phelans shorts
Full Member
If your evidence is "Telegraph readers like them" then that really isn't going to cut it. Also important to note that the young disagree as per your article, and guess which group is most likely to vote Corbyn?
The British Royal Family are very popular in the UK, you can't sell a republican Prime Minister. Along with another hundred reasons why Corbyn is dead in the water as a prospective PM.
If your evidence is "Telegraph readers like them" then that really isn't going to cut it. Also important to note that the young disagree as per your article, and guess which group is most likely to vote Corbyn?
If your evidence is "Telegraph readers like them" then that really isn't going to cut it. Also important to note that the young disagree as per your article, and guess which group is most likely to vote Corbyn?
It's absolutely irrelevant whether people like the monarchy or not, Corbyn has come out saying getting rid of the monarchy is not on his agenda. In a country where the press were actually interested in journalism that would be the end of it. What we have is a politicised right-wing press doing everything they can to prevent someone who might actually challenge their power getting into office, and seeing people on the right of Labour playing along to the Tory-press' tune to attack their own democratically elected leader is disappointing at best and sickening at worst.
However, saying it now he has the job, despite having previously been fervently in support of its abolition, means he's actually dug himself into a hole, the electorate are likely to think he's either lying, or doesn't actually believe in the things he's said before. Either way, it's damaging and something the electorate will remember, hence the journalists not letting it go.It's absolutely irrelevant whether people like the monarchy or not, Corbyn has come out saying getting rid of the monarchy is not on his agenda. In a country where the press were actually interested in journalism that would be the end of it. What we have is a politicised right-wing press doing everything they can to prevent someone who might actually challenge their power getting into office, and seeing people on the right of Labour playing along to the Tory-press' tune to attack their own democratically elected leader is disappointing at best and sickening at worst.
Like anyone gives a shit about what he said about the monarchy. It will make do difference to anyone come the GE.
If you truly believe that then you're in for a nasty shock I think.Like anyone gives a shit about what he said about the monarchy. It will make do difference to anyone come the GE.
Like anyone gives a shit about what he said about the monarchy. It will make do difference to anyone come the GE.
Those of you who've left the party because of Corbyn's electoral victory - I suspect you probably joined the wrong party to begin with. Blair's direction was a diversion, not the norm. That's why you have his disciples in the PLP throwing their toys out at the audacity of the new Labour leader implementing...well traditional Labour values.
If you truly believe that then you're in for a nasty shock I think.
Didn't realise it was the 1980s again.
Things change, the world moves on.
Unfortunately you're probably right, Blair's level of electoral success was unprecedented for the party. And with people like you around actively encouraging people to leave the party and join the Tories, the future looks pretty bleak as well.Those of you who've left the party because of Corbyn's electoral victory - I suspect you probably joined the wrong party to begin with. Blair's direction was a diversion, not the norm. That's why you have his disciples in the PLP throwing their toys out at the audacity of the new Labour leader implementing...well traditional Labour values.
However, saying it now he has the job, despite having previously been fervently in support of its abolition, means he's actually dug himself into a hole, the electorate are likely to think he's either lying, or doesn't actually believe in the things he's said before. Either way, it's damaging and something the electorate will remember, hence the journalists not letting it go.
Unfortunately you're probably right, Blair's level of electoral success was unprecedented for the party. And with people like you around actively encouraging people to leave the party and join the Tories, the future looks pretty bleak as well.
However, saying it now he has the job, despite having previously been fervently in support of its abolition, means he's actually dug himself into a hole, the electorate are likely to think he's either lying, or doesn't actually believe in the things he's said before. Either way, it's damaging and something the electorate will remember, hence the journalists not letting it go.
More Telegraph propaganda. Getting tedious.
But he's never said he suddenly changed his position, he's just said he understands it's not something the nation wants so he wont try and force it on them. It's a case of damned if he does damned if he doesn't. If he came out wanting to dissolve the monarchy he'd be lambasted, when he doesn't do so he's accused of being duplicitous.
Exactly, that's the issue you'll have with him as a leader, he has previously done some things which will be incredibly damaging in the future if he wants to be taken seriously, it just creates more & more hurdles that have to be overcome if the Labour party truly think he can become PM. It's fine by me, I'm a born & bred Conservative supporter and monarchistBut he's never said he suddenly changed his position, he's just said he understands it's not something the nation wants so he wont try and force it on them. It's a case of damned if he does damned if he doesn't. If he came out wanting to dissolve the monarchy he'd be lambasted, when he doesn't do so he's accused of being duplicitous.
Exactly, that's the issue you'll have with him as a leader, he has previously done some things which will be incredibly damaging in the future if he wants to be taken seriously, it just creates more & more hurdles that have to be overcome if the Labour party truly think he can become PM. It's fine by me, I'm a born & bred Conservative supporter and monarchist![]()
How can you be a monarchist? What's the rationale behind that one?t's fine by me, I'm a born & bred Conservative supporter and monarchist![]()
In fairness, Corbyn hasn't really put a foot wrong yet. The singing of the anthem is about the only thing you could criticise him over (and that's a stretch made by a very conservative press establishment).Sadly, people do seem to care about the nonsense though, so he is doing himself and Labour no favours.
And that's my point too, you've chosen a leader who the media can get after before he's even really said a word because he brings so much historical stuff with him that they can use to beat him up.My statement was more a reflection on the right-wing media than Corbyn. Their agenda is to destroy and undermine him, as they did with Miliband (more so, in fact). They'll accuse him of disrespecting the Queen and criticise him for not trying to dissolve the monarchy in the same breath - it's pathetic.
In this situation, I mean monarchist in terms of keeping the Royal family, they do far more good for the country than they cost IMO. Perhaps Royalist would have been a more appropriate term to use.How can you be a monarchist? What's the rationale behind that one?
In fairness, Corbyn hasn't really put a foot wrong yet. The singing of the anthem is about the only thing you could criticise him over (and that's a stretch made by a very conservative press establishment).
Fair enough (though I disagree completely, and would question the notion that the monarchy contribute more than they take).In this situation, I mean monarchist in terms of keeping the Royal family, they do far more good for the country than they cost IMO. Perhaps Royalist would have been a more appropriate term to use.
It'll be very interesting how he deals with it all long term. If he can weather the storm and start giving real policies that actually show he's in touch, then maybe people will start paying attention properly.
God save the Queen: long may she reign as she and her family lubricate Britain's wars
The criminal record of Britain's longest reigning monarch and her royal family of arms dealers and friends to despots and dictators
IN THE YEAR of the Queen’s Jubilee tourists peered as usual
Through the railings of Buckingham Palace,
But her fairy-tale was fading; the fairy queen’s wings were being clipped
By the Sex Pistols putting monarchy in their sights.
“God save the queen,” they sang, “it’s a fascist regime.”
And the song’s hook-line became a new anthem –
Disturbing to clutches of flag-wavers lining the streets,
And horrifying to Middle England and the Daily Mail.
The Sex Pistols proclaimed, “She ain’t no human being,”
And their subversive posters for the record
Placed the band’s salacious name right across the Queen’s lips
Masking her eyes with two spidery swastikas.
They sang, “I don't believe illusions ‘cos too much is real”.
They accessorized the Queen’s nose with a safety pin
Like a voodoo doll then covered her face with cutout letters,
As if presenting the world with a kidnapper’s note.
‘Oooh no,’ people would say, ‘you can’t have a go at the Queen,’
Sucking their breath in to indicate caution,
‘Oooh no, not the Queen, the Queen’s above politics you see.’
‘They can’t answer back, can they, so it’s not fair.’
Then they’d earnestly claim, ‘It’s in the constitution, isn’t it?’
Forgetting that Britain’s never had such a document –
For the Brits, despite their inordinate pride in their own history,
Can reveal they know less about it than anyone.
The country survives despite its own past not because of it
And its infantile wish for a benign parent above politics
Persuades it to ignore unpleasant facts, such as the sovereign’s endorsing
The very nastiest political act of all, namely killing.
For their sovereign’s dominant role is to inspect
Row after row of the state’s armed forces –
Broken down in training, reconfigured from scratch
And then programmed to kill on command.
The sovereign is crucial to the lubrication of Britain’s wars
By its gulling soldiers into dutifully dying;
Then, after paying homage to such victims of state carnage,
By its encouraging arms-trade profiteering.
Arms-makers and their customers are brought together
At Windsor Castle to be honored with fly-pasts –
Monarchy and military business being intimately connected:
The UK’s ‘Defense Industrial Base’ is a royal brand.
A landowning cabal with its heraldry denoting privilege
Still forms an elite network that stakes out the land,
And retains monarchy as its god to deceive those living here
Whose Common land they once stole and enclosed.
The monarchy’s militarism echoes a time when royalty wasn’t flouted –
When to criticize royalty was treason and when those threatening
The status quo could be seized, and their limbs tied to horses
Which took off in every direction as they were whipped.
On seeing royal victims torn to shreds while still alive,
Royal minions sliced their hearts into sections
Then dispatched them across the country for public display,
As a warning to anyone considering rebellion.
In the past, the brute power of the monarchy was this unrestrained
Whereas now it pretends to more decorum
By dressing in fancy costumes, and awarding itself unearned medals,
And laying wreaths to those dying in its name.
For its politicized charisma still yields a large body-count;
Lives are still culled by its ‘Queen and country’ spell;
Royalty routinely pays its dead subjects with a march-past
When they’re boxed up and returned to where they once lived.
Meanwhile royalty’s own patriotism bears scant inspection:
It being revealed in 1915, in World War One,
That when millions were dying in Flanders for King and Country,
The King himself was tobogganing in St Moritz.
He returned to set a record for shooting Sandringham pheasants
As he cut his annual swathe through its wildlife;
Similarly, in 1939, George VI determined that the war
Shouldn’t “interrupt the grouse season at Balmoral.”
The UK’s military-monarchy-complex is a cynical industry
For which the Queen was groomed by a General Browning
And, likewise, Prince William’s mentor has been Blair’s wartime apparatchik:
The UK’s former man in Washington, David Manning.
“It is Manning who is running the conflict with Iraq.”
Wrote John Kampfner, the author of ‘Blair's Wars’.
Thus the heir to the heir is being initiated by a prime mover
In Britain’s centuries-long killing sprees.
While all the time royalty profits from arms, due to its Crown Agents
Who tend to its shares in Lockheed, makers of cluster bombs
And nurture bundles of the royal investments in BAE Systems –
In its Depleted Uranium shells and its landmines.
The latest landmines are designed to leap up out of the ground,
Triggered by children playing or walking nearby.
They’ll detonate in mid-air and they’ll sever limbs as bodies fall
While the shareholdings of the super-rich rise.
The Times has claimed the sovereign’s wealth grows yearly by 20m
And in 2010 it announced the Queen “crowned a successful year
For her share portfolio, with a personal fortune totaling £290m”
Though elsewhere others have assessed it in billions.
Yet confronted by the true cost of UK weapons exported abroad,
Namely the Indonesian massacres in East Timor,
Her son Charles said, “If we don’t sell arms to them, someone else will,”
Blithely exposing the monarchy’s moral vacuum.
http://stopwar.org.uk/news/god-save-the-queen-as-she-and-her-family-lubricate-britain-s-wars
I have been proud to be Chair of the Coalition for the last four years. It represents the very best in British political campaigning, and its cause of opposing war, upholding civil liberties and resisting Islamophobia will remain my cause.
I hardly need to say. In stepping down as Chair, I want to make absolutely clear my continuing solidarity with the Coalition and its work against wars of intervention.
Those of you who've left the party because of Corbyn's electoral victory - I suspect you probably joined the wrong party to begin with. Blair's direction was a diversion, not the norm. That's why you have his disciples in the PLP throwing their toys out at the audacity of the new Labour leader implementing...well traditional Labour values.
Yet confronted by the true cost of UK weapons exported abroad,
Namely the Indonesian massacres in East Timor,
Her son Charles said, “If we don’t sell arms to them, someone else will,”
Blithely exposing the monarchy’s moral vacuum.
I don't... I think he has a very London centric view of things and I certainly can't see his views being capable of bringing back those traditional labour voters who turned to UKIPHere's a question - do we think Corbyn is more in tune with the "working class" core vote of Labour than previous recent leaders?