Jeremy Corbyn - Not Not Labour Party(?), not a Communist (BBC)

So you have a particular problem with him that you can't get past. I understand that. I was the same with Johnson's lying.
That is just one of the problems I took issue with.

As soon as he got the leadership, I knew Labour was ultimately doomed, and it made me angry because we were going to have to go through the whole Foot/Kinnock cycle again, where Labour loses, keeps losing and ultimately re-learn's Blair's analysis on this the hard way. What a waste. But on top of that, Corbyn always was unpopular (he never had a net positive rating!), too many people remembered the kicking around with Sinn Fein/Hamas/Hezbollah, which of course the Tabloids were going to love, he kept making dumb unforced errors (like the whole antisemitism thing) and he just wasn't a smart or agile enough politician. He was an absolute gift to the Tories.

He always was a really, really bad choice for a party that needs to win centre ground votes. Too many people let their wishful thinking run away with themselves, and just utterly deceived themselves about his electability, which made it even worse. That is the long and short of my objection to him.
 
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Hated. Adored. Never ignored.
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:devil:
 
Is he standing in Islington?

Do we think he will beat labour? I think he will get the backing of the people!
 
As soon as he got the leadership, I knew Labour was ultimately doomed

Maybe. We'll never know what would have happened had the attacks from within his own party not started immediately. It was so incredibly damaging.

and it made me angry

That did/does come across. Sorry. But I've read a lot of your posts on Corbyn and they do tend to lack balance.

go through the whole Foot/Kinnock cycle again, where Labour loses, keeps losing and ultimately re-learn's Blair's analysis on this the hard way.

What makes you think this? Corbyn's policies were popular. Most didn't know who he was before he was nominated.

too many people remembered the kicking around with Sinn Fein/Hamas/Hezbollah

Would you describe yourself as on the left? Does that not mean, at a fairly basic level, trying to see both sides of an argument, and attempting to deal with both sides with compassion? Mediation before bombs etc? Particularly, not demonising the oppressed. 'Kicking around with'? Really?

He was an absolute gift to the Tories.

He was easy to attack. His ideas and general approach do need more than a 3 word slogan to succeed. Maybe that's the biggest failing of the left.

The biggest gift to the tories though, was the constant sniping from inside the party. In public and the more clandestine maneuvers, about which we've since learnt some quite remarkable things.

He always was a really, really bad choice for a party that needs to win centre ground votes. Too many people let their wishful thinking run away with themselves, and just utterly deceived themselves about his electability, which made it even worse. That is the long and short of my objection to him.

Johnson was a really, really bad choice. So was Truss. And Cameron. May Too.

Corbyn would be miles better than all of them.

But we have Starmer. Raising the rhetoric against immigrants. Offering more austerity and virtually nothing in terms of reshaping the economy. Of course I want Labour to win, I might even vote for them. But 5 years of nothingness from Labour will do just about as much damage in the long term as the tories cause. Because if there's no alternative to the tories, then what's the point? It's not like we can guarantee we'll be free from the corruption and lies of the tories. Starmer is inviting all donations! What could go wrong?

We need a radical shift in this country. The longer it takes to start, the more difficult it will be. As we can see now after the Blair years. It doesn't matter if we have the 5th/6th biggest economy if we have disproportionate amounts of poverty and ill health, while our education system is getting worse and housing is a joke. As is the criminal justice system. We need a new voting system. We must restore, and hopefully improve, our commitments to international aid. We need to stop facilitating the plundering of poorer nations by corporations. We need to build international relationships, not barriers. Wages are low, prices are high, while the number of billionaires is increasing not decreasing. I could go on and on.

If we continue to pick leaders for the left that won't scare Murdoch and co, then we'll only ever be heading in the wrong direction.
 
Maybe. We'll never know what would have happened had the attacks from within his own party not started immediately. It was so incredibly damaging.

He almost destroyed Labour as a viable electoral force in the last election and on the evidence available, that was not because of "attacks from within his party".

That did/does come across. Sorry. But I've read a lot of your posts on Corbyn and they do tend to lack balance.

I'm not trying to be "balanced" whatever that means, I'm trying to make a point. I was upset because it guaranteed the Tories were going to get 10+ years because Labour. Never. Learns. And look where we are now. He was a disaster. His philosophy was crushingly rejected at the last election. And yet here you still all are wanting more! Labour. Never. Learns.

What makes you think this? Corbyn's policies were popular. Most didn't know who he was before he was nominated.
A generation of people who were too young to remember Michael Foot, Kinnock's battles with Militant and the sheer electoral toxicity of that politics, thought he was great. Blair, who whatever else he was, is the greatest political strategist Labour has ever had - was right : "a traditional leftwing party competes with a traditional rightwing party, with the traditional result”.

Would you describe yourself as on the left? Does that not mean, at a fairly basic level, trying to see both sides of an argument, and attempting to deal with both sides with compassion? Mediation before bombs etc? Particularly, not demonising the oppressed. 'Kicking around with'? Really?

I consider myself a political moderate. Ideologues put me off. I especially don't have a lot of truck with ideologies of violence. And I don't think Corbyn's approach was ever even handed or fundamentally about seeing both sides of an argument, for example, the great criticism levelled at him, is he tended to communicate with Hamas/Hezbollah/Sinn Fein ("the oppressed") but not generally with their opponents ("the oppressors"). Real mediators, real peacemakers, talk to both sides.

Johnson was a really, really bad choice. So was Truss. And Cameron. May Too.

Corbyn would be miles better than all of them.

Well, what Cameron, Johnson and May had in their favour was they won their elections.

If we continue to pick leaders for the left that won't scare Murdoch and co, then we'll only ever be heading in the wrong direction.

The party has to choose leaders and programmes that are able to win votes from Tory switchers. Look at the electoral map of the country. Count how many constituencies have Tories in first place, Labour in Second. Labour can only win those constituencies by taking votes from those Tories. But I know that's not very romantic, so keep blaming Murdoch.

(On the plus side, the current narrowing of the polls, where the Tories are now doing slightly better than being dead, is not because Tories switching to Labour, have decided not to. It's because Tory 'don't knows' are returning to the Tories. So far, those Tories who switched to Labour, are staying switched, and that is good news.)
 
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He almost destroyed Labour as a viable electoral force in the last election and on the evidence available, that was not because of "attacks from within his party".

Such hyperbole without any recognition of the damage done from within the party.

I'm not trying to be "balanced" whatever that means, I'm trying to make a point.

Ah right. So you're happy to be one-eyed to make a point. That's a pretty poor way to make your point, in my opinion.

I was upset because it guaranteed the Tories were going to get 10+ years because Labour. Never. Learns. And look where we are now. He was a disaster. His philosophy was crushingly rejected at the last election. And yet here you still all are wanting more! Labour. Never. Learns.

It didn't guarantee anything. Never learns what? We all know the uphill battle any Labour leader faces. Especially a left leaning one. Any chance should be grabbed with both hands.

A generation of people who were too young to remember Michael Foot, Kinnock's battles with Militant and all that. Blair, who whatever else he was, is the greatest political strategist Labour has ever had - was right : "a traditional leftwing party competes with a traditional rightwing party, with the traditional result”.

Brilliant at getting elected. Not too bad when it came to improving lives in this country. Awful at not going into an illegal war. Not so brilliant at inspiring following generations to vote Labour.

I consider myself a political moderate. Ideologues put me off. I especially don't have a lot of truck with ideologies of violence. And I don't think Corbyn's approach was ever even handed or fundamentally about seeing both sides of an argument, for example, the great criticism levelled at him, is he tended to communicate with Hamas/Hezbollah/Sinn Fein ("the oppressed") but not generally with their opponents ("the oppressors"). Real mediators, real peacemakers, talk to both sides.

I'm sorry, I thought you were a Labour supporter. Or, at least leftish.

Where you see idealogue though, I see a man who's dedicated many years to the cause. Corbyn may well be out of place in Westminster, but considering the vast majority are very like to only meet the other half of the oppressor/oppressed dynamic, is that really a stick to beat him with?

The party has to choose leaders and programmes that are able to win votes from Tory switchers. Look at the electoral map of the country. Count how many constituencies have Tories in first place, Labour in Second. Labour can only win those constituencies by taking votes from those Tories.

This isn't true. There's a huge number of people who have turned off from politics because they are all the same. Those people started to get massively energised leading up to 2017. It wasn't quite enough, but considering the tories chose what should have been an oppotune moment to increase their majority, as well as all the other hurdles, the extreme leftie did alright.
 
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Labour Party membership over time. The corbyn surge followed by decline upon Starmer taking over.

Let's also remember that Corbyns 2017 election result was the highest percentage point gain of any labour government since war times.

And then the many other statistics out there which show brexit was a key factor in the 2019 election. Alongside the smear campaign on the BBC, Murdoch media, BBC representatives such as Alan Sugar etc.

I think Nick allows his personal and obvious dislike of Corbyn to cloud his judgement though.

He doesn't hold Blair, Brown, Milliband or Starmer to any accountability. Yet over the last 20 years there has been a decline in public approval under each and every one of these, corbyn aside, the only leader who could convey across a vision which people believed in. A vision which resulted in labours membership to surge and to send them to record breaking election results in 2017.

You don't become unelectable from 2017 to 2019 because of your opinions on war or your views on palestine or the NI troubles. All that stuff happened many years ago and was in the public domain prior to 2017. None of it was new.

So then you go back to the drawing board and think what other big events could have influenced things. Oh yes "get brexit done" and then the whole media smear campaign which you'd have to live under a rock to not have noticed how it amplified in 2019. I guess after the 2017 result the elite feared him and they really amplified their propoganda.
 
He is literally a moron if he thinks that a negotiation with Russia giving them anything that they would accept at this moment would lead to more stability in the world.
 
He is literally a moron if he thinks that a negotiation with Russia giving them anything that they would accept at this moment would lead to more stability in the world.

He has always been consistent with his principles and pacifism and preferred to suffer unpopularity rather than compromise. I think he needed to bend and compromise in order to become PM, but the paradox is that he would not have been elected leader of the Labour Party if he was such a politician.
 
This thread feels like arguing with born again Christians about Jesus.

Agreed that the current system doesn’t work. Agreed that some of the ideas on domestic policy of Corbyn and McDonnell were worthy of consideration.. But on foreign policy (particularly Russia), Jesus Christ….It would be like hiring Gary Glitter as a child minder. Aside from Corbyn’s RT appearances and ludicrous response to the Salisbury poisonings, his chief of staff (Seamus Milne) was in his newspaper columns an apologist for Stalin.
 
Vindictive really? The only time I remember Corbyn being described as vindictive was when BJ said he would go after the wealthy with a relish and vindictiveness.

Surely vindictive would be a better word to describe Starmer and his treatment of Corbyn. Or Sunak mentioning him in PMQs every other week. Or the media smear campaign.

But through all of the above, I think he has handled himself with class when many others would likely have retaliated or reacted.

Yes, you don't want a PM who goes after anybody with a relish and vindictiveness. Its not a good trait for a person in a position of power because sooner or later they'll go after somebody you don't want them to, and I never liked the way he tried to create an us vs. them mentality in his campaigning.
 
This thread feels like arguing with born again Christians about Jesus.

Agreed that the current system doesn’t work. Agreed that some of the ideas on domestic policy of Corbyn and McDonnell were worthy of consideration.. But on foreign policy (particularly Russia), Jesus Christ….It would be like hiring Gary Glitter as a child minder. Aside from Corbyn’s RT appearances and ludicrous response to the Salisbury poisonings, his chief of staff (Seamus Milne) was in his newspaper columns an apologist for Stalin.

The Salisbury response highlights one of the main issues I had with Corbyn - far too loyal.

In the Commons Chamber his response to the poisonings was nearly exactly that given by PM May.

Milne, the idiot, started unilaterally briefing to journalists that Russia wasn't involved during the debate. This got picked up by Tory MPs who started grilling Corbyn. Corbyn thought his friend was being unfairly attacked and undermined and, without knowing the full context, backed Milne's integrity, and away we went to the races.

A more ruthless and less loyal leader would have condemned Milne in the Commons, then sacked him and appointed a better person (quite how Grace Blakely and Ash Sarkar weren't headhunted I don't know).
 
The Salisbury response highlights one of the main issues I had with Corbyn - far too loyal.

In the Commons Chamber his response to the poisonings was nearly exactly that given by PM May.

Milne, the idiot, started unilaterally briefing to journalists that Russia wasn't involved during the debate. This got picked up by Tory MPs who started grilling Corbyn. Corbyn thought his friend was being unfairly attacked and undermined and, without knowing the full context, backed Milne's integrity, and away we went to the races.

A more ruthless and less loyal leader would have condemned Milne in the Commons, then sacked him and appointed a better person (quite how Grace Blakely and Ash Sarkar weren't headhunted I don't know).
Well whether he was too loyal or not, he was rightly ridiculed for saying we should send the poison sample back to Russia for their confirmation. I mean, top mind right there.
 
That isn't true. There's a huge number of people who have turned off from politics because they are all the same. Those people started to get massively energised leading up to 2017. It wasn't quite enough, but considering the tories chose what should have been an oppotune moment to increase their majority, as well as all the other hurdles, the extreme leftie did alright.
I wish the maths supported your view. Even with this surge of enthusiasm, biggest vote share in ages etc etc, the Tories still managed to win 55 seats more than labour. Because they were not able to switch the right votes in the right seats.
 
Well whether he was too loyal or not, he was rightly ridiculed for saying we should send the poison sample back to Russia for their confirmation. I mean, top mind right there.

I don't disagree with you. We could go on with examples of foreign policy statements from those four years.

But Labour members could hardly complain. We knew what we were getting in the campaign and election. There was a real visceral feeling after the 2015 GE that the party had slid too far to the right and had to go back to its roots. I think if Labour had the same voting system as the Tories for leader the members would have had to choose between Burnham and Cooper.
 
I wish the maths supported your view. Even with this surge of enthusiasm, biggest vote share in ages etc etc, the Tories still managed to win 55 seats more than labour. Because they were not able to switch the right votes in the right seats.

Roughly a third of the electorate don't vote. I'd say there's room for improvement there, even if it means a different group no longer feel represented enough to participate.

Also, it wasn't Corbyn who had already lost most of the Scottish seats. Did Milliband destroy the Labour party?
 
Of course part of the 2017 result and turnout could have been attributable to Brexit. I find it odd that only 2019 is referenced.
 
Yes, you don't want a PM who goes after anybody with a relish and vindictiveness. Its not a good trait for a person in a position of power because sooner or later they'll go after somebody you don't want them to, and I never liked the way he tried to create an us vs. them mentality in his campaigning.
Boris Johnson doesn't exactly have the best track record for giving honest opinions so I wouldn't find him using the same terminology reassuring myself.

In the hypothetical situation he was relishing to go after the wealthy. At least that would be a us v them campign for once rather than the usual us v us but the wealthiest are never to blame.

Any comments on Starmers vindictive treatment of the former leader he once described as a friend?
 
I want a PM to go after rich people with relish and vindictiveness.
 
Boris Johnson doesn't exactly have the best track record for giving honest opinions so I wouldn't find him using the same terminology reassuring myself.

In the hypothetical situation he was relishing to go after the wealthy. At least that would be a us v them campign for once rather than the usual us v us but the wealthiest are never to blame.

Any comments on Starmers vindictive treatment of the former leader he once described as a friend?

I didn't know Boris said that, it was my own opinion of him. I never thought he wanted to be PM anyway. He is and was happier being a thorn in somebody's side with no actual risk of having to follow though on what he says. And no PM should ever be openly targeting any groups of citizens.

No comments on Starmer at all. It's a missed opportunity for Labour but he's an empty suit.
 
I wish the maths supported your view. Even with this surge of enthusiasm, biggest vote share in ages etc etc, the Tories still managed to win 55 seats more than labour. Because they were not able to switch the right votes in the right seats.
It wasn't exactly a level playing field. The reporting was so weirdly unbalanced it was a joke - even the fecking Guardian were out for his blood. It was a very, very obvious smear campaign by the media to delegitimize him by making him seem soft and flowery (makes his own jam, has an allotment. The horror!) and by making spurious connections to terrorism. It's literally the same crap you see posted in here about him and people still gobble it up. However slow Labour might be to cop on, the electorate are just as dense.
 
It wasn't exactly a level playing field. The reporting was so weirdly unbalanced it was a joke - even the fecking Guardian were out for his blood. It was a very, very obvious smear campaign by the media to delegitimize him by making him seem soft and flowery (makes his own jam, has an allotment. The horror!) and by making spurious connections to terrorism. It's literally the same crap you see posted in here about him and people still gobble it up. However slow Labour might be to cop on, the electorate are just as dense.
If only it wasn't for those pesky voters eh!
 
Roughly a third of the electorate don't vote. I'd say there's room for improvement there, even if it means a different group no longer feel represented enough to participate.

Pinning your hopes on people who don't vote, doesn't strike me as a good bet.
 
I like how Labour is supposed to win by pitching their offer to the stupid and the absent.
 
The polls are now recording the lowest gap between labour and Conservative since Starmer took over.

feck Sake Jeremy. It's all your fault!!
 
Oh ok. I just took the words as written
Yeah it was a typo. Meant to say Sunak.

I guess focusing on asbos and graffiti during a nhs and cost of living crisis hasn't went down quite as well as Starmer thought
 
If only it wasn't for those pesky voters eh!
Obviously it'd be great if everybody had a critical eye and were alert to hyper biased and bait media campaigns, but we don't have an educational system that supports that. As such, the 'pesky voters' fall prey to agenda driven politics and the end result is we have a country that is utterly fecked and politicians that primarily succeed by appealing using gutter level policy and campaigning.
 
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This needs to happen, but only under a PR system. If the party splits under the current system then both new and old parties are looking at a wipeout due to FPTP.

Also, if the unions break from Labour and form a new party then the current Labour party will go bust pretty quickly unless it can get big donors onboard. Then the distinction between Tory and Labour will be nothing more than the colour of the tie they are wearing. They may even merge down the line.