Jeremy Corbyn's time is up

[kebabking]

Nah, Milliband was faced with the same situation - a "debate" where Cameron didn't turn up - and it turned into all the other parties vs him. It would be the same with Corbyn or indeed any other Labour leader. He made the right decision even though it doesn't look like it at first glance.

Agreed - in the same way that I don't think there was anything in it for May to do one, I don't think there's any advantage to Corbyn in doing one either.

Personally I don't think they add anything to the election - one-on-one interviews do, and the 'town hall' debates do, but half a dozen of them just slagging each other off like ferrets in a sack provides nothing.

 

[DotCommunist]

entertainment. It provides entertainment of a kind. The clegg/broon/cameron ones were a laugh a minute

 

[Who PhD]

Nah, Milliband was faced with the same situation - a "debate" where Cameron didn't turn up - and it turned into all the other parties vs him. It would be the same with Corbyn or indeed any other Labour leader. He made the right decision even though it doesn't look like it at first glance.

It doesn't like it at any glance IMO, he's already getting shat on from all corners. What has he got to lose?

 

[kebabking]

It doesn't like it at any glance IMO, he's already getting shat on from all corners. What has he got to lose?

There's always a worse. You should know that...

Farron might well do well - ala Clegg - in TV debates with Corbyn. Corbyn has a very delicate, and very difficult, balancing act to manage over Brexit, where Farron doesn't - Corbyn simply doesn't need a potential banana skin, it's unlikely to do him much good even if he does well and could do lots of harm.

 

[killer b]

Does anyone give a shit about Corbyn not doing the debate without May? He's right not to - it's pretty pointless - and in her absence it'll all be about digging into him. Fuck that.

 

[DotCommunist]

his ex press secretary seems optimistic about labours chances here:
Inside Corbyn’s Office | Jacobin

 

[Pickman's model]

Does anyone give a shit about Corbyn not doing the debate without May? He's right not to - it's pretty pointless - and in her absence it'll all be about digging into him. Fuck that.

with her it would be all about digging into him

 

[Who PhD]

I see the logic I guess. It's just he's damned whatever he does, or doesn't do.

 

[chilango]

Nah. Corbyn (and Labour) need to take on, and take out, the Lib Dems, the Greens etc. if they want to be in a position to contest the Tories. May's absence would've provided a platform to do this.

 

[killer b]

with her it would be all about digging into him

Perhaps. He's good at that kind of thing though. That's why she won't do it.

 

[kebabking]

Nah. Corbyn (and Labour) need to take on, and take out, the Lib Dems, the Greens etc. if they want to be in a position to contest the Tories. May's absence would've provided a platform to do this.

The argument is good in theory, but it would rely on Labour having good, convincing communicators who can do the cut and thrust. If Corbyn has problems landing hits on May - who is awful at that stuff - he stands no chance against people like Sturgeon, Farron or Lucas.

Barry Gardiner is proving good at this stuff, Yvette Cooper can do it, but Kier Starmer is wooden, McDonnell can be baited into losing his rag, but the rest are just woeful.

 

[chilango]

The argument is good in theory, but it would rely on Labour having good, convincing communicators who can do the cut and thrust. If Corbyn has problems landing hits on May - who is awful at that stuff - he stands no chance against people like Sturgeon, Farron or Lucas.

Barry Gardiner is proving good at this stuff, Yvette Cooper can do it, but Kier Starmer is wooden, McDonnell can be baited into losing his rag, but the rest are just woeful.

Corbyn should be eating Lucas and Farron for breakfast. They can't attack him "from the left". He can be Mr nice guy and neither can play the nasty guy role against him.

 

[Old Spark]

Jo Platt selected for Leigh to replace Burnham.

Jo Platt selected for Leigh after strong Burnham backing | LabourList

 

[redsquirrel]

Does anyone give a shit about Corbyn not doing the debate without May? He's right not to - it's pretty pointless - and in her absence it'll all be about digging into him. Fuck that.

I don't give a shit I just think it's a missed opportunity to bash Farron, and May.

 

[The Pale King]

I think he should do them whatever, and use every opportunity to talk to camera unmediated.

 

[Rimbaud]

FFS. This piece of shit thinks nothing of trotting out the most appalling assertions, without evidence or even the merest call for it from whoever is filiming this. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised but what a cunt.

I really fucking can't stand Nick Cohen and his faux "intrepid left critic of the left" shtick. It says a lot that he never, ever, talks about Corbyn's economic policies (the main attraction he has to his supporters) but is monomaniacally obsessed with foreign policy and his one trick pony idea of the left becoming anti-left through obsessive anti-imperialism. He does have a valid point in there, but he is incapable or recognising any nuance or seeing that the left is not represented in its entirety by the STWC. And why is Corbyn beyond the pale for being allegedly an IRA sympathiser, but all the Tories supportive of the UDF etc are not? His moral absolutism on this seems to disappear when it comes to his support for the Iraq war too, which today is basically indefensible.

It is just the smugness of him acting like he has higher principles than the rest of the left, when in reality he is just a bit set in his opinions and jingoistic.

 

[Andrew Hertford]

Labour have been in decline since the early 2000s, culminating in losing the 2010 election. Then turning to a 'less hard and fast' right austerity agenda to desperately stay in power. And that failed to stop the decline too which is why we've had turmoil in Labour since and why Corbyn got elected leader twice because the alternatives were also on the right.



Well the media/press don't help, but the problem is mainly to be laid on the party having abandoned its working class and its pursuing of the same neoliberal policies that haven't radically differed from the Tories or Lib Dems over the years. Labour's shift to the centre, and to the right was always going to result in this. And prior to Corbyn, it was as much invested in cuts as the Tories (not to say that Corbyn is some magic socialist either - try telling that to communities fucked over by Labour councils). An electable Labour party now will still only stop some of the death of public services, because it's simply not invested in protecting public services anymore without an element of private investment and involvement. Ironically, if/when the inevitable shift back to the right/progress of the party happens when Corbyn gets ousted, it'll be even less wedded to protecting publicly owned services.

Labour need to attract more than just the working class vote (if there still is such a thing). Even if working class support was the key to Labour being in government again, why have they twice chosen a leader whom the working class clearly don’t like?

As I said, there is still a vast anti tory centre-left electorate out there which if anything outnumbers tory voters. They’ve voted Labour before and they would do again. I’m yet to hear of another viable way of ousting the tories on here or anywhere else.

Labour were not as you say 'as much invested in cuts as the tories before Corbyn', I posted stats on here a couple of weeks ago which show that even under Blair and Brown the % of GDP spent on the NHS and healthcare had risen to average EU levels by 2009 but has now almost halved under the tories.

There’s little if no appetite for PFI anywhere in the Labour Party now. Even Owen Smith made clear his opposition to anything other than “a 100% publicly funded NHS” during his leadership campaign.

 

[Andrew Hertford]

It may not have been dying, but it was clearly in need of urgent care - not to repeat things that have already been said loads of times before, but they did lose two elections, and Scotland, most of the membership and were under increasing pressure across the North and in Wales. It is hard to see how any of the other three 2015 candidates - or indeed anyone else in the PLP from those factions - would have reversed that trend.



"Personality" at that level is a complete fiction, though - it is an image that the media crafts for people. Corbyn has, since before his election, been deemed unelectable by them and so we see the continual attacks on him, of which the latest - where he is deemed dangerous for opposing Trident whereas other politicians compete with each other to insist that they would launch a preemptive nuclear strike - is probably the most absurd.



I agree. The problem Labour have is that Corbyn represents Labour's best hope of being elected.

Sorry, I can’t take seriously the notion that Labour is more electable under Corbyn.

As a lifelong unilateralist I agree with you about Trident, but even Corbyn now seems to realise that a policy of scrapping nukes would certainly make Labour unelectable.

I genuinely hope Labour do well this election by the way and I shall probably vote for them.

 

[mikey mikey]

So you'll be voting Labour and supporting them in this election, then Andrew?

Good lad!

Wouldn't want to go slagging off Jezza left right and most certainly centre in the hopes that a crushing defeat can get people like Owen "PFIzer-never 'eard of it" Smith on the front benches, would we?

 

[Andrew Hertford]

Yeh? Go back and quote where I have said, suggested or intimated that. I'll save you time: you won't find a post of mine saying that because I never did. You made it up. In other words it's a lie.

You said that revolution is a way of changing government undemocratically (most recently in post 16655) and I repeatedly asked you if you thought it was a viable way of changing government here in the UK. Perhaps you would have saved yourself a lot of angst if you’d made clear from the start that it was not instead of hiding behind obscure Biblical proverbs about dog vomit and your usual personal abuse.

 

[mikey mikey]

Lest we forget...

As Head of Policy and Government Relations for Pfizer, Owen Smith was also directly involved in Pfizers funding of the Blairite right wing entryist group Progress. Pfizer gave Progress £53,000. Progress has actively pursued the agenda of PFI and privatisation of NHS services.

 

[Who PhD]

I really fucking can't stand Nick Cohen and his faux "intrepid left critic of the left" shtick. It says a lot that he never, ever, talks about Corbyn's economic policies (the main attraction he has to his supporters) but is monomaniacally obsessed with foreign policy and his one trick pony idea of the left becoming anti-left through obsessive anti-imperialism. He does have a valid point in there, but he is incapable or recognising any nuance or seeing that the left is not represented in its entirety by the STWC. And why is Corbyn beyond the pale for being allegedly an IRA sympathiser, but all the Tories supportive of the UDF etc are not? His moral absolutism on this seems to disappear when it comes to his support for the Iraq war too, which today is basically indefensible.

It is just the smugness of him acting like he has higher principles than the rest of the left, when in reality he is just a bit set in his opinions and jingoistic.

Actually what offends me most is more fundamental and basic.

I am living in a society that has collapsed. As someone with depression and anxiety I find this election and the likely dismal outcome utterly and increasingly terrifying. Now, perhaps I am naive, but I happen to think that Corbyn is a necessity because the alternative is that terrifying. Five more years of untrammelled misery at the hands of a noxious elite that are on record as laughing at the poor while they starve and suffer, is unthinkable. It is beyond unthinkable, in fact. It is positively suicidal.

Now, that may seem to some, as it does to tory voters, to be histrionic melodrama. That's fine, we are living in a desensitised age where simple community is nonsensical to that elite, and its supporters.

So to me, to hear some rat faced shrivel minded intellectual goon spew these vile accusations - vommitted without the slightest recourse to evidence - not just utterly repellant, but highly toxic. This is the discourse: never mind Corbyn, what chance does anyone have against that? What chance do we have to shape a better society against scum like that who happily resort to this kind of irresponsible shit?

Perhaps I'm just desperately naive. I'm well aware how nasty the right behaves, but seeing this shit in action is no less sickening.

What a thoroughly unpleasant world I find myself in.

 

[ruffneck23]

sorry for link but this could be a vote winner imo

Jeremy Corbyn would legalise cannabis for medicinal use

 

[Pickman's model]

You said that revolution is a way of changing government undemocratically (most recently in post 16655) and I repeatedly asked you if you thought it was a viable way of changing government here in the UK. Perhaps you would have saved yourself a lot of angst if you’d made clear from the start that it was not instead of hiding behind obscure Biblical proverbs about dog vomit and your usual personal abuse.

Yeh. You've been caught out in a lie, I asked you to quote me and you haven't. A simple 'I'm sorry and I won't do it again' will suffice as your apology. Just say that and let's move on.

 

[Rimbaud]

The Labour Party's polling has started to improve recently, moving up from from the mid 20s to the low 30s. Incidentally, for all the bleating about Corbyn being a disaster, the Labour Party's polling isn't really much different right now to what it was pre-Corbyn. UKIP voters returning to the Tories seems to be the main reason for their huge lead at the moment, not Corbyn.

I wonder, if something happens to make May look foolish in the next month, and if Labour utilise their superior manpower to run a smart campaign, if some of Scotland returns to Labour, and if there is higher than usual turnout from Labour voters, it is conceivable that Corbyn could outperform Miliband, who got only 30％ of the vote share. In fact I'd say that this is quite likely. While this won't be enough to win the election because of the UKIP vote returning to the Tories, it would validate Corbyn's platform and be a crushing blow to the Blairites in the media and in the party.

e2a: In fact, if Corbyn can get 35％ of the vote share, totally within the realms of possibility based on current polling and assuming that Corbyn supporters are more motivated to get out and vote, that would be Labour's best result since 2001.

 

[teqniq]

.

 

[ViolentPanda]

skeletor in a skinsuit these days. That's the nice lighting flattering photo the groan are running with because they love Tony lots. Other photos have him a lot more haggard. Sublimated guilt maybe

Personally, I reckon that the convert Tony Blair has gone a bit Opus Dei, and taken to fasting, and wearing a hair shirt.

 

[treelover]

View attachment 105647 View attachment 105648

The Labour Party's polling has started to improve recently, moving up from from the mid 20s to the low 30s. Incidentally, for all the bleating about Corbyn being a disaster, the Labour Party's polling isn't really much different right now to what it was pre-Corbyn. UKIP voters returning to the Tories seems to be the main reason for their huge lead at the moment, not Corbyn.

I wonder, if something happens to make May look foolish in the next month, and if Labour utilise their superior manpower to run a smart campaign, if some of Scotland returns to Labour, and if there is higher than usual turnout from Labour voters, it is conceivable that Corbyn could outperform Miliband, who got only 30％ of the vote share. In fact I'd say that this is quite likely. While this won't be enough to win the election because of the UKIP vote returning to the Tories, it would validate Corbyn's platform and be a crushing blow to the Blairites in the media and in the party.

e2a: In fact, if Corbyn can get 35％ of the vote share, totally within the realms of possibility based on current polling and assuming that Corbyn supporters are more motivated to get out and vote, that would be Labour's best result since 2001.

They are mobilising lots of people for canvassing, etc, but it is exam time for students who would normally make up a fair bit of this support, so will be a bit reduced.

 

[agricola]

Personally, I reckon that the convert Tony Blair has gone a bit Opus Dei, and taken to fasting, and wearing a hair shirt.

I find it very difficult to believe Tony Blair would prostrate himself to any being, apart from himself.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I find it very difficult to believe Tony Blair would prostrate himself to any being, apart from himself.

I'm sure, given his previous wrigglings, that Blair could convince himself he was prostrating before an avatar of Tony Blair.