I’m not sure why I’m explaining all this to you, specially as your sympathies clearly lie with the Tory Party

if they did I’d be voting for Corbyn. which I’m not

ooooh, have we done this bit yet?

Unison backs Corbyn.

I must say I also expected unison to back Burnham given the seemingly moderate stance they have localy to me in health (as compared to unite/GMB on the one side and ‘spank me MR Hunt’ RCN on the other.)

first thoughts yesterday on hearing this were positive. FPTP failed to give the actual idealogical alternative (ie greens) the seats, maybe someone who is more than halfway there will give people in actually -approaching-marginal contrituencies a realistic alternative.

So carry on being amused but Corbyn posses a far greater threat to the Tories than someone like Liz Kendall.

Nail on the head as usual. As I said to a friend of mine who is a Kendall supporter, given that labour have lost a huge chunk of it’s base support to the SNP, UKIP and the Greens, and that the tories have requisitioned their best policies from the last campaign and positioned themselves in the centre, just who is going to vote for them next time under the likes of Kendall? I really haven’t got a clue.

At the very least Corbyn offers the chance to regain the lost supporters on the left, and gain a lot more from the young and disillusioned non-voters. I actually think he’d do more than that and bring over some of the centrists once they see through the tabloid and establishment scaremongering. Like Farage he’s successfully positioning himself as the anti-establishment candidate and that will have massive broad appeal.

the man love for Andy seems to have diminished a little Binners

All of them are pretty disapointing to be honest B&D. But particularly Andy. It reminds me of one of Gordon Browns underlings when he took over from Blair.

They’d all assumed that his hunger for the top job was because, once installed, he had some grand masterplan. Some programme he’d been eagerly awaiting to carry through. But when he finally got the keys to number 10, with his minions all awaiting their new directives, it soon became painfully apparent that there was nothing. Absolutely no substance at all behind the rhetoric.

Andy made all the right noises prior to the election, but now, when asked to flesh it out, it appears to be the same as all of them (except Corbyn) – we’ll do what the Tories were going to do, but we’ll wring our hands a bit and try not to look like we’re enjoying it quite so much.

Pathetic! And utterly pointless, as it hasn’t a cat in hells chance of getting them elected

Oh… the bookies now have Corbyn at odds of 5/4 favourite with the latest union endorsements. So they clearly think its already a done deal.

Presumably they are not interested in power, just ideological purity.

Will Jeremy be vetting his (shadow) cabinet hopefuls to make sure that any applicant is “One of us”? 😉

I think it could be quite a benefit to Corbyn to see all the far-too-smug right wingers cackling with self-satisfied glee at the prospect of him becoming leader. I think most people will (rightfully) see that as a pretty unedifying spectacle.

Remember – the Tories have a majority just above single figures. Hardly a ringing endosement from the electorate. So maybe the arrogant carping from the likes of yourself and the Torygraph, who are saying that the next election is now pretty much in the bag, could be just what Corbyn wants, and may benefit him enormously.

Just a thought

Not barrelled into this before but as someone who voted Labour in the last election purely because I felt I had to given the rise of the Conservatives Corbyn speaks to me. He is the Labour Party that it claims to be, not the pseudo-Conservatives that they are. I think if Corbyn can win over people like me who have, or were on the brink of, going Green, Lib Dem or SNP then he’ll do a much better job than Liz Kendall trying to win over floating Conservative voters.

He sounds like a change and that’s what Labour, and the country (not the media) need. It might be a flop, he may be too left wing to win elections, but it’ll at least kick the Labour party back to where it ought to be for 2025.

but Andy he a “top bloke” and went to school with Binners, how can he be a member of the political elite?

Cambridge/ intern/ special advisor/ safe labour seat/ PPS/ junior minister/ senior minister.

Pretty standard fare…

Will Jeremy be vetting his (shadow) cabinet hopefuls to make sure that any applicant is “One of us”?

Another lazy assumption and stereotype. If the best his opponents can come up with is harking back to the 1970/80s to paint him as some archaic trotskyite with his fist in the air then he’s probably very happy with that. Even some in the Daily Telegraph get this, I don’t know why many in the labour party don’t.

It looks to me like the best his opponents can do is flop around like a lot of gasping fish on the end of the Trade Union’s hook, with Jeremy as the bait.

If nothing else, the Corbyn campaign is producing some rather good journalism for a change.

I was with it right up until the final sentence.
“Tens of thousands of people get to decide – and in times as irreverent and unpredictable as these, that means everything: literally, everything.”

Literally?

Presumably in the same way as the Chinese stock market was recently described, by a BBC presenter, as “literally” falling off a cliff. 🙄

Well yes, not one for the grammar freaks and pedants. It is the Grauniad after all 🙂

binners

Just a thought

Makes you think, doesn’t it?

IT’S A CONSPIRACY!

Makes you think, doesn’t it?

It makes me think that perhaps the old ‘loony left’ hysterics from the right may not quite wash this time. I don’t know whether the electorate are more informed and intelligent than they were in 1983, given social media etc I suspect they are. What I think I do know though, is that they are sick of being told what to think and what to believe by politicians and their media baron supporters. Scotland proved that, and England may not be as far behind as everyone thought.

Studies show that newspaper readers are unlikely to be influenced by displays of naked partisanship during an election week.

As Alastair Campbell says: “Is the press as powerful as once it was? The answer is no. Is social media more important? The answer is yes. But are either the deciding factors? No.”

It would seem that your idea that the electorate are a bunch of mindless sheep ripe for opinion-moulding by an evil empire of press barons is spurious. Oh well. Another Left Wing myth still being peddled despite all the evidence to the contrary, then.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelection/uk-election-results-was-it-the-sun-wot-won-it-for-david-cameron-10236682.html

Well the Daily Telegraph has certainly changed its tune……their readers must be getting very confused!

A couple of weeks ago the Daily Telegraph was urging its readers to register as Labour supporters so that they could vote for Jeremy Corbyn. A Corbyn win, they were told, would absolutely guarantee that Labour could not win the next general election.

That was then, now panic is starting to set in and they are not quite so sure. Today Daily Telegraph readers were told, quote, “he probably won’t ever be Prime Minister”

So in a matter of just a couple of weeks the Daily Telegraph has gone from, Jeremy Corbyn stands no chance of ever being Prime Minister to, Jeremy Corbyn probably won’t ever be Prime Minister 🙂

It’s obviously suddenly occurred to them that ordinary voters might actually quite like policies such as opposition to austerity, Trident replacement, and tuition fees.

Perhaps it’s finally dawned on them that those very policies caused an unprecedented political earthquake in Scotland only a few weeks ago which saw 3 pro austerity, pro Trident replacement, and pro tuition fees parties, virtually wiped out.

So now in a state of panic, and after attacking pretty much everything about Corbyn except his policies, they are starting to attack his policies. It seems that “he’s left-wing loser and that’s all you need to know” doesn’t work anymore.

According to the Daily Telegraph :

Why we should all start feeling nervous about Corbyn-omics

“Jeremy Corbyn is pushing an agenda that is not so much from a different political tradition as from a different planet”

“Everything about “Corbyn-omics” is delusional”

Now I don’t know if Joseph Stiglitz reads the Daily Telegraph but in case he doesn’t someone ought to tell the former chief economist of the World Bank that he’s from a different planet and delusional – according to the Daily Telegraph.

Stiglitz is quite supportive of the agenda that Corbyn is pushing.

Jeremy Corbyn is favourite for Labour leadership because party has ‘wimped out’, says Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz

“I am not surprised at all that there is a demand for a strong anti-austerity movement around increased concern about inequality. The promises of New Labour in the UK and of the Clintonites in the US have been a disappointment,” argued the economist, who has 40 honorary doctorates, and at least eight honorary professorships to his name.

Stiglitz went on to lambast left-wing parties like Labour for failing to oppose austerity regimes, arguing they’ve “wimped out” of proposing an alternative to cuts and privatisation.

Look at Islington South and Liverpool Walton both labour candidates increased share of vote more than Corbyn.

You have proved my point exactly: Emily Thornberry was able to raise the Labour share of the vote in Islington South & Finsbury from 42% to 50% between 2010 and 2015…but only because she and Chris Smith had managed to take it from 62% in 1997 to 39% in 2005! It was one of the safest seats in the Labour portfolio and they managed to take it within 400 votes of being a Lib Dem win.

Corbyn never had that sort of collapse. In that context, raising the Labour share of the vote is even more impressive.

Get it?

No one needs to worry about Corbyn economics (a misnomer if ever there was one). There is plenty of evidence (for those who can be bothered to look) of what happens when populism meet reality – the latter always wins. Which is why Corbynites will/would be ultimately dissatisfied in the same way that some of the RW will note that we have a chancellor running an expansionary fiscal policy with ever increase debt. Funny old world.

The only folk who seem to get away without scrutiny of how rhetoric is a mile away from reality are the party that we are no longer allowed to mention. Their time will come……

Tsipras” latest fun and games is a case in point. Be careful what/who you vote for.

Stieglitz also supported the nonsense that he who cannot be mentioned tried to hoodwink people with.

Not a great advert. Jezza is doing fine without the kiss of death from Stiglitz.

I would vote for Corbyn for some good firefight entertainment.

The rest are simply lightweight …

😆

Its brilliant to see someone who still believes this kind of stuff. Very refreshing.

Stieglitz also supported the nonsense that he who cannot be mentioned tried to hoodwink people with.

Perhaps he should hand his Nobel Prize for Economics back ?

BTW when you say “he who cannot be mentioned tried to hoodwink people” I assume you mean Alex Salmond of the SNP ?

So he “tried” and presumably failed then. Can you explain in that case why the SNP pretty much wiped out all other political parties in Scotland back in May?

I would be very interested in your explanation.

Blimey Ernie are you ok? You seem well off piste these days. Stiglitz was bought in to justify some of the BS (that you spotted in your more enlightened phase) relating to independence. And the result ?

The irony at the moment is the fact that populist and some left of centre parties are imposing more austere policies that our nasty Tories.

Still maybe Corbyn can be a latter day King Canute. It will be interesting to see. Let’s hope so. It could be fun

Stiglitz was bought in to justify some of the BS (that you spotted in your more enlightened phase) relating to independence.

I totally agree that the SNP’s anti-austerity stance was a sham. I also believe that the Labour Party’s manifesto back in May was to an extent more left-wing than the SNP’s.

But I nevertheless supported the SNP because Labour wasn’t even arguing against austerity. It was totally pointless supporting an austerity-lite Tory-lite Labour Party.

I also think, contrary to your suggestion, that the SNP was extremely successful with their campaign – one which had central to it anti-austerity.

In case of Corbyn he offers imo more realistic anti-austerity policies backed up with more realistic economics.

The harm that austerity can cause during difficult economic times is being increasingly challenged by not just the Left but also fairly conservative forces such as the IMF.

Well you should be voting Tory next given t they have been less austere (sic) that Labour and have continued to run an expansionary fiscal policy coupled with an extraordinary loose monetary policy.

So if you want real anti-austerity you know who to vote for – certainly not the so-called anti-austerity parties like Syriza or even Holande la rouge.

You have noted the lastest Greek referendum haven’t you?

Still Jezza might pull some old school magic out of the hat. State ownership the solution to all our problems…(just look at education)

Oh ffs don’t start your ‘the Tories are an anti-austerity party’ bollocks. Yes halfway through the last Parliament when it became clear that their disastrous policies would have dire consequences for the economy Osborne decided to opt for Labour’s more “cautious” halving the deficit approach.

But the Tories are still committed to pointless, cruel, and self-defeating cuts. Which is precisely why they want 40% cuts in non-protected departmental budgets on top of £12bn worth of welfare cuts.

State ownership the solution to all our problems…(just look at education)

or the east coast main line 🙂

Corbyn hasn’t said that state ownership is the solution to all our problems, that’s just a silly jibe by THM which frankly doesn’t warrant comment imo.

Still maybe Corbyn can be a latter day King Canute.

This is a stupid comment trying to be clever.

What moral do you think the story of King Canute (a man who, at the time of the tide turning episode, was told he was all powerful) tells? And how do you think that Corbyn (a man who has ploughed a lonely and generally unpopular furrow for three decades) resembles Canute?

Corbyn hasn’t said that state ownership is the solution to all our problems, that’s just a silly jibe by THM which frankly doesn’t warrant comment imo.

And yet….

Of course re anti-austerity much better to look at what people do rather than what people say. An expansionary fiscal policy is characterised by government spending > government revenue. The result a budget deficit. Now remind me what policy are those nasty Tories are running? The clue might be in the level of UK debt – rising or falling? And remember what Cameroon said about you can’t solve a debt crisis with more debt!!!!!! Look at what they do, not what they say….

So both austerity and populism fail to stand up to scrutiny beyond the headlines. That applies to politicians on both sides of the debate including those who cannot be mentioned. Of course, you have step away from party politics lens to spot that. And that is obviously a challenge for many……

Canute? Another example of looking at the reality not people think or say about someone. Canute was not as most think pretending that he could stand up to the power of the sea (a metaphor here foreconomic reality)

In Huntingdon’s account, **** set his throne by the sea shore and commanded the incoming tide to halt and not wet his feet and robes. Yet “continuing to rise as usual [the tide] dashed over his feet and legs without respect to his royal person. Then the king leapt backwards, saying: ‘Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power of kings,…

In my metaphor replace kings with MPs (or even Tsipras as a specific example)

Later historians repeated the story, most of them adjusting it to have **** more clearly aware that the tides would not obey him, and staging the scene to rebuke the flattery of his courtiers.

Jezza is a bright bloke and know full well that in the end he (just like Osborne the other way round) will end up rebuking those who seek to flatter him now. It’ was ever thus….

Good old Canute…..

Likening Tsipiras to Canute… You need to rewrite the story so that actually he’s standing on a sea wall at high tide knowing the sea should recede, and all logic and the International Oceonograpy Fund agrees… but Wolfgang Schauble’s throwing buckets of piss at him and saying “No, this is totally the sea! And you’ve only got yourself to blame”

Quite possibly NW, quite possibly. Have a quieter day so we can think of a suitable metaphor for how the Germnas don’t understand how their pet project works.

Love the swear avoidance filter above on the alternative shorter version of ****(ute)

I’m no thing lefty, but at least Corbyn will bring some integrity and morals back to Labour. The vote chasing regime under Ed M would have sold their kids into slavery for votes, and never really stood for anything.

Labour should stand for labour principles, then try and persuade people they are right, rather than policy based on focus group vote projections.

Well the Daily Telegraph has certainly changed its tune……their readers must be getting very confused!

I’m not sure what I’m enjoying more, watching the new labour establishment run around like headless chickens wondering what the hell to do about Corbyn, or seeing the slow realisation among the tories that what happened in Scotland could catch on in England. Either way it’s hugely entertaining. If Corbyn does pull it off, for once the cliche ‘political earthquake’ will be entirely justified.

Paddy Ashdown (remember him?) is promising to eat his hat is Corbyn wins the next election 😉

or seeing the slow realisation among the tories that what happened in Scotland could catch on in England.

In that case, I think you miss the beauty of what’s going on

Quite simply, the greatest unifier of the right, is the rise of the crazies that inhabit the hard left! Look at what happened in the Election when it looked like a Labour/SNP coalition might appear, it took away the comfort factor and brought the ‘natural tories’ back from UKIP and the Lib Dems.

The Telegraph is playing a genius game of unifying the Tories in the run up to the referendum, when history says they should be tearing themselves apart.

unifying the Tories

Fantasise about it while you can, there is no unification in a party based on individual greed.