Corbynomics: A Dystopia

pop_gun

Generali wrote: »

Being a Communist isn't illegal AIUI and nor should it be IMHO. I'm not allowed to say what I think of Communists but it isn't a very nice word.

Supporting terrorists is a bit more problematic legally, again AIUI, but he seems to get away with it.

Out of interest do you support the PLO and/or the IRA? Vis-a-vis the Commies what do you think about the tens of millions killed in the name of that horrible ideology?

When the US and UK go into other people's countries and kill them aren't they terrorist too?
What about the hospitals targeted in Afganistan? War crimes? Of course. But who can bring the US to book. Better to pretend it never happened and castigate the small time terrorists with whom we can do something about.

CLAPTON

pop_gun wrote: »

When the US and UK go into other people's countries and kill them aren't they terrorist too?
What about the hospitals targeted in Afganistan? War crimes? Of course. But who can bring the US to book. Better to pretend it never happened and castigate the small time terrorists with whom we can do something about.

are you saying that because people are killed in Agfanistan by the US and UK military, then that makes it right for the IRA to put bombs in Warrington high street, Birmingham Pubs and Brighton and other places?
Does that also make it right and decent for the Corbyn clique to refuse to condemn the IRA action?

pop_gun

CLAPTON wrote: »

are you saying that because people are killed in Agfanistan by the US and UK military, then that makes it right for the IRA to put bombs in Warrington high street, Birmingham Pubs and Brighton and other places?
Does that also make it right and decent for the Corbyn clique to refuse to condemn the IRA action?

I'm saying if we can't condemn our own atrocities. What would put us in a position to condemn anyone else's?

Arklight

Wild_Rover wrote: »

What you say might very well be accurate. I'm not sure these two items constitute the majority of attributes required by a prime minister though!

Even if the majority of the members of the Labour Party agree that he is the best person to lead their party, there is the rather more daunting task of convincing the electorate to vote in sufficient numbers for his party for Labour to form a majority, seemingly with practically no support from meaningful numbers of MPs from Scotland and with them facing problems in parts of England.

In these circumstances, what is seen as a pretty left wing Labour Party overcoming a 100+ seats deficit in England appears, to put it mildly, 'problematic'.

That also assumes that Labour can hold all the seats they currently have. In any Labour-Conservative or Labour-LibDem marginals, deselecting a 'centre' or 'right wing' sitting Labour MP and installing a left wing candidate might not attract many converts to the Labour cause, particularly if the deselected candidate stands again even if only to obtain a redundancy/severance payment. Personally, I'd have thought that would make the chances of the newly installed candidate negligible.

That twopence worth is my quick summary, for what it's worth this far ahead of an election.

I think that's why so many people are "anti him". As I've mentioned to others there is little point in being a party of left wing ideological purity if you remain in opposition. Seems to me that the Corbynites would rather win the leadership and stay in long-term opposition than win an election as part of a far broader 'church' and at least have a chance of seeing some cherished policies being put into law.

Just all IMO of course. I've yet to hear from any Corbynite of the 100+ target seats in England and Wales they are confident of taking, on the assumption that a massive Labour comeback in Scotland is not particularly likely.

Hope that helps :cool: .

WR

Thank you for your reasoned response, which is a refreshing change from the "Anyone who likes Corbyn is an IRA supporter who wants to turn England into a terrorist Communist gulag" approach from many of your forum colleagues.

Personally, as a Corbynite, I find it frustrating that the mainstream is completely fixated on his personality. Its indicative of the presidential style of politics we are now lumbered with since Tony Blair, and reduces governance to some X Factor style popularity contest rather than dealing with the things that matter for millions of people.

The reason that Corbyn is, and continues to be, leader is that all of us who support him want a different kind of politics. We are accused of being the victims of some kind of personality cult while what we want out of politics is continually overlooked.

From "our" point of view it is very suspicious how the media will devote terabytes of content deriding Corbyn for everything down to what he calls his cat, but refuses to spend one minute contemplating why he is so popular.

To me it just seems like Westminster politics is one giant gravy train with the media treating it like a soap opera. All the "players" in this drama know the rules, are getting paid very well for following them thank you very much, and are scared stiff that outside the London / Westminster bubble the peasants might be sharpening their pitch forks.

Take the PMQs the other night. Corbyn asks a perfectly reasonable question about workers rights which is ignored completely by our new Prime Minister, who makes some kind of personal jibe then does a Margaret Thatcher impression. This is then cheered on by the Tories and half the Labour MPs who sound like a bunch of braying donkeys.

I actually am a worker and I am worried about my rights. Apart from understanding that Theresa May doesn't care about them and Jeremy Corbyn might do, I am none the wiser from this exchange. Yet according to the newspapers, Theresa May "won" this exchange. I presume she gets a rosette or something.

But in the real world, all that happens when people see this type of thing is that they give up on politicians ability to help them in any way.

pop_gun

Labour, now, represent the welfare class. Although surprisingly many on welfare are voting for the Conservatives and UKIP.

Any party on left of the political spectrum will be unelectable, come 2020.

Labour will gain credence when their policies are aspirational. Have a vein of social responsibility and are funded from cuts elsewhere.
Which means no magical QE.

CLAPTON

pop_gun wrote: »

I'm saying if we can't condemn our own atrocities. What would put us in a position to condemn anyone else's?

why can't you condemn both?

Anyway does that excuse Corbyn's clique from being willing to condemn the IRA kliiers?
what's your view?

Filo25

mayonnaise wrote: »

Mrs. May may currently think that mocking job insecurity is a good way to score points in the Commons, but I'll doubt she'll be having as much fun when the brexit induced unemployment stats start trickling in.

That would probably be true in normal circumstances, but she's in the fortunate position of having no effective opposition, and can (quietly) say that any slowdown is as a result of Brexit which reflects the democratic will of the people, rather than being something she is choosing to do of her own back.

The honeymoon period might end but realistically she's in very comfortable position assuming Corbyn is confirmed as the Labour party leader., which is highly likely to happen.

Generali

Arklight wrote: »

Thank you for your reasoned response, which is a refreshing change from the "Anyone who likes Corbyn is an IRA supporter who wants to turn England into a terrorist Communist gulag" approach from many of your forum colleagues.

Personally, as a Corbynite, I find it frustrating that the mainstream is completely fixated on his personality. Its indicative of the presidential style of politics we are now lumbered with since Tony Blair, and reduces governance to some X Factor style popularity contest rather than dealing with the things that matter for millions of people.

The reason that Corbyn is, and continues to be, leader is that all of us who support him want a different kind of politics. We are accused of being the victims of some kind of personality cult while what we want out of politics is continually overlooked.

From "our" point of view it is very suspicious how the media will devote terabytes of content deriding Corbyn for everything down to what he calls his cat, but refuses to spend one minute contemplating why he is so popular.

To me it just seems like Westminster politics is one giant gravy train with the media treating it like a soap opera. All the "players" in this drama know the rules, are getting paid very well for following them thank you very much, and are scared stiff that outside the London / Westminster bubble the peasants might be sharpening their pitch forks.

Take the PMQs the other night. Corbyn asks a perfectly reasonable question about workers rights which is ignored completely by our new Prime Minister, who makes some kind of personal jibe then does a Margaret Thatcher impression. This is then cheered on by the Tories and half the Labour MPs who sound like a bunch of braying donkeys.

I actually am a worker and I am worried about my rights. Apart from understanding that Theresa May doesn't care about them and Jeremy Corbyn might do, I am none the wiser from this exchange. Yet according to the newspapers, Theresa May "won" this exchange. I presume she gets a rosette or something.

But in the real world, all that happens when people see this type of thing is that they give up on politicians ability to help them in any way.

Part of the problem is that most people don't want Mr Corbyn's different type of politics.

As far as we can tell, Mr Corbyn's different kind of politics include:

-Patronising tokenism towards women while very carefully keeping them out of the decision-making process.
-Tolerating some extremely unpleasant views among his supporters because they are ideologically sound.
-Wanting to refight the battles of the eighties the Left already lost once because Thatcher.
-Going AWOL as soon as the going gets tough.
-No solutions to anything, just a series of vague grievances that things should somehow be better. At least Trump has his wall.
-No ability to lead anything and no obvious desire to fix that glaring problem in his leadership of the Labour Party.

My opinion is that the Labour Party is dying on its feet anyway as a result of the end of trade unionism as a mass movement: I am highly unusual that as a private sector worker that I am a member of a trade union. Trade union membership in the private sector is down to 14.2% (2014 figures) and falling. Tony Blair had the right idea for making the Labour movement relevant to the C21st by introducing what amounted to a Social Democratic model but that appears to have been roundly rejected. All that remains is for the membership to select a bunch of candidates that reflect their views and for those candidates to be roundly and soundly beaten at the next election.

Filo25

Arklight wrote: »

Thank you for your reasoned response, which is a refreshing change from the "Anyone who likes Corbyn is an IRA supporter who wants to turn England into a terrorist Communist gulag" approach from many of your forum colleagues.

Personally, as a Corbynite, I find it frustrating that the mainstream is completely fixated on his personality. Its indicative of the presidential style of politics we are now lumbered with since Tony Blair, and reduces governance to some X Factor style popularity contest rather than dealing with the things that matter for millions of people.

The reason that Corbyn is, and continues to be, leader is that all of us who support him want a different kind of politics. We are accused of being the victims of some kind of personality cult while what we want out of politics is continually overlooked.

From "our" point of view it is very suspicious how the media will devote terabytes of content deriding Corbyn for everything down to what he calls his cat, but refuses to spend one minute contemplating why he is so popular.

To me it just seems like Westminster politics is one giant gravy train with the media treating it like a soap opera. All the "players" in this drama know the rules, are getting paid very well for following them thank you very much, and are scared stiff that outside the London / Westminster bubble the peasants might be sharpening their pitch forks.

Take the PMQs the other night. Corbyn asks a perfectly reasonable question about workers rights which is ignored completely by our new Prime Minister, who makes some kind of personal jibe then does a Margaret Thatcher impression. This is then cheered on by the Tories and half the Labour MPs who sound like a bunch of braying donkeys.

I actually am a worker and I am worried about my rights. Apart from understanding that Theresa May doesn't care about them and Jeremy Corbyn might do, I am none the wiser from this exchange. Yet according to the newspapers, Theresa May "won" this exchange. I presume she gets a rosette or something.

But in the real world, all that happens when people see this type of thing is that they give up on politicians ability to help them in any way.

Just a few points on this, I agree that any kind of personality politics can be unhelpful, the problem is that as far as I can see a lot of Corbyn supporters are prime examples of those following personality politics, I don't see what he has done to deliver such fervour amongst people.

In terms of policies what have Labour actually turned out under Corbyn outside of the stuff he really cares about (foreign policy and disarmament), which unfortunately for him the general public care about a lot less.

Being anti-austerity isn't a policy position, its just more protest politics, which is obviously Corbyn's background, there aren't any real economic policies in place, the economic advisory committee they setup have basically all resigned as they weren't having any guidance or even felt they were being listened to.

He's not a serious proposition as PM to mainstream Britain, and every poll shows that, his "popularity" is with a section of activists on the left wing of society who aren't representative of the general public.

He also does nothing to address Labour's weaknesses and even adds to them, they remain vulnerable to UKIP with their working class vote, and are probably now vulnerable to the more Europhile LibDems amongst the socially liberal middle class section of the party, due to Corbyn's lukewarm EU support.

Labour are heading for electoral oblivion if the Corbyn wing of the party stays in power for long enough, if we get Momentum inspired deselections the party will split, and I think that is more likely than not in the aftermath of Corbyn retaining the leadership, and the FPTP system is not kind to party's that split.

Even if they don't split I would say Labour are highly unlikely to poll over 30% in the next GE.

Arklight

Generali wrote: »

Part of the problem is that most people don't want Mr Corbyn's different type of politics.

As far as we can tell, Mr Corbyn's different kind of politics include:

-Patronising tokenism towards women while very carefully keeping them out of the decision-making process.
-Tolerating some extremely unpleasant views among his supporters because they are ideologically sound.
-Wanting to refight the battles of the eighties the Left already lost once because Thatcher.
-Going AWOL as soon as the going gets tough.
-No solutions to anything, just a series of vague grievances that things should somehow be better. At least Trump has his wall.
-No ability to lead anything and no obvious desire to fix that glaring problem in his leadership of the Labour Party.

My opinion is that the Labour Party is dying on its feet anyway as a result of the end of trade unionism as a mass movement: I am highly unusual that as a private sector worker that I am a member of a trade union. Trade union membership in the private sector is down to 14.2% (2014 figures) and falling. Tony Blair had the right idea for making the Labour movement relevant to the C21st by introducing what amounted to a Social Democratic model but that appears to have been roundly rejected. All that remains is for the membership to select a bunch of candidates that reflect their views and for those candidates to be roundly and soundly beaten at the next election.

Well I do, so I am going to continue supporting someone who is offering a different kind of politics. I don't think I am the only one.

Again most of your points are specific to your opinions about Jeremy Corbyn as a person, but don't address what is lacking in mainstream politics.

I profoundly disagree with you that Tony Blair had the right idea about anything, other than realising that the Blairite personality cult. a lot of spin, some pop music, and the support of The Sun, amounted to an open goal against John Major; a man who was in many ways, a much more principled and conscientious individual than Blair would know how to be on one of his best days. Maybe if John had had 2 Unlimited singing him a theme tune then things would be different.

Blair did a great job at continuing Thatchers evisceration of the unions, and thus eviscerated, Blairites were able to point to their evisceration and move toward what the PLP actually want, a model where they are funded by donations from big business. Tax breaks for the rich are much easier to deliver on when you get into government than a better standard of living for the poor, after all. Especially if you want have a 140 MPs behind you who are more interested in lucrative directorships for themselves than affordable housing for their constituents.

I agree with you the Labour is finished in its current incarnation, Jeremy Corbyn will be around for a while, but the Party will not be returning to what the Blairites want it to be.

If they all leave and set up a new party all I can say is that I hope they like walking and delivering leaflets, because there are going to be precious few actual members wanting to do it for them.