Then it will be the £25 ers suing for their money back. Which the Labour party will have spent on legal fees.
piss ups in breweries spring to mind
That’s a bit of a conclusion to reach there, isn’t it?
How have you determined that Shami Chakrabarti swept anti-semitism under the carpet? Is there a specific case she ignored?
The whole attack on Chakarbarti, who has fought for human rights all her life, is a bit vile. Didn’t expect to see such an obviously transparent witch-hunt be repeated as truth here.
As JC said last night, the vast majority of cases pre-date his leadership.
Those incidents could have been jumped on at _any _time. They chose to do it just ahead of the local elections. Recall that it wasn’t Ken Livingstone that started this. He was merely commenting on Naz Shah. They’d been sitting on those comments for months and released them at the time when it would cause maximum damage.
If you think that’s evidence of anti-semitism in the party, that’s your lookout. I see it for what it is. A cynical attempt to destroy the leadership with a scorched earth policy that gives not a fuck about the people that get hurt.
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Hush your indignant rage Pap.
The issue here is more of timing as opposed to whether she deserves it or not. This is a good example of political naiviety by JC. The tories, well Cameron, are getting a kicking for the honours for his mates and rightly so. Instead of letting that run its course, JC pops up, gives Chakrabati a peerage which a) looks like a reward for the bit of work she did for him and b) deflects attention away from the tories. Why didnt he wait until the new year when a lot of the fuss on these issues would have died down?
I have consistently said that JC has a habit of shooting himself in the foot and I believe that this is down to the fact he has spent too much of his life doing want he wants / feels right without caring about what others think. Whilst that might be ok for a backbencher, it is not going to help you as leader.
Originally posted by @CB-Saint
Hush your indignant rage Pap.
The issue here is more of timing as opposed to whether she deserves it or not. This is a good example of political naiviety by JC. The tories, well Cameron, are getting a kicking for the honours for his mates and rightly so. Instead of letting that run its course, JC pops up, gives Chakrabati a peerage which a) looks like a reward for the bit of work she did for him and b) deflects attention away from the tories. Why didnt he wait until the new year when a lot of the fuss on these issues would have died down?
I have consistently said that JC has a habit of shooting myself in the foot and I believe that this is down to the fact he has spent too much of his life doing want he wants / feels right without caring about what others think. Whilst that might be ok for a backbencher, it is not going to help you as leader.
It’s got fuck all to do with timing. She would have attracted the criticism no matter when he’d elevated her, for the same suggested but not-spelt-out reasons. It’s a smear, and a counter-productive one too.
Chakrabarti is probably one of the most famous “non-aligned” commentators we have in our political arena. Obviously my experience of her has been limited, but I was always taken by the fact that she seemed to have the right moral answer, even if politicians of the day couldn’t vocalise it themselves.
She’s only really of interest to political geeks, so these attacks are only going to be noted by political geeks. So great job, Labour rebels. You’ve smeared someone everyone expects at a time everyone knows you’re lying.
For the record, not one of mine:-
It’s all rather depressing really. There now seems to be zero credible opposition to the Tories. Labour appears to be a basketcase and virtually unelectable and the Lib Dems have been decimated. Sadly, it looks like we’re going to have a decade or more of Tory control before this shower get themselves sorted out.
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Disagree. Just need to sort this bollocks and move on.
May will get at most two terms. Her honeymoon period will soon come to an end and this being a Tory government, we’ve got four more years of corruption, sleaze and cuts to come.
They’re already on their second stringers. Big hitters are gone. Need to think 2020, and not this self-inflicted shitstorm that is happening now.
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I have to admire the blue sky thinking Pap - despite evidence to the contrary gathering all around, you only see the future with a Corbyn government in charge of a booming post-EU economy where the poor and the old are better off.
Presumably we’ll be winning the Champions’ League during this era as well.
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I like the idea of Corbyn’s Socialist Paradise! I didn’t watch whole thing but some of the stuff in the debate thing last night was v.good i.e.:
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More public spending
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More legislation on employment practices
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More public services & support for needy
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More involvement & charity overseas
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Less restrictions on immigration
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More pay for immigrants
What is the point of not trying to win?
The only reason people are as engaged as they are in the first place is because they believe that genuine change is possible.
What should we aim for instead? Do what the Blairites do, just moan about Tory policies and have no vision of our own?
Because that hasn’t been attractive to the public for 11 years.
Many of us would like change, but I just fear that you can’t see anything other than a glorious future - thus setting yourself up for a couple of big disappointments.
It’s good to have a dream - but don’t get too excited about it.
Originally posted by @Rallyboy
Many of us would like change, but I just fear that you can’t see anything other than a glorious future - thus setting yourself up for a couple of big disappointments.
It’s good to have a dream - but don’t get too excited about it.
I’d have a much easier dealing with this if I were an actual minority on an issue, as I seem to be on a lot of issues. I’m not. I’m part of a huge majority which will deliver a smackdown to the non-existent aspirations of Smith. There is no longer point betting on the result. Corbyn is 1/10 and Smith is 6/1. I might have a pop at predicting the percentage mandate though.
I’ll stick my neck out here and call it as above 70%.
Open your eyes, guv. There’s something happening here that hasn’t happened in my lifetime. I know I could end up disappointed. I’ll be okay with that as long as we tried, but I actually think Corbyn can win. The conditions on the ground are shite now, but could easily be right once this bollocks is done and dusted.
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I think few people have any doubt that Corbyn will defeat Smith. But then what? More of Corbyn. And come election time, Labour won’t stand a hope of winning any of those marginals. Smith may be hopeless, but he is right to say that it is pointless having a load of policies like scrapping Trident, investing massively in infrastructure etc if you remain in opposition.
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It won’t go the same way as it did before. Corbyn tried making a broad church. The rebels tore it down. Newly elected, there will be no requirement for him to do the same again. Having Rebel MPs isn’t a problem. Every party has them; Corbyn was amongst that number himself for the bulk of his political career. They’re normally confined to the back benches, and not clued into the big strategies of the leadership.
They’ll criticise, sure - but they’re foxes outside of the enclosure, not tearing up the hen house from inside.
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Fine, but that doesn’t address the key point. With Corbyn leading the party, Labour will not win the next election. He may have a whole slew of adoring acolytes but those aren’t the people he needs to win over if he wants to win the election. He needs to convince Mondeo man in Hertfordshire. He could also do with a revival of the Lib Dems to take some of those more liberally inclined Tory seats down in the Southwest. But none of that is going to happen, is it?
Originally posted by @Bathsaint
Fine, but that doesn’t address the key point. With Corbyn leading the party, Labour will not win the next election.
Can you please expand?
My understanding is that GE’s are won by the party with the largest number of Westminster seats. Performance on those have been fine, as has local election performance in the marginals.
How do you know that he’s never going to get elected? I’ve been knee deep in politics shit for years and I don’t feel confident enough to make that call, especially as he’s been winning the only things he needs to win in a GE.
We just know things, pap. We are sensitive to the prevailing winds, the word on the street, the rumble in the jungle, Call it intuition, call it apposite political insight, call it the whisperings of God if you like, but you should put ur Trust in us. We have a lifetime 100% record in predicting who will not be Prime Minister. Just know, pap, that we are attuned to forces that are beyond your understanding, and the sooner you accept it, and move on, the better for you. Your present path, it ends in Disaster, Madness, and Despair srs.
We fear for you, that’s all we’re saying. You stand on a crumbling precipice.
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Will all those swing voters in places like Southampton, Derby, Corby and so on, all come out and vote for Labour with Corbyn in charge? They need to win a shed load of those to win the election. And, will they really regain dozens of seats in Scotland back from the SNP? And, will the Lib Dems help out by recoveing in the Southwest and some of those metropolitan areas?
Well, it might happen, I suppose, but I for one won’t be putting any money on it.
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If I was to give Corbyn advice, it would be this. He’s all over the place. He’s proposing to rock every boat at once, and that’s not gonna fly. Some people quite like their boats. He needs to simplify, to moderate his message. He needs to say, in my 5yr term I will do a massive job-creating investment in public infrastructure, and pay for it by ditching tridents & hammering tax dodgers or whatever it is he’s proposing. That’s radical enough for a term of office. He needs to say he’ll do that, and leave everything else pretty much as it is, for the time being. The ppl will need that reassurance. They’ll vote for a bit of change, but they won’t vote for revolution, not all at once.
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Who is Mondeo man in Hertfordshire? Is he a 40 something former spotty estate agent with no education who’s swapped his morals for a company car and a management position, or is he an early 30s professional engineer with 5 years of university education, who has no hope of ever owning the sort of home his counterpart owns and is pissed off that he drives around in the same sort of car as his fuckwit counterpart.
The point is, why pretend things are the same now as they were 20 years ago. They are not. Things change. The media has changed. Technology has changed. There IS more than one way to wind a general election. Just because it hasn’t been done this way in recent history if ever before, it doesn’t mean that it can’t be.
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