UKH

If you have a strong opinion on the way the Labour party should move forward after its historic humping last week, can I ask that you join both the party and Momentum.

The same momentum that relentlessly pushed Corbyn rather than allowing more moderate (and more electable) voices to be heard? 
 

I’m a Labour Party member and have been for years, but Corbyn just didn’t get it. 
 

Labour need to kick momentum to the side lines if they have any honest ambitions of becoming a credible opposition again let alone a government in waiting. However, given momentums near total control of PLP and their ongoing purge of any moderates or those 'not on message' you get the impression they prefer glorious defeat in perpetual opposition. Even a week after the election the complete denial of any requirement to change course is astonishing and depressing in equal measure. 

Momentum members would do better to start a socialist or communist party that more correlates with their views, rather than hijack an existing party. 

Self-evidently no. By executing a coup within the Labour Party, Momentum has gained a platform for its madness. The UK is much the worse for it however.

Yeah. Too late, they've invested too much time and effort in manipulating the party to consider moving on. 

Yep

Given that any self identified communist party in the UK has usually failed to get its deposit back or has been beaten by Lord Buckethead or similar the only way they were going to worm their way into mainstream politics was via a takeover. Well done Ed Miliband for changing the system under which he was elected to "one member one vote" and allowed the public to take part for a £3 fee.

Surely that's his point, learn the lesson. You win that fight from the inside, as they have so far.

jk

Hardly! What you mean is you disapprove of their tactics.

jk

It's far more efficient to use an existing, established party. Why else would Tommy Robinson be urging his followers to join the Cons - he knows they can keep them moving ever further to the right.

I'm not a Labour supporter or voter, but I imagine the op is asking such to join Labour and Momentum in order to help steer them in a constructive direction, not to support what they're currently up to.

Unless you think they're getting it right as it is, anyway.

Ultimately, these groups are just their members - and if you'd like to change what they're doing, you're unlikely to find a better way than by being an active member.

I'm trying to talk my student daughter into joining - £3 per year instead of £50. I don't want to give £50 to the party if they're going to continue down their current road.

In a way it doesn't matter. For me the lib dems can now recover from shouty swinson, they should have done better the other week, but could scoop up a few Labour voters if they get their act together in future elections. 

The sad thing is, the Lib Dems did do well in terms of convincing people to vote for them - their vote increased from 2.4m to 3.7m: a 50% increase and 3x the number who voted for the SNP. 

Unfortunately, whilst we now have 1 Conservative MP for every 44,000 Conservative voters and 1 SNP MP for every 26,000 SNP voters, it took 336,000 Lib Dem voters to elect each of their MPs.

Can you tell me what he didnt get? please be specific as i'm lost when people say this.

tell me which part of the manifesto you didnt like and why.

Semi confiscation of property didn't appeal

Free broadband an irrelevant expense

Dithering on a brexit position

Etc

However, the manifesto is only one part of the equation. The leaders and influencers were a  disaster. 

Could the last people leaving the Labour Party in Scotland please turn off the lights?

Agreed Fozzy, but I think Eric agrees too and his plan is to take down Momentum from within. However, I'm with you, I think the best way to sideline Momentum is to just get more right minded members, to dilute their influence.

Eh? That's not a situation I recognise as a member. PLP mostly anti-Momentum. Momentum wanted to change that with re-selections, but didn't get a chance, and where they did get to try it failed.

Congratulations: you win a lifetime subscription to 'The Sun' newspaper. I hope that makes you happy.

If you don't get an independence vote, or vote to stay, Scotland will only harm itself keep voting for a party that doesn't stand in the rest of the UK.

I tore up my Labour Party card and sent it back when Corbyn was elected. I did'nt want to be part of a party that was being taken in that direction. Unfortunately the nutters and the union nutters will always hold the whip hand given the current constitutional framework within the party. If you want it to work, then Lansman and his band of dedicated nutters need kicked out and kept out and the unions need much less influence. Len McLusley is a disgrace and is as much to blame as the rest of the sorry band of self righteous idiots.

You've got the wrong end of the stick there Jim. Milliband changed the rules so it is one member one vote. That benefited Corbyn in 2015, but could now work against him if right minded people join! C'mon Jim, you don't want to live in what could effectively become a one party state!

I've always wondered whether a lot of tories joined the Labour Party then and voted for Corbyn. Would'nt surprise me. The alternative view is that we all join the Conservative Party and change its policy and direction. You'd have more influence there cos most of the existing membership is dead or dying.

I'm an existing member* and I'd say it's a lot closer than people think (judging from this thread). A lot of the younger members who joined to support Corbyn got disillusioned and and I hope that will include Momentum.

* I'm involved in local politics so to leave Labour would be to give up on that, which I don't want to do. Us members with a realistic view of UK politics just need a bit of help to send Seamus back to his journalistic career!

I'd send him off to jail, goodness knows he's committed enough offences. The guy should never be let loose on media again, he's lied from the onset of his career and a lot of where we've got is because of the constant barrage of misinformation over the years emanating from him and his like. One of the steps we need to initiate is the culture of honesty and integrity in politics and journalism. How we do that, goodness only knows.

That's a serious charge. What are some specific examples?

I don't know what Jim is referring to, but one of Seamus's all time lows for me was when he refereed to people who'd been living in a war zone for years as 'quislings'.

Yeah, because that's worked so well for us in the past.  Scotland hasn't voted Tory for about 60 years and we get governed by Tories all the time.   We're leaving.   

Good luck, honestly, I hope you get your referendum. My point is that if you don't vote independance (and realistically you don't know if you will or not), Scotland needs to re-think who it votes to Westminster.

This 'pride' in Scotland not being able to host a socially democratic party is a bit odd too.

I was taking the p*ss because the SNP is picking up tons of new members this week as Scottish Labour falls apart.   They've only got one MP left and that's a guy who Momentum tried to deselect.   Talk is that some MSPs will cross over in the new year.

AFAIK the Scottish Government can hold a referendum if it wants.  There's a bill going through Parliament to give them that power.  But I don't think Sturgeon wants an 'advisory' referendum.  She wants a referendum that will give her status to negotiate with the EU and UK.   So my guess is the next step is to go to court.

The variable is whether Boris is willing to go down the Spanish path.  He seems to be setting out to be provocative and confrontational.

OOps thought you were talking about Boris not Milne, need to put my glasses on! Apologies.

Me, I'd try to do that without making an obvious reference to 'The Sun' newspaper. It's 'not a good look.'

It is hardly surprising that Ian Murray found himself in trouble: he consistently undermined the leadership.

Who is talking about that? What are the specific suggestions? Make a prediction and we can revisit this in due course.

What reference to The Sun?  I never read it.

Your political education is lacking.

See e.g. https://sociologytwynham.com/2013/10/18/sun-headlines-and-their-political-i...

Haha, classic from me at work today, 20 mins looking for my readers... which were of course on my head!

The Tories will try and maintain the status quo as long as possible, it suits them, but their are boundaries here. Arresting Nicola Sturgeon is a complete no no and they know it.

I'm all for Scottish self determination and believe Brexit is as major enough change to warrant another referendum. I want it settled asap as the current situation is damaging to rUK opposition parties.

I hope the SNP can and do arganise an 'advisory' referendum.... just like our Brexit vote 😉

The 'turn out the lights' thing has been a saying for far longer than that Sun headline.   The Sun isn't that big a deal in Scotland.

Sturgeon isn't stupid, she doesn't really expect Johnson to grant Scotland a referendum. To be fair to him (much as I dislike it) he was voted in with a promise not to do so.

Her long term aim, especially if legal avenues fail, must be to use his refusal, and Brexit and its consequences, to increase support for independence. IMHO a positive advisory vote (or perhaps better an advisory vote on wishing to hold a referendum) would weaken his justification for his continued refusal and increase her support. In fact the the longer the indyref is delayed the more likely an eventual majority for independence.

Anybody who taken a serious interest in British politics over the last twenty or thirty years will immediately recognise the reference, and its implications. It's a poor phrase to use - unless you indeed intend to reference those.

That's pretty much what I think. I can't otherwise see any other sense behind the current tactics of the SNP.

As our former MP has whined to the press, the people just didn’t *understand* his IRA links.  One might detect a hint of contempt for the electorate in that sort of view.  If only I’d understood it ey?

Oh I know. Momentum isn't going to disband so the next best thing is to dilute its revolutionary zeal by getting adults to join it.

Join Labour and Join the Fabian Society (or Young Fabians). They believe in a more gradual progression, rather than revolutionary change.

Thinking about it again, that must be Sturgeon's strategy. I.e. I suspect that the noises she has made about actually wanting a referendum in 2020 are actually bogus, and are more designed to target her existing supporters than anything else.

If she were to persist in publicly asking for a referendum next year (though I note that she has not actually done that in the letter to Johnson), you could imagine that her bluff could be called. In that case, my own prediction is that the referendum would be lost, and that she would be up the shit.

According to Irish people I’ve spoken to, the IRA didn’t understand them either - ‘who the ***k is Corbyn?’ seems to be their view.

I find the way the right has been able to weaponise Corbyn’s supposed IRA links a little surprising, although given their blanket press support I suppose I shouldn’t. Apart from the fact that they barely exist - Thatcher spoke more and more meaningfully with the IRA than Corbyn did - you would have thought that history had comprehensively proved Corbyn right; we now have (comparative) peace in Northern Ireland precisely because the UK government itself developed ‘IRA links’, and most people regard that as a good thing.

jcm

He didn't get that he was a chocolate teapot 

I don't think Corbyn cares about the Irish, Palestinians, or anyone else.. only his own ideolgy. If any group be them politicians, terrorist or protestors pop up who are against a western capitalist government, even better the UK government then he sees himself as their ally fighting the same foe.

This isn't same as a politician meeting what was still an active ira and Sinn Fein to discuss what would eventually lead them to the table and a peace deal. Corbyn wasn't involved in this. 

What she's doing is a bit more subtle. She's asking for a recognition that Scotland is a country in a voluntary union it can choose to leave and that it is for the Scottish Parliament to decide when independence referendums are held.   That is far more important and significant than permission to hold a referendum in 2020.   She can get wider public support for the general principle that Scotland has the right to leave the UK if it chooses than the specific questions of whether there should be a referendum in 2020 or whether we should leave the UK now. 

Quite right! But the fact remains that she has recently said that her intention was to get the authority to have a referendum in 2020. That's just a disingenuous ploy.

It's obvious now: the more rejections she gets from Whitehall, the better it is for her case when the logjam does eventually break (as it must.) In that context, it would be fascinating to see what would happen should Johnson take her up on the original request, and offer her a 2020 referendum. She'd have to take it; I think the referendum would be lost; the issue would then be stone dead.

She does want to get authority for a referendum in 2020 but she's a chess player and she's thinking several moves ahead so she's well positioned however Boris responds.

The political paths of Scotland and England are diverging and as long as they keep diverging there demand for independence is only going to increase over time.  Losing a referendum would be a temporary setback.  The issue is never going to die until either Scotland gets independence or Scotland and England want the same kind of government and the UK deals with the centralisation of power in London.

I think YES might narrowly lose a referendum if it was held tomorrow but even if Johnson granted the s30 it wouldn't be held until Autumn 2020.  That's plenty of time for a right wing Tory government to piss off an extra few percent of the population especially with the ongoing Brexit debacle and for YES to change a few more minds.

I don't think she does. But neither of us know.

My prediction is that a referendum held in 2020 would be lost. And now I see her strategy. So, of course, does Whitehall. It'll be interesting to see what happens.

How about this:

https://www.thenational.scot/news/18112487.labour-mp-rochdale-announced-new...

Labour have ignored their one MP from Scotland and made an English MP from Rochdale shadow Secretary of State for Scotland.   Talk about taking the p*ss. 

Interesting that a couple of Labour MSPs voted with the SNP on the referendum bill.  

It's not surprising: as I said before, Ian Murray has consistently undermined the leadership, and previously resigned from the Shadow Cabinet as a protest against the continuing leadership of Corbyn.

Semi confiscation of what property precisely?  Are you talking about renationalisation of certain utilities? It's worth remembering many of  these were publicly owned before being sold off by successive tory governments.  The most recent being the creeping privatisation of the post office....now, where are the voices screaming about semi confiscation of property in relation to this?

I guess the Irish people you spoke to didn’t see him take key IRA supporters on a tour of the commons then.

As I understand it, our governments have always maintained IRA links. Corbyn on the other hand wasn’t government or anything important in the opposition. His links weren’t the primary problem, and had nothing to do with the achievements of peace.  The primary problem was his atrociously bad judgment - over and over - in how he dealt with his Marxist IRA associates.  

That's why Labour needs to change.

They didn't, they abstained.

Where can I find online the voting record for this bill, do you know? Thanks.

http://www.parliament.scot/parliamentarybusiness/report.aspx?r=12431&i=...

Got elected though, which is more than can be said for the rest of them.

Since Corbyn has stated he is going to resign loyalty to Corbyn should be irrelevant to this appointment. 

If there was any justice or common sense the SNP would respond for the opposition on matters related to Scotland rather than have the two colonial English parties have a debate among themselves about a country which comprehensively rejected both of them.

I always had you down as a more intelligent chappie than this post suggests. It rather leaves me wondering actually what your point is?

I'm afraid not. I learned about it through a Facebook group. One of those abstaining was Monica Lennon.

Thanks. From that, we can see that your previous claim that 'a couple of Labour MSPs voted with the SNP on the referendum bill' is in fact untrue.

It's pretty obvious what the internal Labour Party dynamics are; in any event, we can expect a reshuffle after the forthcoming change of leadership.

In general though, if you are obsessing about what the Labour Party is doing right now, then I suggest that you are looking in the entirely wrong direction.

"Labour have ignored their one MP from Scotland and made an English MP from Rochdale shadow Secretary of State for Scotland.   Talk about taking the p*ss."

Yeah that's what we all thought with Blair, Brown, Darling..... lol

I assume the SNP are paying you for all the work you do on here?

Edit made to last part..

I agree with Mike on this. The Labour party gambled on a new system of the members voting for who they wanted as leader rather than the old system of the MPs voting (as is current in other parties). Corbyn made it up from the back because he came across as genuine rather than merely parroting sound bites. If you want to change the labour party leaving isn't going to do it.

Exactly - he had tea with a couple of people. Thatcher spoke to them to discuss yielding to some of their demands. You don’t hear about Thatcher’s ‘IRA links’.

As for his ‘IRA Marxist associates’, I’m not sure I know what you mean. You think the IRA was a Marxist organisation?!

jcm

You did rather wilfully ignore my point, I’ll expand it Thatcher was government and was expected to have links to enemies of our state to do her job, where as Corbyn was at best an insignificant member of the opposition with no formal requirement or power or authority or expectation to do what thatcher was doing and who - at best - was displaying a massive insensitivity to the many victims of terrorists and jeopardising the work of those whose job was to bring peace and those individuals who took on incredibly private risks to themselves and their families to help that process - and I include some Irish republicans in that later group.  Those individuals were in places they could make a difference and being change, Corbyn wasn’t.

Would you have invited members of Hitler’s government to tea in the House of Commons during WW2?  

I wish.

Unfortunately, if you want to get paid you need to be a Tory, they've got money coming out their arse from Russia and US billionaires.

Not obsessing.  I'm only interested in Scotland and Labour is now pretty much irrelevant.

Yes.  There were a bunch of comments on Twitter saying they'd voted with SNP but it's clear they actually abstained.

Considering what happened in Brighton to her, her friends and colleagues, just to considering some level of peace talks is a pretty noble effort? 

Corbyn had no involvement in the peace process. I'd say he was happy to join them in their stance of being anti UK government, despite being a UK mp.  

Noted, thanks.

Perhaps filter/verify the twitter stuff before re-posting here? It's not a personal criticism, and I recognize your enthusiasm and commitment - but if there's one thing I've had had enough of lately in British politics it's disinformation and lies.

 But anyway thanks. And Merry Christmas!

Does this mean your comments and opinions only apply to Scotland?

I would be interested to see how an independent Scotland does. Hope you all have fun and it works out great for everyone. 

I wish you luck as a strong opposition is vital for a healthy democracy. Trouble is the Labour far left won't give up their grip on the party easily or quickly.  The political battle over Militant was trivial compared to what is needed now.

The latest opinion ... telling the story of a pre-christmas pantomime with the ending played out for real in parallel to the election....

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/21/when-an-mp-criticised...

We don't need luck, we need members.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/20/unite-official-gerard-coyn...

They'll pay the price for crossing the party piper. 

Most of them.  I don't understand English politics, it is completely beyond me how you can vote the way you've been voting.  

I disagree. Momentum never achieved the grip on the party they wanted. For example, their attempts at deselection failed, Margaret Hodge and Diana Johnson are still mps.

 Control of the party is now up for grabs, it's up to people to get involved.

Nick Cohen seems intent on promoting a self fulfilling prophecy.

If there was no SNP or equivalent maybe Scotland would be voting in the same way as England. Sounds a bit like stating the obvious, but if the independence factor was removed Scottish voters might be more vulnerable to the same arguments and types of politician as English voters.

Also I'd point out that its a matter of degree: its just MORE English voters have voted in certain ways compared to Scottish voters.

"We don't need luck, we need members."

I'd say the opposite... the Labour party is still very large and diverse but has never looked less electable to me in terms of chances of forming a majority government. It also has too many members paying too low a party subscription and a real minority problem with entryism, alongside the Mc Cluskey bullyboy attitudes of a few of the current key party influencers.  Infighting and playing poltics to the party membership cannot take precedence over unity on clear policy that can convince swing voters in marginals.

Most of the current leadership contenders look like lightweights or doomed to be almost as unpopular as JC. I only have a tiny ray of hope that someone like Keir Starmer, who could help move the party back to electability, could become the new leader. The party has shifted so much that he looks like a token moderate (he is not.... as a self described socialist he is far from a Blairite), who seems to have good cross-over support amongst swing voter types, but was kept away from the public during the election; maybe lest that he spill the beans on the lack of magic in the party leadership and too clearly indicate a better alternative Labour view.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/11/election-coverage-dominate...

Labour party membership isn't cheap, it costs me twice what it would to be in the tory party.

You can't control who is in a party until they do something wrong. What centre left types can do is join themselves and encourage others to.

I don't agree there's some good candidates once you get passedthe obvious continuity Corbyn one. Others on here have agreed, people like Neilh, who I don't think of as a lefty.

And how is that going to happen? You seem to be hoping for a miracle. It won't be miracle, it will be others joining the party and voting for a good leader. It really is a simple as that.

That just doesn't make sense, Kier Starmer is one of several 'soft left' candidates.

I agree, in this day and age the unions should not control the Labour party. The question is then, who should? The answer is obvious. The problem is too many centre left types expect somebody else to take the reins. They treat politics like a consumer choice, waiting for someone to come along with just the right offer for them. Don't work like that, people have to get involved if the want a say in the 'product'.

Don't blame me! I didn't vote for the blue team. Far from it.

Centrist , swing voter.....neither left not right.

The day after the election I joined the Electoral Reform Society and rejoined the Labour party. I'll be voting for Keir Starmer in the leadership election. He has the history and credentials for the left, but with the respectability of someone who's held high office before and none of Corbyn's baggage, plus he has the delivery and nous to bring the centre along. He was one of very few who forensically trashed Johnson's Brexit deal and other actions in the Commons.

If the Long-Bailey coronation succeeds we can expect worse to come.

Fully accepting this is not a very mature observation, but does anyone else find her to have a very dislikeable face? She looks like someone who gets cast to play a mean-spirited character in a children's film.

This shouldn't matter, of course, but given where Labour are they don't need any extra challenges with the electorate.

It's maybe the other way round: if Scottish people wanted the same things as English people there wouldn't be such a demand for independence and the SNP would not be so powerful a force.

Scotland has not voted Tory for about 70 years but we continually get bossed about by Tory governments that are only interested in England. 

Your statement is true if there are no voters for the Tory party.  Plenty of Scottish people have voted for the Tory party........so to suggest that Scotland does “ not vote Tory” is  plainly false.

It's years since I've read about this stuff, but I remember that psychiatrists often look at people's mouths, and they way they move. Long-Bailey has a small, very tight-lipped mouth, and her bottom lip often wobbles around asymmetrically. Which to me is definitely a warning sign: of someone who is hiding things, not giving us their full self, very used to distorting facts and/or hiding/distorting their own true feelings. I feel uncomfortable with that basic shiftiness.

Yes. I agree, she has a mean face. So happy not to be alone in this observation.

The bad news for Starmer lovers is that he has a weak countenance. His eyes tell you he’s not a leader. I hope I’m wrong.

Starmer's voice is the problem I think. He's never going to win without changing it. 

Of course some people in Scotland vote Tory, but if you'd had a general election for Scotland (rather than the whole UK) the Tories would not have got in for about 70 years.  They've never got close to forming a government in the Scottish Parliament.  Yet the big decisions affecting Scotland are made by Tories for about 2/3 of the time. 

She's not my type but I think in some pictures she looks quite attractive. But her politics put me off. I'm thinking of rejoining Labour, after many years having not been a member, but as a West Midlands boy I'll be behind Jess Phillips, because so far she seems to be a social democrat and great and smart and normal and a Brummy. All of which seem like fine things to me.

I suggest it is irrelevant to have separate left leaning parties in any future GE whilst FPTP exists. Cons will get in again if all left of centre parties don't form a one- off coalition to install proportional representation, after which they can then diversify. Political parties are heavily 4  nation based. Until they wake up to a one off coalition to change the system,  the cons may as well book into the next few elections as inevitable. The issues and party identities are too diverse for the current system.  

If this is to judge character or mental state I think it was probably dropped along with measuring eyebrows to judge criminality.

Facial expression etc is considered during psychiatric or psychological assessment in terms of things like whether it is reactive or congruent with expressed emotion, but I don’t know of anything particularly useful about mouth movement.

One possible exception to that is to do with tardive dyskinesia, a movement disorder that can be brought on by long term use of anti psychotic medication. Some of the more characteristic symptoms of tardive dyskinesia do affect the mouth, so you might keep an eye out for these if you were prescribing someone certain meds. 

Although some people do just look undeniably shifty. 
 

Edit: for missed word  

Labour won three elections in a row under FPTP not that long ago.

Is that because the majority of the population don't want those kind of policies...  remind me what are elections for? 

In the last election, I and millions of others were disenfranchised because none of the parties had leaders or policies we liked or trusted

I think she's great but unfortunately despised by the Corbynites because of her (warranted) criticism of him.

Can't see them getting elected again even once in my lifetime, not unless they manage to ditch the Momentum idiots.

That's the problem, they're not Labourites, they're Corbynites.

Pr or fptp won't solve that problem!! 

I think Kier is on of several strong candidates. I'm not sure he's the best leader to take us into an election but if he emerges as the favourite to beat the momentum backed corbyn continuity candidate I'll vote for him.

I think that's the most important task for now. We need to completely dismantle the current leadership team, send them packing.

Please do...

https://images.app.goo.gl/L2B7PuKDK9kFaZVS6

I'd agree there - they need a leader the voters can identify with, and be inspired by. Starmer would be an excellent choice for leader of the house / home sec / foreign sec, as his gravitas and experience would be better put to use in a position where he would be respected by all, and where he would undoubtedly provide a very strong backup to whoever is pm.

The near total loss of all Labour MPs in Scotland (permanent if Scotland gains independence) presumably now makes obtaining a UK majority very difficult. Of course the three elections were won with much more centrist policies than those proposed by Corbyn.

And there was surprising support for the Blair government from the media including the Sun and Mail (if I remember correctly). In fact I think Blair had a political honeymoon that lasted well beyond his first term but was ended at least partly by the Iraq war. Conditions would need to become much worse in the near future to provide a sufficient swing to the Tories. On the other hand no government can satisfy the majority forever (especially with potential social, economic and ecological crises looming), so at some time people will want an alternative.

Scotland makes very little difference to UK election results:

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/insights/general-elections-without-sco...

This is as you'd expect, really - it's only 59/650 seats, about 9%.

The UK gets the government England (533/650=82%) votes for, unless England's really wavering on the edge.

If Labour can't win without Scotland any more (Blair did), they need to ask themselves some very serious questions. Or accept that they'll need to form coalitions, which is hardly the end of the world.

The problem with changing to PR, is that any party that has just been elected with a decent majority on FPTP (such as the above) has little reason to change. The current system has just worked for them, they don't have to form any cross party alliances, they forge ahead doing what they want - whilst trying to hold on to their voters for the next election in 5 years.

There is no incentive for a strong government to change, the incentive for change comes from the losing parties.

I can't quite get my head round a large number of seats previously held by Labour but now being virtually unavailable to them and then this not affecting their chances of a majority of UK MPs.

Incidentally I think the reference given is 2010 which was before the recent GE Labour debacles in Scotland.

It clearly does affect their chances of getting a majority, aye - I just don't see it making it very much harder.

And it shouldn't make it significantly harder at all to get in as part of a coalition or confidence-and-supply, as the SNP aren't going to form one with the Tories, it'd be electoral suicide for them.

I have to say, this election - and the analysis I've heard - has made me reconsider my view of politics, a bit. Although I've never considered it before, I think that there is now good reason to join the Labour Party.

I've never seen myself in terms of identity as part of the Labour movement, mainly by not seeing society in terms of "workers" and "capitalists". I'm much more of a "liberal" - seeing politics just as a matter of practical problem solving to improve outcomes in society. It seems obvious to me that the best solutions are trying to provide the best conditions for economic growth while putting that growth to use through provision of high quality services. So I would never, ever consider voting Tory, because their political philosophy is based on false premises ("just world"; "traditional values are best") and because their policies always lead to the degradation of public services which impacts the most vulnerable.

But, since the both the Tories and Labour went mental, and then those who started the fight for the centre ground (Rory Stewart, that Change UK lot, etc) got annihilated, I'm starting to be won over by the idea that the liberal, centrist ideas that I used to think were quite commonly held just aren't. I've been expecting a resurgence of the centre and seen the opposite. I don't know whether what people actually think has changed, or whether it's just been exposed through Brexit, but I feel like the national consensus is more around a nationalist, socially conservative "centre", and what I thought was centrist is just an aspect of the left that has become irrelevant. What I consider old-fashioned "god save the queen" bollocks, is the centre ground, despite the fact that I grew up believing that it was dying out. Rational problem solving is on the fringe.

So, do I give up on the idea of centrist politics and lend my support to Labour simply because they're not the Tories - and my god they need all the help they can get? Maybe as a pragmatist I should? It's unbelievable and ironic, given the absolute pigsty of the Labour party, that this actually seems like a sensible basket to put your eggs in. 

And, would it be going too far to suggest that Brexit has killed liberalism?

The only trouble is, I live in a LD/con marginal, so unless the Lib Dems literally all die out, I will never vote Labour or Green. So I guess I have the easy option of sticking to my principles even though they seem utterly irrelevant in today's world. Should I join the Labour party just to cast a vote for a leader who isn't an imbecile, and then carry on voting Lib Dem? Seems like a good idea!

I think he's one of the stronger of several weak candidates.

RLB is death, basically. Thornbury I find unbearable as a personality but in fairness this is largely because she reminds my of my Auntie Mary, who is far and away the most repulsive member of my family (and there are quite a few not particularly great eggs in there). Jess Phillips is a great person, with stacks of integrity - she's funny, smart, and dedicated, and I can't imagine her being machiavellian nor compromising on serial moral issues like selling arms to the Saudis. She also has a brummie accent and I cannot for one second imagine her being voted PM. I don't know much about Lisa Nandy accept that she hates Corbyn, so I suppose that's a start.

I'm trying to be upbeat!

Honestly, I think Starmer, Phillips and Nandy are all strong candidates. Nandy is clearly ambitious and has shown herself to be media savvy this passed week... 2 qualities we do need in a leader.

By contrast the Corbyn/Momentum camp has been quiet. I'm beginning to doubt there'll be life in that movement after JC departs.

I don't mean to be a downer at this, the happiest time of the year, but thinking in the broader context, I'm not exactly optimistic.

I struggle to take Monboy seriously at the best of times, and generally find that he has a bit of a point which he's amplified and distorted into nonsense - and this is no exception:

youtube.com/watch?v=6I_ZhGHxnHQ&

But if you accept that there's an inkling of truth in what he's saying, these Labour candidates just don't cut it in modern politics. Who was the only successful Labour leader of my lifetime? Why it was Tony Blair (who, in my view, has been 100% bang on, throughout this Brexit/Corbyn/election catastrophe).

What did TB do? He sold his soul to the devil. Twice weekly private meetings to tenderly felate Rupert Murdoch. Let's be honest, that's exactly what it takes to get into power (it's probably no longer Rupert Murdoch - who's really pulling the strings in these facebook days is a bit more shadowy, but the skill is sucking off the right people, and the Tories do this instinctively and without gagging).

Me neither, but I'm not really looking that far ahead at the moment.

The UK needs an effective opposition asap. There's some good MPs who could crack on with that if, and only if, there's a clean break from the current leadership.

In climbing terms, we're looking at a low down technical move before we even get into the steep offwith.

In answer to your earlier post, yes please do join the Labour party, we need you.

You should definitely join Jon. You might not consider yourself typical Labour material but neither were many of the deluded Left who joined three years ago with the intention of using the Labour party to wage class war. 

The party has been well and truly infiltrated and a moderate vote is not only needed in the forthcoming leadership elections but in elections for the NEC and all the other committees that influence Labour policy. Not only does Labour need a more centrist and popular leader but it needs all its policy making bodies to change as well.

It doesn't cost much, you don't need to go to the meetings if you don't want to and voting probably takes less time than it does to compose one of your thoughtful posts. 😀.

Can't believe the northerners who voted for the tories. Like seriously WHAT THE HELL!

It's difficult, because it feels totally insincere. I haven't really got any interest in learning all about the internal mechanics of the Labour Party, because I just don't feel very Labour, so I'd struggle to form an opinion on the things you need to understand to influence the key decisions. Just to join, cast a vote then quit because I don't want the direct debit coming out seems highly questionable. I'd be doing it for good reasons, i.e. to support the Labour party in success, not the way a Tory would infiltrate to disrupt.

I've actually been to the website, but didn't click the button. Joining a political party you don't actually support just for the purposes of casting a vote seems a step *too* pragmatic even for me - it doesn't sit well. And then voting LD - I could say I was doing it tactically, but truth be told, I always prefer their policies, I'm a very "natural" LD voter, I'm afraid. Get those taxes in off the middle classes, and spend them on schools and hospitals. Don't preach, let people do what they like so long as it doesn't hurt others. That's what I want from the government, and it never seems to be what Labour offers.

What a quandary.

Good metaphor. That "steep offwidth" you refer to, is I think, what I might coin "the fellatio problem" as per my post above.

There's a good argument for it, since I've been waiting for Ken Clarke, Chuka Umunna, David Milliband, Heidi Allen etc, to take UK politics by storm with their revolutionary coalition of the bland but entirely sensible for a while now (it was a real blow when Paddy Ashdown popped his cloggs), and I think it's time to give up hope.

My union isn't affiliated so I have to pay 50 quid, which isn't insignificant. That was about my proportion of the petrol costs for last weekend's trip winter climbing in Scotland. These things are hard to prioritise!

So the £4.30/mth isn't just for the month when you can vote for a non-imbecile?

I'm interested in what you have to say, please say it! I think this is a really interesting and pertinent discussion. I'm probably not going to get back to you right away because it's Christmas and everything, but politics is in a right state just now and I think we should all be talking about it, if we're interested enough to read a thread on the internet and click a button.

Do you think that wishy-washy liberals like me should grow some balls and get radical? Do you think that blow-job metaphors are distasteful? Are you glad that Paddy Ashdown is dead? By clicking that button, you're saying something to me, that's different to my view, but I've no idea what it is, and we can only have a discussion if someone with a different view puts it forward. 

I think you hit the nail on the head. What are elections for? People appear in the  last election not to want  left leaning parties, however if proportional representation had been used, cons wouldn't have majority and a rainbow coalition would be in charge and we'd be looking at a confirmatory referendum on some compromise Brexit deal.

So elections ,imo, are there to accurately reflect public voting habits whether they be left or right leaning.

Also to  look  forward to the hope of a Blair - type landslide  win is to ignore the fracturing of voting habits that have emerged since Blair. The only hope of the current opposition parties is to agree to prioritise electoral reform. Any future labour leader may have to do deals like Lib dems in deciding to run one candidate rather than act in rivalry to form any effective challenge to right wing/un green politics.

I remember after Maggie that most commentators said that Labour could never achieve a majority in England ever again. Then came the arrogant tory self harm and implosion and Blair. The current tory political scenario looks very much more unstable and reactionary  than it did with Maggie (who did have a balanced cabinet and yet without the Falklands war would probably have been a one term PM). 

On Jon's quandary, I think the far left still have a lot of damage to cause in the Labour party before it sees sense and removes them again, or withers and is replaced by a new left of centre party.  Joining the party to vote is maybe pragmatic,  but won't be good for a social liberal's blood pressure and is most probably doomed to fail. I won't join but will continue to pursuade those in marginals to support the most likely candidate to beat the local tory, and for a while this will usually be a Labour candidate. I also still think tactically voting green is the best bet in safe seats unless another candidate is really outstanding.

Looking beyond the despair of this huge Boris majority, progressive parties still won the popular vote and just need to work together better next time (BBC percentages below).   I refuse to insult the northern, the old and the poor who voted tory....in their families and friends groups and on their social media it looked like nearly everyone felt Corbyn was a dangerous abberation who had abandoned them. Labour had let that grow and Boris stepped in and lied to exploit that mistake.  It takes strong tribalism or bravery to vote for Labour in such circumstances.  I mostly blame the silent majority in the well educated middle classes for not properly calling out Boris for the lying scum that he is; and not acting on knowing that as bad as Corbyn is, that as a minority leader it would have been irrelevant, even if he survived to lead.  If you look in the constituency results, Boris was gifted 40 seats because of a failure in progressive tactical voting (something the brexit voters did very well). Such tactical voting is by far the most likely way we will get FPTP.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2019/results

The so called educated middle class voters tended to vote Green or Liberal or even Labour imho. Most  can see through BJ. 
 

With a few honorable exceptions the tory middle classes were silent on the matter.

https://boris-johnson-lies.com by Peter Oborne a long time tory supporter.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/24/boris-johnson-prime-m... by Max Hastings, a lifelong tory and Boris' s old boss.

The tory party is more dead than Labour as a broad church...just name some prominent moderate tory MPs left in Parliament. The leader, cabinet and party now makes Maggie's time look postively progressive. In contrast, despite the horrors under Corbyn (Tom's recent view on this below) and the terrible election results there are still quite a few prominent moderate Labour MPs.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/27/tom-watson-i-quit-because-...

In constituencies across the UK intelligent progressive voters simply didn't vote for the candidate most likely to beat Boris's local tory stooge and way too many of these voters, with no sense of irony,  then blamed the result on sterotypical pantomime villains:  thick racist northerners. I blame Labour voters who should have known better in Finchley and in Westminster, Plaid voters in Yns Mon, Lib Dems and Greens in Gedling....across England and Wales this happened again and again and again. Even in Scotland.... Labour voters allowed the tory in in Dumphries, Labour and Lib Dems in Moray and in Clydesdale and Lib Dems in West Aberdeenshire.

Do not forget that you are middle class and educated......despite what you might think to the contrary. 

Would you be in a quandary if Jeremy Corbyn promised free membership?..

As I've pointed out before the Tory billionaires who own the media decide who gets voted into power by poisoning the minds of gullible British voters with repeated lies day in day out week in week out against any prospective PM who is not a Tory. 

There is no democracy in the UK as long as billionaires own the media. 

I see Tommeh has joined the Tories now and 5,000 members of the far right Britain First which should be interesting to Muslim Tory party members. 

https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/28/britain-first-far-right-me...

No! That would be funny...

From your description,  the electorate (us) are too gullible and don't really sound clever enough to select a government. 

I'm tired of seeing this lazy lazy excuse from the hard left for their own failings to win the election

There is a choice of papers, Mirror vs Express/mail, Guardian vs telegraph. Readers choose the paper that ties in with their existing views

The fact is that too many voters did not like or trust Corbyn or the hard left.  Whoever thought that advocating a 4 day week was a good idea was far more stupid than the former labour voters who rejected it

You prove that the Tory billionaires don't dictate who gets into power then. 

Almost 80% of the British print media is owned by Tory billionaires. 

The Guardian, independent, Mirror and C4 were just as bad as at spreading the anti-semitic, IRA/Islamic terrorist supporter, Marxist, threat to national security lies about JC as the Tory billionaire press barons as they support a Blairite Labour Party which is just as Tory as the Tories. 

One paper supported JC and that was the Morning Star and they always tell their readers to vote Labour no matter who is put up so that happens anyway. 

Why didn't they trust him? See above. 

I'm sure you can post links to the Guardian, independent, Mirror and C4  articles which lie about JC's threat to national security?

Your last line "See Above" is correct in presumably referring to my comments on the 4-day week debacle?

Out of interest, what's your detailed argument against the concept of a 4 day (or indeed 3 day, or 2 day, or ...) working week?

The current 5 day working week is purely a convention (in fact, probably a religious one), is it not? When I was growing up, the entire hope behind technology and roboticisation was precisely to liberate us from the tyranny of work: the hard resulting problem was going to be the satisfying use of our free time.

I still regard the idea of reducing our overall working hours as an admirable goal. Do you not?

Labour's admirable aims to increase funding for the health service, social care and other public services etc rely on funding through taxation, particularly corporation tax and borrowing for infrastructure.  Both require increased economic activity; profitable businesses in the short term and a growing economy in the longer term.  Neither of these  would be compatible with a 4 day week.  This is a simple fact that is self evident to many former labour voters who have enough of a grasp of real world economics to realise this.

And when you were growing up folk died a lot sooner after retirement than they do now, so the cost of social care was a lot less.

The 5 day week is purely convention; your hope and aspiration for a better world must have died.

Note that 4 day working is being tried elsewhere just now, with apparent success.

you seem to be selectively ignoring the economic case?  By your reckoning  a better world is a 4 day week with underfunded health service and social care?

The 4 day week objective was a long term one aiming at 10 years in the future and the NHS would not be affected unless productivity had greatly increased enough that made it suitable without impacting services and cost. This was highlighted in the report the Labour Party commissioned based on the lessons of the 35 hr week in France.

Ps. Are you asking me for links in your previous comment? 

The 4 day week is a perfect example of the muddled communication identified by many in the labour party (including former labour MPs)  as a major contribution to losing the election.  I explained my concerns on this during an enjoyable conversation with our excellent but defeated Labour candidate (former Labour seat) when she knocked on my door during the campaign.  I understand she and others will be contributing to the internal review early next year, rather than lazily putting 100% of the blame on the Tory Press

No - that's a stupid straw man argument.

Perhaps I can pose the reverse question: why aren't you proposing a six day working week?

If you calmly consider the proposition, the currently accepted five day working week is merely a convention - which, in fact, is finally being successfully challenged elsewhere.

It’s not a straw argument!

less days working = less economic activity = less taxes = less public services 

I'll labour the point: Perhaps I can pose the reverse question: why aren't you proposing a six day working week?

I agree. Momentum is perfect vehicle for a Tory supporting entryist within the labour movement to elect someone even more unelectable than Corbyn!

I work for a wide range of manufacturing industry clients so can answer your questions. At present companies can employ extra workers to cover 24 hour 7 day operation, each working approx 5 days per week or equivalent. Some existing workers may prefer the overtime to work 6 days rather than have more staff recruited. If people worked 4 days or equivalent with more shifts then each employee would need to take a 20% pay cut in which case no problem. However if employees wanted the same pay then the companies would lose money and go out of business. Of course all companies could put their prices up by 20% which would put cos of living up by 20%, so same impact as a 20% pay cut. Alternatively companies could reduce their output by 20% (assuming they could still cover their fixed costs ) which brings us back to the 20% or more drop in tax revenues, hence less money to fund costs and wages in NHS and other services 

You seem unable to contemplate any alternative to the current situation - a lot of people have the same blind spot.

But the five-day week isn't a gift from god; the six-day week was common until the 1930s or so; and current working practices will seem archaic soon enough. The aspiration of technology has always been to spare us from wage-slavery, and I cannot understand why you are firmly wedded to the (undoubtedly very temporary) status quo. But fair enough!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-50936655

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/28/labour-defeated-mps-call-f...

If a 4 day week works, why not a 3 day? If 3 days works, why not 2? If 2 days, why not 1? If 1 is ok, why work any days?

Can you expand on the criteria that defines which of these is viable?

The next leap in technology will take many from 4 to 0 days, but there will be plenty work for them in care homes etc as we all live longer, but not necessarily better lives. 

Plenty trials done on 4 days and 30 hour weeks, none concluded positively, with equal productivity etc. 

The 35 hour week in France has not really worked and is trying to be overturned.

you will know that one of the recurring themes in the  U.K. economy is productivity. There is an argument to be had that if we worked longer and produced more, then we would have  more productive economy, generating more tax revenue and so on.

I know full well I've been a middle class social liberal all my adult life and very well educated. At least I'm not using my intellect to spin bs narratives and blame the election result on a malign mass of racist older northern poor, when those BBC published vote proportions show there were enough progressive voters to have beaten the tories. I'm clever enough to do a risk/consequence analysis that climbers do all the time. It shows that the risk/consequence of a compulsive liar and egotist, with the most reactionary tory party majority ever behind him, driving us to hard brexit, is an existential threat to the UK. Corbyn's risk/consequence was never anything  like that... just potentially very damaging if he somehow miraculously reached a very large majority. The idea that he would foist his brand of socialism on the electorate via a rainbow coalition was always a tory sick joke, the biggest chance in a hung parliament was he would need to resign.

The biggest problem with UK productivity is too many shitty employment contracts.  Where jobs have been secure with good benefits, like in car manufacturing, UK productivity is up with the best in the world. Now we are heading for hard brexit that area if productivity success is going to shrink fast

Do not disagree with you in some sectors. It’s been well proven that those companies who have to compete globally are very productive as you have to be to compete.

Hard Brexit is a side show compared with the drive to electric cars globally , that will have a far greater effect on automotive manufacturing.I still do not understand those who voted for Brexit in Sunderland( Nissan) and so on. Talk about slitting your own throat. There again that horse has well and truly bolted now. 

FTFY

How does your vision of yourself as an intelligent progressive voter really fit with your urge to blame poeple who don't do what you think they should do?

I asked you to prove to me how there is democracy in the UK when tory billionaires own all the media and dictate who gets into power. Your link doesn't address that so can you? 

Certainly the aspiration is to progressively reduce working hours - as I've said above, that's the traditional promise behind automation. There is nothing magic about the four day figure, just as there is nothing magic about five days.

I can reverse your question to you: beyond the answer of 'well, we've always done it that way', what is your specific justification for a general working practice of 9am to 5pm, on five out of seven days in the week?

It feels like you and your interlocutors are making arguments that are not diametrically opposed. Certainly, it’s the general trend within developed economies that the working week should shorten. But we are past the point where it suits governments to shrink the week and I believe Labour made the wrong manifesto pledge. Developed world experiments in productivity are driven by two impulses: the drive towards automation that replaces workers with AI and robotics, and the drive to improve the creativity and mental balance (and hence productivity) of the human workers, most prevalent in the knowledge economy. Companies like Microsoft have carried out large scale experiments in this regard and many employers tolerate an informal ongoing experiment whose basic expression is “working from home”. The latter impulse is what I presume Labour had in mind, but they did not recognise that most workers, and certainly most traditional Labour voters, are far more likely to fall in the former category. And in this former case, Labour should have been more clear about their offer of welfare support to those whose livelihoods are imperilled instead of gleefully anticipating the forces of job destruction.

Despite the focus of this thread, I wasn't myself aiming to make specific points about the Labour manifesto; rather, I was making general aspirational comments.

The point you make about 'job destruction' is a crucial one, and it's one which society needs to address. Up until now, automation has largely meant that people at the bottom end of the pile have been thrown out of jobs and abandoned, while those higher up the food chain have just sat back and gotten richer. As a consequence, we now have historically unprecedented gaps in wealth. Clearly those issues need to be addressed: humankind will need better redistributive economic policies to go along with its increased leisure time!

That’s a very predictable counterpoint, but the mistake you’re making is the same one the pro-Brexit crowd makes - assuming that changing the status quo and retaining it are symmetrical options in terms of the weight of evidence needed to justify them. 

In the real world ‘that’s how we currently do it and it works’ is a very good reason for not changing something, if for no reason other than investing effort and resource in changing something to end up with something no better or worse than you currently have would be dumb.

A similar but distinct reason why a 5 day working week makes sense when other numbers seem no better or worse in isolation is that that’s what all our peers in the western world do, and our expectations of productivity and work/life balance are relative to them. 

You might want to imagine what a self-employed plasterer (say) whose income is very closely linked to hours worked thought when Labour, the voice of unionized employees in secure jobs, announced they planned a four day week.   My guess is something like "What?  You lot work less while I pay taxes to support you!?  Nah, I'll vote Tory and get lower taxes"

Pretty obvious really, so those of us who work flexibly or are semi / fully retired can enjoy quiet crags etc. during the week. Why spoil a good thing!?

But the status quo isn't sustainable: the entire point (and promise) of automation is to reduce the need for certain jobs. How we manage the consequences of that as a society is the difficult question.

I don't think anyone would dispute this. What people doubt is that Labour had the answers. 

It's massively complex, especially in the UK and many other countries major cities, where property prices dictate you need two adults working full time to afford them. 

I don't doubt that the Tory press has an undue and disproportionate influence in undermining democracy.  However I don't agree that they are the only reason why Labour lost.  I know a lot of voters who switched to the Torys would never read the Mail or Express.  Corbyn and Momentum share a large part of the blame.  The links I posted reflect the real experience of what Labour candidates faced on the doorstep.  You and your fellow zealots refuse to accept this and throw up your hands in defeat in the face of an element of the press.  I hope you and I aren't having the same discussion in 5 years time, but if Labour don't change then I fear we will.

Absolutely. The chain for Labour’s planning seems to have proceeded along these lines:

Problem: Automation is increasing efficiency and replacing some jobs entirely, so fewer people have jobs.

Solution: We all work less! Fewer jobs needed to employ the same number of people!

Problem: Er, won’t that mean we’ll all have less money?

Solution: Well, we’ll just legislate that everyone retains their current earnings.

Problem: Er, isn’t that the same as giving the entire workforce a 20% payrise? How will we pay for that?

Problem: Aren’t we also planning to spend money like it’s going out of fashion in the same timeframe?

Solution: NO TIME FOR THAT! PRINT THE MANIFESTO!

User 'mullermn' has just disputed it in his previous reply, namely: "In the real world ‘that’s how we currently do it and it works’ is a very good reason for not changing something"

I suppose the difficulty is in agreeing on what 'works' (sic). And for whom.

It only seems that I’m disputing the problem exists because you’re jumping to the conclusion that reducing the length of the working week is the defacto solution to the issue of automation and reduced need for some jobs in future. 

Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but there are lots of unanswered questions that lie between the statement of the problem and Labour’s proposed solution to it - bearing in mind the Labour’s solution explicitly includes the fact that we will work less for the same money. 

I work for french/Italian multi national and have seen the effect of French labour laws. To be honest I think they can be counter productive. As well as limiting hours worked they make redundancy an extremely painful experience for an employer and this discourages the hiring of new staff. The level of protection given to workers also increases labour costs to a point where an employer such as mine, is minded to grow divisions/departments outside of France and let the domestic ones die.

I recall hearing a silicon valley entrepreneur casually mention that no one would ever consider starting a European office in France for the reasons I've given above.

In a global economy it's important to remember that you're competing with businesses outside your own border as well as within it.

It's not just an element of the press, it's the entire media that have spent 4 years spinning an agenda against a potential government that would have delivered a fairer society. The Guardian and the BBC have been as bad as the Sun for it. Take a look at the blatant hypocrisy from the columnists that has been compiled in this thread.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Millar_Colin/status/1201581431371247616?fbclid=I...

If we want a fairer society then the media will attack us for it.

Labour will always be the party standing for a fairer society and the establishment media are already spinning against the candidates who they think are most likely to deliver it.

Labour need to make a virtue out of this media hostility, the next leader needs to point out how much the establishment hates them because they are terrified of the change towards a decent society and prosperity for all. Corbyn was unable to take this position though because the Labour right had spent 3 years portraying anti-establishment voters as stupid racists and forcing the party to adopt a Brexit policy which was seen as protecting the status quo.

The policies are popular, though they over promised in 2019 compared to 2017 such that there was a lack of trust that the policies were deliverable, the key lesson for next time is to prioritise. Also Corbyn was widely seen as unpatriotic, which is due to spin, but they need to get the retaliation in first so policies such as properly funding British public services, having an industrial strategy that strengthens British industry, investing in a prosperous Britain, etc, need to be presented under a simple banner - "Believe in Britain" or similar.

You've been pushing this line for months now. "The entire media" encompasses left and right, global multinationals and tiny websites. Labour didn't lose because "The entire media" had somehow been co-opted by the right. Labour lost because they were crap and people didn't trust them, an amazing achievement, considering how God awful the tories are.

Those papers and broadcasters use a wide range of columnists , some for Corbyn and some against, the opinion sections are there to promote discussion. To selectively cite only those against Corbyn is disingenuous 

What else am I supposed to do when so many fellow well educated liberal progressive voters blame those previous northern working class Labour voters (who voted tory) to disguise their own tribes' faults? In some cases labelling them all stupid racists. Boris, if we are really, really lucky, may turn out to be just a damaging and disruptive clown but given brexit and the state of the public sector and economy I think he will most likely end up a monster (if nothing else because any moderate conservative MPs with the guts to block their reactionary majority seem to have gone). 

It looks to me like a very high risk of being the worst example, in a century of UK politics, of good well informed people allowing very bad things to happen by doing too little to stop it (by not speaking out enough against a party led by the most dishonest PM ever, backed by a cabinet of reactionary liars, cheats, and crooks). Max Hastings and Peter Oborne should just have been the vanguard from the centre right but now look to me more like Cassandra.

In the tables on vote shifts at the bottom of the wikpedia page, linked below, the Lib Dem voters in 2017 had the second biggest percentage shift to Leave parties (15%)  behind Plaid (31%). 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_United_Kingdom_general_election

2017 Labour voter shifts to leave parties in 2019 were almost matched by 2017 tory shifts to 2019 progressive parties. Of those voting Labour in 2017 and leave in the referendum, nearly half were lost by Labour in 2019 but only 39% to leave parties. However the numbers for 2017 Lib Dem voters who voted for leave in the referendum the move to leave parties in 2019 was 50%.

In the demographic tables 2019 tory voters were sharply more likely to be older and less well educated, but please let's not call them stupid. Those on the progressive side who can't explain important issues well enough to that part of the electorate are to me more to blame for those voting decisions.

is that another way of saying - let's not call them stupid, but they aren't clever enough to understand the issues!?

Ah, you mean progressives are more intelligent, although confoundedly inept at explaining their ideas, possibly not aided by their half-baked nature?

What's really stupid is the fact that this stat keeps getting rolled out as if it means something.

Older people are more likely to vote with the right but this has always been the case. A natural consequence of an older voter demographic is that those voters won't be as well educated, a fact thrown into stark relief when one considers that just 20,000 degrees were awarded in the UK in 1950 against over 400,000 in 2018. Also feeding into age related educational mismatch is the school leaving age; only raised to 16 in 1967 and currently standing at 18.

380000 more geography degrees isn't necessarily an improvement in education.

yeah, they left at 16, started a 4 year technical apprenticeship with evening classes doing hnd and hnc's, thick as mince those oldies! 

Those same old people could probably divide a restaurant bill without pulling out their smartphone too.  

You're preaching to the choir. 

Is there anything it is acceptable to criticise in your view, or is criticism of other people always at odds with being intelligent and/or progressive?

I think it's a bit naive to believe that either the quality of the ideas (in terms of whether the policies or their underlying philosophy are "half-baked") or the skill with which they are expressed would have a great deal of influence on the outcome of any election. That's just not what election are about, because only a small % of the electorate are engaged at that level. Winning elections is about appealing to people's emotions - it's marketing, leveraging people's identity and moral instincts to get them to put a cross in the box you want them to.

Looking at the election in terms of Jonathan Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_foundations_theory, it's a classic example of left-wing care/fairness being pitted against right-wing in-group loyalty/authority. The general trend of working class voters deserting Labour over the last 40 years is explained well in this analysis: there is no trade union led in-group of "workers" to be loyal to - this has been replaced by nationalism which is a button Tories press and Labour don't.

It would be nice if we lived in a world in which "better" ideas in some rational (say, utilitarian) sense were more popular than crap ideas, and it mattered whether the ideas were explained well, but that's not how human beings work. We're led by our emotions and our rational selves are left to make up excuses for what we've just done.

There isn't any left media apart from those tiny websites and any links to them posted on forums like this are shouted down as fake news despite them being held to a higher standard of accountability than the establishment titles. It isn't necessarily a conscious conspiracy, it's a self selecting system whereby journalists who hold the dominant viewpoint naturally rise through those organisations.

Here is a site trying to bring attention to the issue.

https://www.medialens.org/frequently-asked-questions/

"We disagree with the idea that journalists are generally guilty of self-censorship and conscious lying. It does happen, but we believe that the all-too-human tendency to self-deception accounts for their widespread conviction that they are honest purveyors of uncompromised truth. We all have a tendency to believe what best suits our purpose; highly paid, highly privileged editors and journalists are no exception. Neutrality’ most often means ‘impartially’ reporting dominant establishment views, while ignoring or marginalising dissent."

So, Labour did make some massive mistakes that played into the establishment's hands but you are being wilfully blind if you cannot permit that a constant barrage of skewed news and opinion pieces from 99% of the news sources that people see also had a part to play in it.

That's your view of the current state of media coverage. The other view is that the media was in step with public opinion and public opinion of the Labour Party was largely based on how the party presented themselves through a disastrous conference and a wildly over ambitious manifesto.

And you're being wilfully blind if you've missed all the richly deserved vitriol the media has poured on the last 3 Tory leaders; Pig molesting Cameron, Robot May, Buffoon Boris... they've hardly been lionised by an adoring press. The only reason their manifesto got an easier ride than Labour's, is that they largely managed to avoid the obvious potholes of gifting the press with headlines grabbing idiocy, potholes the Labour leadership targeted with their election bus time and time again.

Honestly, the country's been consigned to another 5 years of Tory rule after their best performance since the 1980's. Labour have had their worst defeat since the 1930's, and all the Momentum loyalists can do is insist that they were right and it's all someone else's fault. To your average political punter these excuses carry as much weight as a 9 year old with a football, stood next to a broken window and crying "a big boy did it, but he ran away".

You're like a football supporter that blames the referee for a right thumping and then is totally amazed why the Goalkeeper wasn't awarded Man of the Match.

Do you not think it’s more likely that CM is a Momentum cyber agent assigned to broadcast their message?

Do tell. Are you?

That's a false equivalence. Buffoon Boris is the persona that he himself has carefully cultivated and the articles that mention it generally go on to make the point that he is far more capable than his media persona would indicate. The Maybot was only talked about after her disastrous election campaign when she was a lame duck PM that wasn't going to lead another election campaign. The top articles on Google about Piggate give David Cameron's version of events, you have to put a lot of work in to find Jeremy Corbyns rebuttal of the uncountable smears that he has been subjected to.

The main factors given for switching vote from Labour to the Conservative's were a personal dislike of Corbyn - which comes from how he is presented in the media, where else can people get their information to form their opinions on him from?

The other was Brexit and there was also the overcrowded manifesto.

From his appearance on more challenging political programmes such as AQ or QT, where his views on topics which are current that week can be heard and challenged. Problem is he avoids these and any stage where his view is challenged, preferring to preach to his disciples. 

This is how propaganda works. Delegitimise anybody that has an opinion that differs from the dominant narrative.

I am just someone who wants to live in a fair society. I am neither a member of Momentum or the Labour Party. 

If not they should be, would seem pretty logical to instruct staff in any political hq to join forums in a field which matches their hobbies and qualifications, so they aren't a fish out of water, then subtly drip feed their politics. Look at CM it's seamless, you barely notice his presence! 

That really isn't true. We live in a society in which speaking at the same event as someone connected with hamas is viewed as morally outrageous, but selling arms to the Saudis is perfectly acceptable. The attacks on corbyn as "hating Britain" have moral salience by appealing to in-group loyalty, which in the brexit election is a very big deal. The playing field is most certainly not level. 

That said, I agree it's daft to blame the media. The environment is what it is: a political party should choose an appropriate and competent leader who can succeed, knowing what we know about the world. 

And any competent leader would avoid stage sharing with terrorist to avoid guilt by association, unless of course they happened to agree with their cause. 

... Hardly anyone is listening! Come on, elections aren't won by a good performance on radio 4!

Supporting the Palestinian cause is simply incompatible with running for pm, because you can't realistically campaign without association with terrorists. I don't think that makes supporting the Palestinian cause wrong, I think it makes people who say or believe "terrorist sympathiser" stupid. 

It's a good training ground for the incompetent to learn their craft before engaging with more people? 

Look at Abbott, she's always being forced on there in Corbyns absence.. now she's a flawless political machine  

As you're demonstrating, perspective is very personal. Boris's character has, quite rightly, been subject to almost daily speculation and derision. May was condemned from day one as a weak compromise candidate. The best that most of the press were hoping for was that she wouldn't be as crap a PM as she had been a Home Secretary. As for Cameron and the pig, it was in the news for weeks, virtually every UK comedian mined it for material and it haunts him still. Cameron's rebuttal never made a blip on my radar, I have no recollection of it at all.

Personal dislike has never condemned a British political party to the sort of decimation Labour has just endured. Loads of people loathed both Thatcher and Blair. Both led their parties though multiple terms in office.

"overcrowded manifesto"... that's certainly one take on it

Your defence of Labour's disastrous performance boils down to 'a parochial and ill informed electorate were duped by a biased press'. You can keep telling yourself that quite successfully, after all, nobody can reasonably be expected to have an objective and measured view of the attitudes of 46,000,000 voters, but that explanation doesn't wash on this forum. The people that typically comment on UKC political threads aren't the same demographic as the UK as a whole. Most are well educated, well informed, politically engaged and willing and able to string a decent explanation of their political views together... and most are in despair over where momentum have taken Labour.

That really isn't true. You're framing attitudes projected by Tory redtops as though they're accepted orthodoxy within the UK. They aren't.

Yep.

Errr...hardly anyone?

https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/radio/commissioning/R4_44_Minute_Drama_Audience...

Neither seem attractive things to do personally BUT you're pushing against 350 years of international relations practice where "states" and their recognised leaders are given a moral position different to non-state actors. The KSA is a totalitarian monarchy with a terrible human rights record but it's also a recognised state and gets sold weapons by other recognised states almost purely because of that simple fact.

Unfair. He's articulate, engaged and arguing his point. Your point is more smear than speculation.

I think that statistically, these attitudes might not quite be prevalent enough to be described as "accepted authodoxy", they're sufficiently widely held to be viewed as "mainstream". 

Do you think "terrorist sympathiser" had traction? I do. It can only work if the views are mainstream. 

I think selling arms to the Saudis is morally outrageous. I don't think that speaking at the same event as someone connected with hamas is morally outrageous. That's easy to justify.

You give a kind of explanation for the total lack of moral judgement that underpins the "terrorist sympathiser" narrative, but it's not any kind of justification. 

If you went down your local Con club it'd be mainstream. On here? not so much. Wider UK? I doubt Labour would have accrued the votes they did if the mainstream view of Corbyn was that he was "morally outrageous". 

Yeah, it definitely had traction, but then so did the depiction of Boris as a sociopathic chancer. Both attitudes have some basis in reality. 

Who appears to have no interest in climbing, no public logbook, posts exclusively on matters pertaining to socialist politics and the acceleration of whose presence here coincides with the build-up to the election.

To call you out as a Momentum bot, whether officially sanctioned or autonomously assigned, hardly delegitimises you on a forum that votes Labour by a factor of 2:1 against all the other parties combined. You’re well briefed and I’ve enjoyed our debates. But it appears to me that you are here with a purpose rather than as a member of the community.

Well obviously not everyone thinks the same thing, the question was whether there's structural unfairness in the UK media which favours one candidate over the other. 

I'm sure there is political bias in UK media, always has been and it was undoubtedly worse in 1945, but the electorate still handed Churchill his arse in preference for a Labour government. It's just not reasonable to blame the Conservative's massive win on the media.

Agreed.

Wow there!

I'm a " Unionized", worker but I didn't know that meant that my job is secure.

As a member of a union I can still be paid off at the click of the fingers so how does that make my job secure?

You're wrong on that I'm afraid and do you really think people voted against a new £10 per hour minimum wage, a proper climate revolution, second say on brexit and all the rest because of a 4 day week policy that would be on the back burner and only be possible if it didn't impact the economy after 10 years, which isn't even in the remit of a 5 year incumbent? 

Until someone asks him his Brexit stance or how to fund his manifesto. 

80% of British media is Tory owned. The rest supported Tories in the Labour Party, only the Morning Star stuck with JC so how is that both left and right? 

Why didn't people trust them? 

there is absolutely nothing stopping anyone publishing a newspaper that supports Corbyn/far left/socialism.....except simple commercial economics I suppose...

So what does that tell you?

If all media is owned by evil profit making capitalists, but most the country is desperate for far left policies, far left news etc.. wouldn't the press switch and just match the news to the biggest market to make more money? 

The reason why there are not many far left newspapers is the same reason Labour are losing voters, it's not what the majority of the population want. 

Fair.

For those who were interested in policies (a minority of voters), the 4 day week added to an overall impression of Labour promising free stuff paid by...god knows how. I don't think the "free stuff" was very appealing and I think Labour should drop it. If the centre ground is further right than we thought it was, appealing to people's self-reliance will be more popular than hand-outs. Labour has a lot to learn on every single front - firstly "optics" or whatever, but I think their policies were wrong as well (although I don't think that matters nearly as much). 

Of course I don't expect the left of the party to see that, or to be willing to change...

Most people have no idea what they want, in terms of policies. That would require them to know what the policies were and what the implications were. They know how they feel about Brexit, Boris, Corbyn.

Do people really believe that an election is a rational debate about the best policies?

No need to start name calling because you don't have an argument, which is unfortunately an almost guaranteed reaction I get from Tories and the far right every time.

People on the doorstep? Yes when asked about Labour and JC they would say he is a traitor, Can't be trusted(1.threat to national security lie), a fascist jew hater(2.anti-semitic lie), too old(3.the too old lie), IRA supporter(4.the IRA supporter lie), Islamist terrorist supporter (5.the islamist terrorist supporter lie).

All because of a concerted Tory owned media campaign for years, day in day out week in week out, drip drip drip feeding the population with lies. Preying on lots of different sets of people's prejudices and fears using lies -

1.Aimed at everyone who feels a national pride.

2.Aimed at everyone who feels empathy for Jewish people left and right. 

3.Aimed at everyone as it makes him out to be doddery, weak, forgetful, incapable of leadership. 

4. Everyone as he is a traitor to our forces and people.

5.Everyone as he a friend of islamist terrorists, look at ISIS, look at grooming gangs, he is with them. 

That is poison, that is the Tory media and how they twisted the British peoples perception of a kind caring man who won the 2013 Ghandi award for international peace and they made him into a supporter of all our terrorist enemies, an untrustworthy traitor who is our enemy , a vile fascist who hates Jews and an old incompetent to.

= zero democracy in the UK + Dictatorship of the billionaires.

Edjt: 6. He is a Communist lie. 

Red under the bed, traitor, enemy of democracy etc. 

But the mischaracterization of the four day week as 'free stuff paid by...god knows how ' is part of the overall problem.

Addressing the challenges created by global changes in working practices, rebalancing the economy so that it works more fairly for everybody, and addressing the historically ludicrous wealth gaps which now exist are all critical issues. Unfortunately, they all get lost in the squabbling and trivia.

Far left? JC isn't far left. 

That's a weird comment you make as if to say stopping the smearing to death by the entire Tory owned media and Tory Blairite media of a prospective PM means far left news?? Stopping the brainwashing would be enough, having regulations in place to stop this and thereby have democracy would be a start. Which doesn't have anything to do with "far left news". 

No, the reason is there are hardly any far left in the UK. 

We live in a world of states and recognised sovereignty, hard to escape from that legally (and mentally as Brexit shows). But alongside sales of weapons to KSA, you also get the ability to say that the Russian occupation of parts of Ukraine is illegal, as is the moving of settlers by the Israeli government into the occupied Palestinian territories.

I agree - but this is an issue so complex, so contingent on unknowns, and has such different implications across different sectors of the economy, that it was a stupid thing for a manifesto. Once it's in the manifesto, it's reduced to a soundbite (4 day week) and the impact is whatever people think (with help from media) about the soundbite.

Of course they do - you can't win an election by talking about that stuff. As an electorate, we operate at the level of "Get Brexit Done" and "terrorist sympathiser".

You've lost me. Living in a world of states and recognised sovereignty introduces some *requirement* that the UK sells arms to the Saudis?

Hooray for that!

That's a depressingly bleak view of the British electorate. Most people are far from thick and widespread disengagement from the minutia of election manifesto policies and promises is down to the entirely reasonable assessment that they're not worth the paper they're written on.

I'm not sure it was worse in 1945, difficult to compare with modern times. What we can say is that nobody could accuse Major Clement Attlee of being unpatriotic, and he'd proved himself as a statesman during WW2. The modern left want to emulate the 1945 win but tend not to consider the circumstances which made it possible.

Agreed, the political bias is a reality Labour have to deal with. It's not that the Labour left don't want to do this... they just have this unrealistic expectation that their own admiration for their chosen leader will eventually translate to national popularity.

IMHO here's a lot of truth in what you say but its something we have to live with and its unlikely to improve under BJ eg BBC  threatened. The question is how does a Socialist party become elected. No democratic government can satisfy people forever. People were fed up after WW2 and Labour elected, Wilson elected after many Tory years. Blair actually got reasonable support from the media, including the Sun, if my memory serves. In fact Blair had a long political honeymoon which was finally ended after the invasion of Iraq . Thatcher said something like "Socialism is finished" but Blair got back in (though his policies were too centrist for many socialists, so maybe she was partly right).

All true enough.

Distressing by product of increasingly polarised politics. We seem to be entering an age where the highly politicised are only willing to socialise with people with similar views, where to hold a different view sees you labelled as the enemy and where a majority on the left and right of the debate seem to have lost the ability to even contemplate things from the other side.

Not everyone's thick, but the people that matter - those who can be persuaded - are much more likely to respond to a simple message that pushes an emotional button (see Moral Foundations Theory above). There is a very thin sliver of pie chart of those who are both informed/engaged and undecided, but they're going be spread so thinly that in FPTP they may as well not exist. And then there's a lot of people like us, who aren't ever going to be persuaded - so we don't matter either.

I can't argue with any of that. While as individuals we can try to stay reasonably informed, un-indoctrinated and independently minded, it's almost impossible to step outside of our own lived experience.

He sits at the far left of UK or European politics. 

Which is exactly why Labour's voters are deserting the party as it heads further in that direction. 

I'm surprised you have accepted this obvious red herring about a 4 day week when it had no bearing at all on anything as it is just a straw grasped at by Tory posters to divert from what did *actually *affect peoples perceptions.

Although how do you get from a 4 day week to it being perceived as a " free" handout and what are these " free" handouts JC was offering?

Makes me wonder if this is could be No7 on my list. 

Indeed.

Compromise and coalition. Get a pretty face at the front. Play Dominic Cummings at his own game. Be strategic and pragmatic. The earnest, preachy outfit has just been comprehensively rejected - time to get a new look.

How do you work that out? The far left of UK politics are the SWP, CPGB-ML, CPB and various other socialist parties. 

Sorry? 

I don't accept it really. I'm just describing how it came across in the campaign. I think that in some sectors, a 4 day week would be the right way to go, but definitely not in others (e.g. healthcare). It's a really bad policy, mainly because in order for it to make sense, you have to get into far too much detail.

I think it was perceived as "work less and Labour will magically top up your wages so you don't lose out". Which is obviously ridiculous.

Broadband, Higher education and training for starters. 

Just because Corbyn and McDonnell, plus their followers have hijacked a more centrist party, doesn't mean their political views lie there. 

If Labour had a competent leader, with remotely centrist policies, they would now be sitting with a massive majority in government. 

I don't think it's new, the 80s were just as polarised, and Labour had the same problems then. More's they pity.

Agree! Plus learn from the last time we tried it... what we got right and what we got wrong. 

Thanks I wish it wasn't that way but the Tory billionaires and the British ruling class have the system rigged. 

I'm sure you will agree that the reason Thatcher said that about socialism is along the same lines as why she said her greatest political achievement was " New Labour", because New Labour was Thatcherite and Tory and that is precisely why Murdoch told the British people to vote for them in 1997 and they did what the Tory billionaires tell them to as they always do. 

The Labour Party are more social democrat and not socialist though which is intrinsically capitalist with fluctuating smatterings of  socialist ideas and indeed the British Labour Party even at their most socialist (after the Socialist wave following the USSR's main role in defeating fascism in WW2) were attacking a socialist peoples movement in Malaysia, founding NATO, attacking Socialist DPRK and promised the French to help them against the socialists of Vietnam.

Although I don't know how much of that was or wasn't written in as a prerequisite to the Marshall loan from America. So perhaps Attlee's Labour government's hands were tied there in a couple of instances but not all. 

I'll agree with Corbyn over one thing, he has had a good year. Banking all those wages and doing very little for it. Dream job, €100k+, never break sweat, no responsibility of actually being office. 

It was pointless in a practical way as it wouldn't get done so why even mention it? I agree, although it was forward thinking and a welcome change (to workers who dont get much free time) in direction from policies that force us to work extra years before we get a pension. 

If it was then spun that way perhaps by Tories. 

Fair point. 

Well we all have our biases don't we. Here is a methodological analysis of the bias shown during the election though. 

"This level of negativity towards Labour was far from ‘business as usual’. Press hostility to Labour in 2019 was more than double the levels identified in 2017. By the same measure, negative coverage of the Conservatives halved."

https://www.lboro.ac.uk/news-events/general-election/report-5/

I imagine you will have a problem with the study. If you do I hope you will have found something about the methodology which should be improved rather than the usual tactic of trying to discredit the source.

Exactly, anyone who is looking for answers to how a fairer society can be delivered will need to look past what appeals to the UKC hotbed of centrism and try to understand the UK electorate as a whole as best as they can. 32,000,000 people voted but there are not 32,000,000 people debating politics every day in the UK so how do you get through to the many people with only a peripheral interest in politics that make the difference? Media bias is certainly going to have an effect.

I haven't defended Labour's performance because of this though, media bias is one of three factors I've been highlighting but it's the only one you've chosen to take me up on. In the face of media bias Labour must make sure they are seen as the anti-establishment party but by being perceived as the party of Remain they achieved the opposite. 600,000 activists can also go some way to countering the establishment narrative but I can tell you now that there won't be 600,000 activists campaigning for a return to centrism (Tory lite).

Thanks for your support when the smears were being aimed at me earlier anyway, appreciated.

Happy New Year.

Well you've used a load of dog whistle words and associated me with an organisation that has been very successfully delegitimised by our so honest media and is now almost universally despised, especially on UKC.

Don't like talking about myself but I feel I have to in response to this. I'm not a climber, I'm a fell walker who likes to take an adventurous line with a bit of a dabble into scrambling now and then. Also a road runner, typically at 26 mins over 5k. So, a bit mediocre and nothing very worthwhile to add on those topics. However I'd been a long time lurker on the forum for interest/entertainment/distraction and I started posting because my viewpoint was rarely represented. What are you posting for?

All the best for the New Year anyway.

Sorry but Jeremy gave "the media" all the ammunition it needed to destroy his standing. If he refuses to apologise when an apology is needed people note that. When he is seen at a wreath laying ceremony for terrorists people note that. When he is unable to give a straight answer on Brexit people note that. When he is unable to root out racism in his party people note that. When he surrounds himself with people with questionable ideologies people note that. 

He was a disaster personally, he was a disaster as a leader and his policies were a disaster. He needs to own Labour's defeat and apologise to the ordinary people of this country who he has failed to help.

Apologise for what? A Tory billionaire smear campaign that was helped by the Israeli government? 

But he wasn't at a ceremony for terrorists and be careful you don't make yourself look like a Thatcherite New Labourist ready to spread Tory lies. 

Didn't you read the manifesto or the news, better brexit deal and chance for Britons fooled the first time to atone. 

What racism? 

Who were surrounding him of that ilk? 

I get your pain I do but could it all be a bit misplaced? 

I see it's an easier option to blame him for not being Tory enough rather than blame a completely corrupt system that is controlled by Tory billionaires.

No one likes to face the source of truth if it conflicts with everything they have been reared to believe, but truth is truth. 

Confronting a corrupt dictatorship of the billionaires requires different tactics but first acknowledgment must be made of the futility of the situation before hand with respect to the current set up. 

Give in babe, The Establishment have won and most probably have got it sown up for several decades to come.

I have, it's utterly pointless.  I'm just going to fleece the system for every single penny I can get.

You usually sound like someone who can think for himself but that sounded like regurgitated crap

Well done. You've just encapsulated every smear of the left, spread by the right for the last 100 years: people lacking drive and ambition who just want free stuff.

If it wasn't, he certainly failed to explain what it was. Once he'd stopped lying about even being there. 

A better deal..  how? The guy has achieved nothing in his time as an MP, what makes you think he can do better than others? He can't even organise his own mps. 

Do you really think the peace activist Jerremy Corbyn, was a supported of terrorism?

This accusation is about as honest and true as accusing him of anti-Semitism, you only have to look at his life to realise how stupid this is. It goes against anything he's ever stood for, and yet you seem to think he makes a few exceptions to suit what the media have been banging on about for the last three years.

Once again I have to ask, can you not think for yourself?

He may not have been the most dynamic, personable leader but he's hardly a friend of terrorists.

I notice AS in the Labour party seems to have ended with the election, very strange that!!

No. But he sides with anyone who is anti western capitalist government, which often puts him in company with terrorists, he then support them or champions their cause. He had his flights paid for to attend the wreath laying of the Munich terrorists, you don't just take a wrong turn in London and stumble upon it by accident. 

Your assessment of his motivation is that he supports the cause of the Palestinians as a proxy for anti-capitalism. When you look at the abuse of the Palestinian people by the Israeli government, isn't it more plausible that he supports the cause of the Palestinians because he believes they deserve to be treated as human beings? I share the view that the support of huge western economies for Israel is a part of the problem - but the core of the problem isn't the existence of those economies, as you suggest - it's their support for a regime that commits vile human rights abuses. Much like my problem with selling arms to the Saudis. The reason I have a problem with this isn't that I have a problem with capitalism per se: it's resources being distributed in direct contravention to reasonable moral judgement that's the problem. 

There's a philosophical debate to be had about whether the support for regimes that commit atrocious human rights abuses by western capitalist governments is an inherent aspect of capitalism - but we don't need to have that debate if we can be honest and see my objection to selling arms to the Saudis, and Corbyn's support for the Palestinian cause for what they are: objections to immoral policies that cause vast and needless suffering. Surely these objections are entirely valid?

In which case being an astute mp he wouldn't wish to be associated with a terrorist commemoration ceremony? 

But he's not astute, he's incompetent! And a totally inappropriate leader. I think these charges are fair, what I'm challenging you on is your reading of his motivations, which are rather tabloid and seem quite obviously wrong.

Err, he said he was himself in the case of Hamas!! 

As i said, he isn't a terrorist but he allies himself with anyone who is anti western governments, especially the UK. This is not a position for any uk mp to hold, he shouldn't even be allowed in Westminster, given vetting clearance etc. 

All of that ammunition you've listed was given to the media by the Labour right who refused to accept internal democracy. They wanted Labour to fail in 2017 and they stepped up their campaign for 2019.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/13/labour-rebels-hope-to-topple-je...

I doubt there has ever been a party leader with so little background to be worried about but for the Labour right nothing was too insulting to say about Corbyn with their strategic amplification of statistically insignificant issues and smears. Now many of them have reaped what they sowed and have lost their seats. Those who remain are shedding crocodile tears for the consequences of their actions.

The Labour right are a disaster and need to own Labour's defeat and apologise to the ordinary people of this country.

As you well know this is another media smear, the ceremony you refer to commemorated the victims of the 1985 Israeli bombing raid in Tunisia. A raid condemned as illegal by the United Kingdom government.

https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-jeremy-corbyn-and-the-wre...

Oh please!

If none of the allegations had any basis in fact then they wouldn't have damaged him. Trouble is they do. Also much of what the public understand about him has come from interviews.

You seem to be taking the view that the electorate, unlike yourself, are stupid and believe every word they read in the Daily Mail without question.

That only exonerates Corbyn if you believe implicitly in Corbyn's versions of events and ignore all the other evidence within the report.

Alas, it's the Labour left who owe this country an apology. They wilfully and selfishly turned their party into a sectarian and wholly unelectable force. To suggest that the current leadership should ever again be involved in seeking power is to condemn this country to ten years or more of Tory government. It is that which is momentum and Corbyn's greatest achievement.

Hers a piece from the right wing press who are, of course, to blame for it all:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/01/questions-labour-win-...

Alas, it's the Labour left who owe this country an apology. They wilfully and selfishly turned their party into a sectarian and wholly unelectable force. To suggest that the current leadership should ever again be involved in seeking power is to condemn this country to ten years or more of Tory government. It is that which is momentum and Corbyn's greatest achievement.

Hers a piece from the right wing press who are, of course, to blame for it all:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/01/questions-labour-win-...

Liked the comment in this article about Labour ignoring aspiration and those who seek to do well.This is one of the reasons why blue collar workers turned away from them and viewed the party as being for wasters. Both Mrs T and TB attracted this section of the electorate in swathes to win power, the current Labour Party needs to get in touch with this part of the electorate.

Let me put it this way I both have employees and friends ( including climbing mates) who are blue collar workers. JC and his team completely lost their vote.

I know that Pefa will disgree, but  his work colleagues and peers for the most part turned against JC.

You failed to respond to my remark.

We know that. It was not the challenge

No he doesn't. Again, what I'm challenging you on is your reading of his motivations, which are rather tabloid and seem quite obviously wrong.

Try again?

Probably because Corbyn, just like Boris are tabloid headline writers dreams, or perfect spitting image characters. Because they sit at the more extreme end of a very broad range of political views, they naturally get pidgeon holed. Name an existing UK mp that is either further left than Corbyn or has willingly socialised with more terrorist groups? He's formed his own niche in the press during his decades as an mp. 

I agree with you that Corbyn is an inappropriate leader because he is a tabloid headline writer's dream. As I've said, I think that while actively campaigning for the Palestian cause is the right thing to do, I think that pragmatically, given our political and media environment, it is incompatible with running from PM.

The point I'm challenging you on is that your comments imply a belief that those headlines are true - they're not, for goodness sake. They're written for idiots - is that where you intend to position yourself?

I've never claimed all the headlines are true. The truth will lie in his rather hefty mi5 dossier, which is unlikely to see daylight in our lifetime. 

The claim I am challenging is that he allies himself with anyone who is anti western governments, especially the UK.

The tabloids implied he was allied to Al Qaida and ISIS, and you're doing exactly the same. All I'm asking is that you stop talking complete bollocks. For your own sake - it makes you look thick.

I was listening to Prof. Runciman the other day on an American show looking at Labour's loss https://radioopensource.org/labours-love-lost/ and he made a point which was interesting - that it was Corbyn's reticence to blame Putin/Russia for the Salisbury killing and attacks that was a key point in many traditional labour voters turning away from Labour as unpatriotic when lead by him.

I suspect by that point I had already "priced in" Corbyn's long involvement in anti-imperialist politics of both the very noble and quite ignoble forms into my view of him, so it didn't make of an impact on me. But does anyone else remember it as a stand out moment? Runciman is a professor of politics at Cambridge, so a pretty serious figure in analysing these things, I just wondered if it was a throw-away comment based on his impressions or whether he had seen polling that suggested that.

It wasn't just him, Abbott as shadow home secretary was following the same 'Corbyn' or party line. Even after and now, they wouldn't directly say Russian leadership was probably involved. They'll twist around the issue, fence sitting as they do on most topics. 

Interesting, just listening now. Runciman says the start that the "unpatriotic" reaction to the Salisbury killings was a turning point in the polls - people didn't know JC in 2017, making him electable, and from that point he got the "unpatriotic" tag and the polls started a steep descent.

I guess if you're a bit more engaged you'd think he had that tag long before, after all the God Save The Queen crap early on.

FWIW I don't remember it as a stand-out moment at all. But it might depend on what you're listening out for in the first place.

Have you seen an interview or similar recently, in the last year say, where Corbyn reasserts that position?

I agree with some of what you have said on this thread and was actually going to reply but never got a moment. 

So first off, yes the media bias in this election sunk to new lows. The contrasting treatment of Johnson's and Corbyn's flaws was blatant. Corbyn was demonised over his poor handling of antisemitism, while Johnson's actual racism was glossed over.... and that's just one example.

This is not true. The right wing media were always going to throw everything at Corbyn in this election, and it was out there already. It's just not credible to suggest they would need any help from the Labour right.

In the 2017 general election the vast majority of the party got behind Corbyn, and with remainer votes he got the best result he was ever going to, what with Theresa May's crap campaign.

Labour now have the lowest number of seats since 1935, they've been vindicated. Please don't turn on people who want an effective opposition and a chance at government in 5 years time.

I await his response with baited breath. I suspect it's just more squirming to try to support Rupert Murdoch's position on JC "hating Britain". 

I wonder if the reason is an age thing? I guess that for millennials who feel the need to have an enemy, they'll go for the Muslims (oh no, sorry, it's Islam they hate not Muslims). But for the oldies, the enemy is Russia, and perhaps that's why the Salisbury reaction had an impact?