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Show them the policies, and a lot of people like them… yet still can’t bring themselves to vote Labour because of who the leader is.
He is voter repellent.
Am awful lot of my friends are going to 'hold their noses' and vote Labour this time. He's the only option to realistically prevent Brexit so a few years of some damage is much more preferable to the eternal damage Boris' Brexit will cause. For context of this as a group we were royally screwed by two direct actions by Labour locally back around 2000-03 (complex but essentially to do with local training schemes in high tech industries that they pulled the funding for at the last minute, continuously for a number of years), none of us have voted Labour since. In our small group it will be a roughly 80% swing from Lib Dem/Plaid/Greens to Labour, if that is repeated in even small percentages nationally they'll be on to a winner.
I want a Labour Party which is actually a Labour party and not a centrist fantasy
JC is as polarising as BoJo is though, the problem being it seems there's more people out there with views similar to BoJo's (or for some reason trust a bumbling idiot more than someone that appears to buy his suits from Primark). A strongly left-leaning Labour Party isn't what we need right now, they have no chance of winning a GE majority. We absolutely need a more centrist Labour for this election (therefore without JC at the helm), let them have 4 years of trying to sort the current mess of a country out and removing any chance of Brexit and then we can look at a more socialist Labour.
‘My ultimate problem is that I’m friends with Josh and have spoken with him and he has helped me in the past but I can’t back Jeremy corbyn’
So your friend has been helped by his candidate and is friends with him yet won’t vote for him?! Like I said, people get the government they deserve. Your friend clearly doesn’t understand politics. There’s bugger all Corbyn or any other politician can do about this level of stupidity.
Show them the policies, and a lot of people like them… yet still can’t bring themselves to vote Labour because of who the leader is.
Wakey wakey.
The hard right press will relentlessly smear the next prospective candidates and the "moderates" will happily join in unless said candidate dances to their right wing demands. Just look at what happened to Ed Milliband.
There’s bugger all Corbyn or any other politician can do about this level of stupidity.
Half the country are under average intelligence. But, less glibly, people vote with their heart/gut more than their brain… they vote for people they want to run things rather than having to deal with all the politics themselves… and Corbyn turns off voters… and there is something he could have done about it, he should have stepped aside in 2017. The Tories understand politics… if a leader can’t click with the public enough to win a election, they’re unceremoniously ejected to the back benches. Corbyn is the most unpopular opposition leader of my lifetime… which considering some off the utter doughnuts the Tories have had leading them in opposition is an unbelievable claim to fame.
I’m voting Labour, and I thought, given the alternative, lots of people I know would also be, despite any reservations they might have about Corbyn. I misjudged quite how strong people feel about him. Can you turn such feelings around in a short campaign in the run up to Xmas? Maybe enough to repeat the “success” of 2017. I really hope so. Hoping for any more than that for Labour would probably be foolish though… which is why I’m also still hoping for the other opposition parties to take seats off of Johnson.
There are many cases of people, including Christians and atheists being complete dicks. But I don’t go around saying ‘atheists are dicks’ or ‘Christians are dicks’.
You can add cyclists, drivers, pedestrians...
The reason your comments are racist is that you are taking an example of dickish behaviour and reasoning that, because the people happen to be Muslim, that they are behaving badly specifically because they are Muslims – therefore insinuating that Muslims are bad people.
You are conflating all sorts of things...
Somethings are dickish and some of those things only happen with one group of people.
People can be in multiple groups ... you can be a driver and cyclist and pedestrian and you can be any and all and be black, gay or of most faith's (making a bit of an exclusion for Hamish)
Each of these subgroups has numerous subgroups... and even more specific behaviours .... and most importantly people will come to conclusions about much WIDER groups of which these are sub-groups based on their experience and interaction with even smaller subgroups.
Some generalisations are also true...others are not, others are true but greatly exaggerated overall.
Most importantly what is "good" and "bad"? I don't mean going out and murdering people .. I mean societal norms.
I could write a discourse on if it is good or bad that it's a societal norm for both parents to work full time... and from what age of a child etc.
And/OR I/we could discuss if this should be a CHOICE ... and shouldn't be forced or coerced by societal norms.. AND/OR if people should be economically forced because the COL is inflated due to this. What about our societal norm's fought for so hard like allowing women to be educated?
Calling someone racist for pointing out a different norm or fact isn't productive and also just a way to avoid actually discussing a subject. No accommodation will ever get reached if we simply close down discussion.
This is a terrible road to go down, it really is.
In a world/country that regulates thought perhaps.
Let's skip some even more potentially unsavoury items like female circumcision ... and just look at gender rights. Just briefly this is what I'm terming a "local societal norm" because it is restricted to very very specific subgroups but many other less extreme ones exist.
Belief is a weird thing ... (not only when it comes to religion) but especially when it comes to something children are indoctrinated by and backed up by a societal norm. Should we allow women to choose not to receive an education because of belief's but perhaps more importantly should that belief be backed up by a societal norm when should it be a concern?
Quite often the local societal norms are NOT pervasive or widespread... some drivers also ride.. some ride e-bikes... some ride road and others only singletrack...
There are no magic answers ... it is just something that can only be resolved through talking about it.
My perspective is that if 50% of women in a certain society living in the UK can't speak a native language to a basic level then there is something wrong measured against our broader societal norm. Condemning this fact as racist because it is a particular subgroup of a religion isn't going to resolve the conflict of norms.
It is dis-ingenious to pretend their religion has nothing to do with it.. or that potentially this societal norm is in conflict with a general UK societal norm. At the same time sensible discourse will reveal that some is not all or even most.... but first you have to accept it's OK to say "it's more likely that" ..
Don’t disagree, but the second a new person steps into his position the Tory smear canon will just change it’s aim and start splurting out the lies again.
The hard right press will relentlessly smear the next prospective candidates and the “moderates” will happily join in unless said candidate dances to their right wing demands. Just look at what happened to Ed Milliband.
This has always been the issue and, for sure, there would need to be some very careful vetting of any candidates as regards their past actions and pronouncements, but surely Corbyn isn't the best Labour can come up with?
steve - its rubbish because those issues that were claimed to be particular to Muslims are not .
So two bits of rubbish based on racist sterotypes. 1) all muslims are fundamentalists and 2) only muslims behave like this
Both are simply wrong.
Using sterotypes to smear a whole group is racist
Try replacing jew / judaism in that piece instead of Muslim / islam
Our number one centrist on here has repeatedly attacked Corbyn for about two years – demonstrably mixing up propaganda and facts.
Hi!
So is this propaganda or fact then comrade?
Today the Tory party will anounce their right-wing dog-whistle policy, designed specifically to appeal to racists Brexiteers - a reduction in immigration.
One day in advance of this, Len McClusky, one of Corbyns small and shrinking inner circle, right on cue, announces that the labour party should commit to reducing immigration. Not their present policy
So... one of the leaders right hand men has just pre-emptively endorsed Tory policy and pointed out that Labour policy is presently wrong and should be changed to be a bit more... well... Tory.
Genius!
Sheer, utter and complete clueless, incoherent *ing incompetence
Which, unfortunately, is the singular hallmark of Corbyn and all those around him
They couldn't be trusted to run a bath! And I'll still vote for the useless doddering old * because he's better than the alternatives. Will enough people do the same, to deliver a labour government?
Not a cat in hells chance!
He needs to be gone. He should have been gone 2 years ago
he should have stepped aside in 2017
Yes, of course he should. Is it not possible that this view that all labour need to is change their leader and they'll automatically win a little naive? What you're effectively saying is that the primary criteria for the choice of labour leaders should be the whims and preferences of a few billionaire media barons. Do you not see a problem with that? And it's not as if they haven't tried that in the past, and look what happened.
No, the labour party should choose it's leader, not the media and their establishment friends. Quite frankly the more flak the leader gets the better in my opinion. It means they are a threat to them and that they want to change things. I don't want a labour party which does what it's told by the media, captains of industry or anyone else who will lose out as a result of their policies. I want a labour party and a leader who take their lead from working people, and do things in the interests of working people. Corbyn, for all his faults, does that better than many who have come before him, and whoever succeeds him should carry on doing it.
I like how they've got one of their token non-white MPs to announce it, as if that makes it ok.
So… one of the leaders right hand men has just pre-emptively endorsed Tory policy and pointed out that Labour policy is presently wrong and should be changed to be a bit more… well… Tory.
Indeed… and a lot of this centrist/left/right framing is nonsense. Do you want to keep foreigners out? Is that left or right, or just nationalist? Do you want workers on boards? Is that left or right, or just following best practise used in other countries? Do your want to invest in new Hospitals? Is that left or right, or just what needs doing due to the age of many of our hospitals?
all labour need to is change their leader and they’ll automatically win a little naive?
Who said that? Labour needed to change leader… the idea they could then just sit back and wait for a win isn’t the claim. They would have to work as hard as they do now, against the same problems of bias and misrepresentation, but without the albatross of Corbyn making things even harder for them.
but surely Corbyn isn’t the best Labour can come up with?
You're looking at it the wrong way. Corbyn won the leadership not because he was the best single candidate, but because he represented what the vast majority in the labout party want, which is a party that fights for working people. When the opportunity was presented to the membership to take back control of the party from the Stalinist grip of the blairites, they siezed it. Corbyn had a major role in channeling and focusing that 'rebellion', but he was in the right place at the right time. Any leftist candidate probably would have won in that leadership election, especially given the weakness of the centrist candidates. Look on the brightside, it could easily have been Diane Abbot 🙂
As to the future, there are many good candidates, mostly female, who can take labour forward. I've already made my own preference clear, but whoever it is should carry on where Corbyn leaves off. The centrists are not going to regain control.
What you’re effectively saying is that the primary criteria for the choice of labour leaders should be the whims and preferences of a few billionaire media barons.
Will you lot listen to yourselves FFS?
The point of politics is to get elected into power so you can do stuff. For that to happen, you need a leader that is... erm... what's the word.... oh yeah... 'electable'
SO you can endlessly bang on about media barons, the right wing press, Russian bots, Facebook advertising, Cambridge Analytica, the BBC... whatever... but the bottom line is that while all those things go against you, NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE BELIEVE IN JEREMY CORBYN TO ACTUALLY VOTE FOR HIM
There. Its really that simple. And all the complaining, paranoid conspiracy theories and 'oh its all just, like, soooooooooo not fair's in the world aren't going to change that fact
So you carry on singing his praises all you like, and railing against perceived injustices of it all. At the end of the day the only thing it will achieve is 5 more years of the Tory's and a pathetic, impotent, totally ineffectual labour party waving its little placards on the sidelines
steve – its rubbish because those issues that were claimed to be particular to Muslims are not .
So two bits of rubbish based on racist sterotypes. 1) all muslims are fundamentalists and 2) only muslims behave like this
Both are simply wrong.
Using sterotypes to smear a whole group is racist
I haven't read every word but I see inferring not claiming...
But anyway ....
Stereotyping is perhaps bad ... but it's a necessary stage to myth busting rather than simply shutting down discourse so it's not entirely bad when it leads to myths being uncovered.
(I'm ignoring the whole elephant in the room of a sky fairy when I say myth)
Try replacing jew / judaism in that piece instead of Muslim / islam
So there is just how stupid this is!
Look at the complete bollox thrown at Corbyn ... (over something where both sides are equally wrong/right/terrorists/freedom fighters)
What I see as a bigger issue though is why for example it's different rules... had this been catholicism and paedo priests it wouldn't be called out as racist even though that's a big false stereotype based on some truths.
Corbyn won the leadership not because he was the best single candidate, but because he represented what the vast majority in the labout party want, which is a party that fights for working people.
Which, once again, comes back to the point that you can't implement any of that if you can't get into power. It's a necessary compromise if you don't already have the majority behind you.
Yet in the last election 40% of the electorate voted for him.
Who are the centrists that some people like to paint as the bogeyman these days? To me they are the ones inline with Tory policies on immigration and Europe. To another they are the ones pushing for higher taxes and more partnership between state and the private sector in public services. Who are your centrists? There are lots of ways for politicians to straddle both left and right ideas and apply them to policies that appeal to people who would call themselves either, or neither.
Why is that Binners? the malign influence of the Media barons perhaps?
I spent some time discussing corbyn with folk from the EU. Non of them could understand why corbyn was so vilified given that nothing he espouses is anything out of the norm in european social democratic countries and that as far as they were concerned he came across as moderate, thoughtful and honest
Yes corbyn gave those media barons an easy target so pragmatism might well have led to someone much blander leading the party but I really doubt it would have made much differnce
Yet in the last election 40% of the electorate voted for him
I love this attitude. He came second in a 2 horse race. He lost. Thats it. Full stop. And the other horse was Theresa May, who was actually a three-legged donkey. We have a first past the post electoral system. So it didn't matter if he go 40% (which he didn't anyway) or 0.00004%.
The end result is the same. And he's going to lose again. Everyone knows it, most of all him. You can tell just by looking at him. He's capitulated already
And that means that when he totters off to the allotment with his huge, gold-plated, taxpayer-funded pension, all he'll have achieved is saddling the rest of us with 7 years of Tory government
*slow handclap for grandad*
Yet in the last election 27.6% of the electorate voted for him.
FTFY
Yep my bad 27.6% of electorate which equals 40% of the vote share.
Were you happy with Ed Binners?
And it’s not as if they haven’t tried that in the past, and look what happened.
Three consecutive general election wins after a decade and a half in the political wilderness, record spending on the NHS, Surestart, Devolution for Scotland/Wales, the National Minimum Wage, The Freedom of Information Act, The Good Friday Agreement...and as a cherry on top, neither Ian Duncan Smith nor Michael Howard running the country.
The blunders and downright deceits of the Blair era - and yes, they are pretty substantial, should not erase its achievements, and the surefire knowledge that we would have even more willingly followed Bush into Afghanistan and Iraq under a Tory government, and without many of the policies that have made life better for people all across the UK.
Are folk really saying they would choose Boris over Blair?
Binners wanted Burnham - a leaver and a racist ( actually just a weak weathervane politician who made both racist comments in his election as manchester mayor and who thinks the referendum should be respected)
Were you happy with Ed Binners?
At the time I thought he was hopeless.
Everything's relative though.
He looks like Barak Obama compared to the ****-wit that followed him
Binners wanted Burnham – a leaver and a racist
I wanted the other Milliband, actually
Opposition parties sticking it to the Conservatives rather than each other…
https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/1194683810585174016?s=21
What you actually need is a front man who is popular above all else. The polices and governance etc,. go on behind the scenes. The front man gets you into power.
Someone like Ed Balls would have been better placed for that front man role. Unfortunately the party democratically elects their leader and the majority of them are not switched on enough to release you need to get a popular leader in place to win before you can do anything else.
Just like in 1979, theSNP are willing to usher in another heartless Conservative government.
A notion since completely shown to be false by none other than, err, Jim Callaghan 🙂
40 years!!!!
Are folk really saying they would choose Boris over Blair?
I reckon there would be a pretty good chance against the Blair of today among the general public.
NHS: money wasted on PFI etc resulting in hospitals carrying massive debts which are hard to fund once the cash was cut back.
FOI: Blair absolutely hated this and considered it a major mistake.
Good Friday Agreement: a lot of the credit here belongs to the tories. I reckon it would have happened anyway.
I would also say many of the problems we face now around people voting for a change, any change, is in part due to him. The relentless triangulation left many feeling unrepresented.
The electorate ushered in a heartless Tory government in 1979. I believe Labour had the opportunity to field candidates, and were rightly judged on their record. Recycling 40-year-old grudges is really the work of a mature prospective PM.
I reckon there would be a pretty good chance against the Blair of today.
Well yes, if Labour propped up the reanimated, heavily tanned corpse of Blair and tried to get him elected, that wouldn't work either. My point was about fielding a new candidate with a potentially broader, populist appeal.
Ed Balls would not have been better. the epitome of a useless machine politician and one who was badly tainted by his previous actions. the tory press attacks on him would have been easy
Given the lack of talent available its really hard to see who
Now I would have Starmer but at the time too inexperienced
Ed Balls would not have been better.
Yes he would. Clearly more popular with the general public, way more likable than Corbyn, less serious yet can still cut it politically.
The Tory press would be against him as they are against any Labour leader but that doesn't matter as majority of people are not reading it.
Starmer would just send people to sleep
I bloody love the self-indulgent, naval-gazing historical revisionism of the Corbynite lefty brigade
You think Blairism was terrible and endlessly slate it, but how the hell do you think the country would have been looking with 13 years of Tory rule instead? Better? Of course it bloody wouldn't. All the things you rail against (IRAQ!!!!!) would have happened anyway, but absolutely none of the good stuff (listed above) would. If you think otherwise, you're absolutely delusional. Blairism was absolutely necessary and had to happen
Ironically, for all the bleating they do, year after year of Tory rule is all the left has ever delivered. I genuinely believe they're happier in opposition. Corbyn and his crew are quite content when they've something to virtue-signal about and parade their sanctimonious, pious moral indignation while waving their placards . Anything rather than actually engage with the real world.
I can't stand this "Corbyn isn't electable" shit. What these elections have proven is that as soon as Corbyn is allowed to be heard and the Tories policies are scrutinised under the broadcasting rules under an election, people swing to Corbyn.
We're seeing it now in exactly the same way happened with TM. It just depends on how long this exposure goes on for and whether it's enough to allow the swing to take effect.
It's nothing to do with Corbyn's personality, it's entirely down to how the media frame him.
The only way you'd get an "electable" labour leader in the way you mean is if the right wing media find their policies palatable like they did with Blair. The idea that you can have an "electable" frontperson with left wing policies is false imo. Anybody with policies like these would be framed in the same way by Murdoch/Dacre/Barclay/etc just like they did with Milliband.
Kerley - the problem with Balls would have been that he would have been blamed in the tory press for the economic meltdown. See how well the lie that labour caused it has stuck. Now you have one of the people who was at the helm of labour during that period standing for PM. The attacks would have been relentless and they would have stuck
He is also not likeable or personable at all. A unpleasant man who would have been an easy target for the tory press
Just my view.
Alex - the point being made is that Labour could have chosen someone who would have been harder to attack. I am not sure who this mythical person would be although of course somone lelse may not have had labour politicians queueing up to give the tory press attack lines.
I just cannot see who this could have been. It had to be somone not tainted by the false lies about the economic meltdown so that rules out every one of the previous cabinet. All the other candidates at the time corbyn was chosen were much worse IMO
I bloody love the self-indulgent, naval-gazing historical revisionism of the Corbynite lefty brigade
Whereas I love your projection of your failings onto others.
Blairism wasnt necessary. The tories were a spent force but for whatever reason Blair decided the best option was to replace them with an identikit. One of the great whatifs would be if John Smith had lived.
There was nothing forcing him to try and out privatise the tories or to out militarise them. Thats a choice he consciously made in order to continue to try and appeal to the hard right.
He decided to take the country rightwards for short term gain which he clearly knew was unsustainable. Hence why he walked away when he did. Something those masturbating furiously over him miss. He knew he had burnt all the capital and the methods he has used were all gone. It was for others to then deal with the mess.
false lies
Surely a false lie is true?
What these elections have proven is that as soon as Corbyn is allowed to be heard and the Tories policies are scrutinised under the broadcasting rules under an election, people swing to Corbyn
FFS no they don't, they swing to Labour not JC. There's a lot of people that can't stand the Tories and will vote Labour regardless of who is leading it. Unfortunately that's not enough people to get a Labour majority in the next GE (nor was it enough in the last one in case you missed that). That's why JC is a problem whether he deserves to be or not, too many people in the centre of politics will be persuaded they can't take a chance on JC so will vote Tory.
This is politics, it does NOT matter if the politician is actually the person the media portray him as and the public therefore assume he is. All that matters is perception in our screwed up world and JC is toxic because of it. No I can't explain how BoJo is less toxic (to the public majority, not me) but somehow he is and sadly that's what will matter at the GE
Personally I think Labour screwed up badly going for Ed Milliband rather than David but I guess we'll never know
Well spotted Moley - you know what I mean!
So it didn’t matter if he go 40% (which he didn’t anyway) or 0.00004%.
Well it did to an extent, things would have been different if she'd had a big majority. But not much.
SO you can endlessly bang on about media barons, the right wing press, Russian bots, Facebook advertising, Cambridge Analytica, the BBC… whatever… but the bottom line is that while all those things go against you, NOT ENOUGH PEOPLE BELIEVE IN JEREMY CORBYN TO ACTUALLY VOTE FOR HIM
But mate those things are linked. Campaigning has an effect. And social media campaigning is very effective.
The tories were a spent force
And how are this lot looking? John Majors government looks like a model of moral integrity and moderate, competent, principled political efficiency compared to this shower. And instead of Blairs huge 1997 landslide (followed by 2 successive re-elections), Grandad is 10-20% behind them in the polls.
Those are the facts. So you can carry on with your self-indulgent historical revisionism if you like, but its frankly laughable.
Still, ministers are now telling us they’ll let us see the report on Russian interference… after the election. So vote first, get some info you need to judge what’s going on during our political campaigns afterwards. Great.
Grieve still spitting feathers about it not be declassified yet, and so not being able to tell us about it. An honourable man… but it’s not honourable men who win these days, is it. Playing dirty and worrying about it after the votes are cast (if at all) is the winning game plan.