"It's about time we started honouring those people involved in the armed struggle. It was the bombs and bullets and sacrifice made by the likes of Bobby Sands that brought Britain to the negotiating table. The peace we have now is due to the action of the IRA."
particularly "Negative Nationalism" - take a Tory, reflect in a mirror (as it were) and there you are. The important bit is anything anti-your-country is good/better.
Well, I could post another variant as to how the Labour Centre get back in the weeks and months to come.
Or I could just read this comments thread and weep with laughter. That and Jimmy Liddel's commentary after a Man U victory over Liverpool, for low culture, and I think I may have hurt myself.
If the Lib Dems hadn't been obliterated, I reckon we could be counting the weeks until the first defection from Labour.
Perhaps they still will.
Defections to the Lib-Dems, Tories and UKIP could be on the cards.
Also I'd not rule out someone like Mandelson or even Tony Blair himself, starting their own party (National Democrats or something...)
Not in a million years. Not even the ccurrent Tories are so lucky.
Some Tories must be getting a bit nervous that when their next crisis hits, they are inevitable after all, it will be a big one as balance to their current fortune.
@stephenpollard: Just to repeat: it was the Corbyn camp who described the position as 'Minister for Jews'. They actually thought it would be welcomed.
Any evidence for this? Or just hysterical nonsense from an extreme right-winger? There really is some gullible cretins on the right when they read something that confirms their lunatic prejudices.
Quite a few other journalists, right and left are confirming the same story
"Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every politician around the world instead of taking pride in the size of their armed forces did what the people of Costa Rica have done and abolished the army and took pride in the fact that they don’t have an army, and that their country is near the top of the global peace index. Surely that is the way we should be going forward.”"
the restoration of progressive income tax of 60% on incomes above £100,000 ... For those at the top it means ending the bonuses and limiting high salaries to no more than 20 times the lowest paid in any company or organisation.
For all others it means replacing the minimum wage with a living wage and a living pension and living welfare benefits, reducing the working week to 35 hours, closing the gender pay gap, controlling rents and energy prices, and restoring rights at work" http://www.johnmcdonnell.org.uk/2012/05/radical-alternative-to-austerity.html
It's nuts.
It's all nuts except the land value tax, that's the single most sensible economic policy proposed for Britain since the introduction of VAT.
If the alleged "Minister for Jews" quote is confirmed to have originally come from the Corbyn camp, Labour can probably kiss goodbye to the London mayoralty.
If the alleged "Minister for Jews" quote is confirmed to have originally come from the Corbyn camp, Labour can probably kiss goodbye to the London mayoralty.
the restoration of progressive income tax of 60% on incomes above £100,000 ... For those at the top it means ending the bonuses and limiting high salaries to no more than 20 times the lowest paid in any company or organisation.
For all others it means replacing the minimum wage with a living wage and a living pension and living welfare benefits, reducing the working week to 35 hours, closing the gender pay gap, controlling rents and energy prices, and restoring rights at work" http://www.johnmcdonnell.org.uk/2012/05/radical-alternative-to-austerity.html
It's nuts.
It's all nuts except the land value tax, that's the single most sensible economic policy proposed for Britain since the introduction of VAT.
Maybe it has some merit, but the politics of it are simply awful. Particularly when mixed up and obfuscated with the rest of that economically illiterate package.
It's just a smear from the right wing press that Corbyn hangs around with terrorist supporters. He actually only appointed McDonnell to be Shadow Chancellor as a diplomatic gesture.
If the Lib Dems hadn't been obliterated, I reckon we could be counting the weeks until the first defection from Labour.
Perhaps they still will.
Defections to the Lib-Dems, Tories and UKIP could be on the cards.
Also I'd not rule out someone like Mandelson or even Tony Blair himself, starting their own party (National Democrats or something...)
Not in a million years. Not even the ccurrent Tories are so lucky.
It's not likely as another small party won't make much headway, but it's surely not very unlikely. There must be many Labour MPs that will find it almost impossible to vote with a Corbyn led party. Politically many of them will be closer to the Tories, never mind the Lib Dems, than the cobblers Corbyn believes.
The snub to women will be a genuine shock to many who voted for JC. And they will feel bitterly disappointed; betrayed even. But that's the hard left for you. It's very, very male. Almost all the senior Militant figures were blokes; almost all senior trade unionists; and so on.
Is Zoe Williams tweeting currently? She voted for this.
So with the Minister for Religious Minorities and Abbott as Communities Minister, Corbyn has shown Labour will have no truck with either Christians or white people.
Umunna was ok to stay in the shadow cabinet if Corbyn nationalised energy companies, ratched up taxes, ended spending restraint, printed money to fund government spending, brought in maximum salaries and took the banks back without compensation to owners. But campaigning to leave the EU, THAT would be anti-business.
What a joke the Blairites are. The EU is like a religion to them.
the restoration of progressive income tax of 60% on incomes above £100,000 ... For those at the top it means ending the bonuses and limiting high salaries to no more than 20 times the lowest paid in any company or organisation.
For all others it means replacing the minimum wage with a living wage and a living pension and living welfare benefits, reducing the working week to 35 hours, closing the gender pay gap, controlling rents and energy prices, and restoring rights at work" http://www.johnmcdonnell.org.uk/2012/05/radical-alternative-to-austerity.html
It's nuts.
It's all nuts except the land value tax, that's the single most sensible economic policy proposed for Britain since the introduction of VAT.
Maybe it has some merit, but the politics of it are simply awful. Particularly when mixed up and obfuscated with the rest of that economically illiterate package.
This is true, that's why it hasn't been done already despite being really good policy.
If the alleged "Minister for Jews" quote is confirmed to have originally come from the Corbyn camp, Labour can probably kiss goodbye to the London mayoralty.
There must now be a good chance of a new Gang of Four (or 100?!) quitting the Labour Party?
To what purpose? The members of the party are behind Corbyn, and those that weren't most are probably still willing to be loyal for the moment, so who would go with the MPs? As bad as Corbyn is supposed to be, he will offer opportunities for defenestration, even if it won't be right away, but until the members start to turn on him in number, leaving couldn't achieve anything, and if he crashed hard enough it becomes needless.
Got to wait for the moment. Charles I faced a Long Parliament united against him and had no choice but to bend to its demands, until Pym and others went too far and split the Commons, enabling a push back that led to civil war. ABCs jumping now from a position of a party membership very much behind Corbyn would be a waste, best to wait until the loyal support of Corbyn fractures a little.
With those economic policies there will be companies and institutions putting together plan 'B' if Labour go anywhere near 35% in the polls. I'm not sure this is funny any more....
My guess is that Corbyn doesn't lead Labour into the next election. He may get a honeymoon period but I think over time opinion polls will prove he is unelectable. If so, what happens next? Either he steps down at a time of his choosing or he is defenestrated. I'm guessing the former possibility is more likely. If so he and the left wing of the party have more control over the process and his successor.
But if he does prove to be a failure according to the polls, will lessons not be learnt? Brown wasn't electable, Ed Miliband less so, Jeremy Corbyn even less. Blair is now a pariah but he was an enormous political success. So will the party return to political expediency next time or not? If so who will get the job? D Miliband? E Balls? Both would need to get into parliament first. Sir K Starmer? I haven't decided on him yet. Dan Jarvis? I haven't decided on him yet. The ABCs? No. Any other woman? Is there one good enough? Tom Watson? Not for me .... but then again?
I think every day of politics this week is going to be absolutely fascinating: For starters: the red flag to a Socialist bull Trade Union Bill tomorrow. For main course: tax credit reductions on Tuesday For a delicious dessert: a PMQ farce on Wednesday. Thursday and Friday? Who knows. I'm sure Osborne is enjoying every minute of this.
What we need next is for two people to be appointed to the same job by mistake. They then dress it up as a job share.
I'm going to have to tell my Scandinavian doctor friend that the new shadow communities secretary doesn't want people of her racial background working in the NHS.
But will there be enough time for Labour to pull itself together afterwards, and for this ludicrous interregnum to be forgotten by the electorate and take advantage of the new leader's honeymoon?
Labour must be hoping so. But you can't fatten a pig on market day.
How do they get rid of all the hard left members who have either joined or will be joining over the next few weeks?
Where is the mass of moderates who are going to join up to out vote them?
The MPs won't nominate a hard-left candidate a second time.
All Corbyn needs to do is to reform the selection rules and then, post boundaries, introduce mandatory reselection ("it's only right that our constituency members get to choose the best of the best")
"It's about time we started honouring those people involved in the armed struggle. It was the bombs and bullets and sacrifice made by the likes of Bobby Sands that brought Britain to the negotiating table. The peace we have now is due to the action of the IRA."
"It's about time we started honouring those people involved in the armed struggle. It was the bombs and bullets and sacrifice made by the likes of Bobby Sands that brought Britain to the negotiating table. The peace we have now is due to the action of the IRA."
particularly "Negative Nationalism" - take a Tory, reflect in a mirror (as it were) and there you are. The important bit is anything anti-your-country is good/better.
That is not a recent attitude. W.S. Gilbert wrote, "... the idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone, All centuries but this, and every country but his own" (Poo Bah's list song in the Mikado) in 1885.
Daniel Hamilton @danielrhamilton Jeremy Corbyn was supposed to be on Marr this morning and withdrew. Has just done the same with Today tomorrow. Hiding from the press?
imagine the reaction of the regulars in a North London gastropub ( the Oxford or maybe the junction tavern) if it started showing the football on sky, stopped serving food, replaced the local micro brewerys ale with fosters, and employed a tarty 40 something barmaid who read the sun...
Can anyone confirm this is true, appalling mistake if it is. Twitter Tom Fenton @TommyF124 3m3 minutes ago Corbyn has cancelled his BBC Radio 4 appearance for tomorrow.
I would have thought when considering who to appoint to the communities brief, the most important disqualifying question would be "have they insulted entire races"?
No surprise here. OGH said Burnham was a loser, prostituting his beliefs for a job in Corbyn's shadow cabinet.. unedifying.
It's hard to believe that only a few months ago some people actually rated him, now he looks like a total joke.
I didn't rate him, originally most here were for Kendall, some for Burnham, and one or two for Yvette, in the beginning I was on my own personal protest island. Burnham was seen as the most voter friendly by HYUFD and OGH, OGH then turned to Cooper by the end but still voted for Kendall.
Stating the obvious here but Britain really needs a PR voting system so that there's an actual opposition when the biggest opposition party gets into a funny mood.
If we had PR then we may well have had a Con-UKIP coalition and Labour would still be the main opposition, though the Lib Dems would still have a lot more than eight MPs as a fourth force.
Daniel Hamilton @danielrhamilton Jeremy Corbyn was supposed to be on Marr this morning and withdrew. Has just done the same with Today tomorrow. Hiding from the press?
Maybe, but he can afford to be maverick during a period already expected to be chaotic for him. If he never goes on such things, then it would be very weird.
Daniel Hamilton @danielrhamilton Jeremy Corbyn was supposed to be on Marr this morning and withdrew. Has just done the same with Today tomorrow. Hiding from the press?
PMQs to withdraw from on Wednesday, what's on Tuesday?
Can anyone confirm this is true, appalling mistake if it is. Twitter Tom Fenton @TommyF124 3m3 minutes ago Corbyn has cancelled his BBC Radio 4 appearance for tomorrow.
"It's about time we started honouring those people involved in the armed struggle. It was the bombs and bullets and sacrifice made by the likes of Bobby Sands that brought Britain to the negotiating table. The peace we have now is due to the action of the IRA."
particularly "Negative Nationalism" - take a Tory, reflect in a mirror (as it were) and there you are. The important bit is anything anti-your-country is good/better.
That is not a recent attitude. W.S. Gilbert wrote, "... the idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone, All centuries but this, and every country but his own" (Poo Bah's list song in the Mikado) in 1885.
Orwell's genius was not in original ideas - but in pithy, clearly worded explanations of what he saw. His essay are magnificent.
Yes, it has long been so. Hence the popularity of Sparta among the intellectuals of Athens (Socrates pupils)....
imagine the reaction of the regulars in a North London gastropub ( the Oxford or maybe the junction tavern) if it started showing the football on sky, stopped serving food, replaced the local micro brewerys ale with fosters, and employed a tarty 40 something barmaid....
Blairites under Corbyn
There was a great quote on the radio this morning, I think from Ian Austin, that Labour offered the country egg and chips in May, the country said "no thanks", and they've come back with double egg and chips.
Stating the obvious here but Britain really needs a PR voting system so that there's an actual opposition when the biggest opposition party gets into a funny mood.
If we had PR then we may well have had a Con-UKIP coalition and Labour would still be the main opposition, though the Lib Dems would still have a lot more than eight MPs as a fourth force.
That's what I mean, either the LibDems would pick up the slack or Labour would split.
imagine the reaction of the regulars in a North London gastropub ( the Oxford or maybe the junction tavern) if it started showing the football on sky, stopped serving food, replaced the local micro brewerys ale with fosters, and employed a tarty 40 something barmaid....
Blairites under Corbyn
There was a great quote on the radio this morning, I think from Ian Austin, that Labour offered the country egg and chips in May, the country said "no thanks", and they've come back with double egg and chips.
Comments
http://theorwellprize.co.uk/george-orwell/by-orwell/essays-and-other-works/notes-on-nationalism/
particularly "Negative Nationalism" - take a Tory, reflect in a mirror (as it were) and there you are. The important bit is anything anti-your-country is good/better.
Or I could just read this comments thread and weep with laughter. That and Jimmy Liddel's commentary after a Man U victory over Liverpool, for low culture, and I think I may have hurt myself.
NEW: I understand that @RhonddaBryant was potentially in line for defence but that it is now proving problematic.
Chris Bryant.
Some Tories must be getting a bit nervous that when their next crisis hits, they are inevitable after all, it will be a big one as balance to their current fortune.
Somebody really needs to tell Jeremy Corbyn that Hilary Benn is a bloke.
@stephenpollard: Just to repeat: it was the Corbyn camp who described the position as 'Minister for Jews'. They actually thought it would be welcomed.
For starters: the red flag to a Socialist bull Trade Union Bill tomorrow.
For main course: tax credit reductions on Tuesday
For a delicious dessert: a PMQ farce on Wednesday.
Thursday and Friday? Who knows. I'm sure Osborne is enjoying every minute of this.
These comparisons with Reek are so unfair. He at least killed that awful woman. I cannot for one moment imagine Andy finding that kind of backbone.
Is Zoe Williams tweeting currently? She voted for this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpDyW-p_KWs
I can't keep up!
Nurse! Nurse!
Got to wait for the moment. Charles I faced a Long Parliament united against him and had no choice but to bend to its demands, until Pym and others went too far and split the Commons, enabling a push back that led to civil war. ABCs jumping now from a position of a party membership very much behind Corbyn would be a waste, best to wait until the loyal support of Corbyn fractures a little.
My guess is that Corbyn doesn't lead Labour into the next election. He may get a honeymoon period but I think over time opinion polls will prove he is unelectable. If so, what happens next? Either he steps down at a time of his choosing or he is defenestrated. I'm guessing the former possibility is more likely. If so he and the left wing of the party have more control over the process and his successor.
But if he does prove to be a failure according to the polls, will lessons not be learnt? Brown wasn't electable, Ed Miliband less so, Jeremy Corbyn even less. Blair is now a pariah but he was an enormous political success. So will the party return to political expediency next time or not? If so who will get the job? D Miliband? E Balls? Both would need to get into parliament first. Sir K Starmer? I haven't decided on him yet. Dan Jarvis? I haven't decided on him yet. The ABCs? No. Any other woman? Is there one good enough? Tom Watson? Not for me .... but then again?
What makes Labour different is they've all been appointed to the Shadow cabinet
@sundersays
Cor-blimey: John McDonnell is Shadow Chancellor. His Who's Who hobby? "Fermenting the overthrow of capitalism"
No but one would have thought those two are particularly important for his supporters. And defence for many of the Shadow Cabinet.
@danielrhamilton
Jeremy Corbyn was supposed to be on Marr this morning and withdrew. Has just done the same with Today tomorrow. Hiding from the press?
Blairites under Corbyn
Twitter
Tom Fenton @TommyF124 3m3 minutes ago
Corbyn has cancelled his BBC Radio 4 appearance for tomorrow.
Tweets like that can be very career ending particularly given the context.
You are simply trying to polish Diarrhea with a pumice stone.
Not now clear water between Tories and a more equal society is on offer while ever Corbyn remains.
Lets see if Labour are wiped out or gain ground as a result of the clear water.
PB Tories are 100% certain the public will not like Jezza policies.
I am not sure which way this will go.
Time will tell.
Yes, it has long been so. Hence the popularity of Sparta among the intellectuals of Athens (Socrates pupils)....