At least with @antifrank there's usually tables, statistics and interesting analysis to break up the prose
Up until now his posts have been prefaced "Don Brind says..." which has become a useful cue to scroll straight past the article and get below the line immediately
This post omitted that helpful guide - presumably intentionally.
It would be interesting to hear this from another location - i.e. was the booing centered around the mike. If not, this could have massive political repercussions, not only in Germany ...
I saw a comment elsewhere that said "By winning, Corbyn's universe has been shattered".
I thought that was very perceptive - he's having to face reality whether he likes it or not. Dealing with conventions, making compromises, thinking about the views of others on his team, not surrounded by adoring acolytes et al.
As @Richard_Nabavi noted - he may be happier attending pointless protests about Nicaraguan sex workers, than paying respects to Battle of Britain heroes. But that's no longer on offer.
The initial attack on Corbyn as a dangerous nutter has largely failed - most people accept that he's a nice man, if somewhat in the manner of an absent-minded academic.
I'm sorry Nick but that simply isn't right. I thought Ed decent but out of his depth, Corbyn appears far more sinister.
Nick seems to be constructing a fantasy to self-justify his own decision in voting for Corbyn.
It is disappointing, but only human.
As someone said on here earlier this morning, Corbyn seems finally to be having to come to terms with the adult world, just fifty years later than his contemporaries.
Isn't that a touch patronising?
No, I don't think so. Look at his behaviour and what is going on - suddenly he is finding out that the world does not revolve around him and he has to deal with it on other's terms.
I saw a comment elsewhere that said "By winning, Corbyn's universe has been shattered".
I thought that was very perceptive - he's having to face reality whether he likes it or not. Dealing with conventions, making compromises, thinking about the views of others on his team, not surrounded by adoring acolytes et al.
As @Richard_Nabavi noted - he may be happier attending pointless protests about Nicaraguan sex workers, than paying respects to Battle of Britain heroes. But that's no longer on offer.
The initial attack on Corbyn as a dangerous nutter has largely failed - most people accept that he's a nice man, if somewhat in the manner of an absent-minded academic.
I'm sorry Nick but that simply isn't right. I thought Ed decent but out of his depth, Corbyn appears far more sinister.
Nick seems to be constructing a fantasy to self-justify his own decision in voting for Corbyn.
It is disappointing, but only human.
As someone said on here earlier this morning, Corbyn seems finally to be having to come to terms with the adult world, just fifty years later than his contemporaries.
Isn't that a touch patronising?
No, I don't think so. Look at his behaviour and what is going on - suddenly he is finding out that the world does not revolve around him and he has to deal with it on other's terms.
I think that's unfair. These guys who have been out in the cold for so long can not be accused of expecting the world to revolve around them. That would seem a more relevant criticism of more established politicians.
The initial attack on Corbyn as a dangerous nutter has largely failed - most people accept that he's a nice man, if somewhat in the manner of an absent-minded academic.
I'm sorry Nick but that simply isn't right. I thought Ed decent but out of his depth, Corbyn appears far more sinister.
Whatever the criticisms to be made of Corbyn , I think it is pretty clear that he 'connects' far more easily with people than Milliband ever did .
I saw a comment elsewhere that said "By winning, Corbyn's universe has been shattered".
I thought that was very perceptive - he's having to face reality whether he likes it or not. Dealing with conventions, making compromises, thinking about the views of others on his team, not surrounded by adoring acolytes et al.
As @Richard_Nabavi noted - he may be happier attending pointless protests about Nicaraguan sex workers, than paying respects to Battle of Britain heroes. But that's no longer on offer.
The initial attack on Corbyn as a dangerous nutter has largely failed - most people accept that he's a nice man, if somewhat in the manner of an absent-minded academic.
I'm sorry Nick but that simply isn't right. I thought Ed decent but out of his depth, Corbyn appears far more sinister.
Nick seems to be constructing a fantasy to self-justify his own decision in voting for Corbyn.
It is disappointing, but only human.
As someone said on here earlier this morning, Corbyn seems finally to be having to come to terms with the adult world, just fifty years later than his contemporaries.
Isn't that a touch patronising?
No, I don't think so. Look at his behaviour and what is going on - suddenly he is finding out that the world does not revolve around him and he has to deal with it on other's terms.
I think that's unfair. These guys who have been out in the cold for so long can not be accused of expecting the world to revolve around them. That would seem a more relevant criticism of more established politicians.
Fair point, but they still have to get used to the concept of compromise and taking others' views into account.
I saw a comment elsewhere that said "By winning, Corbyn's universe has been shattered".
I thought that was very perceptive - he's having to face reality whether he likes it or not. Dealing with conventions, making compromises, thinking about the views of others on his team, not surrounded by adoring acolytes et al.
As @Richard_Nabavi noted - he may be happier attending pointless protests about Nicaraguan sex workers, than paying respects to Battle of Britain heroes. But that's no longer on offer.
The initial attack on Corbyn as a dangerous nutter has largely failed - most people accept that he's a nice man, if somewhat in the manner of an absent-minded academic.
I'm sorry Nick but that simply isn't right. I thought Ed decent but out of his depth, Corbyn appears far more sinister.
Nick seems to be constructing a fantasy to self-justify his own decision in voting for Corbyn.
It is disappointing, but only human.
As someone said on here earlier this morning, Corbyn seems finally to be having to come to terms with the adult world, just fifty years later than his contemporaries.
Isn't that a touch patronising?
No, I don't think so. Look at his behaviour and what is going on - suddenly he is finding out that the world does not revolve around him and he has to deal with it on other's terms.
I think that's unfair. These guys who have been out in the cold for so long can not be accused of expecting the world to revolve around them. That would seem a more relevant criticism of more established politicians.
It would be interesting to hear this from another location - i.e. was the booing centered around the mike. If not, this could have massive political repercussions, not only in Germany ...
Let's not forget Osborne was booed mercilessly at the Olympics! Now how is he doing?
''With wages rising at about 3% in this sector, why would anyone feel that the current 'plan' isn't working?''
Very good post.
Plus of course if Ozzie is running surpluses by 2020, he'll have plenty of room for juicy tax cuts for low and middle income workers.
We just need Osborne to focus on tax cuts that help the low and middle earners. I always worry about the party's tendency to instead go for headline grabbers on inheritance tax, which is easier to cut because it brings in less money, but the returns go to the better off.
I think that he has that. Look at the budget.
But I don't believe there will be surpluses by 2020. The proportion of the deficit that was structural just goes up and up. It may even have exceeded the deficit itself. This has made it so much harder to cut. Growth has not produced the revenues expected and I expect it to continue to disappoint. The hole we were in was vast.
If we have a slow down in 2018 which results in the deficit rising again the next election will look very different from the walk in the park it looks at the moment.
The fundamentals in the PSF figures are relatively good and tax growth is in line with economic growth and jobs growth. The structural deficit has decreased, but not by as much as the government is claiming. The deficit will be about £70bn this year, of which around £20bn can be eliminated with tax yield increases from growth in the next two years. If we entered a recession in 2017/18 as I have pencilled in then we will still have a deficit of around £40bn (£10bn per year in tax yield increases and £5bn per year in cuts). Should that be the case then a shallow recession could see the deficit rise to around £80bn again undoing a lot of the gains of the last 5 years. A deep recession could see us end up back where we were in 2008.
However, if the government are right and we are in a longer period of growth then I think we might be able to eliminate the deficit by 2019/20 as Osborne has backloaded a lot of the cuts so if we do make it to 2018/19 without entering a recession then he (or whoever replaces him) will have to tackle the remnants of the structural deficit.
I saw a comment elsewhere that said "By winning, Corbyn's universe has been shattered".
I thought that was very perceptive - he's having to face reality whether he likes it or not. Dealing with conventions, making compromises, thinking about the views of others on his team, not surrounded by adoring acolytes et al.
As @Richard_Nabavi noted - he may be happier attending pointless protests about Nicaraguan sex workers, than paying respects to Battle of Britain heroes. But that's no longer on offer.
The initial attack on Corbyn as a dangerous nutter has largely failed - most people accept that he's a nice man, if somewhat in the manner of an absent-minded academic.
I'm sorry Nick but that simply isn't right. I thought Ed decent but out of his depth, Corbyn appears far more sinister.
Nick seems to be constructing a fantasy to self-justify his own decision in voting for Corbyn.
It is disappointing, but only human.
As someone said on here earlier this morning, Corbyn seems finally to be having to come to terms with the adult world, just fifty years later than his contemporaries.
Isn't that a touch patronising?
No, I don't think so. Look at his behaviour and what is going on - suddenly he is finding out that the world does not revolve around him and he has to deal with it on other's terms.
I think that's unfair. These guys who have been out in the cold for so long can not be accused of expecting the world to revolve around them. That would seem a more relevant criticism of more established politicians.
I don't see what evidence you have for Corbyn living in an echo chamber. He's just done 100s of public rallies and spoken to 10,000s. They were genuinely public with an open invite, and none were choreographed like they were in the GE campaign.
There are politicians who live in an echo chamber, but it's not him.
'most people accept that he's a nice man, if somewhat in the manner of an absent-minded academic'
Always hard to know exactly where the blah blah ends and outright disingenuousness starts with Nick Palmer, isn't it?
No, Palmer is a careerist liar and an egregious hypocrite. Once you finally accept that, all else makes sense.
It may seem like a glib thing to say, but isn't that the problem Labour is facing at the moment? Everything they have built up as a reason for their continued existence is terminally tainted by lies, cant, hypocrisy, evasion: the reality of the Labour offer is that it is a pile of horse shit. It isn't for the people it is supposed to help. It is there for a self-serving elite who have now been seen through. You just have to look at the way this elite can pooh-pooh the industrial scale rape of the children of one part of their natural base by another part of their natural base to see they are terminally, grotesquely conflicted.
I saw a comment elsewhere that said "By winning, Corbyn's universe has been shattered".
I thought that was very perceptive - he's having to face reality whether he likes it or not. Dealing with conventions, making compromises, thinking about the views of others on his team, not surrounded by adoring acolytes et al.
As @Richard_Nabavi noted - he may be happier attending pointless protests about Nicaraguan sex workers, than paying respects to Battle of Britain heroes. But that's no longer on offer.
The initial attack on Corbyn as a dangerous nutter has largely failed - most people accept that he's a nice man, if somewhat in the manner of an absent-minded academic.
I'm sorry Nick but that simply isn't right. I thought Ed decent but out of his depth, Corbyn appears far more sinister.
Nick seems to be constructing a fantasy to self-justify his own decision in voting for Corbyn.
It is disappointing, but only human.
As someone said on here earlier this morning, Corbyn seems finally to be having to come to terms with the adult world, just fifty years later than his contemporaries.
Isn't that a touch patronising?
No, I don't think so. Look at his behaviour and what is going on - suddenly he is finding out that the world does not revolve around him and he has to deal with it on other's terms.
I think that's unfair. These guys who have been out in the cold for so long can not be accused of expecting the world to revolve around them. That would seem a more relevant criticism of more established politicians.
I don't see what evidence you have for Corbyn living in an echo chamber. He's just done 100s of public rallies and spoken to 10,000s. They were genuinely public with an open invite, and none were choreographed like they were in the GE campaign.
There are politicians who live in an echo chamber, but it's not him.
It is an echo chamber if those halls were full of people who shared his views, surely?
''I think it is pretty clear that he 'connects' far more easily with people than Milliband ever did'' .
There is absolutely no evidence of that whatsoever.
Corby mainly connects with those who are communists either openly or just showing out as hard left. He is trying to sell an idea of motherhood and apple pie with a free 50 billion quid thrown in for good measure. Appealing as it may seem, sane people will reject it for what it is.. fantasy politics.
I saw a comment elsewhere that said "By winning, Corbyn's universe has been shattered".
I thought that was very perceptive - he's having to face reality whether he likes it or not. Dealing with conventions, making compromises, thinking about the views of others on his team, not surrounded by adoring acolytes et al.
As @Richard_Nabavi noted - he may be happier attending pointless protests about Nicaraguan sex workers, than paying respects to Battle of Britain heroes. But that's no longer on offer.
The initial attack on Corbyn as a dangerous nutter has largely failed - most people accept that he's a nice man, if somewhat in the manner of an absent-minded academic.
I'm sorry Nick but that simply isn't right. I thought Ed decent but out of his depth, Corbyn appears far more sinister.
Nick seems to be constructing a fantasy to self-justify his own decision in voting for Corbyn.
It is disappointing, but only human.
As someone said on here earlier this morning, Corbyn seems finally to be having to come to terms with the adult world, just fifty years later than his contemporaries.
Isn't that a touch patronising?
No, I don't think so. Look at his behaviour and what is going on - suddenly he is finding out that the world does not revolve around him and he has to deal with it on other's terms.
I think that's unfair. These guys who have been out in the cold for so long can not be accused of expecting the world to revolve around them. That would seem a more relevant criticism of more established politicians.
I don't see what evidence you have for Corbyn living in an echo chamber. He's just done 100s of public rallies and spoken to 10,000s. They were genuinely public with an open invite, and none were choreographed like they were in the GE campaign.
There are politicians who live in an echo chamber, but it's not him.
I prefer the 'Unbreakable union of freeborn republics' version.
My favourite drinking song is not that well known. It was written by a Swiss poet who was irritated by the lack of late night drinking establishments in West London. I can't remember it all, but it's something like this:
An Ode to Hereford Square
In Kensington, in Kensington, There dwells a race of men Unworthy the name For, dead to shame, They close their pubs at ten! They close their pubs at ten, my lad, And this is the reason why: For there came that way, One night in May, A lad of Romany
etc etc...
Basically it's about a young gypsy boy who gets the Mayor of Kensington drunk and persuades him to dance around the borough in his chain of office and not much else.
Said Mayor wakes up with a hangover the next morning and decides that clearly late night opening was to blame...
She wrote "fucking Jews" in a tweet. In context, it was because she is fed up with every second phrase in the GOP nominations referencing Israel, Reagan and Obamacare. She wants to hear something new and positive. But it has been spun as anti-Semitic, which it wasn't.
''I think it is pretty clear that he 'connects' far more easily with people than Milliband ever did'' .
There is absolutely no evidence of that whatsoever.
Corby mainly connects with those who are communists either openly or just showing out as hard left. He is trying to sell an idea of motherhood and apple pie with a free 50 billion quid thrown in for good measure. Appealing as it may seem, sane people will reject it for what it is.. fantasy politics.
My dad is not a political person at all not a royalist... ex labour now prob UKIP and first thing he said about Corbyn 'Weirdo who wants to get rid of the royal family'
''With wages rising at about 3% in this sector, why would anyone feel that the current 'plan' isn't working?''
Very good post.
Plus of course if Ozzie is running surpluses by 2020, he'll have plenty of room for juicy tax cuts for low and middle income workers.
We just need Osborne to focus on tax cuts that help the low and middle earners. I always worry about the party's tendency to instead go for headline grabbers on inheritance tax, which is easier to cut because it brings in less money, but the returns go to the better off.
The focus should definitely be on national insurance. The employer contribution is a simple jobs tax, and we should focus on cutting that rather than corporation tax. The employee contribution is just an unfair additional income tax on the middle earners, hitting right at the point on the income scale where people are thinking about working more.
Mr. JEO, A thought: if the employers NI is a jobs tax then cutting it would, in theory at least, encourage companies to take on more workers. However, we do not have an employment problem at the moment. We do have a massive productivity problem. Therefore would encouraging firms to take on more low skilled workers rather than invest in plant and technology actually be a good idea?
You would not be encouraging firms to take on more low skilled workers. You would be encouraging them to take on more mid-skilled workers and paying current workers more than they currently are.
Throughout this protracted contest, throngs of energised Ed Miliband supporters have descended on the various hustings holding placards proclaiming "Ed Speaks Human".
It's a good article. Corbyn and McDonnell need to do three things, in sequence.
1. Deal with the personal negatives attributed to them (we can debate if they were deserved) to the extent that instinctive Labour-leaning voters feel that they aren't a barrier to voting Labour. It doesn't matter about impressing flightpath or JEO, but Southam and others of siilar mind need to be addressed. 2. Develop an economic narrative that most people accept is a viable alternative to the current policy. If they think it's great, so much the better, but the key thing is that it's not seen to be riskier than drifting on with the status quo. 3. Discredit the current Government and offer a better alternative.
Easy as that!
The problem on point 1 is that you can apologise but you cannot undo the past. McDonnell is forever on record saying, "It was the bombs and bullets and sacrifice made by the likes of Bobby Sands that brought Britain to the negotiating table." That cannot be erased and his "apology" won't stop it being rolled out (and it was more of a classic "I'm sorry you idiots were offended" apology - the "if it contributed towards saving one life, or preventing someone else being maimed it was worth doing" was absurd... it didn't, John old pal). And that is far from an isolated example - McDonnell/Corbyn have a lifetime of crass remarks and actions to apologise for.
On point 2, we've heard a lot of Corbynomics already and it isn't credible or viable. Even people like Krugman have only said that they understand why he did well in the contest by refusing to apologise for Labour's record (we know the argument - worldwide crisis; Tories were saying deregulate even more at the time etc). But he hasn't endorsed printing money in a period of reasonable growth because that isn't mainstream neo-Keynsian thought.
On point 3, well yes that's the fundamental aim of an opposition. I think you've missed out the further obstacle of dealing with a hopelessly divided party. There are dozens of Labour MPs, perhaps a majority, who simply don't believe in the project at all and may think it better to lose the next election than win with Corbyn. And they have no strong impulse to keep loyal given Corbyn never rallied round when their wing was in charge.
1. Deal with the personal negatives attributed to them (we can debate if they were deserved) to the extent that instinctive Labour-leaning voters feel that they aren't a barrier to voting Labour. It doesn't matter about impressing flightpath or JEO, but Southam and others of siilar mind need to be addressed.
I admit that I will never vote for Jeremy Corbyn, but I think I am fair enough to all sides to be impressed and praise people for doing the right thing.
For example, I liked that Corbyn handled PMQs in a more mature manner than leaders on both sides in recent years.
It's a good article. Corbyn and McDonnell need to do three things, in sequence.
1. Deal with the personal negatives attributed to them (we can debate if they were deserved) to the extent that instinctive Labour-leaning voters feel that they aren't a barrier to voting Labour. It doesn't matter about impressing flightpath or JEO, but Southam and others of siilar mind need to be addressed. 2. Develop an economic narrative that most people accept is a viable alternative to the current policy. If they think it's great, so much the better, but the key thing is that it's not seen to be riskier than drifting on with the status quo. 3. Discredit the current Government and offer a better alternative.
(snipped)
Instinctive Labour-leaning voter speaking: 1. The personal negatives are their very own attributes. Mr Corbyn is a very nice man if you agree with him; so, actually, no: not in my book he isn't. Mr McConnell is a politician and did what the politician had to do; far, far too late. It isn't their competence I doubt; it's their private agenda.
2. You're right. But if there is a better approach, why can't its proponents explain it clearly? I've been trying to get my head round it for 6 years.
3. Discredit your opponent. Never mind whether your opponent is disreputable, as long as you can make people think they are. Funny how that approach works in politics. I understand that it's the first thing that salespeople are warned against.
Sorry, Nick. The scales tipped for me yesterday. As far as I'm concerned, Labour has lost it. Labour's been taken over. Last time round the hard left were fronting for communism. The only consolation is that if the hard left take over the country now, it'll be the religious fundamentalists who'll be barging in after them.
'The wallpaper phrases, "Most people" and "widely acknowledged" used without a scintilla of evidence rather give the game away. '
Just like his fantasy canvass returns.
the canvass returns I was updating PB with were accurate. I predicted from the figures that not only would the Conservatives maintain their vote from 2010, in the hyper marginal in the north of England, it was evident that there was no swing against the Cons, but if anything a mild swing towards them. The majority in that seat tripled.
The initial attack on Corbyn as a dangerous nutter has largely failed - most people accept that he's a nice man, if somewhat in the manner of an absent-minded academic.
I'm sorry Nick but that simply isn't right. I thought Ed decent but out of his depth, Corbyn appears far more sinister.
Whatever the criticisms to be made of Corbyn , I think it is pretty clear that he 'connects' far more easily with people than Milliband ever did .
It may seem like a glib thing to say, but isn't that the problem Labour is facing at the moment? Everything they have built up as a reason for their continued existence is terminally tainted by lies, cant, hypocrisy, evasion: the reality of the Labour offer is that it is a pile of horse shit. It isn't for the people it is supposed to help. It is there for a self-serving elite who have now been seen through. You just have to look at the way this elite can pooh-pooh the industrial scale rape of the children of one part of their natural base by another part of their natural base to see they are terminally, grotesquely conflicted.
Please tell it like it is. Do not hide behind innuendo and hyperbole.....
Oh piffle. Talking to people who agree with you is the ultimate echo chamber. It must be like Owen Jone's Twitter feed.
One might also consider how he had dealt with the press and media - not a man used to having his views questioned perhaps.
Furthermore, did I not read on here that his team are hastily cobbling together a press/PR office. Its as if he felt he would never have to deal with the media except on his own terms, just like he has for the past 32 years and now has discovered that his new job demands rather more compromise with other people's needs and desires.
I'm certainly no lawyer, but it sounds like one of those things that get taken to the ECHR. No idea how likely, at all, or if even possible, a legal challenge would be, but I foresee some loud objections.
Fwiw, I think Corbyn comes across as more personable than Ed Miliband. But let's face it, we're talking about a pretty low bar.
Ed was ok, but Corbyn does have a certain appeal. I think the reverse is that Ed was underwhelming, and did put people off, but not reallyin a visceral way - Corbyn blows hotter and colder than Ed, he can engage better, but can also put people off far more effectively.
I saw a comment elsewhere that said "By winning, Corbyn's universe has been shattered".
I thought that was very perceptive - he's having to face reality whether he likes it or not. Dealing with conventions, making compromises, thinking about the views of others on his team, not surrounded by adoring acolytes et al.
As @Richard_Nabavi noted - he may be happier attending pointless protests about Nicaraguan sex workers, than paying respects to Battle of Britain heroes. But that's no longer on offer.
The initial attack on Corbyn as a dangerous nutter has largely failed - most people accept that he's a nice man, if somewhat in the manner of an absent-minded academic.
I'm sorry Nick but that simply isn't right. I thought Ed decent but out of his depth, Corbyn appears far more sinister.
Nick seems to be constructing a fantasy to self-justify his own decision in voting for Corbyn.
It is disappointing, but only human.
As someone said on here earlier this morning, Corbyn seems finally to be having to come to terms with the adult world, just fifty years later than his contemporaries.
Isn't that a touch patronising?
No, I don't think so. Look at his behaviour and what is going on - suddenly he is finding out that the world does not revolve around him and he has to deal with it on other's terms.
I think that's unfair. These guys who have been out in the cold for so long can not be accused of expecting the world to revolve around them. That would seem a more relevant criticism of more established politicians.
I don't see what evidence you have for Corbyn living in an echo chamber. He's just done 100s of public rallies and spoken to 10,000s. They were genuinely public with an open invite, and none were choreographed like they were in the GE campaign.
There are politicians who live in an echo chamber, but it's not him.
FFS. If you cant see it, I dont think anyone can help you.
This needs saying again and again. Until Labour regains its senses and its beliefs, it's done for.
@SouthamObserver and your goodself are spot on. When the likes of Nick Cohen and David Aaronovitch are homeless too - surely the penny will drop? I fear it will take rather too long when some make excuses instead.
It's a good article. Corbyn and McDonnell need to do three things, in sequence.
1. Deal with the personal negatives attributed to them (we can debate if they were deserved) to the extent that instinctive Labour-leaning voters feel that they aren't a barrier to voting Labour. It doesn't matter about impressing flightpath or JEO, but Southam and others of siilar mind need to be addressed. 2. Develop an economic narrative that most people accept is a viable alternative to the current policy. If they think it's great, so much the better, but the key thing is that it's not seen to be riskier than drifting on with the status quo. 3. Discredit the current Government and offer a better alternative.
(snipped)
Instinctive Labour-leaning voter speaking: 1. The personal negatives are their very own attributes. Mr Corbyn is a very nice man if you agree with him; so, actually, no: not in my book he isn't. Mr McConnell is a politician and did what the politician had to do; far, far too late. It isn't their competence I doubt; it's their private agenda.
2. You're right. But if there is a better approach, why can't its proponents explain it clearly? I've been trying to get my head round it for 6 years.
3. Discredit your opponent. Never mind whether your opponent is disreputable, as long as you can make people think they are. Funny how that approach works in politics. I understand that it's the first thing that salespeople are warned against.
Sorry, Nick. The scales tipped for me yesterday. As far as I'm concerned, Labour has lost it. Labour's been taken over. Last time round the hard left were fronting for communism. The only consolation is that if the hard left take over the country now, it'll be the religious fundamentalists who'll be barging in after them.
I think the point about echo chambers and rallys makes the point quite clearly. These rallys are people who want to come and hear Corbyn speak. They are already the converted. Life is not quite so easy when he has to convince others.
I saw a comment elsewhere that said "By winning, Corbyn's universe has been shattered".
I thought that was very perceptive - he's having to face reality whether he likes it or not. Dealing with conventions, making compromises, thinking about the views of others on his team, not surrounded by adoring acolytes et al.
As @Richard_Nabavi noted - he may be happier attending pointless protests about Nicaraguan sex workers, than paying respects to Battle of Britain heroes. But that's no longer on offer.
The initial attack on Corbyn as a dangerous nutter has largely failed - most people accept that he's a nice man, if somewhat in the manner of an absent-minded academic.
I'm sorry Nick but that simply isn't right. I thought Ed decent but out of his depth, Corbyn appears far more sinister.
Nick seems to be constructing a fantasy to self-justify his own decision in voting for Corbyn.
It is disappointing, but only human.
As someone said on here earlier this morning, Corbyn seems finally to be having to come to terms with the adult world, just fifty years later than his contemporaries.
Isn't that a touch patronising?
No, I don't think so. Look at his behaviour and what is going on - suddenly he is finding out that the world does not revolve around him and he has to deal with it on other's terms.
I think that's unfair. These guys who have been out in the cold for so long can not be accused of expecting the world to revolve around them. That would seem a more relevant criticism of more established politicians.
I don't see what evidence you have for Corbyn living in an echo chamber. He's just done 100s of public rallies and spoken to 10,000s. They were genuinely public with an open invite, and none were choreographed like they were in the GE campaign.
There are politicians who live in an echo chamber, but it's not him.
FFS. If you cant see it, I dont think anyone can help you.
I just don't see him as particularly unique in this regard. I am not impressed by the openness of other pols.
''I think it is pretty clear that he 'connects' far more easily with people than Milliband ever did'' .
There is absolutely no evidence of that whatsoever.
Regardless of what you and I might think of some of his views, it is pretty clear to me that a fair number of people do see him as a breath of fresh air and are attracted to his not being a normal politician.
"2. You're right. But if there is a better approach, why can't its proponents explain it clearly? I've been trying to get my head round it for 6 years."
especially as whatever is being done, is clearly working for a decent chunk of the country.
An interesting article. It does seem that the political left's split into a number of factions has already started quietly in the background. Mr Cohen has the advantage of being well known but I doubt his political epiphany is unique.
The next few weeks and months will be interesting.
What I think Nick Cohen has done is give permission to others to say Not In My Name.
I met him years ago and he's no shrinking violet - I never thought I'd read a comment piece like that. I honestly believe that it's Labour/Left that's left him, not the other way round.
An interesting article. It does seem that the political left's split into a number of factions has already started quietly in the background. Mr Cohen has the advantage of being well known but I doubt his political epiphany is unique.
The next few weeks and months will be interesting.
1. Deal with the personal negatives attributed to them (we can debate if they were deserved) to the extent that instinctive Labour-leaning voters feel that they aren't a barrier to voting Labour. It doesn't matter about impressing flightpath or JEO, but Southam and others of siilar mind need to be addressed.
I admit that I will never vote for Jeremy Corbyn, but I think I am fair enough to all sides to be impressed and praise people for doing the right thing.
For example, I liked that Corbyn handled PMQs in a more mature manner than leaders on both sides in recent years.
Yes, I didn't mean to criticise you - rather, to say that I don't think a realistic election-winning strategy needs to win you over. I really like some Tories (Ken Clarke, Oliver Letwin), but I'm probably not high on the list of targets to be won over.
But the example you gave. An audience of people who come to see him are obviously going to support him. He is their kind of person. There isnt more of them, they are just found someone to rally behind.
The Right (with exceptions) tends not to try and spoil other peoples events. They tend not to go in for pickets and placard. You wont see the Ladies Luncheon committee from Huntingdon Conservative Association marching on the Labour Party Conference.
The people who attended these rallies either are already supporters or a curious enough to want to be supporters. To think that is in anyway representative is to think that the Stop the War coalition was in anyway representative. The 'million' (quarter of a million) people on the streets did not symbolise the feeling of the country.
What symbolised the feeling of the country was the sixty four majority the Prime Minister who took us to war got in the general election two years later.
''I think it is pretty clear that he 'connects' far more easily with people than Milliband ever did'' .
There is absolutely no evidence of that whatsoever.
Regardless of what you and I might think of some of his views, it is pretty clear to me that a fair number of people do see him as a breath of fresh air and are attracted to his not being a normal politician.
Regardless of what you and I might think of some of his views, it is pretty clear to me that a fair number of people do see him as a breath of fresh air and are attracted to his not being a normal politician.
Sure - until they discover that in terms of obfuscations, spin and U-turns he is a normal (albeit very extreme) politician, as they discovered with Nick Clegg having got suckered in the Cleggasm.
(a) it has been reported that Jeremy Corbyn has already been appointed to the Privy Council.
(b) the interviewer the other day told Corbyn that he would have to "kneel in front of the Queen" (or whatever) in order to become a member of the privy Council, to which Corbyn responded that he hadn't been told any such thing and that he would have to check when he received the official paperwork.
Which is true? If he has already been appointed, the kneeling stuff is not necessary; if the kneeling thing is necessary, then the appointment hasn't become effective yet.
Is the stuff about kneeling in front of the Queen just a media fantasy invention?
What I think Nick Cohen has done is give permission to others to say Not In My Name.
I met him years ago and he's no shrinking violet - I never thought I'd read a comment piece like that. I honestly believe that it's Labour/Left that's left him, not the other way round.
An interesting article. It does seem that the political left's split into a number of factions has already started quietly in the background. Mr Cohen has the advantage of being well known but I doubt his political epiphany is unique.
The next few weeks and months will be interesting.
Reagan had a great quote: "I didn't leave the Democratic Party, The party left me."
(a) it has been reported that Jeremy Corbyn has already been appointed to the Privy Council.
(b) the interviewer the other day told Corbyn that he would have to "kneel in front of the Queen" (or whatever) in order to become a member of the privy Council, to which Corbyn responded that he hadn't been told any such thing and that he would have to check when he received the official paperwork.
Which is true? If he has already been appointed, the kneeling stuff is not necessary; if the kneeling thing is necessary, then the appointment hasn't become effective yet.
Is the stuff about kneeling in front of the Queen just a media fantasy invention?
I think he has been invited but hasn't yet taken the oath (or affirmation, in his case).
If McDonnell meant it he would have said years ago. No-one is going to fall for what he said yesterday.
Exactly. He has only apologised now because of his new position, as it would be political suicide to stand by his words. His explanation is frankly ludicrous. I do not believe McDonnell at all. He supports Irish republicanism and gave moral support to the IRA. He's not fit for office. It is a disgrace that the Labour Party has him as a member.
You just have to look at the way this elite can pooh-pooh the industrial scale rape of the children of one part of their natural base by another part of their natural base to see they are terminally, grotesquely conflicted.
If McDonnell meant it he would have said years ago. No-one is going to fall for what he said yesterday.
Exactly. He has only apologised now because of his new position, as it would be political suicide to stand by his words. His explanation is frankly ludicrous. I do not believe McDonnell at all. He supports Irish republicanism and gave moral support to the IRA. He's not fit for office. It is a disgrace that the Labour Party has him as a member.
It's a ludicrous explanation that doesn't survive even a minute's thought. He claims he supported the IRA to allow them to come to the negotiating table without shame, but he wrote it in 2003 and the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998.
On another note, I have made too many excuses for Labour in the past. I have told myself that I was not doing it; but I was. I know lots of Labour members, they are friends and they are good people. Much of what they want I want too. I disagree profoundly with Tory policy and will not vote Tory. But you just cannot brush off stuff like Rotherham or the effects of mass immigration on poor communities or what McDonnell said about the IRA or any of the other collective baggage. If you seek to the fact is that you are not fit for office. You have to accept responsibility and you have to do it genuinely and you have to change. Labour is not interested in that.
You know what? Corbyn's win has set a lot of us free. And it feels kinda good.
Regardless of what you and I might think of some of his views, it is pretty clear to me that a fair number of people do see him as a breath of fresh air and are attracted to his not being a normal politician.
Sure - until they discover that in terms of obfuscations, spin and U-turns he is a normal (albeit very extreme) politician, as they discovered with Nick Clegg having got suckered in the Cleggasm.
I think this is a very real danger for Corbyn. He is not as different as some of the new support thinks. Obfuscation, spin, u-turning, this can all be taken too far and be done for bad reasonsm but they develop for a reason, and I have seen nothing in Corbyn to suggest he does not use cliche or spin for example, he just has a different style and his actual positions on some issues are sufficiently different to give the impression that he himself is different (which he may be a little, but not hugely so).
Now, as with all partisans on whatever side, for some he could do everything he and they condemn his enemies for and they will defend it, but others will lose some fervour. He needs to harness that fervour now and have some immediate impact, lest he lose some of that momentum in the grubbiness of actually doing things, not just saying things.
Which brings us to what Don Brine should actually have written.
John McDonnell holds the key to the success of Project Corbyn. Because it will be a symbolic turning point when Corbyn fires him.
.. and appoints Liz Kendall as Shadow Chancellor.
Exactly, that would be the move.
But as far as I can tell, Jeremy Corbyn is no Alexis Tsipras.
Corbyn will hope he doesn't face Tsipras' choice - memorably put as deciding whether he was a madman or a charlatan, and deciding on charlatan, as he folded.
I saw a comment elsewhere that said "By winning, Corbyn's universe has been shattered".
I thought that was very perceptive - he's having to face reality whether he likes it or not. Dealing with conventions, making compromises, thinking about the views of others on his team, not surrounded by adoring acolytes et al.
As @Richard_Nabavi noted - he may be happier attending pointless protests about Nicaraguan sex workers, than paying respects to Battle of Britain heroes. But that's no longer on offer.
The initial attack on Corbyn as a dangerous nutter has largely failed - most people accept that he's a nice man, if somewhat in the manner of an absent-minded academic.
I'm sorry Nick but that simply isn't right. I thought Ed decent but out of his depth, Corbyn appears far more sinister.
Nick seems to be constructing a fantasy to self-justify his own decision in voting for Corbyn.
It is disappointing, but only human.
As someone said on here earlier this morning, Corbyn seems finally to be having to come to terms with the adult world, just fifty years later than his contemporaries.
Isn't that a touch patronising?
It is, but that doesn't mean it is incorrect. (it doesn't mean it definitely is correct either, to be fair, but merely being patronising does not invalidate an idea - thank goodness, or 75% points on here would have to be disregarded )
Christ, can you drop the 'independent' adjudicator act. It gets really tiring.
What I think Nick Cohen has done is give permission to others to say Not In My Name.
I met him years ago and he's no shrinking violet - I never thought I'd read a comment piece like that. I honestly believe that it's Labour/Left that's left him, not the other way round.
An interesting article. It does seem that the political left's split into a number of factions has already started quietly in the background. Mr Cohen has the advantage of being well known but I doubt his political epiphany is unique.
The next few weeks and months will be interesting.
Reagan had a great quote: "I didn't leave the Democratic Party, The party left me."
Doesnt quite explain how he ended up a hard-right ideologue. And Cohen has been about as lefty as you are for as long as I can remember.
On another note, I have made too many excuses for Labour in the past. I have told myself that I was not doing it; but I was. I know lots of Labour members, they are friends and they are good people. Much of what they want I want too. I disagree profoundly with Tory policy and will not vote Tory. But you just cannot brush off stuff like Rotherham or the effects of mass immigration on poor communities or what McDonnell said about the IRA or any of the other collective baggage. If you seek to the fact is that you are not fit for office. You have to accept responsibility and you have to do it genuinely and you have to change. Labour is not interested in that.
You know what? Corbyn's win has set a lot of us free. And it feels kinda good.
That is a very honest post - and I can see exactly where you are coming from.
Those who are now Corbyn-apologists are going to have to have a much harder job when their new idol falls. As someone said the other day, political gravity can be very painful.
'most people accept that he's a nice man, if somewhat in the manner of an absent-minded academic'
Always hard to know exactly where the blah blah ends and outright disingenuousness starts with Nick Palmer, isn't it?
No, Palmer is a careerist liar and an egregious hypocrite. Once you finally accept that, all else makes sense.
It may seem like a glib thing to say, but isn't that the problem Labour is facing at the moment? Everything they have built up as a reason for their continued existence is terminally tainted by lies, cant, hypocrisy, evasion: the reality of the Labour offer is that it is a pile of horse shit. It isn't for the people it is supposed to help. It is there for a self-serving elite who have now been seen through. You just have to look at the way this elite can pooh-pooh the industrial scale rape of the children of one part of their natural base by another part of their natural base to see they are terminally, grotesquely conflicted.
I think the story that white girls are less important, less precious, and deserve less protection than Asian girls, from pedophile rapists, ACCORDING TO THE COURTS, has finally tipped me over the edge.
I despise Labour, and all the poisonous, evil, multiculti white-hating racist shit that they have dragged into our lives. I want Labour to die now. And if everyone involved with it accidentally gets a disfiguring plague, even as their party expires, great. It appears that Mister Corbyn and his supporters loathe me and my people and my country, well I loathe them right back. I will do anything to see them defeated, and humiliated, forever.
'most people accept that he's a nice man, if somewhat in the manner of an absent-minded academic'
Always hard to know exactly where the blah blah ends and outright disingenuousness starts with Nick Palmer, isn't it?
No, Palmer is a careerist liar and an egregious hypocrite. Once you finally accept that, all else makes sense.
It may seem like a glib thing to say, but isn't that the problem Labour is facing at the moment? Everything they have built up as a reason for their continued existence is terminally tainted by lies, cant, hypocrisy, evasion: the reality of the Labour offer is that it is a pile of horse shit. It isn't for the people it is supposed to help. It is there for a self-serving elite who have now been seen through. You just have to look at the way this elite can pooh-pooh the industrial scale rape of the children of one part of their natural base by another part of their natural base to see they are terminally, grotesquely conflicted.
I think the story that white girls are less important, less precious, and deserve less protection than Asian girls, from pedophile rapists, ACCORDING TO THE COURTS, has finally tipped me over the edge.
I despise Labour, and all the poisonous, evil, multiculti white-hating racist shit that they have dragged into our lives. I want Labour to die now. And if everyone involved with it accidentally gets a disfiguring plague, even as their party expires, great. It appears that Mister Corbyn and his supporters loathe me and my people and my country, well I loathe them right back. I will do anything to see them defeated, and humiliated, forever.
Good afternoon.
What struck me as particularly horrific about this latest outrage is that the perpetrator was Asian himself. This completely changes things.
People on here last night tried to compare it with an assault on an Asian man because he was a "Paki" being worse than an assault on a white man with no racial motive as it was "racially aggravated"... I think that is bollocks too, but the sinister thing about this case is the conclusion that Asian children are more affected by sexual abuse than white* children, whoever the perpetrator
It fits too neatly with the "White trash" meme so evident in Rotherham
So this isn't "racially aggravated" it's just that Asian kids are more precious
*EDIT black children would probably be treated as less worthy too.
It's a good article. Corbyn and McDonnell need to do three things, in sequence.
1. Deal with the personal negatives attributed to them (we can debate if they were deserved) to the extent that instinctive Labour-leaning voters feel that they aren't a barrier to voting Labour. It doesn't matter about impressing flightpath or JEO, but Southam and others of siilar (sic) mind need to be addressed. 2. Develop an economic narrative that most people accept is a viable alternative to the current policy. If they think it's great, so much the better, but the key thing is that it's not seen to be riskier than drifting on with the status quo. 3. Discredit the current Government and offer a better alternative.
1. They are who they are, said what they've said, and believe what they believe. The only way to 'deal' with it is to lie or dissemble. Don't lie about your beliefs and principles.
2. In essence, come up with something - anything - that will oppose the government's policy. What about principles, beliefs, guiding ideas? This is the equivalent of writing a book of fiction. It's a morals free, belief free, principle free zone: if we can get people to believe it's viable, it doesn't matter what it is.
3. having abandoned your soul and principles to come up with a policy, you now lie about your opponents and do whatever you have to to discredit them.
The abandonment of everything you value and believe in is now complete.
It's a good article. Corbyn and McDonnell need to do three things, in sequence.
1. Deal with the personal negatives attributed to them (we can debate if they were deserved) to the extent that instinctive Labour-leaning voters feel that they aren't a barrier to voting Labour. It doesn't matter about impressing flightpath or JEO, but Southam and others of siilar mind need to be addressed. 2. Develop an economic narrative that most people accept is a viable alternative to the current policy. If they think it's great, so much the better, but the key thing is that it's not seen to be riskier than drifting on with the status quo. 3. Discredit the current Government and offer a better alternative.
(snipped)
Instinctive Labour-leaning voter speaking: 1. The personal negatives are their very own attributes. Mr Corbyn is a very nice man if you agree with him; so, actually, no: not in my book he isn't. Mr McConnell is a politician and did what the politician had to do; far, far too late. It isn't their competence I doubt; it's their private agenda.
2. You're right. But if there is a better approach, why can't its proponents explain it clearly? I've been trying to get my head round it for 6 years.
3. Discredit your opponent. Never mind whether your opponent is disreputable, as long as you can make people think they are. Funny how that approach works in politics. I understand that it's the first thing that salespeople are warned against.
Sorry, Nick. The scales tipped for me yesterday. As far as I'm concerned, Labour has lost it. Labour's been taken over. Last time round the hard left were fronting for communism. The only consolation is that if the hard left take over the country now, it'll be the religious fundamentalists who'll be barging in after them.
When did you last vote Labour out of curiosity? Do you really think the policies being suggested by the current lot are hard left?
'most people accept that he's a nice man, if somewhat in the manner of an absent-minded academic'
Always hard to know exactly where the blah blah ends and outright disingenuousness starts with Nick Palmer, isn't it?
No, Palmer is a careerist liar and an egregious hypocrite. Once you finally accept that, all else makes sense.
It may seem like a glib thing to say, but isn't that the problem Labour is facing at the moment? Everything they have built up as a reason for their continued existence is terminally tainted by lies, cant, hypocrisy, evasion: the reality of the Labour offer is that it is a pile of horse shit. It isn't for the people it is supposed to help. It is there for a self-serving elite who have now been seen through. You just have to look at the way this elite can pooh-pooh the industrial scale rape of the children of one part of their natural base by another part of their natural base to see they are terminally, grotesquely conflicted.
I think the story that white girls are less important, less precious, and deserve less protection than Asian girls, from pedophile rapists, ACCORDING TO THE COURTS, has finally tipped me over the edge.
I despise Labour, and all the poisonous, evil, multiculti white-hating racist shit that they have dragged into our lives. I want Labour to die now. And if everyone involved with it accidentally gets a disfiguring plague, even as their party expires, great. It appears that Mister Corbyn and his supporters loathe me and my people and my country, well I loathe them right back. I will do anything to see them defeated, and humiliated, forever.
Good afternoon.
What struck me as particularly horrific about this latest outrage is that the perpetrator was Asian himself. This completely changes things.
People on here last night tried to compare it with an assault on an Asian man because he was a "Paki" being worse than an assault on a white man with no racial motive as it was "racially aggravated"... I think that is bollocks too, but the sinister thing about this case is the conclusion that Asian children are more affected by sexual abuse than white* children, whoever the perpetrator
It fits too neatly with the "White trash" meme so evident in Rotherham
So this isn't "racially aggravated" it's just that Asian kids are more precious
*EDIT black children would probably be treated as less worthy too.
That judgement is utterly, utterly wrong. The judges should be removed from the bench immediately.
'most people accept that he's a nice man, if somewhat in the manner of an absent-minded academic'
Always hard to know exactly where the blah blah ends and outright disingenuousness starts with Nick Palmer, isn't it?
No, Palmer is a careerist liar and an egregious hypocrite. Once you finally accept that, all else makes sense.
It may seem like a glib thing to say, but isn't that the problem Labour is facing at the moment? Everything they have built up as a reason for their continued existence is terminally tainted by lies, cant, hypocrisy, evasion: the reality of the Labour offer is that it is a pile of horse shit. It isn't for the people it is supposed to help. It is there for a self-serving elite who have now been seen through. You just have to look at the way this elite can pooh-pooh the industrial scale rape of the children of one part of their natural base by another part of their natural base to see they are terminally, grotesquely conflicted.
I think the story that white girls are less important, less precious, and deserve less protection than Asian girls, from pedophile rapists, ACCORDING TO THE COURTS, has finally tipped me over the edge.
I despise Labour, and all the poisonous, evil, multiculti white-hating racist shit that they have dragged into our lives. I want Labour to die now. And if everyone involved with it accidentally gets a disfiguring plague, even as their party expires, great. It appears that Mister Corbyn and his supporters loathe me and my people and my country, well I loathe them right back. I will do anything to see them defeated, and humiliated, forever.
Good afternoon.
Stop virtue signalling you massive fanny.
Well you got one half right. Sean wanting to see Labour and all the other socialist scum defeated, humiliated and destroyed is certainly a virtuous ambition.
'most people accept that he's a nice man, if somewhat in the manner of an absent-minded academic'
Always hard to know exactly where the blah blah ends and outright disingenuousness starts with Nick Palmer, isn't it?
No, Palmer is a careerist liar and an egregious hypocrite. Once you finally accept that, all else makes sense.
It may seem like a glib thing to say, but isn't that the problem Labour is facing at the moment? Everything they have built up as a reason for their continued existence is terminally tainted by lies, cant, hypocrisy, evasion: the reality of the Labour offer is that it is a pile of horse shit. It isn't for the people it is supposed to help. It is there for a self-serving elite who have now been seen through. You just have to look at the way this elite can pooh-pooh the industrial scale rape of the children of one part of their natural base by another part of their natural base to see they are terminally, grotesquely conflicted.
I think the story that white girls are less important, less precious, and deserve less protection than Asian girls, from pedophile rapists, ACCORDING TO THE COURTS, has finally tipped me over the edge.
I despise Labour, and all the poisonous, evil, multiculti white-hating racist shit that they have dragged into our lives. I want Labour to die now. And if everyone involved with it accidentally gets a disfiguring plague, even as their party expires, great. It appears that Mister Corbyn and his supporters loathe me and my people and my country, well I loathe them right back. I will do anything to see them defeated, and humiliated, forever.
Good afternoon.
Stop virtue signalling you massive fanny.
Well you got one half right. Sean wanting to see Labour and all the other socialist scum defeated, humiliated and destroyed is certainly a virtuous ambition.
'most people accept that he's a nice man, if somewhat in the manner of an absent-minded academic'
Always hard to know exactly where the blah blah ends and outright disingenuousness starts with Nick Palmer, isn't it?
No, Palmer is a careerist liar and an egregious hypocrite. Once you finally accept that, all else makes sense.
It may seem like a glib thing to say, but isn't that the problem Labour is facing at the moment? Everything they have built up as a reason for their continued existence is terminally tainted by lies, cant, hypocrisy, evasion: the reality of the Labour offer is that it is a pile of horse shit. It isn't for the people it is supposed to help. It is there for a self-serving elite who have now been seen through. You just have to look at the way this elite can pooh-pooh the industrial scale rape of the children of one part of their natural base by another part of their natural base to see they are terminally, grotesquely conflicted.
I think the story that white girls are less important, less precious, and deserve less protection than Asian girls, from pedophile rapists, ACCORDING TO THE COURTS, has finally tipped me over the edge.
I despise Labour, and all the poisonous, evil, multiculti white-hating racist shit that they have dragged into our lives. I want Labour to die now. And if everyone involved with it accidentally gets a disfiguring plague, even as their party expires, great. It appears that Mister Corbyn and his supporters loathe me and my people and my country, well I loathe them right back. I will do anything to see them defeated, and humiliated, forever.
Good afternoon.
Stop virtue signalling you massive fanny.
Well you got one half right. Sean wanting to see Labour and all the other socialist scum defeated, humiliated and destroyed is certainly a virtuous ambition.
Wow.
Don't be surprised. I hold that level of scorn and contempt for lefties all the time. It is only occasionally I like to put down a marker to reflect just how much I detest you.
'most people accept that he's a nice man, if somewhat in the manner of an absent-minded academic'
Always hard to know exactly where the blah blah ends and outright disingenuousness starts with Nick Palmer, isn't it?
No, Palmer is a careerist liar and an egregious hypocrite. Once you finally accept that, all else makes sense.
It may seem like a glib thing to say, but isn't that the problem Labour is facing at the moment? Everything they have built up as a reason for their continued existence is terminally tainted by lies, cant, hypocrisy, evasion: the reality of the Labour offer is that it is a pile of horse shit. It isn't for the people it is supposed to help. It is there for a self-serving elite who have now been seen through. You just have to look at the way this elite can pooh-pooh the industrial scale rape of the children of one part of their natural base by another part of their natural base to see they are terminally, grotesquely conflicted.
I think the story that white girls are less important, less precious, and deserve less protection than Asian girls, from pedophile rapists, ACCORDING TO THE COURTS, has finally tipped me over the edge.
I despise Labour, and all the poisonous, evil, multiculti white-hating racist shit that they have dragged into our lives. I want Labour to die now. And if everyone involved with it accidentally gets a disfiguring plague, even as their party expires, great. It appears that Mister Corbyn and his supporters loathe me and my people and my country, well I loathe them right back. I will do anything to see them defeated, and humiliated, forever.
Good afternoon.
Stop virtue signalling you massive fanny.
Well you got one half right. Sean wanting to see Labour and all the other socialist scum defeated, humiliated and destroyed is certainly a virtuous ambition.
Wow.
Don't be surprised. I hold that level of scorn and contempt for lefties all the time. It is only occasionally I like to put down a marker to reflect just how much I detest you.
JWisemannChrist, can you drop the 'independent' adjudicator act. It gets really tiring.
I have no idea what you mean. I lean in various directions politically which I do not conceal but am open to other sides, I certainly favoured Cameron over Ed but was consistent for 5 years I thought Ed would win and would do ok as PM as an example, as I think it is reasonable to try to see all sides of a debate in almost all circumstances.
What exactly irritates you that I might strive for a more nuanced position than pathetic over the top partisan rants? Others are far better at crafting entertaining examples of that than I. And while it is certainly true that not every answer is to be found in the middle of two extremes, sometimes the answer is indeed closer to one than the other, and so an attempt to balance in the centre may on occasion be as misguided as sticking to an extreme, my personal view is it is a good starting point. That may not be your view, but with as much respect as I feel your rudeness still deserves, I can present my own views however I wish, it is not some act to amuse or irritate you, I am just a weird political anorak.
I guess I should just ignore your one sided partisan whinges from now on, rather than consider them and acknowledge where they raise decent points? I don't really see that as a healthy attitude personally. What if you said something worthwhile?
I have rarely been so astounded as receiving a complaint for attempting some kind of measured approach, however misguided someone thinks it is.
I'd say I won't take anything you say seriously every again, except that I will, as I still do to the few posters who, regrettably even if I felt provoked, I have exchanged rude messages to on occasion (in particular messrs malcomG, Dair and SeanT).
I guess I shouldn't do that either? What a peculiar attitude.
To conclude, if you are still reading (and you are of course under no obligation to care what I think), if my 'Act' irritates you, please just ignore me.
'most people accept that he's a nice man, if somewhat in the manner of an absent-minded academic'
Always hard to know exactly where the blah blah ends and outright disingenuousness starts with Nick Palmer, isn't it?
No, Palmer is a careerist liar and an egregious hypocrite. Once you finally accept that, all else makes sense.
It may seem like a glib thing to say, but isn't that the problem Labour is facing at the moment? Everything they have built up as a reason for their continued existence is terminally tainted by lies, cant, hypocrisy, evasion: the reality of the Labour offer is that it is a pile of horse shit. It isn't for the people it is supposed to help. It is there for a self-serving elite who have now been seen through. You just have to look at the way this elite can pooh-pooh the industrial scale rape of the children of one part of their natural base by another part of their natural base to see they are terminally, grotesquely conflicted.
I think the story that white girls are less important, less precious, and deserve less protection than Asian girls, from pedophile rapists, ACCORDING TO THE COURTS, has finally tipped me over the edge.
I despise Labour, and all the poisonous, evil, multiculti white-hating racist shit that they have dragged into our lives. I want Labour to die now. And if everyone involved with it accidentally gets a disfiguring plague, even as their party expires, great. It appears that Mister Corbyn and his supporters loathe me and my people and my country, well I loathe them right back. I will do anything to see them defeated, and humiliated, forever.
Good afternoon.
Stop virtue signalling you massive fanny.
Well you got one half right. Sean wanting to see Labour and all the other socialist scum defeated, humiliated and destroyed is certainly a virtuous ambition.
Wow.
Don't be surprised. I hold that level of scorn and contempt for lefties all the time. It is only occasionally I like to put down a marker to reflect just how much I detest you.
Well that can't be healthy mate.
Not at all. Scorning lefties is an entertainment these days. Akin to swatting flies when they get too annoying.
I dont hate 'Righties', I just think their ideas will lead us to destruction. If I'm wrong, then brilliant. Doesn't mean the state of some of the discourse on here doesnt get my blood pressure up though (I might have to stop for my own mental health soon, which Im sure will be met with horror). Detesting isn't good for you, though.
Comments
This post omitted that helpful guide - presumably intentionally.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0ab4b852-5c70-11e5-a28b-50226830d644.html#axzz3lsxd04Dv
A bit Panglossian, but Chris Giles has a fair point.
There is absolutely no evidence of that whatsoever.
However, if the government are right and we are in a longer period of growth then I think we might be able to eliminate the deficit by 2019/20 as Osborne has backloaded a lot of the cuts so if we do make it to 2018/19 without entering a recession then he (or whoever replaces him) will have to tackle the remnants of the structural deficit.
There are politicians who live in an echo chamber, but it's not him.
He is trying to sell an idea of motherhood and apple pie with a free 50 billion quid thrown in for good measure. Appealing as it may seem, sane people will reject it for what it is.. fantasy politics.
https://twitter.com/dailymailuk/status/644873267896041472
An Ode to Hereford Square
In Kensington, in Kensington,
There dwells a race of men
Unworthy the name
For, dead to shame,
They close their pubs at ten!
They close their pubs at ten, my lad,
And this is the reason why:
For there came that way,
One night in May,
A lad of Romany
etc etc...
Basically it's about a young gypsy boy who gets the Mayor of Kensington drunk and persuades him to dance around the borough in his chain of office and not much else.
Said Mayor wakes up with a hangover the next morning and decides that clearly late night opening was to blame...
When your supporters have to write something that should be self-evident on a placard - you're in trouble.
The problem on point 1 is that you can apologise but you cannot undo the past. McDonnell is forever on record saying, "It was the bombs and bullets and sacrifice made by the likes of Bobby Sands that brought Britain to the negotiating table." That cannot be erased and his "apology" won't stop it being rolled out (and it was more of a classic "I'm sorry you idiots were offended" apology - the "if it contributed towards saving one life, or preventing someone else being maimed it was worth doing" was absurd... it didn't, John old pal). And that is far from an isolated example - McDonnell/Corbyn have a lifetime of crass remarks and actions to apologise for.
On point 2, we've heard a lot of Corbynomics already and it isn't credible or viable. Even people like Krugman have only said that they understand why he did well in the contest by refusing to apologise for Labour's record (we know the argument - worldwide crisis; Tories were saying deregulate even more at the time etc). But he hasn't endorsed printing money in a period of reasonable growth because that isn't mainstream neo-Keynsian thought.
On point 3, well yes that's the fundamental aim of an opposition. I think you've missed out the further obstacle of dealing with a hopelessly divided party. There are dozens of Labour MPs, perhaps a majority, who simply don't believe in the project at all and may think it better to lose the next election than win with Corbyn. And they have no strong impulse to keep loyal given Corbyn never rallied round when their wing was in charge.
Meanwhile, the 8 LDs are locked in an anechoic chamber at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
For example, I liked that Corbyn handled PMQs in a more mature manner than leaders on both sides in recent years.
Instinctive Labour-leaning voter speaking:
1. The personal negatives are their very own attributes. Mr Corbyn is a very nice man if you agree with him; so, actually, no: not in my book he isn't. Mr McConnell is a politician and did what the politician had to do; far, far too late. It isn't their competence I doubt; it's their private agenda.
2. You're right. But if there is a better approach, why can't its proponents explain it clearly? I've been trying to get my head round it for 6 years.
3. Discredit your opponent. Never mind whether your opponent is disreputable, as long as you can make people think they are. Funny how that approach works in politics. I understand that it's the first thing that salespeople are warned against.
Sorry, Nick. The scales tipped for me yesterday. As far as I'm concerned, Labour has lost it. Labour's been taken over. Last time round the hard left were fronting for communism. The only consolation is that if the hard left take over the country now, it'll be the religious fundamentalists who'll be barging in after them.
The majority in that seat tripled.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34291648
Why I have finally given up on the left: Nick Cohen's letter of resignation: http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9637452/why-ive-finally-given-up-on-the-left/ …
Furthermore, did I not read on here that his team are hastily cobbling together a press/PR office. Its as if he felt he would never have to deal with the media except on his own terms, just like he has for the past 32 years and now has discovered that his new job demands rather more compromise with other people's needs and desires.
This needs saying again and again. Until Labour regains its senses and its beliefs, it's done for.
@SouthamObserver and your goodself are spot on. When the likes of Nick Cohen and David Aaronovitch are homeless too - surely the penny will drop? I fear it will take rather too long when some make excuses instead.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Save_the_Queen#Musical_adaptations
Wash your mouth out and join in.
www.youtube.com/watch?t=5&v=WWmDbMbDZKk
Heil dir im Siegerkranz: had a few problems in August 1914.
especially as whatever is being done, is clearly working for a decent chunk of the country.
still, something something austerity something Tories something BOOOOOO
(resemblance to a real Labour PPB is strictly coincidental)
The next few weeks and months will be interesting.
I met him years ago and he's no shrinking violet - I never thought I'd read a comment piece like that. I honestly believe that it's Labour/Left that's left him, not the other way round.
But the example you gave. An audience of people who come to see him are obviously going to support him. He is their kind of person. There isnt more of them, they are just found someone to rally behind.
The Right (with exceptions) tends not to try and spoil other peoples events. They tend not to go in for pickets and placard. You wont see the Ladies Luncheon committee from Huntingdon Conservative Association marching on the Labour Party Conference.
The people who attended these rallies either are already supporters or a curious enough to want to be supporters. To think that is in anyway representative is to think that the Stop the War coalition was in anyway representative. The 'million' (quarter of a million) people on the streets did not symbolise the feeling of the country.
What symbolised the feeling of the country was the sixty four majority the Prime Minister who took us to war got in the general election two years later.
Yup - he's not a *normal politician*.
Labour has eaten itself.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/robinedds/times-waitrose-went-way-way-too-far#.bvZyl7Qw7
http://order-order.com/2015/09/18/labours-new-frontbench-in-full/#:qy-llLE92i9maA
Stephen Pound??? Shows how low they have had to stoop to fill the posts.
A ministry of no talents.
(a) it has been reported that Jeremy Corbyn has already been appointed to the Privy Council.
(b) the interviewer the other day told Corbyn that he would have to "kneel in front of the Queen" (or whatever) in order to become a member of the privy Council, to which Corbyn responded that he hadn't been told any such thing and that he would have to check when he received the official paperwork.
Which is true? If he has already been appointed, the kneeling stuff is not necessary; if the kneeling thing is necessary, then the appointment hasn't become effective yet.
Is the stuff about kneeling in front of the Queen just a media fantasy invention?
"I didn't leave the Democratic Party, The party left me."
The low point for me was the PCC/HoCServices who refused to resign. No shame, faux apologies. It was only after extreme pressure that Labour expelled him. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11098786/South-Yorkshire-PCC-Shaun-Wright-finally-resigns-in-the-wake-of-the-Rotherham-child-sex-abuse-scandal.html
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/sep/17/cameron-gives-top-environment-policy-job-to-oil-man-ahead-of-major-climate-talks?CMP=twt_a-environment_b-gdneco
www.youtube.com/watch?t=449&v=wASHLEuLbzA
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/jun/03/northernireland.labour
You know what? Corbyn's win has set a lot of us free. And it feels kinda good.
Now, as with all partisans on whatever side, for some he could do everything he and they condemn his enemies for and they will defend it, but others will lose some fervour. He needs to harness that fervour now and have some immediate impact, lest he lose some of that momentum in the grubbiness of actually doing things, not just saying things.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l-n64NWHS4
And Cohen has been about as lefty as you are for as long as I can remember.
Will Roberts @will_roberts_96
You know you're in Waitrose when the breaded haddock ticket is in Latin
Those who are now Corbyn-apologists are going to have to have a much harder job when their new idol falls. As someone said the other day, political gravity can be very painful.
People on here last night tried to compare it with an assault on an Asian man because he was a "Paki" being worse than an assault on a white man with no racial motive as it was "racially aggravated"... I think that is bollocks too, but the sinister thing about this case is the conclusion that Asian children are more affected by sexual abuse than white* children, whoever the perpetrator
It fits too neatly with the "White trash" meme so evident in Rotherham
So this isn't "racially aggravated" it's just that Asian kids are more precious
*EDIT black children would probably be treated as less worthy too.
It's a good article. Corbyn and McDonnell need to do three things, in sequence.
1. Deal with the personal negatives attributed to them (we can debate if they were deserved) to the extent that instinctive Labour-leaning voters feel that they aren't a barrier to voting Labour. It doesn't matter about impressing flightpath or JEO, but Southam and others of siilar (sic) mind need to be addressed.
2. Develop an economic narrative that most people accept is a viable alternative to the current policy. If they think it's great, so much the better, but the key thing is that it's not seen to be riskier than drifting on with the status quo.
3. Discredit the current Government and offer a better alternative.
1. They are who they are, said what they've said, and believe what they believe. The only way to 'deal' with it is to lie or dissemble. Don't lie about your beliefs and principles.
2. In essence, come up with something - anything - that will oppose the government's policy. What about principles, beliefs, guiding ideas? This is the equivalent of writing a book of fiction. It's a morals free, belief free, principle free zone: if we can get people to believe it's viable, it doesn't matter what it is.
3. having abandoned your soul and principles to come up with a policy, you now lie about your opponents and do whatever you have to to discredit them.
The abandonment of everything you value and believe in is now complete.
Cameron still loves the EU
Do you really think the policies being suggested by the current lot are hard left?
But it won't happen.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOw7BVirDjo&list=PLEHDlXUvHWwIM0i9ZQSnCGWbFH5PgzS9l
Have only heard clips, will listen to whole thing later.
But what links Offenbach with the US Marine Corps?
I have no idea what you mean. I lean in various directions politically which I do not conceal but am open to other sides, I certainly favoured Cameron over Ed but was consistent for 5 years I thought Ed would win and would do ok as PM as an example, as I think it is reasonable to try to see all sides of a debate in almost all circumstances.
What exactly irritates you that I might strive for a more nuanced position than pathetic over the top partisan rants? Others are far better at crafting entertaining examples of that than I. And while it is certainly true that not every answer is to be found in the middle of two extremes, sometimes the answer is indeed closer to one than the other, and so an attempt to balance in the centre may on occasion be as misguided as sticking to an extreme, my personal view is it is a good starting point. That may not be your view, but with as much respect as I feel your rudeness still deserves, I can present my own views however I wish, it is not some act to amuse or irritate you, I am just a weird political anorak.
I guess I should just ignore your one sided partisan whinges from now on, rather than consider them and acknowledge where they raise decent points? I don't really see that as a healthy attitude personally. What if you said something worthwhile?
I have rarely been so astounded as receiving a complaint for attempting some kind of measured approach, however misguided someone thinks it is.
I'd say I won't take anything you say seriously every again, except that I will, as I still do to the few posters who, regrettably even if I felt provoked, I have exchanged rude messages to on occasion (in particular messrs malcomG, Dair and SeanT).
I guess I shouldn't do that either? What a peculiar attitude.
To conclude, if you are still reading (and you are of course under no obligation to care what I think), if my 'Act' irritates you, please just ignore me.
There's nowhere to go, if your PM is for BOO - for the electorate to have an option - he has to back Stay for any concessions to be made at all. Who would disagree that Cameron is more europhile than his party?
Mark Denten @BBCMarkDenten
Newcastle Central's @ChiOnwurah becomes a shadow Business minister and will also speak on culture matters...
Doesn't mean the state of some of the discourse on here doesnt get my blood pressure up though (I might have to stop for my own mental health soon, which Im sure will be met with horror).
Detesting isn't good for you, though.