He is obviously not irrelevant because he is the leader. The problem with your thesis it doesn’t distinguish between those who are dangerous to their opponents and those that are essentially rubbish. You are never going to be ignored as leader. I am afraid I think in this case it is the latter.

Corbyn wants to fight clean but he needs an absolute bawbag, to fight dirty for him.

Many in Labour would say he has got plenty of these doing this for him.

EDIT:

The real problem with Corbyn’s Labour- and this isn’t Corbyn alone, it’s a multitude of shortcomings- is that they’re not effective at countering this. They’re too internally conflicted so their leaders can’t depend on support, and their frontmen aren’t strong enough.

But that is a failure of leadership.

I think mefty sums it up well. As a labour leader, while he’s quite good at being labour he’s phenomenally bad at being a leader.

Just having principles doesn’t carry any weight.

Just having principles doesn’t carry any weight.

Just a few weeks ago Corbyn was elected leader with nearly 60% of the vote – more support than any other Labour leader in history, and double what all the other candidates put together got. It seems to me that having principles does carry some weight, ie, I doubt that it was his inspirational speeches and clever soundbites what done it.

mefty – Member

He is obviously not irrelevant because he is the leader. The problem with your thesis it doesn’t distinguish between those who are dangerous to their opponents and those that are essentially rubbish.

I don’t know why you say that tbh. If he was essentially rubbish, they would have no reason to attack him like this- he’d be their ideal Labour leader, and they’d want him in charge for as long as possible. If his fall were inevitable, they’d want it to happen later, not sooner, closer to the next election. The strength and nature of the attacks speak clearly IMO.

mefty – Member

But that is a failure of leadership.

How so? The divisions which plague the party pre-date him.

The real problem is the divide between the parliamentary party and the wishes of MPs, and the party membership, not the leadership. Corbyn’s mandate is clear, and that divide doesn’t go away just because you get rid of him- it gets worse. Some of the talk just now is of kicking him out and preventing him running again- which is essentially admitting that they think he could be re-elected and they want to defeat the democratic process of their party and disenfranchise 60% of their members. That’s catastrophic. This is what he’s up against, people who’re prepared to break the party apart. (I won’t say “risk”, I think it’s a given; a coup now destroys the membership and the campaigning machine. You’ll notice there’s people who want rid of him but nobody that wants to replace him…)

(people rightly say, the party isn’t the electorate; but with mayoral and local elections coming up, good luck running succesful campaigns having just given 6/10ths of your members the finger and having publically split your party in two.)

Personally I think Corbyn and the Labour party desperately need rid of these nutters. They’ll still be nutters even if he leaves tomorrow. But he needs them to be incorrigible before he can act.

And a new leader can’t suddenly create a new team- the most noteworthy thing about his opposition in the leadership race was that the party’s brightest and best were pretty damn rubbish. The party is weak regardless of who’s at the top and a leader can only lead the team he’s got. (this is a failure of leadership, just not this leader)

mefty – Member

Many in Labour would say he has got plenty of these doing this for him.

Who? Well, OK, I know there’s many people in the party right now who’d deny the sky is blue if Corbyn said it, but apart from them?

giving credibility to T terrorists and who’s whose party is generally more lax on moral issues ?

FTFY

He is frankly out of his depth, this is no shame on him, it is an incredibly difficult job leading the opposition

Exactly. I feel sorry for the guy because he is set up to fail. He knows (and knew from the start) that he is not the right guy and for the rest of us its a case of the Emperor’s New Clothes. It just requires the little child to state the obvious – he is politically and economically naked. And for all the press hounding accusations, well yes, but at the same time his “rise” was a classic press fuelled event in itself (remember Clegg and the new vision from the TV debates?). Unfortunately we have the press and the politicians that we deserve.

I fear for his personal well being. FWIW, I agree with him on his anti-bombing stance but little else. But he doesn’t have his party with him and his allies are very weak. He must be feeling very, very stressed right now. I hope that it doesn’t take too much of a personal toll. Sad really….

This thread reads lile me saying why I I wont vote for a certain tory leader when the answer is ALWAYS because they are a tory, the same applies to those on here damning Corbyn with their feint praise and their heartfelt sincerity for his malaisse

As for his rise being press fueled by the press [ I honestly laughed out loud at that its ludicrous] who could disagree about the overwhelming wave of support there is for Corbyn in the press before and after 😯 One tires of reading the fawnin praise for him

What a very odd claim THM and the you hope he is ok shows you for what you really are that is a pretty horrible way of going he is not up to the job, mentally weak and he may have a breakdown. All pretty personal attacks wrapped up as “concern”

But he doesn’t have his party with him and his allies are very weak.

Not sure I agree there. The party as a whole is with him, it’s his MPs who are not. It seems to me those MPs have a choice, they can continue with their spoilt-child dummy out the pram stance and undermine and manoeuvre against Corbyn at every opportunity, which will hand victory to the tories, or they can honestly ask themselves whether they can support the new wishes of the greater labour party. If not the latter they should either step aside or be deselected. His opponents and the media are doing a good job of turning irrelevant things like McDonnell and his red book into a media furore, with the obvious aim of painting a picture of incompetence. People can see through that though, and they won’t forgive the cut your nose off to spite your face infighting for much longer. I actually think Corbyn is playing it quite well by turning the other cheek, rising above the childishness and continuing with his attempts to win his critics round. As long as he has the people who voted for him behind him he’ll be ok, and I’ve seen nothing to suggest otherwise.

I feel with absolute certainty that a few years down the line, having hurled ourselves into another disastrous middle eastern quagmire that we can’t extricate ourselves from, and which has produced yet further horrific consequences for ourselves, Corbyn will be too dignified to say I Told You So

I don’t know why you say that tbh.

Simply because it is what I believe, there are plenty of observers who think Cameron is going relatively easy on him.

How so? The divisions which plague the party pre-date him.

To an extent, and no leader can expect to quell all noises off, however he seems to have upset many in his shadow cabinet, who were at least willing to give him a chance, and that has magnified his problems.

Who?

Labour MPs, and not just the most outspoken ones, are talking about being threatened with deselection etc.

but its still not his fault the PLP is at odds with the membership. Granted he is the figurehead or the physical reality of this but the real issue for labour is that those elected are less left wing than those who are members

Its true none of us know how this will be resolved but, fairly obviously, the leader has the support of the members and not of the PLP

This will inevitably lead to difficulties that his opponents can exploit as “concern for his well being” or just present the party as disparate and unfit to rule.

He is the first genuine opposition we’ve had for years.

Sort of true, however it primarily appears to be his own party members he’s in opposition with…

Just a few weeks ago Corbyn was elected leader with nearly 60% of the vote – more support than any other Labour leader in history

He had more support as this was the first election held with the £3 a vote system. Any comparison with the past is irrelevant as that was a different voting system.

We never doubted Corbyn would be popular with a broad swathe of Labour voters, but that’s not enough to win an election. What’s important is whether he can win back voters who’ve left the party and/or win new converts.

I read in the Guardian today that Len McClusky had told Corbyn to be more careful with what he says and not just spout out the first thing that came into his head. As I’ve said before Corbyns been doing that for years and he was mostly ignored, now he’s leader he can’t spout the same nonsense. The Labour Party would be well served to look at Hollande, a left wing politician who managed to get elected and has actually dragged his rock bottom popularity up a bit with his response to the January and November terrorist attacks.

[/quote]Just having principles doesn’t carry any weight.

Sad state of affairs :/

He had more support as this was the first election held with the £3 a vote system. Any comparison with the past is irrelevant as that was a different voting system.

He won every election college. You can’t fault the mandate he got from the Labour electorate.

Corbyn’s ratings are better than Hollande’s, even after his recent uptick.

I wouldn’t fault his mandate, just responding to the comment that he was the most popular leader ever.

The Paris attacks have forced Corbyn to be exposed on his weakest issues, terrorism and security. What I am surprised at is how he has not been better prepared, surely he must like most of us realised such an attack was quite probable ? I don’t see him surviving too much longer with Watson and Benn openly against his position. Dianne Abbott complaining about lack of loyalty from the Shadow Cabinet was laughable, who would be loyal to a man that’s voted against his own party 400-500 times ?

Dianne Abbott complaining about lack of loyalty from the Shadow Cabinet was laughable, who would be loyal to a man that’s voted against his own party 400-500 times

Herein lies the big problem with Corbyn. On his way power he presented a ‘new politics’ of open debate, but also ‘party unity’ – he just can’t ride both horses at once. We heard how there would be a democratic revival in the party whereby the leadership would be steered by the membership – yet he discarded this overnight on nuclear policy. Then this week we hear that the shadow cabinet would meet to decide a collective stance on Syria, and Corbyn goes and torpedos this by sending a letter to all the MPs undermining that collective responsibility. Whenever he is interviewed on telly he is paralysed into mealy mouthed fence sitting, trying to avoid answering the question for fear of committing himself to anything – if he wants to be respected, then he needs to stop sending such contradictory messages himself.

It seems to me those MPs have a choice, they can continue with their spoilt-child dummy out the pram stance and undermine and manoeuvre against Corbyn at every opportunity, which will hand victory to the tories, or they can honestly ask themselves whether they can support the new wishes of the greater labour party

Precedent?

there are plenty of observers who think Cameron is going relatively easy on him

I think this is true. The Tories would love Corbyn to stagger on for as long as possible, slowly pulling the Labour party apart.
Then would come a protracted and messy leadership election, by which time the next general election would be upon us, with Labour in no state to effectively campaign.
If Corbyn survives until Christmas I can see the press wolves being called off him for a while, then go in with vengeance in about a years time.

Jamba, when you were trained not to recognise the emotion of feeling embarrassed (because that’s how you should feel when you post such shite), who did it? I’d be interested to hear how it was trained out of you?

deadlydarcy – Member
More cheap smearing. No surprise there then.

No surprize at all…
😉

Lord preserve those who dare disagree with the STW big hitters, eh?

“lacks the where with all to make it come across in a radio friendly 10 second soundbite.”

I cant help feeling that might be partially down to the media not wanting to find 10 second sound bites. The media can pick and choose what they broadcast/print to suit their own agenda and there is nothing that JC or anyone else can do about it. and that piece of turd murdoch owns most of them!

Just having principles doesn’t carry any weight.

Sad state of affairs :/

damn straight. so many people seem to be concerned with how well he plays the politics game, and dont give a second look to his actual policies.

The tories got in because the left is so wildly divided. In my humble opinion, the greens (who i voted for), need to suck it up and ask their members to support JC. Natalie Bennet has already said she doesnt worry abnout JC, as he is pulling in the same direction as she is, so if he wins she gets what she wants, even if she isnt sitting in the driving seat.

there are plenty of observers who think Cameron is going relatively easy on him

He’d be crazy not to.

For 20 years the two main parties have been fighting over the centre ground where the votes are.

Now one party has given up on the centre ground and ****ed off to chase Green/SNP/Non voters. The last thing the Tories want is the Labour party coming back onto their turf. Corbyn is a political gift for the Tories and LibDems and a curse for the Greens/SNP. (Although how much of a curse remains to be seen.) Hard to imagine why the Tories would want to put effective pressure on Labour to come back onto their turf, quite the opposite.

dont give a second look to his actual policies.

What policies! He’s not announced any.

The goodnewz is that people are waking up to just how insidiously contrived the left/right paradigm actually is ..

I share @outofbreaths views, it’s the centre ground which wins the elections and if you are a Tory right now the last thing you want is to see Corbyn deposed. Also if the Tories start attacking Corbyn it may cause the Labour Party to rally around him whereas now they are ones doing the attacking, even TommWatson the deputy leader is on his case !

Where I disagree is that Corbyn hasn’t announced any policies, he announced he was going to print money to pay for everything – Corbyns version of QE

he announced he was going to print money to pay for everything

No he didn’t!

No he didn’t!

Of course he didn’t – don’t sound so surprised ffs. The credibility of the comment was completely undermined by the fact that it was made by jambalaya.

Ever noticed how the ” liberal, caring, concerned, socially minded and fair” types who spout equality on rights for all are actually the most dogmatic, narrow minded selfish people out there. They have no interest in the views of others but are happy to spout insults and abuse at anyone who is not so”nice” .
Now am I talking about JC or some of the posters above?

And shouldn’t any politician put his personal principle way behind those of his constituency first, the country second, and the party third?

There is no doubt many on the left are intolerant and rude about the right and no doubt, as your post showed, that the right are rude back

Given this what exactly is your point?

And which point did I indicate that my views were rightward leaning?
Some might be, some most definitely would push Marx to feel sympathy towards DC.
The point is that those who promote being nice are so often those who actually are so unpleasant to any who dare disagree. It tends to be a trait. Religion often has the same view as do those who feel strongly about equal rights.
“Treat everyone the same but you are not allowed to disagree”. That sort of thing.

Anyway on a more important note, could the OP learn to spell please?
Or burn down Garmin. See other post 🙄

Ever noticed how the ” liberal, caring, concerned, socially minded and fair” types who spout equality on rights for all are actually the most dogmatic, narrow minded selfish people out there.

No. I have however noticed that there are dicks on both sides. Try not to be one 🙂