Sadly for Labour Corbyn and Livingstones remarks about Castro a man who torutured Christians and Homosexuals overshadowed the above.

Even ninfan has identified the nature of most of the torture going on on Cuba:

Yup, in any sane world Labour would destroy the Govt over this Autumn statement.

Why? The Tories are borrowing more (to invest 😉 ) and for longer. Why would Labour be opposed to this? Prudence or ideology?

2020 should be a sitter for Labour, it takes some kind of Leadership incompetence to miss this open goal.

Only if they play the games of the right (which I think they should do)

Find a popular front man to say what the people want to hear (and leave out the stuff they don’t). Could even doing it without much lying (better NHS, better working conditions and pay, investment etc,.).
Could even say you will control immigration (just don’t tell anyone you are only thinking of a 1% change though)

Why? The Tories are borrowing more (to invest ) and for longer. Why would Labour be opposed to this? Prudence or ideology?

That’s my point. Labour can’t oppose it.

most of the torture going on on Cuba:

Yeah, but that’s good torture, not the bad torture like what foreign ‘regimes’ do.

Sadly for Labour Corbyn and Livingstones remarks about Castro a man who torutured Christians and Homosexuals overshadowed the above.

I thought Trump came out as a Christian during the campaign?

That poster/tweet has now convinced me completely that the Labour Party is now actually a piece of abstract performance art, rather than a political party.

I expect Jezza’s next move will to be to release a fragrance in time for christmas, with one of those massively expensively produced TV adverts that make absolutely no sense whatsoever

Labour cannot throw too many rocks re the Autumn statement as it’s “spend spend” they want to do. The deficit was 100bn pa in 2010. If that hadn’t been gotten under control we would be totally screwed by now. Labour tried to make a point that it had been 6 wasted years but to the contrary we are much better placed as a result. Had the deficit not have been somewhat under control there would be zero flex to invest and even harsher cuts required. The Newsnight piece from Middelsborough I posted on the EU thread has many messages Labour are bot hearing

2020 should be a sitter for Labour, it takes some kind of Leadership incompetence to miss this open goal.

That’s not clear at all. All the data re: Brexit has been better than Remain predicted. If this continues and at the same time EU spirals deeper into the mire exiting the EU will look like incredible foresight. Tories are already seizing the middle ground with tax cuts and the Northern Powerhouse initiative could deliver (and if it does not they will blame Labour Mayors: win-win politically)

You are aware that the whole Northern Powerhouse thing is just a load of old bollocks, right?

Because everyone up here is.

It’s just a totally cynical exercise in blame-storming. So that Tories get to blame labour councils for everything when they slash their already decimated budgets even further, so that they’ve only got the money available to empty people’s bins every few weeks.

You’d think the Labour Party might want to point this out, wouldn’t you?

But hey ho, they’re busy with their cyber physical systems

Are there genuinely any Labour Party members/voters that think the Tories won’t walk it at the next GE?

Yes. They’re called Momentum. And they think that Jezza is going to lead a grateful nation unto the bright socialist uplands.

Who knows what they’d think if they hadn’t stopped taking their medication

You’d think the Labour Party might want to point this out, wouldn’t you?

So when Andy Burnham becomes Mayor of Greater Manchester is he going to expose the NP for the bollocks it is or follow the lead of Richard Leese and the rest of them in having his ego massaged by Westminster?

As for Corbyn, it’s hardly a surprise that he’s looking at post-capitalist concepts seeing as Paul Mason is (or was?) an advisor. Trouble is all that stuff is going to pan out over decades, not the next 4 years. Mechanisation is going to happen eventually, but I have no idea why he’s talking about it now. If he really wants to tackle the issue then he could do a lot worse by announcing an intention to bring in a universal basic income, but he probably hasn’t got the balls to do that.

I thought they’d realistically be looking at the following GE.

I thought they’d realistically be looking at the following GE.

He’ll be dead by then.

“That’s not clear at all.”

I think it is. They were elected on a ticket of tightening the belt and they’ve ended up spending like it’s going out of fashion and leaving it to our kids to pay the tab.

Blaming Brexit won’t carry much weight cos they offered the Referendum.

Under different leadership Labour could go to town over that and walk 2020.

Under different leadership Labour could go to town over that and walk 2020.

There’s still time. If Corbyn decides, as looks likely, not to oppose brexit, and it unravels in the way many commentators predict it’s highly likely he won’t last til the next election. And then there’s his health and the enduring idea that he’ll step aside for a younger candidate once he’s restored party democracy and entrenched the defeat of the blairites.

I can see Labour plummeting in England the same way they did in Scotland – who will benefit Greens, UKIP, Lib Dems, or perhaps Blair will invent a new party?

Corbyn just is not good enough to do anything other than talk to the diehard militants.

Greens are a fringe fruitloop party. They’re as big as they’ll ever get. UKIP for sure, if the don’t implode, which seems unlikely. My bet is the Liberals. They can draw on half the country that the other parties aren’t going to represent.

I think it is. They were elected on a ticket of tightening the belt and they’ve ended up spending like it’s going out of fashion and leaving it to our kids to pay the tab.

The uncomfortable truth is that that *was* tightening the belt

That’s how unbelievably massive government spending has grown to be.

Can you imagine, just imagine, for one second, if the Tory Government, on coming into power in May 2010, had actually cut government spending to match tax receipts?

Jesus, can you imagine what would have happened if they had put taxes up to maintain that level of spending? Lots not pretend this is adding a few pence onto tax for the wealthy, the government would have had to double the entire national take of income tax, and still had a hole big enough that it required them to double inheritance tax and capital gains tax in order to make spending match receipts.

And all the time Labour were sitting there shouting that the only answer was spending even more 😯

Corbyns legacy could be a refocused and electable Labour Party. That assumes 2020 is written off and the party concentrates on winning the vote of the currently non-franchised. Chasing the soft Tory vote is not a platform for a successful alternative.

I would think that it is (wrt getting elected at least).

Can you imagine, just imagine, for one second, if the Tory Government, on coming into power in May 2010, had actually cut government spending to match tax receipts?

Jesus are we back to comparing govt finances to those of a household? How long before the gold is brought up? 🙂

I would think that it is (wrt getting elected).

On what evidence? DId you miss the last two elections?

The problem is that the Momentum mob are in the process of having moderate labour MP’s deselected to be replaced by totally unelectable Corbynite nutjobs. If they succeed in this, then it’s all over for Labour. They’ll disappear up their own politically correct arse in a cloud of virtue signalling.

I bet the Lib Dems can’t believe their bloody luck!

They’re already laying claim to the 48% who watched Corbyn’s “let’s trigger article 50 now!!” Nonsense the day after the referendum, and said “erm… WTF?!!!!”

That assumes 2020 is written off and the party concentrates on winning the vote of the currently non-franchised.

That assumes they don’t chase them into voting for anyone but them. I haven’t voted since 1987. I’ll be voting next time and it won’t be for the beardy one.

I would think that it is (wrt getting elected).
On what evidence? DId you miss the last two elections?

Can I count SNP as soft Tory?

Can I count SNP as soft Tory?

No.

But seriously I believe that there are people in UK voting for the Tories from the perspective of no reasonable alternative in the last 2 elections. I think that many in middle England are disenfranchised by the Tory approach, and while I find some of Corbyn’s stances admirable, in reality he is not up to it. He is no Bernie Sanders (who was also not up to it).

Scotland just had a viable alternative.

Scotland just had a viable alternative.[/Quote]

We just voted to leave the union. UKIP seem a lot more successful than the SNP. If we had PR they’d have the seats to reflect it.

Labour’s only hope is to go down the populist anti-establishment route, but without the racism. Sanders offers a shining example. Corbyn won the leadership off the back of massively strong anti-establshment sentiment among labour members and supporters, but he’s failed to translate that to the wider public, largely because he’s a terrible communicator and obviously still not fully committed to it. It’s not really his fault, I think he tries but you can’t turn a shy bookish academic type into a passionate rabble rousing leader who people identify with. Once someone like that emerges from the left (god knows who, there isn’t anyone there now like that) then I reckon he’d step aside.

turn a shy bookish academic[/quote]

He’s not an academic. He hasn’t done anything (other than vote against his own party)

If UKIP doesn’t implode, then they’re going to take an awful lot of seats off labour in the North. Ask the voters who just voted out what they think about Jezzas Big Data? How relevant they think that is to their lives?

****ing clueless!

He’s not an academic.

Yes I know that, that’s why I said ‘academic type’. That’s how he comes across to people, both in the way he talks and looks.

And, possibly my favourite,

That’s how unbelievably massive government spending has grown to be.

Can you imagine, just imagine, for one second, if the Tory Government, on coming into power in May 2010, had actually cut government spending to match tax receipts?

Jesus, can you imagine what would have happened if they had put taxes up to maintain that level of spending? Lots not pretend this is adding a few pence onto tax for the wealthy, the government would have had to double the entire national take of income tax, and still had a hole big enough that it required them to double inheritance tax and capital gains tax in order to make spending match receipts.

Ring fencing is the problem. If you ring fence the popular spending like NHS and Pensions you have to endure crippling hardship everywhere else. …but if you don’t ring fence popular spending you don’t get elected.

CFH 🙂 Nearly as ridiculous as the Ed-stone

So another spectacular own goal as Corbyn has announced he will attend Castro’s funeral. That’s going to come back and bite him come General Election.

So another spectacular own goal as Corbyn has announced he will attend Castro’s funeral.

That must be a wind up?

Corbyn has announced he will attend Castro’s funeral.

😀

If he does he can catch up with his old buddy Jerry Adams.