He was a late convert too, IIRC.
next labour leader
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
It's quite appropriate for gender-specific roles to be advertised in some circumstances, and having to enter men's changing rooms whilst the men are in states of undress is one of those circumstances (which is why you won't see any kit-women working for top teams). Physios are different, it's a professional role and you are treating someone in a patient/clinician relationship.
No I'm suggesting an optional carriage for ethnic minorities who wish to avoid potential racial abuse on a train and are therefore free to choose to go on said carriage or not would be seen as a retrograde step and a stupid idea, and that it essentially accepts the abuse that goes on making it the victims own fault for not avoiding the situation.
you know just like the independent report into separate carriages for women for the department of transport and British transport police concluded women only carriages would be a retrograde step as it is seen as accepting inappropriate behaviour.
tackle the cause not the symptom
If there will be women's only train cars and ethnic minority train cars (maybe multiple in case certain minorities don't get on), there will need to be a LGBT train car for those who want to avoid possible abuse as well. These can't mix because there could still be potential abusers of the other in each car. Probably will need a monitor for each car to ensure only the right kind of people are getting on to ensure only the right kind of people get on each train.
Yes... And women only ethnic cars for women who are worried about men and racism
And separate car for les gay bi and trans of each minority as well.
Though what if lesbians are afraid of being touched up by other lesbians... Single seat carriages?
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As an Indian male, in Mumbai, where our local trains are the main public transport:
Female friends have told me of horror stories in male compratments, they will travel on the female coach. The only excpetion is very late night when trains run mostly empty and it becomes less unsafe to sit with men and hope for crowd protection rather than be alone. (Recently cops have been assigned to ladies coaches too)
So, (despite many horror stories), these coaches are indeed "safe havens" for women in otherwise terrible public spaces.
On a side note, the worst moment of my life: my mom, a female classmate I thought looked pretty, and I were travelling on a (very crowded) female coach. was 14 at the time, it's maybe a little beyond the unofficial outer age limit for men. (To give a sense of my age, my first wank was more than 6 months away, I literally did not have sexual feelings at the time)
It was crowded enough that I was in forced contact with another woman. Midway through the journey she turned around, gave me a murderous look, and implied, very loudly, that I was touching her. I wanted to sink into the ground and never come up, that is, if she didn't throttle me first. I was also completely speechless. My mother confronted her ("can't you see how young he is") and thus saved me, but I will never ever forget the embarrassment. In itself it's bad enough, but with my "crush" around...
About the LGBT/race strawmen: the issue being tackled is harassment of women which it seems is far far more common than racial or sexual-orientation based harassment on public transport.
I have plenty of first hand knowledge of India and Indian public transport, I lived in Chennai for a couple of years and worked all over India for over 10 years and I'm not arguing that the women only carriages in India don't serve to offer some greater protection to women although it's interesting to hear you say that at night the solitude can make them more dangerous. My point about their existence in India, and elsewhere, was that they have done nothing to improve the general position of women in society and that India in particular is still an incredibly dangerous place to be a woman. I'd rather see the world in general address societal flaws such as misogyny than provide safe little bolt holes for people to hide in and let society blunder on with the same archaic views.
And assault (non sexual) and theft are more common than sexual assaults on women
Surely a holistic approach to crime prevention on trains is a better solution than the retrograde step of segregation.
A ban on alcohol on trains or travelling when drunk might be a good overall start?
I see where you're coming from with this idea but in practice it would do a lot more harm than good. Obviously drinking is a risk-factor for people committing crimes, but it's also a risk-factor for people being victims of crime, so whilst banning drunk people would undoubtedly lower the number of crimes committed on the trains themselves, I suspect at best it would lead to the redistribution of crime to other, more difficult to police, areas, and at worst an increase in crime overall.
If the trains were out of bounds there'd be even more overcrowding on the buses and on taxi ranks, both places where harassment and violent crime are already a problem, and we'd likely see far more people simply choosing to walk home in lieu of taking any form of public transport, putting them, and the women amongst them in particular, at an especially high risk of crime. Ultimately we'd get a situation where drunk people of any gender who are no harm to anyone and just want to get home safely find their journey home far more dangerous than the train would have been in the first place.
Booze is banned on the tube. Banning drunks would be a nightmare to police.
Probably... But at least on trains they could ban people drinking booze not brought on the train... That way they can at least regulate what people consume.
If people are a problem drunk conductors should at least be able to have police or some assistance in removing them at the next station.
I'm just not convinced a metal tube traveling along at 100mph is a great environment to have drunk people... Though I have never understood those who get hammered at airports either
Anyone see that Newsnight focus group episode?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b067xc46/newsnight-28082015
Both hilarious and depressing. A group of former Labour voters, none of whom are particularly into politics. Cooper got the best response from the group, followed by Burnham. Corbyn went down like a lead balloon.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b067xc46/newsnight-28082015
Both hilarious and depressing. A group of former Labour voters, none of whom are particularly into politics. Cooper got the best response from the group, followed by Burnham. Corbyn went down like a lead balloon.
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Emphasis was definitely on the depressing side for me. Cat Smith from the Corbyn camp was fairly awful afterwards too, and you could tell Danny Finkelstein had to try quite hard to suppress his urge to dance throughout.
It's clear from watching that why Cooper comes out on top. Quite simply, she's the most well-known candidate, has good name-recognition and therefore has the most credibility. One women reacts to a speech from Burnham and is presumably asked whether she's convinced by him and says 'No, it's the first time I've ever seen him' as if it had a bearing on the points he was making, unfortunately that's how peoples' minds work. Luckily the next election is in 5 years, not tomorrow morning. Voters will have a long time to get to know the winning candidate, whoever that is.
The reaction to Corbyn says far more about the way he's been presented in the media than about him as a candidate. Half the candidates don't know his name, one of the people refers to him as 'the old guy', another as 'the old guy with the grey hair who is a bit of a hippy' and another as 'Jeremy Colburn'. Much of the rest of the criticism surrounding him is just lines parroted from the right-wing press about his unelectability and 'divisiveness' (which is a misnomer for someone who has seemingly got 50% of the party behind him). You say he 'went down like a lead balloon' but actually a few said they agreed with his principles but didn't feel like as a country we can afford not to cut.
Which brings me on to the overwhelming thing I notice about the programme which is that most of the people on that panel have hook, line and sinker bought into the Tory myths surrounding the financial crisis and the need for cuts, and thus they react positively to incidences in which Labour candidates play along with that rhetoric. Some might say that, because of this, we should moving to placate those who believe right-wing rhetoric. Personally I think that would be a disaster, because as long as the narrative of 'spending caused the crisis' is allowed to exist, even in a watered down form, the Tories and their supporters in the media will use it as a weapon regardless of who the Labour leader is.
It's deluded to believe that people who still believe the rhetoric of the right-wing media in 2020 are going to back Labour at the 2020 election. We wont win by augmenting our position so that people who will likely vote Tory anyway like us slightly more. What's the point of a Labour Party going into the next election trying to show off how much we can conform to the Tory vision of how a country should be run, when if that's what people want to see they'll just vote Tory anyway? Surely the emphasis should be coming up with an alternative which will inspire some people to change their minds.
Personally I'm not going to get all down-in-the-dumps. All that was there to see was a garbled mix of first impressions from a bizarre subset of people. Instead of looking at people who loved Blair but didn't like Miliband, we should be looking at the 4,000,000 people who stopped voting for Blair between 1997 and 2005 and find out what they think. For all the talk of Blair's popularity, in 2005 he only got 200,000 more votes than Miliband did in 2015.
The reaction to Corbyn says far more about the way he's been presented in the media than about him as a candidate. Half the candidates don't know his name, one of the people refers to him as 'the old guy', another as 'the old guy with the grey hair who is a bit of a hippy' and another as 'Jeremy Colburn'. Much of the rest of the criticism surrounding him is just lines parroted from the right-wing press about his unelectability and 'divisiveness' (which is a misnomer for someone who has seemingly got 50% of the party behind him). You say he 'went down like a lead balloon' but actually a few said they agreed with his principles but didn't feel like as a country we can afford not to cut.
Which brings me on to the overwhelming thing I notice about the programme which is that most of the people on that panel have hook, line and sinker bought into the Tory myths surrounding the financial crisis and the need for cuts, and thus they react positively to incidences in which Labour candidates play along with that rhetoric. Some might say that, because of this, we should moving to placate those who believe right-wing rhetoric. Personally I think that would be a disaster, because as long as the narrative of 'spending caused the crisis' is allowed to exist, even in a watered down form, the Tories and their supporters in the media will use it as a weapon regardless of who the Labour leader is.
It's deluded to believe that people who still believe the rhetoric of the right-wing media in 2020 are going to back Labour at the 2020 election. We wont win by augmenting our position so that people who will likely vote Tory anyway like us slightly more. What's the point of a Labour Party going into the next election trying to show off how much we can conform to the Tory vision of how a country should be run, when if that's what people want to see they'll just vote Tory anyway? Surely the emphasis should be coming up with an alternative which will inspire some people to change their minds.
Personally I'm not going to get all down-in-the-dumps. All that was there to see was a garbled mix of first impressions from a bizarre subset of people. Instead of looking at people who loved Blair but didn't like Miliband, we should be looking at the 4,000,000 people who stopped voting for Blair between 1997 and 2005 and find out what they think. For all the talk of Blair's popularity, in 2005 he only got 200,000 more votes than Miliband did in 2015.
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Conductors wouldn't work on the, it's too rammed half of the time, plus you are talking about a massive increase in TFL frontline staff at a time when they are cutting back.
I can understand people getting hammered at airports, eg those nervous about flying or facing a massive flight in the hope of sleep.
The District Line definitely doesn't travel along at 100mph!Conductors wouldn't work on the, it's too rammed half of the time, plus you are talking about a massive increase in TFL frontline staff at a time when they are cutting back.
I can understand people getting hammered at airports, eg those nervous about flying or facing a massive flight in the hope of sleep.
I have a feeling that we might be on a different page to @sun_tzu and that's where some misunderstandings are coming out. In my posts on the subject I've mostly been thinking about short-haul/medium trains like the tube or the regional services that people commonly use to get home after a night out, whereas I think largely he's thinking largely about long-haul trains like London-Edinburgh or whatever. I could be wrong though.
I think you might be right tbh, but the short-mid commutes must make up 85-95% of passenger volumes, I imagine. Do wonder if women-only carriages would work on the tube. Would people really respect it if say the women's carriages are nearly empty, but the mixed ones rammed? Or ditto if the women's ones are rammed, other women will just get in the mixed carriage.
I think the tube is probably where it's needed most to be honest. It's certainly the form of transport where the women I know who live in London feel most vulnerable, especially at night when it's either very busy or very quiet. As Corbyn implied when he made the initial statement, it'd be a case finding out at which times and on which lines the bulk of the abuse occurs and implementing women's only carriages on the appropriate trains, rather than implementing a blanket policy for the sake of it. I'd assume that there are fewer cases of sexual harassment or assault on the morning commute when overcrowding it at its worst than there are at say 11 or 12 on a Friday night when it's slightly less busy but the atmosphere is a bit more rowdy with people are coming home from nights out etc.
The majority of them died, most of the rest switched to the Tories. And you must realise how absurd it is to compare the total number of votes between 2005 and 2015 as if it has any meaning at all. Otherwise you also have to say John Major circa 1992 was more popular than Thatcher when she was winning landslides.
If this were a unique poll finding, or the overall picture was mixed, I'd be relaxed about it. But its all part of a larger picture that's emerging. There's a few more polls & studies coming out suggesting that Corbyn would worsen Labour's chances among non-Labour voters and that, yes, he's the most divisive (1, 2), saying that his outlook is out of kilter with the general population (link), also saying that his policy approach is currently unpopular (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) and electorally speaking, primarily targeting the left, the young or non-voters alone won't work (1, 2, 3, 4, 5). Also, that lingering claim that there was no appreciable difference between the Tories and Labour isn't supported either (link). People knew full well what Labour stood for, and just didn't agree with it.
Also, that 5 million lost votes thing was studied (link 1, 2) post-2010. Most of them died and were replaced by new voters and many left the party before 2010 but came back, so it not totally straight forward. However, in a nutshell "The pool of left-wing defectors is just 400,000. They are outnumbered by more than six-to-one by the 2.6m defectors who do not place themselves to the left.". So tbh, doesn't really support the Corbyn move. Obviously we may see new studies emerging that updates or changes that picture.
People can change of course, this is just a snapshot of how things were between May & August 2015, or back in 2012. Corbyn's goal is to make a change in the future. However be under no illusions that he faces an absolutely mammoth task, and I see no reason to think that he's more likely to makes things better than worse.
Thanks for the links. I get what you and @Ubik are saying, but I feel like trying to second-guess the outcome of the 2020 election based on opinion polls taken during 2015, in the middle of a leadership contest and fresh off the back of a shock defeat is a little pessimistic.
I don't think Corbyn is inherently unelectable, just as I don't think Miliband was inherently unelectable. Polls have shown that in terms of policy alone, the British public skews to the left of any government we've had in the past few decades, the problem for the left has never been that the potential support base isn't there, it's that it never gets a chance to put its point across without being torn to pieces by the likes of Murdoch. I don't think it's particularly accurate to say that Miliband was sunk because Middle England took a long, hard look at his policies and rejected them. I think it's probably more accurate to say that Middle England took a long hard look at what the papers were saying about his policies, were unconvinced by his inability to fight his corner and consequently slunk off and voted Tory.
At this moment I'd expect Corbyn to poll badly. Firstly because he's a relatively unknown figure so most peoples impressions of him so-far have come from op-ed sections in the press in which he's taken a battering, and secondly because due to the leadership race he's currently taking a lot of flak from within the party as well as from without
Hopefully if he wins, Labour MPs will listen to their members, close ranks around him and gives him a chance to win over the public. I don't worry about Corbyn's ability to appeal to people but neither am I naive do I think he'll doubtlessly inspire millions and breeze into Downing Street. My fear is that he wont even get a fair run at it because of elements within the PLP will be undermining him from day one, in addition to the caustic media campaign that is guaranteed against any Labour leader in the current climate.
Of course, if that does come to pass and Corbyn loses in 2020 after 5 years of grumbling on the back-bench and attacks in the media, the right of the party and the Murdoch press will be the first to turn round and claim it as proof that the left is unelectable as if they weren't in any way responsible.
I should imagine that the types of offences committed vary depending upon the time of day. During the press of people at rush hour and the partial anonymity such could afford, groping is likely to be responsible for the majority of crime. More brazen forms of harassment and abuse probably take place at off-peak times of the day, but because of that fact ought to be easier to police (unlike at rush hour it'd fairly easy for officers patrolling the train). The Met could also use CCTV/passengers' mobile phone footage to shame those guilty of verbal assaults.
Yeah definitely. I think that a degree of research to establish which crimes are occuring when and where should be undertaken regardless of whether the policy ends up being taken further. Ultimately having that kind of information can only be a good thing, even if it only gets used to raise awareness so that passengers are more likely to keep an eye out and step in if they see anything untoward going on.
I asked my missus about the notion of women's carriages and she described it as an affront. She's only only 5ft, so not exactly able to defend herself. Yeah I can assume there are peak times for assaults like you say, ie, post-kicking out time.
In one sense you can imagine groping is easier when it is packed, but surely the risk of the woman screaming and going mental would be quite high? I guess the empty carriages late at night on the likes of the Met line which go far out into the middle of nowhere with quite far apart stops are the biggest risk. I assume all carriages have CCTV now?
Obviously every woman's opinion is relevant to the debate. From what I've gathered, a great deal of support for the idea comes from women with past experiences which have made them nervous about the idea of being trapped underground in a carriage full of drunk men. Whilst I think it's entirely understandable that some women feel that it's unnecessary, women who I've spoken to who are survivors of sexual assault and rape seem to be overwhelmingly for the idea, both for their physical safety as well as the benefits it would have to their mental health when using public transport. I suspect if a poll came out which found that an overwhelming majority of women who had suffered sexual assault (which itself is a surprisingly high proportion of the population) backed the policy, the majority of women and a decent proportion of men would probably be far more amenable to the idea. Again, it's one of those things we'll have a more balanced view on as and when surveys are taken.
I do actually know someone who was raped when she was 15 and I know it still plagues her badly even now at c32. My missus said why not do a referendum of women about the policy. Not a bad idea- they should arguably lead this debate. My missus is from Mauritius where they still have arranged marriages to a degree and groping etc...on public transport or wherever is not really taken seriously as a crime, albeit not quite to the extent of India thankfully.
Great post which absolutely hits the nail on the head.
Yes, good post.
The one bit I would highlight is this.
I agree the problem (of a right wing electorate) is essentially about the press we have. But do we really think potential labour supporters - potential Corbyn supporters - vote Tory because they don't think a labour leader can stand up to the press?
I can't see it. But I might be wrong. I'm already cynical about the electorate in this country, if that's true it's even worse than I thought.
The one bit I would highlight is this.
I agree the problem (of a right wing electorate) is essentially about the press we have. But do we really think potential labour supporters - potential Corbyn supporters - vote Tory because they don't think a labour leader can stand up to the press?
I can't see it. But I might be wrong. I'm already cynical about the electorate in this country, if that's true it's even worse than I thought.
The right wing press' stranglehold on British politics isn't as strong today as its usually been thanks to the emergence of social media. Corbyn's pretty much fuelled his entire campaign through SM and its evident that the fear-mongering of the papers, prominent front-benchers and the Blairite oldguard has barely dented him. Murdoch will also probably choke soon anyway.
I wouldn't count on it, his mother only passed away recently.
I just looked her up, she was nearly 104!
I don't understand this point of view. Uniting the PLP and dealing with the right wing media are two of the most important tasks facing any Labour leader. Why should Corbyn be blame free if he fails to do it?
The PLP has a responsibility to at least try to work with their democratically elected leader. If they choose not to do so regardless of Corbyn's actions or intentions, which is what the likes of Hunt and Umunna seem to be suggesting, I don't think Corbyn has any culpability for that. I hope we don't see a situation where Labour MPs are teaming up with Murdoch et al to tear down their own party, but that is effectively what it will amount to if the current trend of open attacks on Corbyn from Labour MPs continues after September 12th. Any MPs who choose to go down that road will be ultimately reponsible for the toll it would take on the party.
Also it's important to realise that a Labour Party lead by Corbyn would be a far more democratic one than has existed for decades. There will no longer be a situation where the leader or the shadow cabinet has carte blanche to pursue policy irrespective of the wishes of the party. Rather, policy will be drawn up and decided upon by mechanisms which are properly accountable to the membership.
With that in mind, any rebellion by the PLP wont be attributable to Corbyn ruling with an iron-fist and imposing policy from on high. A back-bench rebellion on policy grounds would be a rebellion against the the party itself, not against the leader. Again, I don't think you can hold Corbyn responsible if it turns out that the PLP have lost any interest they ever had in representing their own party. No leader can hold together a party where the elected MPs hold the members who work to get them elected in that level of disdain.
"Second guessing" makes it sound like we're tossing a coin or something. We're looking at actual evidence, past trends and what needs to be done to win and coming to the quite rational conclusion that Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour party would make things worse, rather than better. It's opinion rather than fact, certainly, but it's based upon empirical evidence. I am yet to see any evidence at all that suggests Corbyn would be a decent (let alone good) electoral prospect. I'd be interested to see this polling evidence that shows Britain skews to the left, as the ones I see always show things like wanting tighter public finances, stricter welfare rules and less immigration. I strongly dislike all three of those results as it happens, but they're consistently what comes up. I posted on a previous page the reasons people hadn't voted for Labour, three biggest: spending, welfare, relying on the SNP (among the fabled non-voters we always hear about, it's spending, welfare and higher taxes). We also hear that the public saw no difference between Labour and the Tories at the last election, so decided to go for the devil they knew rather than the weird looking guy. Well...
Labour MPs have knocked on many thousands of doors and heard from their own constituents what they want from the party to get their vote. If they're fairly sure in their minds he's going to make things worse rather than better, are they really going to fight tooth and nail to keep him in as long as possible? Do they really want to go on Question Time, Newnight, the Today programme and whatever else and argue for things they don't agree with for a leader that made a name for himself by being perpetually disloyal in the name of sticking true to his own ideas? Should they, even?
Come now. Less than 6% of the people who voted for Labour in the last general election are voting in the leadership election, which means about 3% of Labour voters look to be putting Corbyn into power. The claim that this represents vox populi is pretty flimsy.
3% with av... Probably more like 2% as first pick.
Bloody hell, even Tim Farron's attacking him from the right now
You can't help but worry how large the Corbyn video vault is.
You can't help but worry how large the Corbyn video vault is.
No doubt Osama just needed a few years of rehabilitation. No life sentence or solitary confinement though because they're inhumane.
When Rowan Williams was Archbishop of Canterbury, he used to say many things I thought were very fair points. They'd then be reduced to soundbites/snippets in a way that made them in to controversies. One of my main worries over Corbyn is I fear he has the same issue of saying perfectly reasonable things but without taking the care never to phrase them in a way that can be used like that. It's a pretty important skill for anyone in a high profile position, sadly.
I don't know if that's actually what happened here, as I don't know this story. For all I know Corbyn wrote a large piece entitled "Why Osama was right". I'm guessing it was more about the way it was carried out or the after effects, though.
I don't know if that's actually what happened here, as I don't know this story. For all I know Corbyn wrote a large piece entitled "Why Osama was right". I'm guessing it was more about the way it was carried out or the after effects, though.
He was referring to the lack of judicial proceedings -- it was a tragedy upon a tragedy that the man could not be taken to court and be rightfully condemned. This has been taken out of context.