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

feck me the ott response to the passover message makes our football forum look calm and considered. Anything to keep Teresa May in power I suppose.
 
It’s hard to tell whether some of these rich right wingers grossly misinterpreting tax rates are full on sociopaths willfully trying to con the public, or just idiots with so many dodgy lawyers and accountants they haven’t so much as looked at a tax return in several decades...

 
It’s hard to tell whether some of these rich right wingers grossly misinterpreting tax rates are full on sociopaths willfully trying to con the public, or just idiots with so many dodgy lawyers and accountants they haven’t so much as looked at a tax return in several decades...



Slightly off-topic but Bernie was asked, in full seriousness, by a Harvard student:

"Your free college plan is popular. But it is based on taxes. Once we graduate, if we get good jobs, won't we be paying taxes?"
 
I reckon if you just rebranded certain high end taxes as “Elite Executive Membership fee” or “Platinum band Fellowship dues” a lot of really rich idiots wouldn’t notice them.
 
Labour takes clear lead across 10 Westminster polls

The Labour Party has put clear water between itself and rival parties, taking a lead in 10 Westminster polls.

According to the latest voting intention Jeremy Corbyn’s party has an average lead of five percentage points over Theresa May’s Conservatives.

The latest polls, conducted by ComRes, ORB and YouGov, give Labour a +10, +3 and a +1 lead respectively.


Other polling houses put Labour up by as much as nine points, with Hanbury giving them 40 per cent of the vote if Britain were to go to the polls tomorrow.

Other polling houses put Labour up by as much as nine points, with Hanbury giving them 40 per cent of the vote if Britain were to go to the polls tomorrow.
 
It’s hard to tell whether some of these rich right wingers grossly misinterpreting tax rates are full on sociopaths willfully trying to con the public, or just idiots with so many dodgy lawyers and accountants they haven’t so much as looked at a tax return in several decades...



Sometimes I have to remind myself that the UK still has nobility. The Black Death got rid of almost all of ours, and we never got around to making any more. Lord Sugar must be the prime argument against the idea of the superior nobility.
 
Labour takes clear lead across 10 Westminster polls


The lead somewhat masks a fall in Labour support though. Support for both parties has been falling steadily since the start of last year, when they'd both been averaging over 40% for 6 months. The twists and turns of Brexit means that each day's headlines can hurt one party more than the other, so they take it in turns to take the hits. At the moment its the Tories, given the extension to A50. But I think increasingly we see that Remainers and Leavers are each unhappy with both parties' positions, and its hard to see that changing. Wouldn't surprise me if both parties kept falling a few more points in coming months.
 
Sometimes I have to remind myself that the UK still has nobility. The Black Death got rid of almost all of ours, and we never got around to making any more. Lord Sugar must be the prime argument against the idea of the superior nobility.

He's not really nobility in the sense of being aristocracy though, he's a lord because was made one during his lifetime. In a way I think it makes his political stances worse as they come through wilful ignorance rather than a lack of experience. His views on class politics and social mobility are entirely rooted in vanity; he wants to believe that his achievements are entirely and wholly down to his own skill and hard-work and therefore unilaterally denies that peoples' lives can be influenced by factors outside of their own control. From that point his logic is easy to follow; "I've become so rich on the back of my own work and nothing else. Therefore everyone should be able to achieve the same and if they haven't they're lazy and if they're complain they're lazy and jealous"

Unfortunately, facts get in the way. His working-class childhood experience sounds positively utopian today. His parents rented a council property in London for the equivalent of £100-200 quid a week in today's money and were able to raise 4 kids on a single, modest income. A family of 6 attempting to do similar in any part of the country today, never mind in London, would be in severe poverty. The time when you could leave school at 16 and walk into a Civil Service job is long gone, as are the days when an average income would leave you enough money to start a business after living costs. The days of a relatively small company being able to carve out a significant slice of an emerging market by undercutting their competition with low quality products are long gone and if he'd come through in the marketplace of the 1990s or 2000s he'd be no-one now. He's a dinosaur with no understanding of normal life, and who isn't willing to try and learn because it would bruise his ego.
 
Slightly off-topic but Bernie was asked, in full seriousness, by a Harvard student:

"Your free college plan is popular. But it is based on taxes. Once we graduate, if we get good jobs, won't we be paying taxes?"

"My parents are paying for my college but I don't want to pay for others by paying any extra taxes."
 
Transport cuts have mostly taken place in rural areas and small towns. Londons roads are mostly clogged up with black taxis and ubers taking coke fiends to poncey cocktail bars and coke dealers speeding off every time they see a cop
 
Most buses, outside of peak hours, are virtually empty. London's roads are clogged up with, mostly, empty buses chugging out diesel fumes.
A lot of local buses are or have been converted to electric or gas.

Also, most cars are empty (save the driver).

I would be happy to take a bus or train to work but there are not any in my area, which do not involve first driving five miles to the station. Add to that the extortionate cost and it is clear why most people do not consider using public transport.

For once, I am fully behind Corbyn.
 
Transport cuts have mostly taken place in rural areas and small towns. Londons roads are mostly clogged up with black taxis and ubers taking coke fiends to poncey cocktail bars and coke dealers speeding off every time they see a cop

Couldn't agree more, add into the mix a load of empty buses lumbering about and you have the London traffic problem.
 
Transport cuts have mostly taken place in rural areas and small towns. Londons roads are mostly clogged up with black taxis and ubers taking coke fiends to poncey cocktail bars and coke dealers speeding off every time they see a cop

Exactly, you cannot get a bus if you live out side of a city virtually.

If you want to work in anything other than a 9-5 in a major town or city, then you arent using public transport.

Where i live if i had to resort to jobs i could do by using public transport, i would be looking at a minimum £15k loss of earnings, PLUS the extortionate cost of public transport.
 
Exactly, you cannot get a bus if you live out side of a city virtually.

If you want to work in anything other than a 9-5 in a major town or city, then you arent using public transport.

Where i live if i had to resort to jobs i could do by using public transport, i would be looking at a minimum £15k loss of earnings, PLUS the extortionate cost of public transport.

The declining quality and increased cost of
bus services is also a huge factor in the death of the high street in small towns. It's cheaper to drive past town and park for free at a retail park than it is to get a return bus to town.

Investing in quality bus services is an absolute no-brainer. Unfortunately, the departmentalised nature of government and the drive to run the civil service like a business creates a situation where there's no incentive for people to look at the big picture when making decisions. Each department has to compete for resources and the success of a publically-run service is measured by whether it makes money in and of itself (this rule is thrown out the window when it comes to subsidising private service providers obviously). So when they look at investing in buses they look at the cost and immediate return through fares, completely ignoring indirect benefits which bring in additional tax revenue or save money in welfare spending. Increased footfall in town centres, associated job creation, the ability of people without a car to seek work further afield, less social isolation, people more able to access preventative/early stage healthcare instead of being rushed to hospital when things are really bad and requiring expensive care. The list of secondary benefits goes on.
 
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Will people still defend this man?


I'm not one to defend him on this broader issue, but Imperialism is a standard text which most students of empire will have encountered during undergraduate studies, it was highly influential in its own time and is important for understanding how empire has been understood in history. Of course, as a product of its time there are elements which reflect the antisemitic sentiments which prevailed in polite society at that time, and nobody would deny that Hobson was an antisemite. But that would apply to a whole lot of authors from that period. So I'd be interested to read what Corbyn actually wrote in this forward. There's nothing necessarily wrong with writing a forward for such a work, but it's important to acknowledge the less savory elements. Though given Corbyn's blindness on this topic, I suspect he didn't.
 


Well yes, that and a lot of other stuff is pretty much why he's not gonna get (and probably doesn't deserve) the benefit of the doubt from most people on this.
 
Well yes, that and a lot of other stuff is pretty much why he's not gonna get (and probably doesn't deserve) the benefit of the doubt from most people on this.

Nor should he get the benefit of the doubt. The man is a racist and is the reason I cancelled my Labour Party membership.