Jeremy Corbyn

dragon - Member
I'd forgotten all about him, anyway it is energy policy today. Anyone want to try and understand what the below statement means? It seems high on rhetoric and low on proper details, e.g. will they maintain the local electricity and gas infrastructure?

It clearly says 'supply' and it's not like there aren't precedents for this model (Germany, Denmark). The National Grid can be funded as it is now. As for gas, the whole point is to move away from fossil fuels.

Ah yes Germany with it's dirtier and more expensive electricity, great model 😯

Following UB40’s endorsement of Jeremy Corbyn, Cradle of Filth said they think Owen Smith embodies a more progressive, centrist approach that will resonate with mainstream voters.

That honestly reads like a fictional Daily Mash story. Love it.

That honestly reads like a fictional Daily Mash story

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@martin - brilliant 🙂 The Mash too

I wonder when Corbyn's advisors will understand being an absolute laughing stock isn't helping

Also how long before someone points out UB40 (like most bands) pay themselves via a web of offshore companies to minimise tax ?

Germany, which increased the renewables share of energy production from 6% to 31% since 2001. Almost half the renewable producers Is citizen owned, compared to 6% owned by 'the big four'. It shows that energy co-ops can work, but of course there are problems (the feed in tariffs, for example):

[url= http://www.economist.com/node/21559667 ]Energiewende[/url]

Not as many problems as doing nothing or relying on nuclear IMO.

This could be revealing:

http://www.greatbritishpolitics.co.uk/magazine/304-which-labour-leader-are-you-quiz.html

(Gaitskell here, very pleased with that)

You're a charming, but ultimately useless, soft left icon. You're obsessed with building a fairer society above anything else, but putting non-doms before growth isn't popular.

Spot on! Aprt from the charming bit. (I'm Ed Milliband)

I've noticed the Indy getting more onto Corbyn's side lately...

This could be revealing:

http://www.greatbritishpolitics.co.uk/magazine/304-which-labour-leader-are-you-quiz.html

(Gaitskell here, very pleased with that)

JC here 😳

Milliband 🙂

Harold Wilson apparently

Harold Steptoe, more like.

Gordon Brown 😯
Wasn't expecting that...

Seamus Milne - wasnt expecting that. Was it the tie?

Was it the tie?

You're not [i]one of them[/i], are you?

Anyone want to try and understand what the below statement means?

sounds very good on the surface... it will be interesting to see how that opens out
more interesting than the young conservatives early evening drinking games that are taking place on this thread anyway

Did you guys miss the bit on the membership package when you were kids?
you know.. the REALLY important bit?

the bit where it says 'being a young conservative will seem like a lot of fun to people like you, but please remember: the next morning after the shenanigans at the conference are over and it's time to go home, you have to go back to real life.... and in real life NOBODY likes a tory'

No - football school!!

21:00 [s]Comedy Gold[/s] BBC 1

Good show by Jez today at PMQs.

Agreed. Gave the PM a hammering I thought (as do most of the reports I've read since, with the obvious exception of Jambaliar). Shame it's taken him so long to provide some opposition.

It was almost like he suddenly woke up this morning and realised that it hasn't all been a dream. He is actually the leader of the Labour Party

Familiar ground innit. The grammar school argument has been around for decades.

salad I didn't read any reports, I actually watched PMQ's myself as I do most weeks. Corbyn was much better than usual, or as I said on the other thread not totally hopeless

So now we have #listgate or #deselectionlist, a naughty list of MPs who have been critical of Corbyn or Labour. McDonnell says it was an internal momentum research list, a more cynical interpretation was that its a deliberate target list for momentum activists to "go after"

Telegraph has a funny piece on it, some quotes below but its far more serious than that and one of the named MPs has been on TV to express his anger at being named in this way.

A prominent critic of Mr Corbyn, Ms Phillips’ name featured prominently on the memo issued to journalists last night because, as was reported last year, she told Shadow Health Secretary and close Corbyn ally Diane Abbott to “f*** off”.

As Ms Phillips explained wonderfully at the time: “People said to me they had always wanted to say that to her, and I don’t know why they don’t as the opportunity presents itself every other minute.”

[url= http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/15/trust-jeremy-corbyn-to-single-out-for-condemnation-13-mps-who-la/ ]Linky[/url]

When he was initially elected I couldn't imagine anyone I would be less likely to vote for. But I have to say, that even though my politics has moved to the centre right from the centre left over the last ten years, I've been really impressed by how Corbyn has shaped up over the last few months.

I think he gave a really impressive performance on Question Time and his stance on Grammar Schools has been really good. I'm not saying I would but I no longer see voting for him as impossible.

[url= http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/15/john-mcdonnell-welcomed-the-financial-crash-and-called-himself-a/ ]I'm a marxist[/url]

Well at least he's cleared up any misunderstanding.

@efht indeed, how electable do we think a Marxist Chancellor is ? All profit comes from exploiting the workers via low pay. Who would want to run/start-up/retain a business in the UK with McDonnell running the economy. Also if you link to the orginal longer length speech he speaks about opposing the Labour leadership and about how he never agrees with them. What goes around comes around.

McDonnell and Cambell's little truce lasted about a question and perhaps a half on QT tonight. Not a great advert for HM Oppo

Well at least he's cleared up any misunderstanding.

I don't know why saying he's a Marxist is such big deal. Marx was an economist who theorised that industrial capitalism would collapse in on itself. If you subscribe to those theories then it's logical that you would see the financial crash as a vindication of your position. The trouble is that people can't make the simple distinction between communist and marxist.

how electable do we think a Marxist Chancellor is

Is a marxist chancellor any less of an oxymoron than one who believes in perpetual economic growth as dictated by the free-market capitalists?

If you subscribe to those theories then it's logical that you would see the financial crash as a vindication of your position.

And you would be wrong.

Still as unsuitable as JmcD is for the role, he is not alone in his misunderstanding of the causes of the financial crisis nor in the reason for current economic weakness - you can add previous Tory and Labour CoEs to that list. We still get in wrong, hence the wrong main policy instrument (saved by the partially correct accidental one)

How many days until the coronation?

And you would be wrong.

Completely agree, the financial crash had bugger all to do with Marxism, but it did show that capitalism is not as inevitable or indestructible as the capitalists would have everyone believe, so in that sense the marxists would still use it in their defence.

And they would still be wrong

- not least because they would be ignoring the heavy hand of the state (among many actors) in the run-up to the crisis.

And they would then fail to recognise that flooding the economy with liquidity and a time of ultra low interest rates was and is (now) a very bad idea - still as above, they are not alone in misunderstanding this.

Everyone is equally wrong - great!

And they would still be wrong

I doubt they're bothered about that. They'll use whatever evidence they can find to demonstrate the fallibility of capitalism irrespective of whether it's directly related to Marx. It always seems to me that socialists are more interested in 'smashing the system' than building something better, which is why I've never really identified as one. It's more of a religion than a practical way of organising society.

In defence of McDonnell though, every time I see him speak he talks of policy and reform and seems quite open to new ideas (universal income for example), yet he has to spend a lot of his time defending himself against ridiculous slurs the like of which Soubry delivered on QT. I have no doubt he's a political bruiser behind the scenes, but he does seem to be genuinely interested in doing something positive.

Everyone is equally wrong - great!

Many a true word....

....you can see from the current policy mix, that the powers that be (here and abroad) don't understand what is going on.

Still when the inevitable happens and people blame economists for not predicting it, make note that many do understand what the root causes, why the current solutions (and those proposed by JmcD) are wrong and most importantly what to do about it/make money from it.

The Big Short2 coming to cinemas near you.

I doubt they're bothered about that.

True, its the post-truth era after all

I have no doubt he's a political bruiser behind the scenes,

😀 Dirty business politics!!

It always seems to me that socialists are more interested in 'smashing the system' than building something better

Rubbish.

Their ideas might not work or be sensible, but they are all about building something better. It's all they talk about in my experience.

better

In who's mind?

It's all they talk about in my experience.

I must have met different ones 🙂

I remember back in my politico days I used to spend a lot of time arguing with socialist workers and the like and all I ever heard from them was stuff like 'capitalist pigs', 'bourgeoise apologists', 'come the revolution', 'first up against the wall' etc. When I used to ask about what would happen after this glorious revolution, all I ever got was the same old discredited soviet stuff.

Ah. Socialist workers party people are to socialists what the national front are to Tories. Nutters, in other words.

Socialist workers party people are to socialists what the national front are to Tories

Well I suppose it depends on what you define as a 'socialist'. I've always adopted the classical definition of someone who believes in an all-powerful state organising and distributing the means of production. That's a long way from the vanilla social democrats who constitute the labour party, a lot of whom are just benevolent capitalists.

Yes it's a broad section of the political spectrum. To me it just means the leftmost part of mainstream.

Todays FT article on [i]What next for Labour?[/i] is not a bad read

There's being elected and being right. If you want to argue that JC, JM et al are unlikely to be elected by the great British public who were so deluded in the Brexit vote, I may well agree with you. But arguing that they are not right is another matter.

There's being elected and being right. If you want to argue that JC, JM et al are unlikely to be elected by the great British public who were so deluded in the Brexit vote, I may well agree with you. But arguing that they are not right is another matter.