Jeremy Corbyn

What are you talking about ? Have you read something by a pro-war Blair fan ? What makes you think that Robin Cook’s career was coming to a close when he resigned ?

The tiny amount I know about Cook comes from his book, Point of Departure which I read some years ago. What little recollection I have is of a man on a downward trajectory, increasingly marginalized, outside of Blair’s (tiny) cohort of trustees and likely to be reshuffled at the next opportunity.

That recollection may well be wrong and, although I thought it was excellent, I won’t be re-reading PoD to check my memory.

In other news I might also have to revise my original view of Heseltine’s resignation. Rather than looking for an excuse to resign Wikipedia hints he may have simply had a spontaneous strop during a cabinet meeting after some pretty serious provocation from Brittan and Thatcher. Having said that I’m sure I heard a conflicting view on one of Peter Hennessy’s Reflections shows from someone a bit closer to the facts than Wikipedia.

IIRC he agreed to tow the cabinet line but asked to be able to maintain his previous views – ie say he was going with the collective decsion rather than change his view this was declined

He is then rumoured to have walked out of cabinet saying he went to the loo and walked out of downing street and told the media he had resigned and left. Apparently cabinet had to watch the news to be told

I recall watching some mockumentary on this years ago for A level politics

A class I shared with the political collosus that is Tim Farron[ pre god but was a lib dem]

He was one of the main cheerleaders for illegal military intervention in Kosovo, again for military intervention in Sierra Leone.

I’ve just skim read the Sierra Leone bit of “Blair’s Wars” by John Kampfner and it looks to me like Cook ran the Sierra Leone show largely without Blair’s involvement. Same with subsequent action in Freetown which was largely at the behest of Cook and Hoon.

Looks to me like in Sierra Leone the UK was broadly in the right.

…increasingly marginalized, outside of Blair’s (tiny) cohort of trustees and likely to be reshuffled at the next opportunity.

Well he certainly wasn’t a natural blairite, I don’t think many people would dispute that. Robin Cook probably represents the closest Blair ever got to having an inclusive cabinet beyond the clones that were 100% guaranteed to be yes men and women.

Even Thatcher for all her faults had very inclusive cabinets representing every wing and opinion of her party, something which eventually was to be instrumental to her downfall.

Blair on the hand was a cowardly control freak who held onto power with a Stalinist grip and demanded total personal loyalty.

That doesn’t however equate that there were no possibility of political advances after Blair. Cook resigned because he knew that the attack on Iraq would be immoral, unjustified, and based on lies, not because he thought his career was coming to a close anyway.

Cook took a principled stand, I think he should be given credit for that, specially as it is fairly rare in modern UK politics. Usually politicians resign in disgrace, such as Peter Mandelson who excelled himself by resigning in disgrace not just once but twice.

Whatever his career trajectory – Cook showed real conviction and principle. Much better that free riding and sniping from the back benchies.

Tarzan, was not in the same league. His motivation was far more personal.

Corbyn’s conviction has (as predicted) either evaporated, been spun or ended up in the farce that is deterrent. The Economist, which has gone Panto itself on the coverage of Corbyn, nevertheless ends the Bagshot article today with the sensible conclusion along the lines of – if wasn’t for the fact that we need a genuinely strong opposition, the whole thing would be laughable.

Politics on both sides of the wall has descended to real lows. No wonder foreigners find it all so perplexing/entertaining. It matters less to them.

Corbyn’s conviction has (as predicted) either evaporated, been spun or ended up in the farce that is deterrent.

You saying it so don’t make it so. Corbyn has been on the receiving end of a tidal wave of criticism – mostly uninformed and misguided. When that subsides and policies get fleshed out the public will have a chance to make their minds up.

He has been in an unpleasant wave true – a lot from his own camp and team. But the spinners can spin that away in the new world of straight talking, honest politics. At least, the disagreements are only on minor topics such as defence, tax, Europe, infrastructure etc. nothing too serious!!

I am stunned to hear that Corbyn has not won over THM What next you still dislike the SNP ?

Lovely to see some more of that non biased politically commentary repeated above. Heartwarming as you might say.

Out of interest how many pages will we manage of the STW tories going nope I still dont like him or his policies?
Its barely even a discussion this.

@thm

Whatever his career trajectory – Cook showed real conviction and principle. Much better that free riding and sniping from the back benchies.

Yeah, I wasn’t suggesting it was in any way false. More that it’s easier to resign on a genuine principle if you know you’re not moving up the tree and probably will be reshuffled in a few months anyway.

@el

Cook took a principled stand, I think he should be given credit for that, specially as it is fairly rare in modern UK politics.

As of a few weeks back it’s become incredibly common, 7-8 went a few weeks back purely over principle. They can’t all have been sacked.

Watching HIGNFY and the STRONG MESSAGE HERE clip was still funny!!

As of a few weeks back it’s become incredibly common, 7-8 went a few weeks back purely over principle. They can’t all have been sacked.

I don’t know what you’re talking about, are you referring to the blairites who turned down jobs they weren’t offered?

I can assure you that those who resigned from the shadow cabinet before Corbyn had even formed it were not motivated by “principles”. Blairite and principles don’t go hand in hand.

Besides the fact that most wouldn’t have been offered a senior job by Corbyn (I mean Tristram Hunt? Liz Kendal? Seriously??) they made the threat before Corbyn had been elected in a futile attempt to stop him winning.

And you accuse Robin Cook of jumping before being pushed ? ffs

As of a few weeks back it’s become incredibly common, 7-8 went a few weeks back purely over principle. They can’t all have been sacked.

I don’t know what you’re talking about

[/quote]

Jamie Reed
Rachel Reeves
Liz Kendall
Yvette Cooper
Emma Reynolds
Chuka Umunna
Chris Leslie
Tristram Hunt

“Your boys took a hell of a beating…”

See my previous reply.

Btw……Chris Leslie 😆

I can assure you that John McDonnell wasn’t made Shadow Chancellor because Chris Leslie “resigned” from his job!

EDIT : And btw none of those were cabinet ministers when they “resigned” so there is little comparison with resigning from high office.

I find your comparison between those people and Robin Cook’s famous and highly respected resignation from high office frankly quite insulting to the man. Still, you’ve already put a slur on his character by claiming that Cook only resigned because Blair was going to sack him, despite offering no evidence, so I guess this is no worse.

Tory party conference aiming for the low hanging fruit of Labour weakness. Of the three keywords the first one is SECURITY. The Labour Party and supporters on here are going to have their work cut out to pursued swing voters on this issue. Next up is STABILITY, plays to their “long term economic plan” tag line and finally OPPORTUNITY which is a traditional winning story for them focusing on aspiration which is a key weakness historically for Labour with their wealth redistribution message

scotroutes – Member
The Labour Party aren’t allowed to use that word now.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13798664.Labour_MPs_told__don_t_mention__Scotland___talk_about_Scottish_towns_and_cities_instead/

Divide and conquer innit! Bloody ZM politicians! 🙄

edit: Newcastle was invaded by the Scots yesterday for the Rugby World Cup … never seen so many Scots in one place before … 😆

scotroutes – Member
‘epicyclo » looks like he’s falling flat in S******d though.’
The Labour Party aren’t allowed to use that word now.

Let’s think? How could Labour lose even more votes in the country whose name must not be said?

Do their strategists moonlight as England rugby coaches?

N.B. What a brilliant own goal. 🙂

Tory party conference aiming for the low hanging fruit of Labour weakness. [jambaworld fantasy deleted]

Meanwhile Tories desperately struggling to cover up 2bn hole in the NHS budget.

Meanwhile Tories desperately struggling to cover up 2bn hole in the NHS budget.

This is chump change on a £110B+ annual budget – not least when the most recent report reckoned that the staff are defrauding it to the tune of £1.5B a year via payroll fraud and the total cost of fraud is up to £6B a year.

http://www.nationalhealthexecutive.com/Health-Care-News/fraud-could-be-draining-almost-6bn-a-year-from-the-nhs

Remember John McTernan’s reaction when Zoe Williams talked of ‘magic money tree’.
Here’s her article on it:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/04/printing-money-jeremy-corbyn-quantitative-easing-peoples-qe?CMP=share_btn_tw

The end para is q good, but errors strewn elsewhere. Kind of proves her own conclusion though 😉

It is amazing how the whole ‘printing money’ thing gets repeated though in relation to JC, when ‘printing money’ is going on the whole time.
It’s what you invest that money into that is the key.

The shadow chancellor has said that it’s for infrastructure – designed to promote growth. That’s the part that needs explaining – how this investment in infrastructure will create growth.
Instead everyone focusses on the ‘printing money’ angle and we never even get a proper debate about the strategy.

In reality there is very little difference between the two types of QE – that is true.

We have a government running a highly unorthodox monetary policy and a relatively loose fiscal policy (albeit not as loose as before). So they are stealing off savers, intervening in so-called free markets (no really) to deliberately misprice risk and encourage otherwise poor risk decision making while increasing the level of debt.

And this is so-called austerity economics???? They will be deemed “responsible” next 😉

Yes. People bleating on about printing money going to turn us into Zimbabwe.

Except we already printed a shitload of money, and inflation is at a record, even damaging low. That just goes to show that you can do it without wrecking inflation.

All Corbyn said was that IF this happens again, it’d be better to give the money to people (via infrastructure projects and jobs*), so that they can spend it, pay off their personal debt and the money would end up back in the banks anyway, rather than just give it straight to the banks.

* although they could have just handed it out.. that would have been interesting, and a hell of a party. And a vote winner…

EDIT just worked it out.. £14k for every household in the UK… blimey..

The shadow chancellor has said that it’s for infrastructure – designed to promote growth. That’s the part that needs explaining – how this investment in infrastructure will create growth.

Over the years, I wonder how often this type of investment has actually paid back for itself?

Given how we almost continually run a deficit, one has to wonder…

Over the years, I wonder how often this type of investment has actually paid back for itself?

In the past it hasn’t had to pay back for itself.
If you’ve got food/agriculture, roads, rail, hospitals, social housing, etc, what more do you need?

It’s just that we’re in this capitalist frame of mind, where unless we can prove that we’ve all got more money in our pockets we’re not interested.

The Telegraph did a good analysis on the printing money thing a while ago. The issue they noted was that for a one off project it may work, but the problem is politicians being politicians will start using it every time they need to get out of a hole, and the end result is not good.

The QE money wasn’t given to the banks to promote growth it was to stop total collapse of the system.

Over the years, I wonder how often this type of investment has actually paid back for itself?

Well if its things like the Olympic stadium it probably doesn’t and that’s the problem isn’t it. Right now the government are spending huge money on ‘investment infrastructure’ ie. HS2 and yet many people are opposed to it.

@DrJ unless Labour find a way of countering these attacks they are going to spend a very long time in opposition. You are starting to sound like the other STWers who kept telling me 2 years ago I was wrong to say immigration would be a major issue at the GE and that UKIP would be a threat to Labour too.

Tories doing more today to take the centre ground being vacated by Labour, appoint a Labour Lord to run the infrastructure review project (blatantly knicking a Labour idea too) and messaging that they are the party for workers.

Yobs yesterday showing classic protest behaviour, throwing eggs, aggressive behaviour, intimidation, chants of “Tory Scum”. All plays perfectly to Tory messaging about Labour under Corbyn and his associations with groups like Stop the War.

That’s the part that needs explaining – how this investment in infrastructure will create growth.

Fairly standard, isn’t it?

You pay people to work on the projects, that money ends up in their pockets then they either pay back debts or spend money in local business and so on.

Then you also get the benefit of whatever it is you’ve built. For example, build a new railway and you’ve improved transport links between cities, which helps business; you’ve also created (hopefully) homegrown railway engineering talent, which helps UK firms bid for contracts.

Fairly standard, isn’t it?

indeed. But I don’t need convincing.
Currently we have supply/demand of these services or infra judged by the ‘market’. Many people really trust this judgement-making process.

What Labour have to do is convince voters that ‘they know best’ which isn’t as easy task and you can’t take anything for granted.

@DrJ unless Labour find a way of countering these attacks they are going to spend a very long time in opposition

You could be right. Tory propaganda is very effective. It is a master stroke that they consistently persuade people to vote for them, even those exact same people actually derive no benefit from Tory policies. A case in point is “austerity” – the great unwashed are accepting the big lie that we need to keep our household budgets in order, mend the roof while the sun shines and all the rest of the BS, and go without benefits, doctors etc., just so that Gideon can hand out champagne to the Old Etonians.

If only it were that simple Molgrips, but what happens if that new item is a complete white elephant, so you’ve built something essentially useless at big cost and now it is loss making due to ongoing running costs. Then as political party you have to start sacking people to try to reduce costs with all the negative PR. Heck you are in Spain I shouldn’t need to explain the dangers as well as the upsides.

but what happens if that new item is a complete white elephant, so you’ve built something essentially useless at big cost and now it is loss making due to ongoing running costs

Any project can be screwed up. That doesn’t mean no project is worth the effort though. Like everything else in life, you have to do it right, and that’s the challenge.

Heck you are in Spain

Not me, someone else…

molgrips – Member
Yes. People bleating on about printing money going to turn us into Zimbabwe.

Except we already printed a shitload of money, and inflation is at a record, even damaging low
For those higher up the chain yes. For those at the bottom end. Nup, inflation still continues unabated.

This is what annoys me about the whole discussion of finances, it’s always taken as a whole.

It’s like austerity, I agree with THM if you take it as a whole, yip, it’s not happening, but if you look a specific ranges of the economy and how it affects different people. I’m willing to bet you could make a case for austerity economics. Or class war as it should be known.

It is a master stroke that they consistently persuade people to vote for them, even those exact same people actually derive no benefit from Tory policies.

Not that masterful, they tell people what they want to hear, massage their vanity, and exploits their dreams. I was listening to Gideon today and if you didn’t know who he was you’d never have guessed that he was a tory. The massive problem for Corbyn and Labour is that where Osborne talks about people owning their own homes and being shareholders, they talk about council houses, unions and strikes. Who wants to live in a council house? Even those for whom it would be a massive improvement on private renting would probably admit that they don’t want one. This is the major problem. Labour are in the business of telling people how poor they are, rather than telling them how much better off they could be with a bit of collective action.

they tell people what they want to hear, massage their vanity,

Tried and test technique that’s worked through time and will continue to do so.

Still like you say the Tories speak of aspiration (in America it would be the ‘dream’) which is amazingly powerful and Labour about tax hikes.

Tax hikes to the rich whilst the tories dont mention it but do tax hikes to the poor

I have never understood why folk care so much about tax changes that will not affect them except to make them better off.

Ditto America where many of those least likely to achieve the American dream still support it

the problem with capitalism is that it has to have millions of losers for every massive winner and the losers still vote for it.

Labour are in the business of telling people how poor they are

Lolz. People know when they’re poor, ffs. In fact, a lot of people think they’re poor when they’re not.

Labour are (now) in the business of telling poor and vulnerable people how they can help. Whether or not these people are listening, and if there are enough of them, is another issue.

Still like you say the Tories speak of aspiration (in America it would be the ‘dream’) which is amazingly powerful and Labour about tax hikes.

And labour could quite easily too. They could talk a very good game about the power of collective and cooperative action, and how everyone would be better off because of it. Also social mobility, most people’s primary concern and worry is that their kids do as well or much better than they do. With a few well placed policies (free higher education being one of them), labour could own the social mobility issue where all the tories can offer is lower inheritance tax. I’m all for straight talking and honesty but it doesn’t take a PR genius to think of ways of countering the tories message without coming across like an 19th century revolutionary.

without coming across like an 19th century revolutionary.

You think that’s what Corbyn sounds like? Something wrong with your ears, they’re Tory ears…