@corbynjokes: What’s black and white and red all over?
The Tory press after it’s been nationalised.
Talking of the fascist press - how about this then 
Okay, let’s take your/Corbyn’s ‘principles’ in order.
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The market is not king nor a suitable custodian for some vital services. Actually the first part of this statement is not a principle but merely an observable fact. The market hasn’t been king since Victorian railway trains started crashing and railway monopolies started forming. Beyond the first half of the nineteenth century, the state has always regulated capitalism as a means of saving it from itself. The second part is not a principle but mere fiat. What principles decide ‘vital’? If it includes water and energy, why not food as well? Why ‘some’ vital services and not others? You’ve included housing but it is not a service – so what does its inclusion here mean? Are you (and he) saying that housing should be universally provided by the state just as education should (as in the old Soviet Union for example)? Or are you (he) saying that we should provide housing according to need (ie means-tested)? Both, for different reasons, are likely to be viewed as oppressive.
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We should support our children in education with maintenance grants. This is not a principle but a policy. A principle would be: education should be free at the point of use. As a policy, it differs only by degree from Burnham’s graduate tax.
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We spend too much on weapons of mass destruction. Again, if enacted with cuts, a policy not a principle – and one which most politicians across the political spectrum would sign up to. International weapons agreements are all designed to limit and ultimately disband WMD. The deterrence argument differs only in that it is an argument about bargaining chips.
As for your aside, the Cuban crisis of 1962 is an example of diplomatic negotiations based on a threat to go to nuclear war. Anyone who lived through that will tell you the threat was perceived as real by absolutely everyone. They’ll tell you it felt like the end of the world.
I have a sense of what principles are: it is a rules of conduct based on a system of beliefs.
So it’s particularly odd that you don’t mention the two touchstone principles of any socialist worth their salt: egalitarianism and social justice. These can be defined and parsed in a number of ways, but not to mention them is very odd.
And their absence explains why Bletch earlier was able to say that a Corbyn ‘principle’ was ‘the weakest in society need help from those in a position to provide it’ – despite the fact that such an argument runs entirely contrary to socialist principles. Socialism demands egalitarian rules to provide for everyone, not just offer provision for the weakest. It is not coterminous with Disraeli’s ‘one-nation’ Toryism, nor with dollops of well-meaning philanthropy. Socialism is not charity; it has to do with distributive justice.
My point earlier is that we need new and imaginative thinking on this, which brings to life the dormant power of the state to intervene in the private sector to diminish levels of inequality in a world where technology challenges how we live. And it has to be done in such a way as to appeal to people who don’t hold Corbyn’s particular beliefs. That was the neat trick of the 1964 manifesto; it is perfectly possible to achieve the same today - especially against a party in government so rooted in reaction and punishing the poor.
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The candidates…
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Vile.
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Some of the awful things he did just reminded me of my parents in the 70s (cold beans out of a can, being out photocopying, not going on romantic meals (not a lot of that went on). So quite ridiculous to raise these as aborrent things to have done. Really scraping the barrel.
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Originally posted by @Furball
The big, burning issue among sociologists around the mid-sixties was the working class Tory.
80s too. My Dad used to come back from the pub and put a Thatcher poster on the neighbours front door - caused all sorts of suspicions in Coxford!
Thank goodness for Daily Mail readers, the defenders of the Corbyn faith. Jesus Christ, this is a hall of mad mirrors.
Shame is I met Jane Chapman recently without knowing she survived Corbyn - would have loved to hear more about cold beans…
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I don’t think most of England is right wing. I think the majority are relatively centralist, and turned off by conviction politics, either side.
Whereas in Scotland, I think they they are more left leaning (possibly because they hate Tory voting Englanders so much).
Originally posted by @Furball
Okay, let’s take your/Corbyn’s ‘principles’ in order.
- The market is not king nor a suitable custodian for some vital services. Actually the first part of this statement is not a principle but merely an observable fact. The market hasn’t been king since Victorian railway trains started crashing and railway monopolies started forming. Beyond the first half of the nineteenth century, the state has always regulated capitalism as a means of saving it from itself. The second part is not a principle but mere fiat. What principles decide ‘vital’? If it includes water and energy, why not food as well? Why ‘some’ vital services and not others? You’ve included housing but it is not a service – so what does its inclusion here mean? Are you (and he) saying that housing should be universally provided by the state just as education should (as in the old Soviet Union for example)? Or are you (he) saying that we should provide housing according to need (ie means-tested)? Both, for different reasons, are likely to be viewed as oppressive.
Really? I’d have to disagree, and as much as you may and smear the principle of free higher education by transparent association with the Soviet Union (a totalitarian regime, boys and girls), its an incredibly worthy princple that I’m guessing you got a lot of benefit from, and a great generator of social mobility and cohesion.
I think housing should be a universal right, and that affordable housing shouild be freely available to those that need it. The expectation that kids should stay at home until they’ve 25–ish, and loaded down with debt the minute they’ve got just enough money to play the housing game is a scandal.
Build social housing, regulate rent and supply and demand should take care of the rest. That might be a decent knockon effect of Burnham’s bid to secure infrastructure cash from the EU,
- We should support our children in education with maintenance grants. This is not a principle but a policy. A principle would be: education should be free at the point of use. As a policy, it differs only by degree from Burnham’s graduate tax.
Is there any more detail on Burnham’s proposed graduate tax than is in the manifesto? If not, I don’t think you can draw any conclusions at this point, apart from it’s not as good as my principle. Put either of us in American bar, boasting about how our values inform our political principles. If we give those examples, I win.
- We spend too much on weapons of mass destruction. Again, if enacted with cuts, a policy not a principle – and one which most politicians across the political spectrum would sign up to. International weapons agreements are all designed to limit and ultimately disband WMD. The deterrence argument differs only in that it is an argument about bargaining chips.
As for your aside, the Cuban crisis of 1962 is an example of diplomatic negotiations based on a threat to go to nuclear war. Anyone who lived through that will tell you the threat was perceived as real by absolutely everyone. They’ll tell you it felt like the end of the world.
No-one’s going to nuclear war without guaranteeing their own annihilation. They are weapons we never want to use, and probably don’t work anyway. When zero hour comes, I expect the cone to flip open, and a flag to emerge saying “gotcha Limeys”.
If we must have nukes, then let’s get an independent deterrent. No point being in the “don’t fuck with us” club when the Americans can fuck with us.
I have a sense of what principles are: it is a rules of conduct based on a system of beliefs.
So it’s particularly odd that you don’t mention the two touchstone principles of any socialist worth their salt: egalitarianism and social justice. These can be defined and parsed in a number of ways, but not to mention them is very odd.
Yeah. My comments at Left Unity meetings didn’t have quite as many references to Marx, either 
But for the record, is your contention that you expected me to enumnerate a complete set of socialist principles, and I’m a fucking dolt for not providing the lot?
If you’re trying to suggest that I in some way don’t care about those principles, then you’ve got a trove of material to dig through for evidence, I would suggest you’d be better off pulling me up on one of those gaffes (they must be there, I’m embarrassingly prolific) than marking me down for not ticking every box on a suddenly-mandatory checklist.
As I said, you live those principles day to day. And I do. I feel about as much need to comment on them as I would about screaming about the abstract. Both would make me look more of a self-promoting nob and bore everyone silly. Equate that with odd if you will, and we’ll let it slide for now, but get yourself a better calculator
My point earlier is that we need new and imaginative thinking on this, which brings to life the dormant power of the state to intervene in the private sector to diminish levels of inequality in a world where technology challenges how we live.
We’ve seen how weak the powers of intervention have been. Global financial markets deregulated to the point where we get the huge crisis that very few of us have caused, yet all of us are paying for.
And it has to be done in such a way as to appeal to people who don’t hold Corbyn’s particular beliefs. That was the neat trick of the 1964 manifesto; it is perfectly possible to achieve the same today - especially against a party in government so rooted in reaction and punishing the poor.
Does it? Many of his policies have broad appeal. Renationalising the railways, and ending the farce where the private sector rakes in the cash while the taxpayer picks up most operational costs and commuters enjoy above inflation fair hikes year on year, despite not seeing any appreciable difference in service, in some cases. Free higher education, dovetailed with recognition and the development of facilities to develop degree-equivalent vocational qualifications, has got to appeal to any student, or parent of a student. Rent controls are going to be popular with everyone except high-rolling landlords.
Distilled, a Corbyn vs Tory contest would be a true clash of carrot and stick. Cameron vs any of the others is stick vs slightly fairer stick, all because none of the other candidates have got the balls to challenge the debt orthodoxy.
CB Fry is such a wimp continuing this conversation over at Saintsweb where there are far fewer Corbynites. Rather than here where he’d be out numbered 10-1.
Just saying.
Wimp.
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A Corbyn vs Tory contest would, sadly, be the worst betrayal of the British electorate in modern history, as it would just hand the keys to the Tories with a majority so large as to make them think they’ve gone to Tory heaven.
That aside, my real point is that what are lazily called Corbyn’s ‘principles’ are nothing of the kind - merely a ragbag of ideas, policies, wishes, dreams, populisms never tested by reality, etc. And I can’t find any of his new-found fans who can enunciate such principles either, despite these principles being supposedly the distinguishing feature of Corbyn.
The idea that egalitarian principles in particular are not worth enunciating is revealing. But more than that, all this does is confirm the comfort blanket appeal of Corbyn in this hopeless trench warfare.
No wonder the Tories are laughing their heads off.
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I’m not so sure why you think that Corbyn would be crushed at an election, his policies are pretty populist and he’s clearly got a different attitude to politics than most others in his position - wanting to do away with the personal attacks, namecalling and general immaturity that was displayed in the last election. At times Cameron and Miliband both acted like children rather than potential world leaders, which was frankly depressing to see. And we wonder why young people are disenfranchised…
As for his ‘principles’ being just ‘ideas and wishes’ - that’s exactly what principles are, something to stand for and aim towards. About as close to a dictionary definition of the word ‘principles’ as you’re likely to get! In terms of his policies being based in reality, our reality is currently one of austerity and free-market idealism and Corbyn wants to steer us towards something a bit different than that, so out of the context of our current prism some of his ideas may look a little baseless and abstract but that doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t work. Take this FT article on the People’s QE idea for example:
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2015/08/06/2136475/corbyns-peoples-qe-could-actually-be-a-decent-idea/
I think it’s easy to scoff at JC because he’s not what we’ve come to expect from a politician - he’s rough around the edges, a bit boring, very serious and not much of a personality. However he represents an ideology that is still very much prevalent in this country although it’s being forced further and further out of the political arena. As others have mentioned, the SNP roared to a convincing victory on the back of a similar campaign and that wasn’t just down to pro-Independence activism as i’ve spoken to several people at work who are openly pro-UK but voted SNP on the grounds of ideology and representation.
The Labour Party since i’ve been alive (1991 if you care to know) has changed a lot, but I think this represents a shift back towards the core values that the party was founded on - people can laugh at it but you’d be surprised what kind of support those old ideas will still gather.
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you can’t have a grey beard & be president, mikey, not since i.e. television was invented. One or the other, not both.
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Okay, SM, you have a go. Tell me what those ‘values’ are and how they’re different, popular, ‘core’.
We’re going round in circles. How does anyone come to believe that principles and values are only available to Tribunites and any political position to the right of that is a ‘Tory-lite’ abandonment of all principles?
And please, spare me the ‘no personal attacks’ nonsense. Have you seen what Corbynites have been calling Kendall? You’d think from the violence and dripping misogyny of their language that she had been unmasked as a member of the Gestapo.
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The very same can be said of every single party coming in after being out of power for a number of years. There is a long time between now and the next election, and the Conservatives are already up to some fairly nasty stuff, like creating a Cameronjugend from presumably feckless NEETs. There’s talk of tuition fees getting another bump, which I’m sure will be fun for any aspiring kids looking forward to getting a university. Their plan to deal with industrial disputes is to legislate to make them illegal. Now that those pesky Lib Dems are out of the picture, Snooper’s Charter is back on. I could go on, but the question I’d ask is this. How much shit do you expect the public to take before they think about moving their cross elsewhere?
Maybe it’ll all work out. Maybe austerity really is the answer, and that funnelling public money into the already vast coffers of private interest to pay off artificially inflated debt will grow the economy more than infrastructure projects which create local jobs and lasting benefits. I doubt it, but Kendall, Cooper and Burnham are all onboard with the austerity plan. Corbyn isn’t. On that, and on other issues, he is going to find common cause with the public. Probably that whole putting them first lark.
You haven’t called him a tribune for a bit. Go on, I love it when you go all Roman
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Aw man. Busted on the tribune score. Too much time in the edit, pap!
But thanks Furball. I needed that itch scratched.
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When it comes to elections, you have them that vote Labour cos they like Labour, and them that vote Conservative cos they like conservative, and I spose a small number of ppl who are open to persuasion based on policies + what-not. But the bros that swing the election, every election, are the great mass of ppl who look at the two candidates and vote for the one who looks least like a nobber*. I’m sorry, but this bro has got no chance at all, unless the other side front up with i.e. Noel Edmonds or something.
* Edit: I tried paedophile first but that was going Too Far
Oi, Bearsy! Quit talking politics, and answer my much more important question on the ‘ticket news thread’ !
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Oh ok soz i only come on here cos i’ve got an idea it annoys frbl 
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