 because Hungary had vowed to use their veto - something which the Polish government have no doubt agreed to reciprocate.

Posted by: YOUSHALLNOTPEEN! 13th September 2018, 08:35 PM

And May commanded the whips to make the meps support a far right anti semetic regime.

Imagine the wall to wall BBTory coverage if Corbyn did that!!!

Posted by: Mariner's Crotch 23rd September 2018, 10:06 AM

REFERENDUM!!

LABOUR IS ON THE CUSP OF SUPPORTING A NEW REFERENDUM!!

Surely this is the final nail for Brexit? Mad May's plan would neeever be accepted by the EU, neever get through parliament, soo a second referendum is the only way to go!

Posted by: Rooney 23rd September 2018, 10:31 AM

Which is driven by the people and not the party ideology. Their stance is totally idiotic, either you back another referendum/deal vote or you don't. Obviously they want another General Election. Seems to me like Labour don't won't to overturn the 'will of the people' in 2016, but they are quite happy to ignore the vote in 2017. If we have another General Election then so be it, but I don't understand why he is so ensued that people can't change their minds over the EU vote but they can over a General Election. In summary, Labour have no stance on Brexit and Corbyn is a tit.

The irony is Corbyn could have sorted this mess out in the first place if he didn't try to push through Article 50.

Posted by: Mariner's Crotch 23rd September 2018, 10:33 AM

Better late than never and it is the only alternative!

Having a member-pushed change of direction is more than fine - it's democratic. Unlike Mad May beint apoplectic in parliament at Labour's moves to give members more power over MPs. For the born to rule Tory lot that is unthinkable! Dictator wannabes

Posted by: Rooney 23rd September 2018, 12:01 PM

But you're forgetting the point that Labour has a neutral stance during the EU Referendum, they likely could have easily swung the vote, but instead Corbyn chose to do nothing (and we all know that's because while his party is pro-EU, he himself largely is anti-EU). It's partly his fault we are in this situation as it is.

The sooner this alternative party rises from the right of Labour and the left of the Tories the better as far as I'm concerned, but obviously not going to happen until after Brexit.

Posted by: 5 Silas Frøkner 23rd September 2018, 12:57 PM

Last sentence aside, I completely agree. Corbyn is just reading the writing on the wall that his fan base is pro-EU and he can’t continue his current path without losing them

Posted by: Suedehead2 23rd September 2018, 01:26 PM

There is a series of lectures on BBC Parliament at the moment about various senior politicians who never made it to Number 10. The last of them (so far) was on Tony Benn. In discussing Benn's influence on UK politics, his desire to give members more control was a key theme. The presenter, Steve Richards, noted that many Tory MPs are now heavily influenced by the views of the party members in their constituency.

Posted by: Mariner's Crotch 23rd September 2018, 01:49 PM

Neoliberal parties and policies and nothing else is vile. We might as well live in a dictatorship. Let'a actually have some CHOICE.

That party is not happenin. Sorry.

Posted by: Mariner's Crotch 23rd September 2018, 01:50 PM

Then why do they largely ignore them over most national issues and why can they not be recalled? Landed Gentry Tories are allll about power OVER people, not people power.

Oh, but it is the BBC - just like them to spin what should be a feel good Labour story into one supporting the Tories, no matter what the facts are.

Posted by: vidcapper 23rd September 2018, 01:57 PM

You do realise Tony Benn was both a Labour politician, and inherited a title?

Posted by: Mariner's Crotch 23rd September 2018, 02:02 PM

Tony Benn was also largely left wing in spite of the title, not because of it. I'm sure he would have been happy seeing titles going the way of the dinosaur anyway.

Posted by: Rooney 23rd September 2018, 03:16 PM

The party will be 100% happen, both the Tories and Labour are venturing away from the Centre and far too away from lots of MPs ideologies. I can certainly see it happening unless both parties make concessions. There are lots of powerful MPs on the backbenches, too many tbh. Guess a lot all depends on if Boris becomes brave enough to get May out.

Posted by: Suedehead2 23rd September 2018, 04:52 PM

Most constituency Tory parties are ferociously right wing. Note that I said they were following their constituency party, not their constituents as a whole.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 23rd September 2018, 07:42 PM

Labour have voted to change their rules for deselection of MPs, with MPs now being deselected if https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-45621354.

If this leads to a purge of sitting MPs before the next election, this could cause problems for Labour's chance of getting a majority for 2 reasons - a) if the deselected MP decides to still stand as an independent, it could lead to the vote being split two ways, allowing another candidate to leapfrog them both into parliament, or b) even if said MP decides not to run again, if their personal vote is much higher than their party vote (which is especially prevalent if they have been a popular, long-standing MP), the same thing could apply.

Posted by: Mariner's Crotch 23rd September 2018, 07:45 PM

We vote Labour, not the MP. You'll see. I can't wait to see us purge the party of Katey Hoey et al. Bye bye red Tories! It's time for REAL democracy, not neoliberal paint choosing.

Posted by: vidcapper 24th September 2018, 05:45 AM

Well well, we finally agree on something!



A split may happen, but it will not be a success - they'd only have what they are against on common, rather than a distinct political strategy.



Leaving the decision in the hands of party members alone is a fatal mistake - they can be influenced by the central party, and not necessarily in beneficial ways,,,

Posted by: Andrew. 24th September 2018, 02:19 PM

McDonnell hinting that there could be a second referendum but only on the terms of Brexit, with no option to stay in the EU.

No way out of Brexit under Labour then, how progressive!! Labour have let so many people down with their inconsistent Brexit policy

Posted by: vidcapper 24th September 2018, 03:02 PM

Tell me, which party *does* have a consistent Brexit policy

Posted by: Mariner's Crotch 24th September 2018, 03:04 PM

It gets messier by THE DAY.

Posted by: Suedehead2 24th September 2018, 03:50 PM

The Lib Dems.

I would be horrified if the Electoral Commission allowed a referendum with no Remain option.

Posted by: 5 Silas Frøkner 24th September 2018, 04:57 PM

I think the SNP, PC and Greens have also had a consistent policy of “let’s not”

Posted by: Brett-Butler 24th September 2018, 05:28 PM

As have the quasi-sensible Northern Irish parties.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 24th September 2018, 05:36 PM

A Scottish member of the Labour NEC got in hot water after https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/labour-party-conference-hit-anti-13297625, which Nicola Sturgeon, among others, criticised him for. I'm not sure if this type of sectarianism is rife within the Scottish branch of Labour, but it is rather unseemly.

Posted by: 5 Silas Frøkner 24th September 2018, 06:02 PM

More so amongst the Scottish Conservatives but the Unionist cause is a pure magnet for it and what’s left of the Labour base in Glasgow is rather anti-catholic. Scotland still has huge issues with sectarianism and it doesn’t help when the two main unionist parties adopt a Laisser-faire approach to removing it from their parties.

Posted by: Steve201 24th September 2018, 09:50 PM

I watched loads of Steve Richards lectures on BBC parliament especially the ones on previous PMs, he's an excellent political commentator!

What can I type into the iplayer to get this series?

Posted by: Steve201 24th September 2018, 09:59 PM

I agree with McDonnell there should t be a remain option, if it's another referendum the best way would be to have a ref over the deal, you can't just ignore a referendum voted on by 17m people.

Posted by: Mariner's Crotch 24th September 2018, 10:08 PM

WHAT?!

You mean a 50 50 SPLIT VOTE? IT WAS AN OPINION POLL, NON BINDING.

Posted by: Suedehead2 24th September 2018, 10:18 PM

Prime seems to do the trick. The brings up, among other things, Reflections: The Prime Ministers We Never Had.

Posted by: Suedehead2 24th September 2018, 10:21 PM

A referendum where around 50% of the electorate cannot vote for their preferred option is not acceptable. It would be just as undemocratic as the Crimea referendum after the Russian invasion which did not allow for the status quo.

Posted by: Doctor Blind 24th September 2018, 10:28 PM

It's been fairly consistent actually. In the 2015 election it was: let's not have a referendum on EU membership.

After 23 June 2016 it was: let's not have another divisive referendum on EU membership.

The Liberal Democrat policy was: let's have a referendum on EU membership (But only if the answer is Remain).

The Conservative policy was: if we have a referendum on EU membership, will you PLEASE stop voting UKIP.

Posted by: Steve201 24th September 2018, 10:46 PM

That's right, the last one was called reflections too, thanks!

Posted by: Steve201 24th September 2018, 10:49 PM

Then I would say don't have a referendum and just have a general election. I think it would be a disaster for democracy in the UK if the 2016 referendum was overturned due to pro eu/free market politicians twisting things in favour of another referendum so they can undo the 2016. Democracy would be lost to a lot of those who voted Yes in 2016 and they were the majority in that vote.

Posted by: Suedehead2 24th September 2018, 10:54 PM

General elections on a single issue are a terrible idea.

A referendum on the deal would not overturn the 2016 advisory referendum. It would be a totally different vote on the deal. It would be no different from allowing somebody to withdraw their offer to buy a house once they realised that ir was in imminent danger of falling down.

Posted by: Steve201 24th September 2018, 11:15 PM

The GE would be on many issues as always with Brexit as the reason it was called.

Withdrawing the offer would in effect put two fingers up to those who wanted Brexit which would be a disaster for British democracy. The centre ground still don't know or more likely care about the opinions of those who voted Brexit which is my concern.

Posted by: Suedehead2 24th September 2018, 11:39 PM

But that's the point. A party that "won" an election fought largely on one issue (almost certainly with well under 50% 0f the vote) would claim to have a mandate for their stance on the EU issue and anything else they happened to include in their manifesto. That's exactly what May tried to achieve last year.

Posted by: vidcapper 25th September 2018, 06:00 AM

would be the only one I'd consider legitimate.
Whereas it



FFS - and people think *I* repeat myself...



Nice analogy, and not biased at all...

Posted by: vidcapper 6th October 2018, 02:31 PM

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6243849/Wealthy-preparing-leave-Britain-amid-rising-fears-hard-Left-government.html

People are far more worried about Corbyn than Brexit’: Wealthy are ‘preparing to leave Britain’ amid rising fears of a hard-Left government

*****

There goes his 'secret money tree'

Posted by: Suedehead2 6th October 2018, 03:27 PM

Project Fear!

Posted by: ¡Michael Myers! 6th October 2018, 04:08 PM

Lmao they move money around all the time. They would have done it REGARDLESS of the opposition due to um YOUR UNDEMOCRATIC BREXIT COUP.

The mainstream media, terrified of the left, just use it as more propaganda to fool people like you x

Notice these hacks talk about a moderate left of centre government as HARD RADICAL LEFT, but the extreme right radical hard right Tory government is just the government. Lol.

Posted by: vidcapper 7th October 2018, 05:37 AM

So you still don't think that winning a referendum is democratic?


There's a very good reason why its so effective...



You wouldn't know a hard-left gov't if it bit you on the ass!

Posted by: ¡Michael Myers! 7th October 2018, 10:50 AM

So you admit it is propaganda? And you're PROUD of billionaires pulling the strings and feeding people opinions??

I would. I also know a European slightly left of centre one when I see one. I also know a hard right government when I see one: Tories, and a fascist one if it ever happened: TORYKIP or straight UKIP.

It wasn't a win. 37% of the electorate for a huge decision is not a win. Not getting the youth vote for a permanent decision is not a win. Only getting two nations and no small territories is not a win. It is however a right wing coup

Posted by: vidcapper 7th October 2018, 02:46 PM

1. When has an election ever *not* been influenced that way - included, say, the 1997 Labour landslide...

2. You have a very distorted view of the political scale - Blair's Labour was slightly left-of-centre, Corby's is well left of that!

3. Yawn

Posted by: ¡Michael Myers! 7th October 2018, 04:06 PM

My scale is correct. Yours is EXTREMELY DISTORTED by the Overton Window being pushed further and further right by Thatcher and the plutocrat media. Sorry. Corbyn is left of European centre. Slightly. Blair was centre right. Tories are far right. The end x

Posted by: vidcapper 8th October 2018, 05:18 AM

I suspect even most of those here who disagree with me on Brexit, would find your interpretation of the political scale flawed.

Posted by: ¡Michael Myers! 8th October 2018, 10:55 AM

Mine is factual. Yours is based on an extremely right wing country's definition.

Posted by: ¡Michael Myers! 8th October 2018, 07:07 PM

Oops BBC is in the news again for being a Tory mouthpiece biased propaganda service:

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/serious-doubts-raised-about-bbcs-impartiality-during-brexit-referendum-campaign/08/10/

They did portray Brexit like this in the BBC news, after all, and with their Farage-o-thon talk shows:



I love how BBc3 is taking the piss out of BBC's Brexit image!!!!

Posted by: vidcapper 9th October 2018, 05:26 AM

You are incorrigible!

Posted by: ¡Michael Myers! 9th October 2018, 09:30 AM

You just want to use an extremely warped scale to pretend you are left wing. You aren't.

Posted by: ¡Michael Myers! 22nd October 2018, 01:17 PM

Let's take a lil look at how terrified the neoliberal elite is of Corbyn.

1.) The party ACTIVELY sabotaged itself in the GE, and Mad May STILL COULDN'T WIN. The blue Labour neoliberal Blairites only pretended to do online campaigning. Fortunately, we in Momentum did it for them.

https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2018/07/16/new-evidence-of-anti-corbyn-sabotage-makes-the-general-election-result-even-more-extraordinary/

2. BBTory

Here we have an ACTUALLY independent media reporting on the dark money of the Tories, such as their DUP payments and Saudi connections.They also report the UK media, Sky and BBTory included, completely ignored it.

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/what-connects-brexit-the-dup-dark-money-and-a-saudi-prince-1.3083586?mode=amp&fbclid=IwAR2oowozfN8SXbry_8uXsNicJWk29LPyUkhBQWq4bR4VSnl1g6Xk3iwlPEY

3. BBC encouraging the right wing, like Farage, and in return becoming more right wing itself. It has lost a million listeners from its politics radio programmes due to clear right wing bias.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/bbc-radio-4-today-programme-listening-figures-john-humphries-a8474691.html?amp&__twitter_impression=true

Basically, BBC bias. It has been pushed further and further to the right.

4. Silas would be better summing up this article than me, as it's economics. Basically, the neoliberals have been propagandising against Labour's economic models and mischaracterising them. Vidcapper should read this one. It also says Labour will borrow to invest, whereas the Tories have borrowed to cut the taxes of their ultra rich friends and, um, themselves.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/neweconomics/labours-economic-policy-really-neoliberal/

5. Ignoring Tory anti semitism

Again the media. The media attacks Labour with headline after headline, watch the BBC. It gets a story and sticks with it for weeks. Meanwhile, a Tory at a NAZI THEMED PARTY gets a small story and the media just brush it off.


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/10589234/Tory-MP-who-threw-Nazi-themed-stag-party-not-racist-or-anti-semitic-inquiry-finds.html


6. Media bias

This article looks at a report that found the Guardian and the BBC were the WORST culprits in reporting inaccuracies about anti semitism within Labour. It details how the media in the country is overwhelmingly right wing, and the supposedly left wing media is, well, not particularly left wing. We saw this with The Guardian's uncritical airtime for Mad May, letting her post an article in it with no comment from them. Imagine The Sun or Daily Mail if Corbyn wrote a letter for them!! One. They wouldn't publish it. Two, if they somehow DID, they would dedicate headlines and pages and pages to criticising it and him.

https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/liberal-press-not-left-wing-it-likes-think

Here is a Guardian article on the same thing for people who don't like the morning star, but do like the daily mail. It shows the research, the researchers, and mentions how they say the media basically acted like this to create a witch hunt against Corbyn. Like I said before, anti semitism DISAPPEARED!!! from the nightly BBC headlines and news in general THE DAY AFTER THE ELECTION. It only reappeared for the local elections, conveniently when the Tories were zooming down the opinion polls. The day after the local elections, oh, it disappeared from the BBC again. Funny that.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/sep/30/flawed-reporting-on-antisemitism-claims-against-the-labour-party?fbclid=IwAR14wSsSmJiDfo5qhDo9v1H-CDhJvmaiT70TDXv01Mc1vEZwkKTrZhAXKss


7. Police and Tories

We all know about Peterlee. We all know about Hillsborough. We all know the police, Brookes and the Tories were in bed together. Some of us know the Tories have sent police to train with the Israeli security services. Now we know this:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/oct/15/undercover-police-spies-infiltrated-uk-leftwing-groups-for-decades

The police overwhelmingly infiltrated left wing groups, not right wing. The elite is all in it together.

As we can see, the media and the elite are dead set against the left wing. It is why there is so much propaganda and hate against Corbyn. Even the BBC is just part of this elite, Supreme Leader-lovin propaganda machine. It is why there are so many negative headlines in the BBC and even the Guardian, and why there are so many lies and inaccuracies. They do not like the neoliberal status quo to be affected in any way. It is a rush to the privatisation bottom.

Not sure how to make links look pretty though. I tried and it didn't't work.

Posted by: vidcapper 29th October 2018, 06:35 AM

John McDonnell says Labour's massive renationalisation plan will not cost the taxpayer a PENNY despite analysis showing nation would have to splash out £176billion to pay for it

Labour have vowed to renationalise rail, mail electricity and water companies
Shadow chancellor said taxpayers will reap rewards of public sector ownership
But Tories said the Labour Party cannot be trusted with the UK' economy

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6325841/John-McDonnell-says-Labours-massive-renationalisation-plan-not-cost-taxpayer.html

**************************

Someone's not telling the truth - I leave it up to you to decide which...

Posted by: ¡Michael Myers! 29th October 2018, 09:53 AM

Tories. They even misquoted an economist to claim this, which the economist later denied. What a surprise.

Nationalisation is actually free

He media has outdone itself in Labour barrel scraping. It has tried to link the USA FAR RIGHT NAZI SYNAGOGUE SHOOTING tooo Corbyn. Yes. Really. They are not above using mass murders as a way to score political points now. I wonder how much money the landed gentry plutocrats are bunging them?

Posted by: Doctor Death 29th October 2018, 10:01 AM

So what happened in 1948 then Vid?

Posted by: vidcapper 29th October 2018, 10:33 AM

About the same that grows on Labour's Magic Money Tree?

Posted by: vidcapper 29th October 2018, 10:40 AM

But you don't indicate whether the promised money after 40 years actually turned up - and given what I know of the economy in 1978, I have my doubts. (but i'll check)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Act_1947

Even if it did, half the dispossessed shareholders would have dropped dead in the intervening 40 years...

Posted by: ¡Michael Myers! 29th October 2018, 11:37 AM

Not a magic money tree. Stop reading the daily mail x

Th e Tories seem to have plenty for war, rich business subsidies and tax cuts, and bribes soooo

Posted by: Suedehead2 29th October 2018, 12:04 PM

Forty years on from 1948 was 1988. Typical quitter arithmetic

Posted by: vidcapper 29th October 2018, 02:57 PM

Ah, but the Act didn't come into sffect until 1948, so it is technically correct...

IN any case, I have been unable to locate the source of 'Doctor Death's quote on the matter...

Posted by: Suedehead2 29th October 2018, 04:05 PM

No it isn't. You said that 40 years on was 1978. I'm well aware of the fact that the NHS started in 1948, thank you very much.

Posted by: vidcapper 30th October 2018, 06:31 AM

Ah, I see now - perhaps I can blame it on my medical condition...

Posted by: Doctor Death 30th October 2018, 11:06 AM

http://www.transportmyths.co.uk/Nationalisation.htm

^That was my source.

Posted by: vidcapper 30th October 2018, 03:24 PM

Thanks

Posted by: ¡Michael Myers! 30th October 2018, 05:13 PM

Still haven't anseered why you believed the Tories, who are known for lying, over Labour and tried to make an equivalency between the evil lying propaganda driven landed gentry Tories and fact based Labour

Posted by: vidcapper 31st October 2018, 06:24 AM

Don't hold your breath.

Posted by: Brett-Butler 13th November 2018, 10:42 PM

Labour MP Fiona Onasanya is currently standing trial accused of perverting the course of justice. Her brother https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-46200100 to the same charge last week

Posted by: vidcapper 14th November 2018, 06:14 AM

Why risk the charge of PTCOJ for a trivial matter of a speeding ticket?

Posted by: Brett-Butler 1st December 2018, 06:11 PM

Kate Osamor has resigned from Labour's Shadow Cabinet. She has been accused of misconduct surrounding her son, who was found guilty of drug dealing & whom she continued to employ as an advisor. In addition, she then assaulted a journalist who asked her about the allegations by throwing water over him.