Couldn’t have put it better.
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Originally posted by @Bearsy
* Edit: I tried paedophile first but that was going Too Far
Wow. That’s where you draw the line? After a decade of posting that goes further than Timbuktu, to the point even that feels pretty local, you’ve decided to draw the line here. Wow.
yeah i’m v.careful bout insinuating who is or is not paedophile cos on saintsweb one time I accidently suggested that Whitey Grandad, or rather Whitey Grandad’s best friend, was paedophile, and he got Annoyed.
I think that says more about him than it does you.
Symptomatic of a shallow society Bearsy. People judging by appearances instead of listening to what they have to say.
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I dare say ur truth, Ruth, but what you gonna do? It ain’t gonna do you no good listening to what politics say, cos they’re v.careful not to say anything interesting. I think ppl should only be allowed to vote for someone that they personally know v.well, then it would be like true recommendation of Character. I would prob vote for my Dad. Prob my brother would as well. Not sure who my sister would vote for tho.
To me, he represents an updated version of old Labour - an emphasis on delivering fairness for workers, re-nationalising certain industries, supporting small businesses in the business world, investing in the country’s infrastructure and growing the state. I think he’ll garner popular support for a ‘bigger state’ in direct opposition to the Tories who have been hell-bent on cutting it wherever they can, and farming large chunks of it out to their chums in the private sector.
As for the personal abuse of Kendall, I don’t condone that at all. You’re always going to get some nutters and idiots that use a popular campaign to promote their own bigotry - we had that last year with the Scottish Independence Referendum, we’ve had sheer racism and contempt publically displayed towards migrants and muslims over the past few years when they’ve been scapegoated, but those few aren’t representative of the overall campaign. What’s come from his camp has been respectful and I like that he’s not felt inclined to respond to some of the stick he’s been getting and is actually acting like a mature politician rather than stooping to “my Dad could beat up your Dad” press like the other candidates have been doing. I’m not saying that i’m Corbyn’s biggest fan but I feel inclined to stick up for him because what he says does chime with me on a political level and he’ll get beaten up by the press because he represents something different and something democratic.
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Just be careful that she doesn’t go all Linda Blair when she’s asked to put a cross in the box.
http://i.toau-media.com/contentFiles/image/film/the-exorcist.jpg
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Some good pieces over at StopWar.
The politics of fear goes into overdrive to derail the Jeremy Corbyn bandwagon
Why Israel is so concerned about Jeremy Corbyn becoming leader of the Labour party
Originally posted by @SuperMikey
** To me, he represents an updated version of old Labour** - an emphasis on delivering fairness for workers, re-nationalising certain industries, supporting small businesses in the business world, investing in the country’s infrastructure and growing the state. I think he’ll garner popular support for a ‘bigger state’ in direct opposition to the Tories who have been hell-bent on cutting it wherever they can, and farming large chunks of it out to their chums in the private sector.
As for the personal abuse of Kendall, I don’t condone that at all. You’re always going to get some nutters and idiots that use a popular campaign to promote their own bigotry - we had that last year with the Scottish Independence Referendum, we’ve had sheer racism and contempt publically displayed towards migrants and muslims over the past few years when they’ve been scapegoated, but those few aren’t representative of the overall campaign. What’s come from his camp has been respectful and I like that he’s not felt inclined to respond to some of the stick he’s been getting and is actually acting like a mature politician rather than stooping to “my Dad could beat up your Dad” press like the other candidates have been doing. I’m not saying that i’m Corbyn’s biggest fan but I feel inclined to stick up for him because what he says does chime with me on a political level and he’ll get beaten up by the press because he represents something different and something democratic.
Firsty, SM, I don’t buy the ‘bad apples’ defence. We had that with the SNP, who made similar noises about how it was all about policies not personalities, adn that they were nothing to do with the verbal abuse, intimidation and violence aimed at anyone who had the temerity to disagree. Corbyn has merely stolen the SNP playbook by saying nothing except vague generalities about the abuse hurled at Kendall.
But the larger point is you confirm my worst fears - that Corbyn is about ‘old Labour’ and the ‘big state’ (sic). You don’t say what these are exactly, but I know from other iterations they mean a mythical Camelot of failed principles and never-tried policies which were enacted and/or rejected so long ago that no one under the age of 40 remembers.
So what is ‘old Labour’? It’s not Blair - we know that. It’s not Brown either. Or Miliband. But nor is it Wilson, or Callaghan: they were as hated in their time as Blair is now. And Attlee was a bit suspect too. What old Labour is, I’d suggest, is nothing more than the small band of Labour naysayers who revelled in the luxury of never having their politics tested by reality so could never be shown to have been wrong. They did once before got their moment in the sun when Michael Foot won the leadership battle. As one of the founders of Tribune he’d offered by far the best articulation of the internal Labour soft-Left. The tragedy with Foot was that he actually might have won in 1983 were it not for the Falklands War - the Thatcher government until that point was on its knees because of its gross economic mismanagement, mendacity and general incompetence.
The farce of Corbyn, by contrast, is that, as you correctly say, he appeals to the Camelot and manages to persuade people that, indeed, none of his ideas has ever failed.
So while his acolytes luxuriate in old, never tested ideas, or ones that failed before but have been forgotten, the world has moved on.
New ideas are needed but not offered for (in no particular order and not exclusively):
The surveillance state
A sustainable green agenda (and not just climate change-related policies - these tend to dominate the agenda - but alternatives to fossil fuel and civil-nuclear sources)
Different forms of poverty, including energy poverty (which kills).
Working conditions - the kind you find increasingly in places like Amazon.
The economic power shift to northern California (Amazon, Uber, Google, Apple, etc - all founded not so much on clever technology but on clever tax lawyering)
A just immigration stance - silence.
An actual posiiton on EU membership (rather than the hopeless vacillation presently being offered. This is really troubling, especially given it’s the Achilles heel of the Tories lkeading up to the referendum)
Constitutional reform - is a leader elected by STV going to deny it to the wider population? What happens with the second chamber? What happens to local government, now on its knees?
Nationalisation: it’s easy - and lazy - to say nationalise the railways. Franchises expire. But we already know that rail nationalisation was just as bad as privatisation at driving investment in the network. British Rail was a dilapidated carcass by the time Major replaced it with a number of smaller ones. But how do you nationalise the the Big Six energy companies? They are publicly quoted concerns tother worth several tens of billions. Is Corbyn going to nationalise by forceful appropriation? Or is he going to pay up. And if the latter - what’s he going to abandon among all his other expensive promises?
The one idea which his acolytes think is new but has actually been tried before is to print money to pay for public services. What’s not clear is why the nemesis of the socialist planned state - the money markets - would ever let him get away with it (For a demonstration of what happens when a ‘run on the pound’ gathers momentum, look at the unravelling on the Wilson government leading up to 1970). He can ignore that if he wishes but the rest of us won’t be able to avoid the consequences - unless he has a really smart idea, which is…?
In the public debate about Corbyn it’s weird that none of this (and more) gets anything like a proper airing. As this thread itself has demonstrated all too often, it’s all about emoting for Jeremy. His candidature was supposed to be a catalyst for debate - it’s been nothing of the kind.
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Blimey, what a mess. It’s like watching the other candidates’ campaigns distilled into one poster. We’ll just deal with this bit. Again.
So while his acolytes luxuriate in old, never tested ideas, or ones that failed before but have been forgotten, the world has moved on.
How is that any different from any other government coming in after a long period outside of power?
Even the policies that the Tories nicked from America are untested, unless like them, you seem to be labouring under the impression that the UK and US are exactly the same (they’re not).
So seeing as you are unhappy with “untested” policies, fancy giving us an example of something that was tried out on the entire UK population before becoming law?
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I’m inclined to wait for SM’s response. It’s like to be more mature than this.
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I agree. My infantile response is right up there with avoiding difficult questions.
You’ve not run this defence of who-the-fuck-exactly particularly well. Your insistence on tested policy is wholly unrealistic. Make better points, not accusations of immaturity.
Cheers.
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I feel a bit voyueristic watching you lot on the left arguing with yourselves, I think it could go on for a good few years. 
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I’m not so sure that it will. I’d expect some fallout from a Corbyn victory as all the Blairites take their ball home, but frankly, fuckers like Mandelson should have been washed out of the party years ago.
A few difficult months of squabbling will ensue, but the public won’t thank any wreckers if Corbyn is returned by a big enough majority. The Labour Party is changing. It’s no surprise that those with most to lose are making the biggest noises.
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Nope, I’m with Nobby * , papster.
I think it will throw the party into a couple of years of turmoil. I’d also expect disaffected Lib Dems and Blairites to parley.
* I’m with Nobby is not a euphemism.
I think it depends on the result. What right will any of the wreckers have to act up if he is returned by a huge landslide?
No right, papster, but haters gonna hate.
I’d expect some time of attempted persuasion and negotiation on both sides, and then I’d expect some sort of split in the party.
If I’m now into the realms of fantasy politics predictions, I’d expect Corbyn’s Labour party, and a new centre-left party formed out of disillusioned Lib-Dems and Blairites, to temporarily coalesce in subsequent elections.
I’m handing out next week’s lottery numbers next, stay tuned.
Sounds pretty plausible to me. There’s certainly going to be some dummy spitting and toy throwing. Blairites have run the party for 20 years. They aren’t going to relinquish it gracefully, it’s not in the nature of any of them.
There has always been a nasty undercurrent running through that movement. One which, for me, was too toxic to ever consider voting for the party whilst that element remained at the helm.
Having failed to elicit any coherent responses at all to my question about ‘principles’ (and why these remain the exclusive preserve of Jeremy Corbyn and his acolytes), I’ve now asked a question about specific policies and got a similar non-response.
Even I hadn’t quite realised the extent to which the acolytes wish only to wallow in a state of self-righteousness and not be bothered with any actual, you know, debate.
I listed a number of policy headings, all of which are open for discussion. But if that’s really too much and harshes your buzz, here’s a couple:
-
Corbyn’s energy policey: re-open the coal mines. Could someone defend that please?
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Print money to pay for public services. Could someone explain how Corbyn is going to defy economic gravity with that?
Go.
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