LongGame

😀

Theories?

Doesn’t he want it anymore?

Whatever his politics, he’s a career politician, he wants to be PM.

This is his only shot, the only shot any of them get and it’s a long road from party member, to nominee, to nominee to a role you might actually win, to councillor, to nominee MP, to nominee of a constituency you might actually win, to MP etc etc etc. I think like a lot of them, for all the good reasons they want the big job, they also want the legacy. Better to be Blair than Kinnock (I bet he never uses those words out loud!).

I’m not sure if he thinks he could ever be PM, in more normal times it would have been a landslide loss in 2010 and they’d have sacked him but he lost better than anyone really expected and couple that with a fairly Iron grip on the Party (if not his fellow MPs) he’s going to carry on until his party loses faith in him.

I fancy he sees a snap election in the Autumn when Boris realises he hasn’t got the numbers for a deal or no deal.The sad thing is that he and his fans seem so hell bent on maintaining the purity of their beliefs that they’d rather argue with former Labour voters like me (If I hear “show me in the manifesto blah blah blah” completely missing the point) and lose than accept that a Centric Party Leader with a broader appeal.

If Labour wanted to gain control of the Commons and form a Government, they could ask him to step down, appoint a leader with greater, broader appeal and form a manifesto around them. To quote Bonnie Tyler, voters are holding out for a Hero. An Obama-like, calm, measured, reassuring, statesmanlike.

Maybe that’s why he’s holding on, he’s a real eurosceptic, always has been, maybe the idea of a Centric Pro-Euro Centre-Left Candidate at the head of a Labour government is more unappealing than than a Hard-Right Tory one, maybe, just maybe Boris will be so bad we’ll all beg to be Socialists.

Cranberry, OOB and Binners are all Mark Francois and I collect my £5.

I’m not sure if he thinks he could ever be PM, in more normal times it would have been a landslide loss in 2010 and they’d have sacked him

Be a bit harsh sacking him for someone elses choices.

(If I hear “show me in the manifesto blah blah blah” completely missing the point) .

Could you elaborate on that?

and lose than accept that a Centric Party Leader with a broader appeal

The flaw here is that “centrist” and “broader appeal” really means appeal to a small number of swing voters and sod the core constituencies.
It also is a evershifting window as the right move further right and they follow.
Thats why mildly leftwing policies are now claimed to be “far left”.
Its also why a large number of people feel completely disenfranchised and vote for lunatic ideas since, sod it, why not. Might end up crap but so has voting for the centrists and might end up better.

Doesn’t he want it anymore?

Whatever his politics, he’s a career politician, he wants to be PM.

Hearing John McDonnells version of how he was selected as the token leftie candidate I was pretty certain he didn’t want it and he showed no sign of wanting it at the time.

If he *did* want it that would simply explain everything. Maybe ocams razor does have the right answer here.

just maybe Boris will be so bad we’ll all beg to be Socialists.

I wouldn’t bet against that.

Cranberry, OOB and Binners are all Mark Francois and I collect my £5.

Yeah, because anyone who can see the glaringly obvious… that Corbyn is, and always has been, a totally useless, placard-waving sixth form protester, completely unsuited to being leader, is a member of the ERG and rabid right-winger.

The Irony of that statement (and yes, I know that lefties are really good at enjoying irony) is that Corbyn, as a lifelong rabid Brexiteer, has much in common with the delightful Mr Francois

Anyway… seems like Jezza has seen the threat of Boris and a no-deal Brexit and has lept into action

Jeremy Corbyn responds to renewed threat of no-deal Brexit with marathon jam-making session

(If I hear “show me in the manifesto blah blah blah” completely missing the point) .

Could you elaborate on that?

It’s become a bit of a circular argument. A former-Labour voter like me might say “I’m not a fan of Corbyn’s politics because he’s a Socalist, and I’m not”

Usually one of the more vocal Corbynistas will argue “show me in the Manifesto these socialist policies then?”

Well Manifestos are usually fairly broad you can argue over the points within, but that’s not the issue, the issue is his entire career has been based around a strong democratic socialist belief of shared ownership and protectionism. The ultimate goal of this movement is the ending of capitalism, whilst unchecked capitalism is always bad, consider the idea of a socialist ‘utopia’ doesn’t appeal to many.

So it comes down to trust, consider his voting record on the EU, usually at odds with his party he voted against joining, he’s voted against every bit of pro-EU legislation since joining, and pretty much checked out on the run up to the referendum. But when it suits, he can sort of sound pro-eu. Only weeks ago, they, finally, agreed they would push for a 2nd ref and campaign to remain, a few hours later we discovered that was only in the case of a Tory deal or no-deal… today however his puppet master John McDonald is hinting they might vote with a Tory deal and Corbyn is taunting Boris that people don’t trust him to deliver Brexit.

Frankly, I don’t trust him, a 70 year old career politician who, when suits, will make vague promises to do something he’s apposed his entire career, only to fall back on the small print when it comes to take action.

and lose than accept that a Centric Party Leader with a broader appeal

The flaw here is that “centrist” and “broader appeal” really means appeal to a small number of swing voters and sod the core constituencies.
It also is a evershifting window as the right move further right and they follow.
Thats why mildly leftwing policies are now claimed to be “far left”.
Its also why a large number of people feel completely disenfranchised and vote for lunatic ideas since, sod it, why not. Might end up crap but so has voting for the centrists and might

Why not? I know it’s not very socialist, but in Politics there are only winners and losers. The ‘core constituencies’ will vote Labour, no matter what. you win elections by winning over the marginals and swing voters. Stay in the bunker until the rest of the UK are ready to dig potatoes in collective farms, or accept some people actually want the chance to get ahead in life at the same time as helping those who can’t and actually be able to do something about it.

Well, with the trigger ballot system now in place you can be sure that a lot of previously vocal dissenting MPs will be winding their necks in nicely. Listening to the party.

In other news I see Jo Swinson has joined the 6th form by tabling a pointless confidence motion. I look forward to a monty python picture on the other thread.

Massive crowds at Jezza’s placardfest tonight. Yuge. Bigly.

and lose than accept that a Centric Party Leader with a broader appeal
The flaw here is that “centrist” and “broader appeal” really means appeal to a small number of swing voters and sod the core constituencies.
It also is a evershifting window as the right move further right and they follow.
Thats why mildly leftwing policies are now claimed to be “far left”.
Its also why a large number of people feel completely disenfranchised and vote for lunatic ideas since, sod it, why not. Might end up crap but so has voting for the centrists and might

Did you read the articles I posted in the Johnson thread dissonance?

The leader of the left, adored for his “authenticity” and destined for cult status, saw himself as a fighter for radical change. His transformed party was the biggest of its kind in Europe, and bursting with youthful vigour.

On the other side of the political spectrum lay the far right and its sinisterly absurd demagogues, thugs and ideological lunacies. Naturally, the leader of the left regarded these people with contempt and viewed his party as the only authentic resistance to them. For strategic reasons, however, he was willing to help them achieve a key part of their dream, which he shared. The dream was to break the loathsome old liberal order. Such a break, reasoned the leader, would create conditions under which the left would sweep to power and transform the country for the better.

Any similarities to Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party are far from coincidental. But the leader in question is Ernst Thälmann, chief of the German Communist Party (KPD) in the final years of the Weimar Republic. Thälmann is a tragic and disastrous figure. Dogmatic, passionate, stubborn and stupid, the former Hamburg dockworker divided the left and became one of the right’s first victims. Within weeks of Hitler’s takeover in 1933, he, along with thousands of other communists, was arrested and tortured. Unlike many of them, he survived in prison for 11 years before being murdered on Hitler’s orders in 1944.

In the 1930s, fear of Bolshevism persuaded many middle-class Germans to support Hitler (and led the Catholic Church to throw in its lot with fascism in Italy, Spain and elsewhere). These days, fear of Corbyn buttresses the worst Tory government in living memory. Worse, although we again face danger from the far right, the far left refuses to work with potential allies in the centre and centre left. Again. Instead, it spends much of its energy attacking them. The obsessive hatred for “Blairites”, “red Tories” and “centrists” is reminiscent of the KPD’s hatred of “social fascists” during the years when Nazism could have been stopped. If the phrase is new to you, you’d be forgiven for thinking it signified some form of fascism. It didn’t. “Social fascism” was the communist term for social democrats – and it helped pave the way to catastrophe.

With hindsight, his relaxed attitude to the threat of Hitler seems astonishingly foolish. For example, as Russel Lemmons shows in his 2013 book about Thälmann, Hitler’s Rival, when the Nazis made their electoral breakthrough in the Reichstag elections of 1930 (winning 18 per cent of the vote to become the second-largest party) Thälmann insisted that if Hitler came to power he was sure to fail and this would drive Nazi voters into the arms of the KPD.

https://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/2018/10/how-left-enabled-fascism

Borrowing heavily from the baleful and half-baked ideas of populist theorist Chantel Mouffe – as well as from the Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt – Corbynism’s division of the world into ‘friends’ and ‘enemies’ requires regular heresy hunts in order to sustain itself.

Moreover, capitalism itself is viewed not as a material system of production, but rather as an unfolding moral-religious story in which one side – the ‘99%’, the working class, the ‘oppressed’ – is regarded uncritically as innately ‘good’, while blame for society’s ills is placed squarely on the shoulders of ‘them’ – the bankers, the ‘1%’, and in the darker reaches of the Corbyn movement, a sinister cabal of wealthy Jews.

As we have discovered over the past three-and-a-half years, this deeply personalised interpretation of capitalism easily lends itself to conspiracy theories about the malevolence of particular groups and individuals. Once this group of permanent outsiders is required to define an ideology, the search for enemies continues without end. As populist governments around the world have demonstrated, the triumph over one adversary invariably necessitates the creation of another, as well as the never-ending expansion of categories such as ‘fascist’ to include anyone with whom the party or movement disagrees.

As orthodox religion fades away in the developed world, it has been replaced by a Manichean style of politics that retains the moral fervour of its progenitor, as well as its teleological faith in progress.

These competing tendencies – in particular Corbynism and Blue Labour – hope to ride the ascendant wave of anti-liberalism for electoral gain. In this they are unwittingly aiding and abetting the very nationalist forces that – in a familiar story – will turn their sights on the workers’ movement once the formal niceties and civility of liberal democracy have been dispensed with.

Corbyn’s intolerant populism

I’m experiencing deja vu. And it’s not because I was present in 1930s Germany.

I reposted it because I want to know whether any of you actually have a coherent response to those articles as opposed to either:

A) Going silent.

B) Calling people Tories or Zionists.

C) Stating that it was them mean bullying Tories that started the populism. As if just being the one to carry it on and escalate it makes you morally superior and less responsible.

You’re wasting your time.

If there was a leadership election tomorrow the sixth formers who now make up the Labour membership would carry on ignoring the real world and vote the bearded messiah in yet again.

As he’s done so brilliantly so far in delivering their socialist utopia

But who needs reality?

Just keep reading the ‘Red Labour’ tweets and everything is just brilliant. Especially the proposals for rural bus services

Ideological purity is all that matters here comrade

… and rural bus services, obviously

Game-changer

Every political commentator seems to think that Boris will call a snap election

Let’s face it, with Jeremy Corbyn as (allegedly) the labour leader, who wouldn’t?

It’s a no brainier

So the promised socialist utopia may end up looking like another 5 years of Tory rule?

Fantastic! Something to look forward to, eh?

FFS!!

I used to think that I was reasonably intelligent, but I’ve come to the conclusion that I must be fairly stupid. I recognise the words that some people are using, but I have no idea what they are trying to say.
Binners: is that your username because you like to trash talk? You are forever belittling Corbyn for his impotence, but I cannot remember once any suggestions you have made of how or what he could do. I cannot remember any previous opposition party that was able to deliver anything, they are not in government.

So the promised socialist utopia may end up looking like another 5 years of Tory rule?

Says the man who’s going to vote Libdem in a labour-Tory marginal.

"Just arrange a huge rally, it will be like the old days, thousands will come to cheer me." pic.twitter.com/2o9rJKNn9B

— 势头结束了 (@CroissDelivBoy) July 25, 2019

😂

You are forever belittling Corbyn for his impotence, but I cannot remember once any suggestions you have made of how or what he could do.

You do appear to be struggling a bit with the words because for page after page we’ve been crying out for Corbyn to reflect the opinion of members, voters, and MPs and come out whole-heartedly for remain. 8:10, r4 ‘let’s put an end to this Tory experiment to unite their party and sort out their internal problems with Europe by irrevocably damaging our country’s economy and standing around the world, and have a general election or a people’s vote, wherein Labour will campaign for remain. The money spent on this vanity project already could have built a number of new hospitals, homed the homeless, and fed the hungry. This has to stop. Labour, and our other friends in parliament, can and will stop it’.
There you go, I’ve written it for him. FFS.

Cranberry, OOB and Binners are all Mark Francois and I collect my £5.

Ahh, but this is socailism, my friend, red in tooth and claw, with a top rate of tax of 80% and a surcharge on “unearned” income of 16%.*

If you’d like, I’d be happy to meet up with you and hand over the remaining 20p in person and explain how the Brain Drain happened in the UK and the damage it did?

* like the last time Extremist Labour were in power

Yeah… pretty much that.

Cheers Del

Its hardly like we’ve been being cryptic about it. Corbyn, with his endless fence-sitting and procrastination and if, if, if, if, if… caveats about supporting a second referendum, or supporting remain are draining labour support.

And rightfully so

Corbyn came in saying he would restore democracy to the party. Well, the party’s MP’s, members and voters are pro-remain by a huge margin. He completely refuses to represent this, therefore the man is a liar and a fraud.

So the promised socialist utopia may end up looking like another 5 years of Tory rule?

Says the man who’s going to vote Libdem in a labour-Tory marginal.

See above as to why millions of us did just that. I simply won’t vote for a pro-Brexit party, because a Corbyn Labour government, led by an arch-Brexiteer, would still pursue a red unicorn Brexit, irrespective of the opinions of its MP’s, members and voters, so we’d still be ****ed!

There are millions like me, who have been fooled once, and then subsequently had “80% of voters supported pro-brexit parties” constantly thrown back in our faces.

We won’t be fooled again!

The Corbyn project think they are on to a winner, they will get the Brexit they have long campaigned for and be able to say “it’s a Tory Brexit and our Brexit would have been so much better” whilst distancing themselves from any blame for the post Brexit fallout

Cake and eat it in a true Boris manner

Boris beat Tragic Grandpa likea ginger step-child yesterday.

If it wasn’t for his support for terrorists, the mad mullahs, and incompetent economics, I would have felt bad for him.

Magic Grandad never got the better of the personality-vacuum that was the Maybot.

He was the council health and safety inspector to her middle manager in an insurance firm.

Boris must be rubbing his hands with glee at the prospect of dropping jokes about the IRA, Chairman Mao, antisemitism and Hamas every 30 seconds.

And when faced with it, Jezza just does his surly teenager look and never has a retort because he’s utterly humourless, terminally unimaginative and is clearly totally incapable of thinking on his feet

He got away with it, just, while his opponent was exactly the same, but I suspect the school bully is about to take great pleasure in repeatedly flushing his head down the toilet.

^^^^ sadly, this

Again, sadly, Corbyn can look forward to more Wednesday lunchtime beatings like that. Let’s hope he can punch his way out of trouble with some more compelling questions from Beryl from Ashton-under-Lyne who is concerned about fly-tipping.

Swirlies all round for the opposition front bench. Mac The Knife almost stormed out yesterday because BoJo pointed out that an extremist fired him for being too extremist.

It is going to be beautiful to watch.

He’s going to get Bitch-slapped all over the commons, week in, week out. And all that means is loads of TV shots of that narrow-eyed peevish face he does where he looks like Steptoe.

I don’t even think he cares. All PMQ’s is about is him getting his ten second shouty soundbite bit in, which Seamas edits down and the Corbynite drones then Tweet out to all the sixth formers

Then back to the bunker until next week.

It’s going to be carnage though. The media are going to love it! Cheering Tories with rows of glum faces sat despairingly behind grandad

Sadly, it’s just going to lead to the bunker mentality becoming even more entrenched

Well Manifestos are usually fairly broad you can argue over the points within, but that’s not the issue

Well they are a good starting point to show the limitations within which they will operate.
Its interesting tracking that declared fact he is a democratic socialist back to a somewhat vague quote.

the issue is his entire career has been based around a strong democratic socialist belief of shared ownership and protectionism

Apart from its unclear how far he takes it eg socialism vs a mixed economy with socialist bias. The shared ownership mostly applies to the infrastructure companies. The Employee ownership fund is probably the most radical of the ideas although even then not overly so and, as much as anything, seems mostly about pushing the German approach of active worker engagement in the business. Not overly convinced about it but is the sort of question needed around develoing the economy.

today however his puppet master John McDonald is hinting they might vote with a Tory deal

I thought McCluskey was supposed to be the puppet master. Although I am not sure its much of a hint really. “look at” followed by i cant see it happening. So not shutting down the discussion before it is seen but not showing much faith in it.

Frankly, I don’t trust him, a 70 year old career politician

Fair enough. Although which politicans do you trust?

Why not? I know it’s not very socialist, but in Politics there are only winners and losers.

Actually its a tad more complicated than that. There are some interesting articles in the economist etc about how the right having dominated for so long have lost their way in pushing policies and are now being forced to react rather than lead.
Thats without going onto.

The ‘core constituencies’ will vote Labour, no matter what. you win elections by winning over the marginals and swing voters

Apart from you end up with a drop in vote with those people not voting feeling disenfranchised and potentially lashing out both politically and more directly. A perfect example is, ermm, brexit. You know where some people voted out just for a change because they couldnt see the difference between the parties despite one reemerging.
Its a short term tactic and one which is horrendously damaging to the country as a whole. Two countries were leaders in the triangulate policy. Just look at them now.

or accept some people actually want the chance to get ahead in life at the same time

Sorry I wasnt aware I wasnt accepting it. This seems to be a repeat of the inane trope pushed by the tories fairly successfully whilst skipping the fact their policies actually reduce the ability of people to do so, unless they are already ahead.
Maybe I want an unreachable ideal but I want a system where we have a proper representation of the most points on the political scale since all have their pros and cons and represent some in society.
I want Labour to be the traditional party pushing workers rights.
I want Conservatives to be the traditional party pushing the traditional conservatives views.
I would like the Lib Dems, Greens and other parties to have better representation to provide other views.

The pushing of the “centrists” position is horrendously corrosive to the political environment. It removes any real choice and whichever side captures the position drags it rapidly their way until we have a hard reset with all the unpleasantness that involves.

I reposted it because I want to know whether any of you actually have a coherent response to those articles as opposed to either:

I consider engaging with you about as worthwhile as Binners.
That piece really wasnt that interesting since it showed absolutely no sense of proportion placing the blame all on one side (the point where it had to admit that possibly the “centrist” equivalent did bear some blame for a couple of massacres it quickly pushes into history). The casual comparison of a Stalin controlled party vs Labour nowadays is curious.
A more balanced approach would find both the SPD and KDP to be to blame and not absolve the centrists of all blame. Looking at how, for example, they chose to support the equivalent of austerity measures for example.
There does seem to be an odd belief amongst “moderates” that they should be allowed to launch rabid attack after rabid attack on the more left wing part of the party and do their best to undermine it but any response to this is met with horror and concern.

Binners: is that your username because you like to trash talk? You are forever belittling Corbyn for his impotence, but I cannot remember once any suggestions you have made of how or what he could do.

Resign?

I don’t post much on the Corbyn thread but I agree with much of what binners says. It’s pretty funny and largely true. I am assuming Labour wish to be elected into power sometime within the next decade. They need to drop Corbyn. He is useless.

A good article by Johnathan Freedland on what Labour needs to do. What the Tories have done – dump an ineffectual leader and unite behind an unambiguous position

Boris Johnson is uniting leave. Labour must do the same for remain

It wont happen, of course. Corbyn is virtually invisible at the best of times, with parliament now in recess I doubt we’ll hear a peep out of him.

As pointed out in that article, what’s. Needed here is decisive leadership. That’s one thing that you can be absolutely certain we won’t be getting with Corbyn.

Just more hiding in plain site, endless dithering and fence sitting.

The Tories are clearly gearing up for an election, behind a rabidly pro-Brexit right wing agenda. The Labour Party needs to be opposing that as it will be hugely damaging to the people it is supposed to represent

It won’t, of course. Because Corbyn has clearly either forgotten that that’s his job, or like the eternal sixth former he is, he simply can’t be bothered. Too much like hard work

That’ll be dismissed because “YouGov” but there’s a similar result from Deltapoll.

Westminster voting intention:

CON: 30% (+10)
LAB: 25% (-1)
LDEM: 18% (+2)
BREX: 14% (-10)

via @DeltapollUK

— Britain Elects (@britainelects) July 27, 2019

Comres and Opinium have it much closer.

I’m surprised labours numbers are still that high!

Johnson has a dilemma, his honeymoon period will be short-lived, look at May, Brown etc & Johnson has to figure out a way to get a Brexit ‘win’ or he’ll be in trouble, but a GE is risky, even if his most favourable poll only has him 10pts ahead.

Well, whoever thought that this was the week for Labour SM teams to focus on the new LibDem leader, and for Momentum SM teams to focus on deselecting Labour MPs… only time will tell if that was a wise move.

Th result could be very different if Boris doesn’t get Brexit through and there is a general election as the polls above are clearly showing a swing from Brexit party back to Conservative. If he screws up Brexit (which he will as parliament won’t allow his No Deal, then expect the Brexit party to get their 10% back.

Really @Kerley ?

“Parliament has stopped me from taking the UK out of the EU, without a deal, despite your clear instruction that we must Leave, and Leave we must. So, I ask you, at this election, to vote for your Conservative Brexit candidate to save our very democracy, and the independence of this, our, your, Great Britain. I thank you.”

Corbyn has made a rare foray out of the bunker to ‘clarify’ Labours position on Brexit. Must have been confusing for him.

He stated labour will campaign for remain in the case of a no-deal Brexit, but when pressed on what they would do if elected he deferred to the standard Brexity red unicorns nonsense about renegotiating the deal with the EU, then finished with the rather telling…

“Investment, jobs, trade and equality – both in or out of the EU.”

Jeremy Corbyn says Labour will campaign to remain in a second referendum in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

But on how they would campaign if there was a Labour negotiated deal, he says "We have to get into power first".

Read more here: https://t.co/AOujv0J6tM pic.twitter.com/pLIJMY5Sau

— Sophy Ridge on Sunday (@RidgeOnSunday) July 28, 2019

Once a brexiteer, always a Brexiteer

kelvin

Subscriber
Really @Kerley ?

“Parliament has stopped me from taking the UK out of the EU, without a deal, despite your clear instruction that we must Leave, and Leave we must. So, I ask you, at this election, to vote for your Conservative Brexit candidate to save our very democracy, and the independence of this, our, your, Great Britain. I thank you.”

You think there will be a split in the Conservative Party? Phillip Hammond, Ken Clarke, Grieve et al all kicked out? I don’t think the above speech will pass muster.

Yes, some of those will simply not stand, others will be deselected, or be so small in number as to be virtually ignored. Or, even more confrontationally, their seat targeted by a Brexit Party Company candidate with support from “Conservative Brexit” party members and government ministers.

Anyway, the point is, there are ways for Johnson to look “pure” as regards Brexit, to win over those currently voting Brexit Party (including his members) even if we haven’t left… as long as he (and the papers that support him) successfully portray the delay in leaving as the fault of others.

Corbyn will be painted as one of those others, even if he his promising his own red unicorns still.