Quit taking the piss !
They would tho, if they got t.blair back they would deffo do much better in elections! I think itās theyāre only chance of winning next election tbh, they need a real celebrity name. It would have to be t.blair, or david beckham, or someone like that. Otherwise they have no chance at all i am srs
Originally posted by @saintbletch
*BTW Furball, I hope youāre impressed that I wasnāt swayed by the Billy Bragg name-drop.
Thank fuck for that. Iām lobbying Thesaurus to have Bragg listed as the antonym of music.
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Furball, can you stop saying things I agree withā¦ Iām upvoting you so much Iām worried people will think Iām stalking you!
Philistines.
Sorry to play semantics here, but I think Iām working from a different definition, Lou.
principle ĖprÉŖnsÉŖp(É)l/ noun
- 1. a fundamental truth or proposition that serves as the foundation for a system of belief or behaviour or for a chain of reasoning.
For me. there are the things we think, and things we think that we believe. These are transient. They change. We negotiate these away throughout our lives.
Then there are the things we know to be our non-negotiable principles - the fundamental truths that inform our reaction to the world and its people.
I think we can negotiate away some of our beliefs for the greater good and it might give us a few sleepless nights, but when we turn our back on our principles it should eat away at us.
The situation Furball and you seem to be describing is that for there to be an alternative to the Tories, we have to arrive at some compromise of words that pisses off the least people. And that If these words chime with our principles that would be good, but if not, then our principles should bend to accommodate the form of words that will gain the power to carry out a greater good.
That is arse about face to me.
You mention a rebuilding. Electing anyone, but Corbyn (not specifically suggesting that this is your position) will not be a rebuilding. It will be a rebranding; a searching for that elusive and inclusive positioning that will be the snake oil to get elected.
A Corbyn victory, if it is found to have genuinely come from the grassroots, will be the catalyst for a rebuilding. It will be ugly. It wonāt be quick. It may create schisms, it may create new parties. But unless Cameron rapes the Queen at the SooP, given boundary changes, Boris in the wings, fragmentation and disintegration of the left vote, and an ever-disenfranchised electorate, I canāt see Labour being in power in 2020 anyway.
Watching the youth attending Corbynās campaign speeches fills me with hope. Not hope that Corbyn will lead Labour to victory, but that a proper rebuilding can happen.
I also understand the message that we should learn from the Michael Foot era. I accept that a lurch to the left might just be the ruin of the party, but standing on a ticket of slightly less austerity than the other lot, at a time when many people were genuinely in penury, brought us to where we are.
Corbyn didnāt do that.
The others on the ticket seem to want to stand on a ticket of slightly less austerity than the other lot.
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Great post SaintBletch and I couldnāt have put it better 
Great piece in the Guardian, re: Michael Foot ā¦
I remembered, on the late train back from Glasgow on Friday night,having interviewed the last āhopelessā leaderā, Michael Foot, and coming across a passage by Norman Mailer, quoting Foot on the stump in 1983. ā We are here to provide for all those who are weaker and hungrier, more battered and crippled than ourselves. That is our only certain good and great purpose ā¦ and if you ask me about those insoluble economic problems that may arise if the top is deprived of their initiative, I would answer, To hell with them. The top is greedy and mean and will always find a way to take care of themselves. They always do.ā
I wrote back then that it was unimaginable that any Labour politician could think these thoughts, let alone utter these words, nowadays. Suddenly Iām not so sure. Fierce if not ultimately heartbreaking struggles ahead, of course. But donāt you get a frisson when tectonic plates shift even a little?
Ok heās going to lose the next election, but at least you can vote with your heart again.
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Principles over power.
Iām sorry Ted (and The Guardian), but if anyone thinks Corbyn has the oratorical skills of Foot they really need to do some reading. Foot was a serious literary figure and a Labour movement intellectual.
The nearest comparison I can think of for Corbyn is Chance the Gardener. People are mistaking his humble homilies for some sort of artfully disguised wisdom. Foot had intellectual heft in spades. Unfortunately this made him a poor political leader. Corbyn doesnāt even have that.
But none of the candidates so far has the imagination that can be seen in the 1964 and 1966 campaigns. Hereās the introduction to the 1964 Labour manifesto, which fizzes with (as they were then) new ideas:
The world wants it and would welcome it. The British people want it, deserve it and urgently need it. And now, at last, the general election presents us with the exciting prospect of achieving it. The dying months of a frustrating 1964 can be transformed into the launching platform for the New Britain of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
A New Britain - mobilising the resources of technology under a national plan; harnessing our national wealth in brains, our genius for scientific invention and medical discovery; reversing the decline of the thirteen wasted years; affording a new opportunity to equal, and if possible surpass, the roaring progress of other western powers while Tory Britain has moved sideways, backwards but seldom forward.
The country needs fresh and virile leadership. Labour is ready. Poised to swing its plans into instant operation. Impatient to apply the ānew thinkingā that will end the chaos and sterility. Here is Labourās Manifesto for the 1964 election, restless with positive remedies for the problems the Tories have criminally neglected.
Here is the case for planning, and the details of how a Labour Cabinet will formulate the national economic plan with both sides of industry operating in partnership with the Government. And here, in this manifesto, is the answer to the Tory gibe that planning could involve a loss of individual liberty. Labour has resolved to humanise the whole administration of the state and to set up the new office of Parliamentary Commissioner with the right and duty to investigate and expose any misuse of government power as it affects the citizen.
Much of the manifesto deals with the vital social services that affect the personal lives and happiness of us all, the welfare of our families and the immediate future of our children. It announces, unequivocally, Labourās decisions on the nagging problems the Tories stupidly (in some cases callously) brushed aside:
The imperative need for a revolution in our education system which will ensure the education of all our citizens in the responsibilities of this scientific age;
The soaring prices in houses, flats and land;
Social security benefits which have fallen below the minimum levels of human need;
The burden of prescription charges in the Health Service.
Labour is concerned, too, with the problems of leisure in the age of automation and here again Labour firmly puts the freedom of the individual first.
āIt is not the job of the Government to tell people how leisure should be usedā, the manifesto declares. But, in a society where facilities are not provided when they are not profitable and where the trend towards monopoly is growing, it is the job of the Government to ensure that leisure facilities are provided and that a reasonable range of choice is maintained.
The pages that follow set out the manifesto in full. Please study it.
The rest of the manifesto can be found here. Can you imagine ANY of the present lot producing something like this?
Up until a couple of years ago, I was a member of the Labour Party. I tossed it in because I was unhappy with the way they were conducting their politics, particularly their inability to properly challenge austerity and their utter blinkeredness when it came to their traditional electorateās views on immigration and the rise of UKIP. Most of my immigrant family, including the grandad from Karachi, voted UKIP in the Euro elections, after voting Labour for generations. How Labour did not get the fucking memo after Gillian Duffy is beyond me.
Even after I left, I was contacted by people asking me to turn up at some marginal to speak to the people there, super-important because their votes actually count. Now Iām potentially hating the player when I should be hating the game, but we had a chance to play with the rules of that game. Most Labour MPs, quite self-servingly, said the rules of the game were fine and didnāt need to be changed.
There is something provocatively attractive in that single line.
It carries the sort of weight that will keep anyone using it out of power. I recognise that.
Iām not sure if itās the retribution angle that appeals, I hope not, or if it is the truth that taking from the top to make a more equal society wouldnāt materially impact those doing the giving. I hope itās that.
But itās the principles captured in that line that I hope would drag the youth towards a left of centre party, post 2020.
3 terms of Tories and there will be a reckoning.
https://youtu.be/zotoYwC6nRE *
* For Furball and Lou - a different reckoning, but I couldnāt resist.
Ah look who we missed this weekend.
Labour_leader_contender_Liz_Kendall_in_Southampton___at_ice_cream_parlour/
Was it the time?
But, yes there is an energy to that introduction; freshness, hope, vision.
Could do with a spoonful of that now.
Ok Furball, iām well aware of Foot and his literary knowledge (Jonathan Swift etc) He was never a great speaker, a great thinker and intellect but letās not idolise the guy. Comparing Jeremy Corbyn to Chance the Gardener is nothing less than a cheap shot.
Itās an old docu but still ā¦
Oops thatās just the trailer ā¦ Here goes again
Originally posted by @TedMaul
Ok Furball, iām well aware of Foot and his literary knowledge (Jonathan Swift etc) He was never a great speaker, a great thinker and intellect but letās not idolise the guy. Comparing Jeremy Corbyn to Chance the Gardener is nothing less than a cheap shot.
Well then weāll have to leave our disagreement there. Foot most certainly was a great speaker - even his worst enemies acknowledged that. His literary standing went well beyond his chornicling of Swift. And Corbynās magnetism is utterly mystifying - and so it will be if he gets to lead Labour into an election.
On Foot as a speaker, try this. Itās one of his greatest parliamentary speeches, given on the eve of the fall of the Labour Government in 1979. Itās extraodinary how many resonances there are with today, and even if you donāt catch all the dramatis personae, itās a withering attack on Labourās enemies, with a particularly funny destruction of David Steel and his coming part in ushering in Thatcherism.
I havenāt spoken to a Labour person in the flesh that isnāt going Corbyn, and most are very quick to discuss what they like about him. Thatās rare. Weird comparison, but I havenāt seen people this engaged with a politician since Farageās zenith, and while there is no doubting that Nige has a degree of everyman magnetism about him, there was always a butā¦ lurking in the corner.
And at the risk of sounding (ahem) Conservative, Iām not sure what the fascination with the ānewā is, or at least the way politicians implement ānewā, which is usually āchange everythingā and āmake sure it benefits the private sectorā.
Now if could just be an occupational hazard, but to me, change usually means refinement and iteration in a way that doesnāt make things unwieldy. Change one thing, see if it works, and if it doesnāt, change it back. Can you imagine the code equivalent of a new government being introduced into a mostly stable app?
Continuing the software development analogy just a little further, if Iād have gone about fixing Sotonians like governments fix a country, weād be in even more unproven territory on new forum software, wondering what the fuck was going to happen this time. As it was, we took a long hard look at the problem, underlying causes and came up with a specific solution that addressed our specific need. Performance befitting a forum rather than Q+A site.
I know, I know. Computer applications with a limited scope are not islands containing 70 million individual agents of chaos, but the principle still applies. Find the root cause and address. The really bloody annoying thing is that governments are more than capable of doing this, but the priority seems to be getting an soundbite into peopleās heads that will linger with them on polling day.
āNo family on benefits should get more than those in work.ā
āHousing benefit capped at 400 pounds per weekā
Weāve discussed the practical realities of those policies loads already. Social cleansing in London, people losing their support networks and suchlike because theyāve been fucked off to Stoke. Neither policy āworksā for any common good, but you know what, itāll fly in the minds of the moronic section of the British public, so they both āworkā. Job done.
Discussing actual policies that have a bit of thought behind them is a nice change.
Feels a bit weird writing another post so soon after this rather large one, but I read a couple of articles last night worth sharing, if only to highlight the desperation of Blairites watching Neo-Liberal Labour come apart at the seams.
First off, Peter Mandelson, operating under the belief that an empty field of contenders would invalidate the leadership contest, tried to convince the other three candidates to drop out.
Next, Andy Burnham has blasted any Labour supporter that has applied the Tory tag to any of Corbynās rivals. Personally, I think itās fair political comment.
Corbyn has calmly refused to rise to some of the criticism levelled at him by senior Labour figures. But other camps have complained about the aggressive behaviour of some people online who purport to support him.
One of those camps might belong to Liz Kendall, who attracts the most crap on account of being the most like a Tory.
I think sheās got some front, giving the negativity of her own campaign 