I'm still getting a lot of feedback from Broxtowe, including a flood of comments after I endorsed Corbyn. An interesting thing is that the people with most doubts - in some cases real hostility like Southam (who is with respect getting quite nasty about it) - are the veteran members, who have stayed loyal through decades of shifting policies because they think Labour governments are nearly always better than the Tories, and they fear for the party. Most of those will stay on, but anxiously; some will quit.
By contrast, the most enthusiasm is from people who have voted Labour in the past but stopped doing so around 2001, and who have voted LibDems, Green or UKIP. A lot of them say with some bemusement that they'll actually join if he wins the leadership. It misreads them to think they're nutty Trots - these are disaffected mostly middle-class people who felt the major parties didn't represent them. Not many are all that political in the terms of PB (e.g. I doubt if many care much about rail nationalisation or Hamas), certainly not party political.
My view is that the well of triangulation and centralist manouevres has run dry and we need to try Corbyn. I wouldn't say I'm optimistic, but there's a reasonable shot of success, and certainly of an interesting challenge to the crushing orthodox consensus.
Yesterday's thread IMO misreads Corbyn, by the way. The fact that he doesn't trumpet a desire to be PM doesn't mean that he doesn't give a toss. It means that he is opposed to giving himself undue prominence. It's an austere and unfashionable attitude, but not a bad thing.
Sorry Nick, but you have decided someone who is happy to share platforms with people who revel in the killing of British soldiers should be the leader of the Labour party. That does genuinely make me angry because not only should such a person never be anywhere near any position of authority or responsibility per se, let alone a political party aiming to govern, but also because it will help deliver years more Tory rule. If Corbyn was just another economically illierate left-winger that would be bad enough, but it would be recoverable. But he is not, it is far worse. In the circumstances describing you as a useful idiot seems pretty controlled to me. I could be a whole lot nastier, believe me!!!
I completely agree. It angers me that Nick is supporting this idiot who will destroy our party. I've lost a lot of respect for him over it.
This could be one of the tactics that the Tories use to define him; even a failed attempt to prevent him seeing sensitive information for security reasons will put it in people's minds that he's a danger to the British state (or British soldiers).
If the Conservatives are smart about this they much concentrate their fire on criticisms on areas that Corbyn makes an easy target, but Corbyn's replacement will find it hard to take a firm line on. Weak on immigration, soft on benefits and an unwillingness to criticise Islamic intolerance stand out. That way you tar the whole party, rather than just one leader who will soon be gone.
Corbyn leader in 5 years ...surely you jest ...it's much more likely that the dodgy past and grisly friends of this quasi Marxist catches up to him within 6 months ...the tory print media are just waiting to hammer him after he is elected ...this poor fool is going to be humiliated and then yanked out of there I notice that Cooper is 10-1 at Ladbrokes to be leader in 2020 ; that seems like a good bet to me
I'm not sure. The Tories I expect will give Corbyn a fairly easy ride to begin with. Remember, they want to make sure he survives.
Theters know just what a scumbag Corbyn is.
As with EdM, the Tories will want to knock Corbyn hard enough so that he does not gain any credibility by default, but not so hard as to knock him out
EdM was a naive fool with no self knowledge and zero leadership ability, and he was a glorious gift to the Tories; but he never actively wished the UK harm and in his own way is rather fond of the place. Corbyn knows exactly what he is doing and demonstrably has no loyalty to or affection for the country he says he wants to lead - that's because, as a good Marxist, he sees absolutely everything through the prism of class and anti-capitalism. He is a genuine danger - not just to Labour, but to the UK. As LOTO he will be privy to information that would be very useful to the kinds of people and entities he has spent his entire political career hanging out with. I'd expect the Tories to point that out relentlessly.
Would the government be obliged to admit Jeremy Corbyn to the Privy Council if he became Labour leader? Genuine question.
Great (or should that be grate) minds ponder alike. I can't recall any LoTo who hasn't been, but in this case, I believe an exception could and probably should be made. Why should he see any sensitive security information?
This could be one of the tactics that the Tories use to define him; even a failed attempt to prevent him seeing sensitive information for security reasons will put it in people's minds that he's a danger to the British state (or British soldiers).
I reckon the Tories just have to wait till the 24th of April 2016, that's when Corbyn will make a major faux pas on this topic
The London Marathon?!
The one hundredth anniversary of the Easter Rising
Trouble with this article is that most over 50s can remember the 1970s and 1980s and don't want no return to those days.
And they vote. In large numbers.
Just wait till immigration is raised as an issue. Corbyn will lose lots of Labour support with unlimited immigration...
The 70's were great.
I was born in 1974. Just about my only recollection of the 1970s beyond family and friends is of power cuts; of having candles stuck in old wine bottles to be ready for when the lights went off again.
Without wishing to cast aspersions on the state of your memory, I thought that power cuts were essentially 72-74? Didn't the unions bite their lip under the Social Contract, it only going to rat-shit in the winter of 78-79?
Sure it wasn't your folks refusing to feed the meter?
It's probably 1978-9 that I remember. But it is a potent memory and it did happen pretty frequently. The candles-in-bottled stayed on a high shelf in the house for years afterwards, mostly gathering dust.
There were power cuts in 78/9 though not as bad as under Heath. Here is a BBC R4 Today prog quote for 1978. "The winter of discontent began in private industry before spreading to the public sector. The strikes seriously disrupted everyday life, causing problems including food shortages and widespread and frequent power cuts." http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/reports/politics/1978vs2008_20080425.shtml
Good to see that you consider the BBC as the benchmark of historical record.
There were no power cuts in Scotland in 1978-79. I suspect they exist in much the same way as Callaghan's statement 'Crisis? What crisis?'.
Corbyn leader in 5 years ...surely you jest ...it's much more likely that the dodgy past and grisly friends of this quasi Marxist catches up to him within 6 months ...the tory print media are just waiting to hammer him after he is elected ...this poor fool is going to be humiliated and then yanked out of there I notice that Cooper is 10-1 at Ladbrokes to be leader in 2020 ; that seems like a good bet to me
I'm not sure. The Tories I expect will give Corbyn a fairly easy ride to begin with. Remember, they want to make sure he survives.
Theters know just what a scumbag Corbyn is.
As with EdM, the Tories will want to knock Corbyn hard enough so that he does not gain any credibility by default, but not so hard as to knock him out
EdM was a naive fool with no self knowledge and zero leadership ability, and he was a glorious gift to the Tories; but he never actively wished the UK harm and in his own way is rather fond of the place. Corbyn knows exactly what he is doing and demonstrably has no loyalty to or affection for the country he says he wants to lead - that's because, as a good Marxist, he sees absolutely everything through the prism of class and anti-capitalism. He is a genuine danger - not just to Labour, but to the UK. As LOTO he will be privy to information that would be very useful to the kinds of people and entities he has spent his entire political career hanging out with. I'd expect the Tories to point that out relentlessly.
Would the government be obliged to admit Jeremy Corbyn to the Privy Council if he became Labour leader? Genuine question.
Great (or should that be grate) minds ponder alike. I can't recall any LoTo who hasn't been, but in this case, I believe an exception could and probably should be made. Why should he see any sensitive security information?
This could be one of the tactics that the Tories use to define him; even a failed attempt to prevent him seeing sensitive information for security reasons will put it in people's minds that he's a danger to the British state (or British soldiers).
I reckon the Tories just have to wait till the 24th of April 2016, that's when Corbyn will make a major faux pas on this topic
On topic: I think we can rule out the possibility that a Corbyn leadership could be a catalyst for a Labour revival, at least any time soon. The reason isn't so much his loony-left economics, but more the terrorist-sympathising, anti-Western student-Marxism. That will repel decent Labour supporters (see Southam Observer's heartfelt and entirely understandable rants for the full picture), and, even more importantly, will tear the parliamentary party in half. Not even in half: the bulk of Labour MPs will be horrified; that they've already started plotting and briefing against him even before he's selected tells you everything you need to know.
Still, the 5/2 bet is not bad. Since there's no unifying figure available to replace him, he'll probably drift on as leader amidst unending and debilitating talk of plots, coups, counter-coups, resistance, and union skulduggery. That's not a formula for a revival.
I think it's telling that his radio and TV performances have become worse as the campaign has gone on. When he stuck it to Guru-Murthy over his tabloid journalism I was with him, but he seems increasingly snippy and the anger is only just below the surface. He's never experienced anything like the scrutiny he'll face.
Nor has he ever experienced anything like the hard work he'll have to do; the late nights, the reading, coping with Party management. He'll be exhausted (and this is where his age could matter) - and exhausted and under pressure could lead to him saying or doing something extraordinarily stupid.
One of the issues with Ed M that is rarely mentioned is it appears he was very unprepared to be leader. It took a couple of years I seem to recall to even appoint a chief of staff. It showed. Will JC be in same position?
Corbyn leader in 5 years ...surely you jest ...it's much more likely that the dodgy past and grisly friends of this quasi Marxist catches up to him within 6 months ...the tory print media are just waiting to hammer him after he is elected ...this poor fool is going to be humiliated and then yanked out of there I notice that Cooper is 10-1 at Ladbrokes to be leader in 2020 ; that seems like a good bet to me
I'm not sure. The Tories I expect will give Corbyn a fairly easy ride to begin with. Remember, they want to make sure he survives.
Theters know just what a scumbag Corbyn is.
As with EdM, the Tories will want to knock Corbyn hard enough so that he does not gain any credibility by default, but not so hard as to knock him out
EdM was a naive fool with no self knowledge and zero leadership ability, and he was a glorio
Would the government be obliged to admit Jeremy Corbyn to the Privy Council if he became Labour leader? Genuine question.
Great (or should that be grate) minds ponder alike. I can't recall any LoTo who hasn't been, but in this case, I believe an exception could and probably should be made. Why should he see any sensitive security information?
This could be one of the tactics that the Tories use to define him; even a failed attempt to prevent him seeing sensitive information for security reasons will put it in people's minds that he's a danger to the British state (or British soldiers).
I reckon the Tories just have to wait till the 24th of April 2016, that's when Corbyn will make a major faux pas on this topic
What's the significance of that date?
The one hundredth anniversary of the Easter rising
@Cyclefree - heartfelt thanks. It is sad, horrifying and infuriating to witness what is unfolding. In and of itself, the future of the Labour party is of little interest to me. But the country needs a credible centre left alternative to the Tories. Nick and his mates are ensuring it will not have one.
I think it's telling that his radio and TV performances have become worse as the campaign has gone on. When he stuck it to Guru-Murthy over his tabloid journalism I was with him, but he seems increasingly snippy and the anger is only just below the surface. He's never experienced anything like the scrutiny he'll face.
Nor has he ever experienced anything like the hard work he'll have to do; the late nights, the reading, coping with Party management. He'll be exhausted (and this is where his age could matter) - and exhausted and under pressure could lead to him saying or doing something extraordinarily stupid.
One of the issues with Ed M that is rarely mentioned is it appears he was very unprepared to be leader. It took a couple of years I seem to recall to even appoint a chief of staff. It showed. Will JC be in same position?
Can't help thinking he'll be a bit of a puppet on a string, with lefty and union baron eminences grises running the show.
@Cyclefree - heartfelt thanks. It is sad, horrifying and infuriating to witness what is unfolding. In and of itself, the future if the Labour party is if little intetest to me. But the country needs a credible centre left alternative to the Tories. Nick and his mates are ensuring it will not have one.
On topic: I think we can rule out the possibility that a Corbyn leadership could be a catalyst for a Labour revival, at least any time soon. The reason isn't so much his loony-left economics, but more the terrorist-sympathising, anti-Western student-Marxism. That will repel decent Labour supporters (see Southam Observer's heartfelt and entirely understandable rants for the full picture), and, even more importantly, will tear the parliamentary party in half. Not even in half: the bulk of Labour MPs will be horrified; that they've already started plotting and briefing against him even before he's selected tells you everything you need to know.
Still, the 5/2 bet is not bad. Since there's no unifying figure available to replace him, he'll probably drift on as leader amidst unending and debilitating talk of plots, coups, counter-coups, resistance, and union skulduggery. That's not a formula for a revival.
If he's elected I'll do everything possible from within the party to get rid of him. If he is still there in 2020 it is unlikely that I'll still be a member and I've been one for almost twenty years. Sad times.
It's easy to fire shots at NR but, actually, a huge part of the problem is that they've been given a ridiculously large amount of new work to do over the next 5-10 years, on top of maintaining the existing day-to-day rail network, and there simply aren't the PM skills and technical resources in the whole rail industry to do it all.
That, and it suffers from what all large public sector bodies do: perform very averagely and keep your head down, and you have a job for as long as you like. You'll never be sacked. Do a very good job, and stick your head above the parapet - trying to do the right thing - and you simply attract more work, the most difficult problems, and then have to navigate complex organisational politics.
Some burn out and leave. Some get fed up with others taking credit for their work and leave. Some get blamed for failures, despite their best endeavours, and told to leave.
The shots should be fired, because they were not 'given the work to do': they proposed the work themselves. AIUI, the process is that NR talks to operators to see what they would like in each control period (CP, a five-year period of NR spending). NR then proposes a work package they can do, and the amount they would need from the government to do it.
This is then validated by the Office of the Rail Regulator, and the loops goes around until a work package for each CP is agreed a few years in advance. The government commits to give NR the money (over and above what NR earns for itself), and NR commits to do the work. There are three main areas of NR's work: everyday maintenance, renewals, and enhancements (such as electrification).
The worst thing about NR's utter and abject failure is not the expansion work such as electrification. It is that they are failing utterly on the bread and butter work of maintaining the existing network, something the railways have been doing since the 1830s.
I'm still getting a lot of feedback from Broxtowe, including a flood of comments after I endorsed Corbyn. An interesting thing is that the people with most doubts - in some cases real hostility like Southam (who is with respect getting quite nasty about it) - are the veteran members, who have stayed loyal through decades of shifting policies because they think Labour governments are nearly always better than the Tories, and they fear for the party. Most of those will stay on, but anxiously; some will quit.
By contrast, the most enthusiasm is from people who have voted Labour in the past but stopped doing so around 2001, and who have voted LibDems, Green or UKIP. A lot of them say with some bemusement that they'll actually join if he wins the leadership. It misreads them to think they're nutty Trots - these are disaffected mostly middle-class people who felt the major parties didn't represent them. Not many are all that political in the terms of PB (e.g. I doubt if many care much about rail nationalisation or Hamas), certainly not party political.
My view is that the well of triangulation and centralist manouevres has run dry and we need to try Corbyn. I wouldn't say I'm optimistic, but there's a reasonable shot of success, and certainly of an interesting challenge to the crushing orthodox consensus.
Yesterday's thread IMO misreads Corbyn, by the way. The fact that he doesn't trumpet a desire to be PM doesn't mean that he doesn't give a toss. It means that he is opposed to giving himself undue prominence. It's an austere and unfashionable attitude, but not a bad thing.
I don't want to be personally nasty but, for the life of me, I cannot understand how someone who was a pretty consistent in Blairite in social, economic and foreign policy right through to 2007 can with any conviction now support Jeremy Corbyn who has retreated not an iota from the social, economic and foreign policy far-leftism of the early 1980s (which as a youthful Euro-communist then, you presumably would have also despised).
Or has the Vicar of Bray decamped to Broxtowe?
Nick thinks the prospect of success that Corbyn has of becoming LOTO gives him licence to think with his heart rather than his head.
I think it's telling that his radio and TV performances have become worse as the campaign has gone on. When he stuck it to Guru-Murthy over his tabloid journalism I was with him, but he seems increasingly snippy and the anger is only just below the surface. He's never experienced anything like the scrutiny he'll face.
Nor has he ever experienced anything like the hard work he'll have to do; the late nights, the reading, coping with Party management. He'll be exhausted (and this is where his age could matter) - and exhausted and under pressure could lead to him saying or doing something extraordinarily stupid.
One of the issues with Ed M that is rarely mentioned is it appears he was very unprepared to be leader. It took a couple of years I seem to recall to even appoint a chief of staff. It showed. Will JC be in same position?
That made Miliband look unprepared but not dangerous or stupid; filled with righteous anger and zeal and fueled by lack of sleep and whatever he has instead of alcohol (never trust a tee-totaller) who knows what Jezza might say.
All this talk of shiny new activists reminds me of a warning issued at a long-ago Liberal conference about their enthusiastic young supporters on the doorstep "frightening old ladies with talk of anarcho-syndicalism and euthanasia".
Corbyn leader in 5 years ...surely you jest ...it's much more likely that the dodgy past and grisly friends of this quasi Marxist catches up to him within 6 months ...the tory print media are just waiting to hammer him after he is elected ...this poor fool is going to be humiliated and then yanked out of there I notice that Cooper is 10-1 at Ladbrokes to be leader in 2020 ; that seems like a good bet to me
I'm not sure. The Tories I expect will give Corbyn a fairly easy ride to begin with. Remember, they want to make sure he survives.
The longer they leave the attacks the more chance there is of Labour not tearing itself to pieces and actually managing to engage the public. It's a slight chance, but it exists. They'll, quite rightly, go hard at JC from Day One. Another leadership election before 2020 means another sustained period of Labour looking ineards rather than outwards. In any case, it can't all be about party - the Tories have a moral dury to let voters know just what a scumbag Corbyn is.
As with EdM, the Tories will want to knock Corbyn hard enough so that he does not gain any credibility by default, but not so hard as to knock him out
EdM was a naive fool with no self knowledge and zero leadership ability, and he was a glorious gift to the Tories; but he never actively wished the UK harm ........Corbyn knows exactly what he is doing and demonstrably has no loyalty to or affection for the country he says he wants to lead - that's because, as a good Marxist, he sees absolutely everything through the prism of class and anti-capitalism. He is a genuine danger - not just to Labour, but to the UK. As LOTO he will be privy to information ..........
Corbyn is the wrong choice on so many issues. But there are only a few weeks to save the Labour party and that probably has to happen before the votes are in. The mainstream senior folk inside Labour need to act soon and force Corbyn out and get a peace maker such as Alan Johnson in. But as one ex MP used to say. Tick Tock. (posted by a person very happy to watch the car crash and near death event of Labour)
Yes to Alan Johnson. 25/1 to be lab leader at GE. But I think they will need to give it a year or two before the defenestration.
Off topic, borrowing figures look reasonably good. But economic headwinds seem to be gathering.
low oil price is good for UK (low commodity prices in general) but not so generalised economic malaise worldwide of course.
If it wasn't for the fact that most of a generation is either priced out of the housing market, or is locked in to relentlessly high mortgage payments for many years to come, and is concomitantly vulnerable to small interest rate rises, i would be mildly optimistic for UKplc
Corbyn leader in 5 years ...surely you jest ...it's much more likely that the dodgy past and grisly friends of this quasi Marxist catches up to him within 6 months ...the tory print media are just waiting to hammer him after he is elected ...this poor fool is going to be humiliated and then yanked out of there I notice that Cooper is 10-1 at Ladbrokes to be leader in 2020 ; that seems like a good bet to me
I'm not sure. The Tories I expect will give Corbyn a fairly easy ride to begin with. Remember, they want to make sure he survives.
Theters know just what a scumbag Corbyn is.
As with EdM, the Tories will want to knock Corbyn hard enough so that he does not gain any credibility by default, but not so hard as to knock him out
EdM was a naive fool with no self knowledge and zero leadership ability, and he was a glorio
Would the government be obliged to admit Jeremy Corbyn to the Privy Council if he became Labour leader? Genuine question.
Great (or should that be grate) minds ponder alike. I can't recall any LoTo who hasn't been, but in this case, I believe an exception could and probably should be made. Why should he see any sensitive security information?
This could be one of the tactics that the Tories use to define him; even a failed attempt to prevent him seeing sensitive information for security reasons will put it in people's minds that he's a danger to the British state (or British soldiers).
I reckon the Tories just have to wait till the 24th of April 2016, that's when Corbyn will make a major faux pas on this topic
What's the significance of that date?
The one hundredth anniversary of the Easter rising
Easier to find some common ground after 100. Can't imagine shooting a dying man tied to a chair was the best thing to do in the circumstances.
On topic: I think we can rule out the possibility that a Corbyn leadership could be a catalyst for a Labour revival, at least any time soon. The reason isn't so much his loony-left economics, but more the terrorist-sympathising, anti-Western student-Marxism. That will repel decent Labour supporters (see Southam Observer's heartfelt and entirely understandable rants for the full picture), and, even more importantly, will tear the parliamentary party in half. Not even in half: the bulk of Labour MPs will be horrified; that they've already started plotting and briefing against him even before he's selected tells you everything you need to know.
Still, the 5/2 bet is not bad. Since there's no unifying figure available to replace him, he'll probably drift on as leader amidst unending and debilitating talk of plots, coups, counter-coups, resistance, and union skulduggery. That's not a formula for a revival.
If he's elected I'll do everything possible from within the party to get rid of him. If he is still there in 2020 it is unlikely that I'll still be a member and I've been one for almost twenty years. Sad times.
Take heart from 45 years ago. One of the greatest political speeches of the modern era:
"We may lose the vote today, and the result may deal this party a grave blow. It may not be possible to prevent this, but there are some of us, I think many of us, who will not accept that this blow need be mortal: who will not believe that such an end is inevitable. There are some of us, Mr Chairman, who will fight, and fight, and fight again, to save the party we love. We will fight, and fight, and fight again, to bring back sanity and honesty and dignity, so that our party -- with its great past -- may retain its glory and its greatness."
I'm still getting a lot of feedback from Broxtowe, including a flood of comments after I endorsed Corbyn. An interesting thing is that the people with most doubts - in some cases real hostility like Southam (who is with respect getting quite nasty about it) - are the veteran members, who have stayed loyal through decades of shifting policies because they think Labour governments are nearly always better than the Tories, and they fear for the party. Most of those will stay on, but anxiously; some will quit.
By contrast, the most enthusiasm is from people who have voted Labour in the past but stopped doing so around 2001, and who have voted LibDems, Green or UKIP. A lot of them say with some bemusement that they'll actually join if he wins the leadership. It misreads them to think they're nutty Trots - these are disaffected mostly middle-class people who felt the major parties didn't represent them. Not many are all that political in the terms of PB (e.g. I doubt if many care much about rail nationalisation or Hamas), certainly not party political.
My view is that the well of triangulation and centralist manouevres has run dry and we need to try Corbyn. I wouldn't say I'm optimistic, but there's a reasonable shot of success, and certainly of an interesting challenge to the crushing orthodox consensus.
Yesterday's thread IMO misreads Corbyn, by the way. The fact that he doesn't trumpet a desire to be PM doesn't mean that he doesn't give a toss. It means that he is opposed to giving himself undue prominence. It's an austere and unfashionable attitude, but not a bad thing.
I don't want to be personally nasty but, for the life of me, I cannot understand how someone who was a pretty consistent in Blairite in social, economic and foreign policy right through to 2007 can with any conviction now support Jeremy Corbyn who has retreated not an iota from the social, economic and foreign policy far-leftism of the early 1980s (which as a youthful Euro-communist then, you presumably would have also despised).
Or has the Vicar of Bray decamped to Broxtowe?
Nick thinks the prospect of success that Corbyn has of becoming LOTO gives him licence to think with his heart rather than his head.
To be fair to Nick I think he has been pretty clear about his decision and the reasoning. I very much doubt personally that he is going to be proved right, but maybe I have become old and cynical and stuck in a world of triangulation.
It's easy to fire shots at NR but, actually, a huge part of the problem is that they've been given a ridiculously large amount of new work to do over the next 5-10 years, on top of maintaining the existing day-to-day rail network, and there simply aren't the PM skills and technical resources in the whole rail industry to do it all.
That, and it suffers from what all large public sector bodies do: perform very averagely and keep your head down, and you have a job for as long as you like. You'll never be sacked. Do a very good job, and stick your head above the parapet - trying to do the right thing - and you simply attract more work, the most difficult problems, and then have to navigate complex organisational politics.
Some burn out and leave. Some get fed up with others taking credit for their work and leave. Some get blamed for failures, despite their best endeavours, and told to leave.
The shots should be fired, because they were not 'given the work to do': they proposed the work themselves. AIUI, the process is that NR talks to operators to see what they would like in each control period (CP, a five-year period of NR spending). NR then proposes a work package they can do, and the amount they would need from the government to do it.
This is then validated by the Office of the Rail Regulator, and the loops goes around until a work package for each CP is agreed a few years in advance. The government commits to give NR the money (over and above what NR earns for itself), and NR commits to do the work. There are three main areas of NR's work: everyday maintenance, renewals, and enhancements (such as electrification).
The worst thing about NR's utter and abject failure is not the expansion work such as electrification. It is that they are failing utterly on the bread and butter work of maintaining the existing network, something the railways have been doing since the 1830s.
It is utter failure.
Err. I know how it works: I work in the industry.
But that's not entirely true. Things like Crossrail, GWE and HS2 have been central government policy decisions. This govrernment (to its credit) wants massive improvements to our rail network but there just ain't the resource in the industry to deliver it in the timescales demanded. Planning and delivering complex pieces of infrastructure and signalling work into three or four 72 hour possessions each year, and delivering it, requires highly skilled PM and technical skills.
Beating up NR won't make any difference. Any similar organisation would have the same problems. It would be marginally better if it wasn't crippled by its public sector culture, and personally I would prefer a railtrack type body, but the main issue is industry resource to deliver.
Once again, I find the obsession some teenage girls seem to have with Ed Miliband totally unfathomable.
To be fair, he looks better in that picture than in many others.
The teenage girls asked for the picture in the first place. But what is the attraction?
I know it's not all about looks, but David Cameron is better looking and Nick Clegg is the best looking of them all.
So what is it? That gawky smile? His sense of humour? His wit? His small talk? Hmm.
It makes not a jot of sense to me.
Don't agree that Cameron is better looking. His mouth is too thin and he will soon - especially if he puts on weight - start looking like a boiled potato.
But look at Milliband's big brown eyes. My dog looks at me like that.
You and SO represent an entirely decent strand in British politics. One we need to encourage because we cannot healthily have the Tories there forever. We need a reasonable effective alternative who won't bugger up the lives of Mr and Mrs average, be it Labour, be it a revived and expanded LD's, or an SDP mark 2 led by horrified moderate Labour MP's.
I too am puzzled by NP's support of Corbyn (though he has every right to do so of course), and I am sure such support will be exploited by the Tories who (not unreasonably) will be able to point out that even apparently normal Labour candidates can be shown capable of supporting a card carrying, anti UK, economic loon. It will put the Labour cause back years, and ultimately that's not a good thing for us all.
I wish you well, but if JC wins I haven't got the faintest idea what you and people like are going to do.
I'd imagine that he'd get notional clearance - and anything sensitive wouldn't be discussed in meetings where he was present.
I honestly can't imagine that he'd get any job requiring CTC [counter-terrorism] given his friends. I needed that vetting to get just a senior police job.
I don't want to be personally nasty but, for the life of me, I cannot understand how someone who was a pretty consistent in Blairite in social, economic and foreign policy right through to 2007 can with any conviction now support Jeremy Corbyn who has retreated not an iota from the social, economic and foreign policy far-leftism of the early 1980s (which as a youthful Euro-communist then, you presumably would have also despised).
Or has the Vicar of Bray decamped to Broxtowe?
I don't want to have a long debate about me - I've more or less retired from politics so who cares, really. But I'm probably typical of a strand of members' thinking so that's perhaps vaguely interesting. Briefly I've always been a leftist (I've never apologised for the Euro-communism) who felt that Blairism was a halfway house that offered reasonable progress and therefore deserved support: when I give support I try to be consistently loyal about it. I don't think that we now have a centre-left alternative that is convincing anyone, even ourselves - the well is bone dry - so I'm defaulting to my lefty instincts.
If at some point someone comes along with another reasonable compromise, I'll have a look at it, but for now I think we need to recharge our idealism. Sure, there are bits of Corbyn's platform that I disagree with - for instance, I'd rather we were members of NATO urging restraint and dialogue than walk out - but I don't see him as a mad Trot as some here do, and I trust him not to have some purge of everyone who disagrees on anything.
SO's and Cyclefree's view is that sitting down with and making polite noises to extremists is tantamount to wanting our enemies to succeed, but I think that's mistaken. Extremists usually grow out of a climate of perceived oppression, which is something which should interest people (perhaps especially on the left), and if we aren't seen to be listening to the grudges with a degree of sympathy we have zero chance of making them less nutty. In the same way, I'm willing to sit with people who hate immigration and listen politely, because I want to find out exactly what their real issue is (jobs, income, culture, racism, or what?) - I publicly opposed the far-left "no platform for racists" line, which seemed to me both undemocratic and seriously counter-productive. More than being left-wing or right-wing, I'm anti-confrontation and pro-dialogue in most circumstances - that's why I post here, really.
I'm still getting a lot of feedback from Broxtowe, including a flood of comments after I endorsed Corbyn. An interesting thing is that the people with most doubts - in some cases real hostility like Southam (who is with respect getting quite nasty about it) - are the veteran members, who have stayed loyal through decades of shifting policies because they think Labour governments are nearly always better than the Tories, and they fear for the party. Most of those will stay on, but anxiously; some will quit.
By contrast, the most enthusiasm is from people who have voted Labour in the past but stopped doing so around 2001, and who have voted LibDems, Green or UKIP. A lot of them say with some bemusement that they'll actually join if he wins the leadership. It misreads them to think they're nutty Trots - these are disaffected mostly middle-class people who felt the major parties didn't represent them. Not many are all that political in the terms of PB (e.g. I doubt if many care much about rail nationalisation or Hamas), certainly not party political.
My view is that the well of triangulation and centralist manouevres has run dry and we need to try Corbyn. I wouldn't say I'm optimistic, but there's a reasonable shot of success,
Yesterday's thread IMO misreads Corbyn, by the way. The fact that he doesn't trumpet a desire to be PM doesn't mean that he doesn't give a toss. It means that he is opposed to giving himself undue prominence. It's an austere and unfashionable attitude, but not a bad thing.
I don't want to be personally nasty but, for the life of me, I cannot understand how someone who was a pretty consistent in Blairite in social, economic and foreign policy right through to 2007 can with any conviction now support Jeremy Corbyn who has retreated not an iota from the social, economic and foreign policy far-leftism of the early 1980s (which as a youthful Euro-communist then, you presumably would have also despised).
Or has the Vicar of Bray decamped to Broxtowe?
Nick thinks the prospect of success that Corbyn has of becoming LOTO gives him licence to think with his heart rather than his head.
To be fair to Nick I think he has been pretty clear about his decision and the reasoning. I very much doubt personally that he is going to be proved right, but maybe I have become old and cynical and stuck in a world of triangulation.
Anyone can come up with a plausible line of rational reasoning for a decision of the heart, once it's already been taken. Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
It's been pretty clear for years to anyone reading Nick Palmer's post that he's an unconstructed Eurocommunist deep down. He just didn't think that platform would win anymore.
I'm still getting a lot of feedback from Broxtowe, including a flood of comments after I endorsed Corbyn. An interesting thing is that the people with most doubts - in some cases real hostility like Southam (who is with respect getting quite nasty about it) - are the veteran members, who have stayed loyal through decades of shifting policies because they think Labour governments are nearly always better than the Tories, and they fear for the party. Most of those will stay on, but anxiously; some will quit.
By contrast, the most enthusiasm is from people who have voted Labour in the past but stopped doing so around 2001, and who have voted LibDems, Green or UKIP. A lot of them say with some bemusement that they'll actually join if he wins the leadership. It misreads them to think they're nutty Trots - these are disaffected mostly middle-class people who felt the major parties didn't represent them. Not many are all that political in the terms of PB (e.g. I doubt if many care much about rail nationalisation or Hamas), certainly not party political.
My view is that the well of triangulation and centralist manouevres has run dry and we need to try Corbyn. I wouldn't say I'm optimistic, but there's a reasonable shot of success, and certainly of an interesting challenge to the crushing orthodox consensus.
Yesterday's thread IMO misreads Corbyn, by the way. The fact that he doesn't trumpet a desire to be PM doesn't mean that he doesn't give a toss. It means that he is opposed to giving himself undue prominence. It's an austere and unfashionable attitude, but not a bad thing.
I don't want to be personally nasty but, for the life of me, I cannot understand how someone who was a pretty consistent in Blairite in social, economic and foreign policy right through to 2007 can with any conviction now support Jeremy Corbyn who has retreated not an iota from the social, economic and foreign policy far-leftism of the early 1980s (which as a youthful Euro-communist then, you presumably would have also despised).
Or has the Vicar of Bray decamped to Broxtowe?
Nick thinks the prospect of success that Corbyn has of becoming LOTO gives him licence to think with his heart rather than his head.
If he were thinking with his heart he would be repelled by someone like Corbyn. He calls an anti-Semite like Raed Salah " honourable". Others remember an 8-year old Jewish girl in Toulouse in March 2012: grabbed by the hair by Mohammed Merah and shot at point blank rage through her temple.
One leadership camp said its canvassing data suggests Corbyn is only getting about 40% of the votes of Unite members, who make up more than half of the 190,000 affiliated supporters.
Corbyn leader in 5 years ...surely you jest ...it's much more likely that the dodgy past and grisly friends of this quasi Marxist catches up to him within 6 months ...the tory print media are just waiting to hammer him after he is elected ...this poor fool is going to be humiliated and then yanked out of there I notice that Cooper is 10-1 at Ladbrokes to be leader in 2020 ; that seems like a good bet to me
I'm not sure. The Tories I expect will give Corbyn a fairly easy ride to begin with. Remember, they want to make sure he survives.
The longer they leave the attacks the more chance there is of Labour not tearing itself to pieces and actually managing to engage the public. It's a slight chance, but it exists. They'll, quite rightly, go hard at JC from Day One. Another leadership election before 2020 means ............
As with EdM, the Tories will want to knock Corbyn hard enough so that he does not gain any credibility by default, but not so hard as to knock him out
EdM was a naive fool with no self knowledge and zero leadership ability, and he was a glorious gift to the Tories; but he never actively wished the UK harm ........Corbyn knows exactly what he is doing and demonstrably has no loyalty to or affection for the country he says he wants to lead - that's because, as a good Marxist, he sees absolutely everything through the prism of class and anti-capitalism. He is a genuine danger - not just to Labour, but to the UK. As LOTO he will be privy to information ..........
Corbyn is the wrong choice on so many issues. But there are only a few weeks to save the Labour party and that probably has to happen before the votes are in. The mainstream senior folk inside Labour need to act soon and force Corbyn out and get a peace maker such as Alan Johnson in. But as one ex MP used to say. Tick Tock. (posted by a person very happy to watch the car crash and near death event of Labour)
Yes to Alan Johnson. 25/1 to be lab leader at GE. But I think they will need to give it a year or two before the defenestration.
After a year or two of Corbyn and the rebellions, the CLP deselections all played out in the media, what would then force Corbyn out? Once in the only way he can be removed is by the members/supporters. There will always be the view that "lets give him a GE to see how the voters respond". That saved Brown and EdMiliband from defenestration,
'By contrast, the most enthusiasm is from people who have voted Labour in the past but stopped doing so around 2001, and who have voted LibDems, Green or UKIP. A lot of them say with some bemusement that they'll actually join if he wins the leadership. It misreads them to think they're nutty Trots - these are disaffected mostly middle-class people who felt the major parties didn't represent them'
Is this as reliable as the information you were giving us about your canvass returns during the GE campaign ?
I don't want to be personally nasty but, for the life of me, I cannot understand how someone who was a pretty consistent in Blairite in social, economic and foreign policy right through to 2007 can with any conviction now support Jeremy Corbyn who has retreated not an iota from the social, economic and foreign policy far-leftism of the early 1980s (which as a youthful Euro-communist then, you presumably would have also despised).
Or has the Vicar of Bray decamped to Broxtowe?
I don't want to have a long debate about me - I've more or less retired from politics so who cares, really. But I'm probably typical of a strand of members' thinking so that's perhaps vaguely interesting. Briefly I've always been a leftist (I've never apologised for the Euro-communism) who felt that Blairism was a halfway house that offered reasonable progress and therefore deserved support: when I give support I try to be consistently loyal about it. I don't think that we now have a centre-left alternative that is convincing anyone, even ourselves - the well is bone dry - so I'm defaulting to my lefty instincts.
If at some point someone comes along with another reasonable compromise, I'll have a look at it, but for now I think we need to recharge our idealism. Sure, there are bits of Corbyn's platform that I disagree with - for instance, I'd rather we were members of NATO urging restraint and dialogue than walk out - but I don't see him as a mad Trot as some here do, and I trust him not to have some purge of everyone who disagrees on anything.
SO's and Cyclefree's view is that sitting down with and making polite noises to extremists is tantamount to wanting our enemies to succeed, but I think that's mistaken. Extremists usually grow out of a climate of perceived oppression, which is something which should interest people (perhaps especially on the left), and if we aren't seen to be listening to the grudges with a degree of sympathy we have zero chance of making them less nutty. In the same way, I'm willing to sit with people who hate immigration and listen politely, because I want to find out exactly what their real issue is (jobs, income, culture, racism, or what?) - I publicly opposed the far-left "no platform for racists" line, which seemed to me both undemocratic and seriously counter-productive. More than being left-wing or right-wing, I'm anti-confrontation and pro-dialogue in most circumstances - that's why I post here, really.
I'd imagine that he'd get notional clearance - and anything sensitive wouldn't be discussed in meetings where he was present.
I honestly can't imagine that he'd get any job requiring CTC [counter-terrorism] given his friends. I needed that vetting to get just a senior police job.
Is security clearance automatically granted to a Privy Councillor? Or could he get the PC nod, and then have zero security clearance?
Being a member of the Privy Council supersedes any and all security clearance. Whether a Prime Minister discusses a sensitive issue with another Privy Councillor is another matter.
Once again, I find the obsession some teenage girls seem to have with Ed Miliband totally unfathomable.
To be fair, he looks better in that picture than in many others.
The teenage girls asked for the picture in the first place. But what is the attraction?
I know it's not all about looks, but David Cameron is better looking and Nick Clegg is the best looking of them all.
So what is it? That gawky smile? His sense of humour? His wit? His small talk? Hmm.
It makes not a jot of sense to me.
Don't agree that Cameron is better looking. His mouth is too thin and he will soon - especially if he puts on weight - start looking like a boiled potato.
But look at Milliband's big brown eyes. My dog looks at me like that.
What do I know; I'm not a woman. But he looks like a lanky awkward geek to me with teeth like Dennis the Menace.
But is that? He has big eyes and looks at wistfully at ladies like an attention hungry dog?
I have to say I find the personal attacks on Nick Palmer unnecessary. I don't share his views and think that he is quite wrong from a Labour perspective about Jeremy Corbyn but he's entitled to them and I don't think that he's been particularly inconsistent.
I'm still getting a lot of feedback from Broxtowe, including a flood of comments after I endorsed Corbyn. An interesting thing is that the people with most doubts - in some cases real hostility like Southam (who is with respect getting quite nasty about it) - are the veteran members, who have stayed loyal through decades of shifting policies because they think Labour governments are nearly always better than the Tories, and they fear for the party. Most of those will stay on, but anxiously; some will quit. Yesterday's thread IMO misreads Corbyn, by the way. The fact that he doesn't trumpet a desire to be PM doesn't mean that he doesn't give a toss. It means that he is opposed to giving himself undue prominence. It's an austere and unfashionable attitude, but not a bad thing.
I don't want to be personally nasty but, for the life of me, I cannot understand how someone who was a pretty consistent in Blairite in social, economic and foreign policy right through to 2007 can with any conviction now support Jeremy Corbyn who has retreated not an iota from the social, economic and foreign policy far-leftism of the early 1980s (which as a youthful Euro-communist then, you presumably would have also despised).
Or has the Vicar of Bray decamped to Broxtowe?
Nick thinks the prospect of success that Corbyn has of becoming LOTO gives him licence to think with his heart rather than his head.
To be fair to Nick I think he has been pretty clear about his decision and the reasoning. I very much doubt personally that he is going to be proved right, but maybe I have become old and cynical and stuck in a world of triangulation.
Anyone can come up with a plausible line of rational reasoning for a decision of the heart, once it's already been taken. Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
It's been pretty clear for years to anyone reading Nick Palmer's post that he's an unconstructed Eurocommunist deep down. He just didn't think that platform would win anymore.
Until now.
Of course, prior to all this it would have been the most lazy of charges to level at any Lab MP that deep down they are all trots at heart.
And lo! Turns out they are. And it is precisely Nick's sound reasoning that will hammer another nail into Lab's coffin.
I suspect that because he's surrounded by adoring acolytes telling him how unfairly he's being treated - it's inevitable that he's developing quite a grievance to being challenged at all.
Add that to the fact he's only ever sung kumbaya with fellow travelers, and it's only going to get worse.
I think it's telling that his radio and TV performances have become worse as the campaign has gone on. When he stuck it to Guru-Murthy over his tabloid journalism I was with him, but he seems increasingly snippy and the anger is only just below the surface. He's never experienced anything like the scrutiny he'll face.
Nor has he ever experienced anything like the hard work he'll have to do; the late nights, the reading, coping with Party management. He'll be exhausted (and this is where his age could matter) - and exhausted and under pressure could lead to him saying or doing something extraordinarily stupid.
I'm still getting a lot of feedback from Broxtowe, including a flood of comments after I endorsed Corbyn. An interesting thing is that the people with most doubts - in some cases real hostility like Southam (who is with respect getting quite nasty about it) - are the veteran members, who have stayed loyal through decades of shifting policies because they think Labour governments are nearly always better than the Tories, and they fear for the party. Most of those will stay on, but anxiously; some will quit. Yesterday's thread IMO misreads Corbyn, by the way. The fact that he doesn't trumpet a desire to be PM doesn't mean that he doesn't give a toss. It means that he is opposed to giving himself undue prominence. It's an austere and unfashionable attitude, but not a bad thing.
I don't want to be personally nasty but, for the life of me, I cannot understand how someone who was a pretty consistent in Blairite in social, economic and foreign policy right through to 2007 can with any conviction now support Jeremy Corbyn who has retreated not an iota from the social, economic and foreign policy far-leftism of the early 1980s (which as a youthful Euro-communist then, you presumably would have also despised).
Or has the Vicar of Bray decamped to Broxtowe?
Nick thinks the prospect of success that Corbyn has of becoming LOTO gives him licence to think with his heart rather than his head.
To be fair to Nick I think he has been pretty clear about his decision and the reasoning. I very much doubt personally that he is going to be proved right, but maybe I have become old and cynical and stuck in a world of triangulation.
Anyone can come up with a plausible line of rational reasoning for a decision of the heart, once it's already been taken. Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
It's been pretty clear for years to anyone reading Nick Palmer's post that he's an unconstructed Eurocommunist deep down. He just didn't think that platform would win anymore.
Until now.
Of course, prior to all this it would have been the most lazy of charges to level at any Lab MP that deep down they are all trots at heart.
And lo! Turns out they are. And it is precisely Nick's sound reasoning that will hammer another nail into Lab's coffin.
Pretending to believe in something else for the sake of power? Surely not.
But that's not entirely true. Things like Crossrail, GWE and HS2 have been central government policy decisions. This govrernment (to its credit) wants massive improvements to our rail network but there just ain't the resource in the industry to deliver it in the timescales demanded. Planning and delivering complex pieces of infrastructure and signalling work into three or four 72 hour possessions each year, and delivering it, requires highly skilled PM and technical skills.
Beating up NR won't make any difference. Any similar organisation would have the same problems. It would be marginally better if it wasn't crippled by its public sector culture, and personally I would prefer a railtrack type body, but the main issue is industry resource to deliver.
Sorry, I wasn't trying to tell grandmother to suck eggs, but it may be of interest to others to know how it works (or otherwise bore them silly!)
In the case of Crossrail, it's much more complex than that, isn't it? It's being built by Crossrail Ltd, which is owned by TfL, not NR, excluding a couple of branches that will remain in NR's ownership. Therefore most of it is irrelevant to NR's woes.
HS2 was not specified by Network Rail; in fact, NR's alternative proposal for a high-speed line was rejected. NR's current problems have little to do with HS2; that project is essentially a black box. Again, it is irrelevant to NR's current woes.
As for Great Western Electrification: I thought that was an NR proposal; not a governmental one. Might be wrong on that, though.
So NR needs beating up because they said they could do the work, and have utterly failed. The reasons matter, but were foreseeable. They should have known what resources they had (or could get) to deliver what they had agreed.
NR needs congratulating for many things, and I have done so in the past. However when it comes to utter and abject failure, as has occurred during CP5, I also criticise them.
Let's hope they can turn CP5 around and deliver what they committed to.
(Note, IANAE, and might well be wrong on some of this).
I am not sure what Corbyn has done outside of politics - MP since 1983 prior to that a local government politician in Haringay and prior to this a period as a Trade Union organiser.
He may not be identikit politician but he has very little experience outside of politics.
On Sunday I shall be publishing a piece entitled "Corbyn's route to number 10"
Where does the number 10 bus go to ?
Jeremy Corbyn might be Prime Minister
Of where precisely?
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
I suggest you seek urgent medical attention. Political dementia may be treated successfully if a course of re-education at the Auchentennach Castle Dungeon (Bargain Basement) Rest Centre For The Chronically Delusional is taken.
250 Guineas a night .... not including non existent breakfast.
I have to say I find the personal attacks on Nick Palmer unnecessary. I don't share his views and think that he is quite wrong from a Labour perspective about Jeremy Corbyn but he's entitled to them and I don't think that he's been particularly inconsistent.
[Snipped for length] Sure, there are bits of Corbyn's platform that I disagree with - for instance, I'd rather we were members of NATO urging restraint and dialogue than walk out - but I don't see him as a mad Trot as some here do, and I trust him not to have some purge of everyone who disagrees on anything.
SO's and Cyclefree's view is that sitting down with and making polite noises to extremists is tantamount to wanting our enemies to succeed, but I think that's mistaken. Extremists usually grow out of a climate of perceived oppression, which is something which should interest people (perhaps especially on the left), and if we aren't seen to be listening to the grudges with a degree of sympathy we have zero chance of making them less nutty. In the same way, I'm willing to sit with people who hate immigration and listen politely, because I want to find out exactly what their real issue is (jobs, income, culture, racism, or what?) - I publicly opposed the far-left "no platform for racists" line, which seemed to me both undemocratic and seriously counter-productive. More than being left-wing or right-wing, I'm anti-confrontation and pro-dialogue in most circumstances - that's why I post here, really.
That's enough about me for today - need to work.
2 points:-
1. You persist in saying that I am opposed to dialogue. Wrong. My opposition to Corbyn is not that he wants to find a solution to problems - I don't think he does and I've seen no evidence that he has ever done anything to advance solutions. There are, for instance, organisations which seek to promote reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians but he has not involved himself with those. It is that he actively promotes and allies himself with those who are part of the problem and does nothing to challenge their hateful views.
2. You have the naive view that extremism comes from oppression. Well, sometimes it may do. But that does not mean that those groups arising out of such oppression are the answer. They may be even worse and even more oppressive. And sometimes extremism comes from ideology - as is the case with Islamist extremism. It is a total misreading to think that Islamism arises because people are oppressed by the West and if only we talked to them nicely they would stop being so angry and be nice back. The Islamists hate the West. They don't want to talk to us. They want to defeat us totally. They want to overthrow Western values.
It is not protest. It is sedition.
And this fundamental misunderstanding is why the Left has so often allied itself with extremists in the Islamic world rather than the moderates and liberals that there are.
For a party based on ideology, Labour people are remarkably stupid in not understanding how ideology animates and motivates others.
But that's not entirely true. Things like Crossrail, GWE and HS2 have been central government policy decisions. This govrernment (to its credit) wants massive improvements to our rail network but there just ain't the resource in the industry to deliver it in the timescales demanded. Planning and delivering complex pieces of infrastructure and signalling work into three or four 72 hour possessions each year, and delivering it, requires highly skilled PM and technical skills.
Beating up NR won't make any difference. Any similar organisation would have the same problems. It would be marginally better if it wasn't crippled by its public sector culture, and personally I would prefer a railtrack type body, but the main issue is industry resource to deliver.
Sorry, I wasn't trying to tell grandmother to suck eggs, but it may be of interest to others to know how it works (or otherwise bore them silly!)
In the case of Crossrail, it's much more complex than that, isn't it? It's being built by Crossrail Ltd, which is owned by TfL, not NR, excluding a couple of branches that will remain in NR's ownership. Therefore most of it is irrelevant to NR's woes.
HS2 was not specified by Network Rail; in fact, NR's alternative proposal for a high-speed line was rejected. NR's current problems have little to do with HS2; that project is essentially a black box. Again, it is irrelevant to NR's current woes.
As for Great Western Electrification: I thought that was an NR proposal; not a governmental one. Might be wrong on that, though.
So NR needs beating up because they said they could do the work, and have utterly failed. The reasons matter, but were foreseeable. They should have known what resources they had (or could get) to deliver what they had agreed.
NR needs congratulating for many things, and I have done so in the past. However when it comes to utter and abject failure, as has occurred during CP5, I also criticise them.
Let's hope they can turn CP5 around and deliver what they committed to.
(Note, IANAE, and might well be wrong on some of this).
No probs. Have to work now but am very close to CRL and actually the NR works are significant and represent the highest risk. HS2 is relevant because it is creating huge competition for rail resource and poaching a lot of their staff.
I agree that NR senior management make all sorts of commitments the implications of which they are not fully cognisant of. But beating them over the head won't make the rail industry any better.
Getting more good PMs and engineers and getting it out of the public sector might. Just might.
I have to say I find the personal attacks on Nick Palmer unnecessary. I don't share his views and think that he is quite wrong from a Labour perspective about Jeremy Corbyn but he's entitled to them and I don't think that he's been particularly inconsistent.
What's most interesting about his position is that it seems to be quite widely held in the Labour Party. Seems madness to me, but then I don't have a vote in the selection (and I haven't paid £3 to get one).
I have to say I find the personal attacks on Nick Palmer unnecessary. I don't share his views and think that he is quite wrong from a Labour perspective about Jeremy Corbyn but he's entitled to them and I don't think that he's been particularly inconsistent.
agree completely
Completely disagree. It's a forum for discussion and argument ffs.
I have to say I find the personal attacks on Nick Palmer unnecessary. I don't share his views and think that he is quite wrong from a Labour perspective about Jeremy Corbyn but he's entitled to them and I don't think that he's been particularly inconsistent.
Agreed. But it was he in his first post today who called SO "nasty", which I consider unwarranted.
I am not sure what Corbyn has done outside of politics - MP since 1983 prior to that a local government politician in Haringay and prior to this a period as a Trade Union organiser.
He may not be identikit politician but he has very little experience outside of politics.
He is a lefty identikit politician, to every follicle of his being. And Mr Palmer does deserve criticism for saying now that Burnham et al are oh so 'meh', when he was peddling them for all they were worth 6 months ago. He also deserves criticism for defending Corbyn and his record because even at best it shows what an utter pratt he, NP, is for taking it all in at face value. Mr NP is a complete classic example of why on so many levels Labour are not to be trusted and unfit to be let anywhere near government. He and people like him are why the nation was delivered into the utter bonkers hands of G.Brown for 13 years.
Sky News Newsdesk @SkyNewsBreak 8 mins8 minutes ago
Andy Burnham has called for an urgent meeting over concerns of "large scale" infiltration by Conservatives in the #Labour leadership race 25 retweets 14 favorites
Sky News Newsdesk @SkyNewsBreak 8 mins8 minutes ago
Andy Burnham has called for an urgent meeting over concerns of "large scale" infiltration by Conservatives in the #Labour leadership race 25 retweets 14 favorites
Yep thats right Andy...it's all the Tories fault.
The only expression that sums up this Labour contest to succeed Ed Miliband is blank-eyed incomprehension, head slightly held to one side, with slack jaw and awkward posture.
Yep, every time that Ed Miliband struck that pose, he could have been staring into the future he has bequeathed his party.
I think it's all too late, the avalanche of bad news has come after very many votes have been cast, Unite say 40% are voting Corbyn - that's 85k just there. Plus all the starry-eyed newbies...
The ABCers ducked it when there was a chance to defeat him. They should NEVER have let him go unchallenged/had lazy campaigns/sucked up to him.
Compulsory retirement ages are illegal now unless prescribed in law. However, while HM is still on the throne in her late 80s or early 90s, while her husband is still at her side in his mid-90s, and while her heir remains older than Corbyn, he has a ready-made answer. True, the demands on a Head of Govt are more than those on a Head of State but a HoS still has a lot of commitments and has to avoid putting a foot wrong.
Tasteless/treasonous though it may be to speculate about it, there has to be a significant chance that Brenda dies or is incapacitated in the next 5 years. Would Corbyn be able to restrain his republicanism at that point? The Corbynistas certainly wouldn't.
There is a general assumption on the part of monarchists that any republican ticket would be unpopular and never attract public support. This seems to me to be quite naive.
Certain major constitutional issues can garner enough support to sway voters away from their "natural" ideology. Look at the SNP in Scotland which is filled with natural Tories who put the achievement of Scottish Independence ahead of their ideology.
It is quite conceivable that a republican Labour ticket could attract enough Tories and Lib Dems (probably not many Kippers) who, along with an extant Labour vote could get the party to 40%. And remember 40% is enough under the broken, undemocratic FPTP system.
Ironically, the Conservative adherence to the FPTP is the greatest danger to the Conservative adherence to unjustified privilege.
But look at Milliband's big brown eyes. My dog looks at me like that.
Would you vote for your dog to be Prime Minister? Or just give him a squeaky toy?
My dog, being a sensible fellow, is interested in long walks and fresh air, food and sleeping on the sofa. Squeaky toys come a long way down the list. No. 10 nowhere.
Sky News Newsdesk @SkyNewsBreak 8 mins8 minutes ago
Andy Burnham has called for an urgent meeting over concerns of "large scale" infiltration by Conservatives in the #Labour leadership race 25 retweets 14 favorites
Yep thats right Andy...it's all the Tories fault.
It is according to some: three of them are standing for the leadership.
Besides, what a nonsense to call for a meeting as if it's an end in itself. If he's serious that there's been large-scale infiltration (and I'd like to see the evidence), then he should be calling for the election to be halted and requesting a meeting to enable that.
But look at Milliband's big brown eyes. My dog looks at me like that.
Would you vote for your dog to be Prime Minister? Or just give him a squeaky toy?
My dog, being a sensible fellow, is interested in long walks and fresh air, food and sleeping on the sofa. Squeaky toys come a long way down the list. No. 10 nowhere.
My dog lives for the challenge of filleting the squeak out of a new squeaky toy.
Compulsory retirement ages are illegal now unless prescribed in law. However, while HM is still on the throne in her late 80s or early 90s, while her husband is still at her side in his mid-90s, and while her heir remains older than Corbyn, he has a ready-made answer. True, the demands on a Head of Govt are more than those on a Head of State but a HoS still has a lot of commitments and has to avoid putting a foot wrong.
Tasteless/treasonous though it may be to speculate about it, there has to be a significant chance that Brenda dies or is incapacitated in the next 5 years. Would Corbyn be able to restrain his republicanism at that point? The Corbynistas certainly wouldn't.
There is a general assumption on the part of monarchists that any republican ticket would be unpopular and never attract public support. This seems to me to be quite naive.
Certain major constitutional issues can garner enough support to sway voters away from their "natural" ideology. Look at the SNP in Scotland which is filled with natural Tories who put the achievement of Scottish Independence ahead of their ideology.
It is quite conceivable that a republican Labour ticket could attract enough Tories and Lib Dems (probably not many Kippers) who, along with an extant Labour vote could get the party to 40%. And remember 40% is enough under the broken, undemocratic FPTP system.
Ironically, the Conservative adherence to the FPTP is the greatest danger to the Conservative adherence to unjustified privilege.
Sky News Newsdesk @SkyNewsBreak 8 mins8 minutes ago
Andy Burnham has called for an urgent meeting over concerns of "large scale" infiltration by Conservatives in the #Labour leadership race 25 retweets 14 favorites
Yep thats right Andy...it's all the Tories fault.
Is this a joke? Has Burnham only just noticed? It's become one of the largest open primaries in the world. Desperate and far far too late. But knows maybe some obscure legal ruling will halt the whole thing - one reason I'm staying away from JC bets.
I've got the be honest, I still can't quite believe Labour will actually do it. Will actually throw themselves off the mountain with Corbyn?
Surely they will step back from the brink at the last minute, right?
No.
Think Conservatives voting for IDS but with knobs on.
In the Labour party there's always been a strong strain hankering for ideological purity over the pragmatism of achieving power. Their electoral pain threshold is much greater than with the Conservatives who dispensed with IDS in a bloodless coup.
Accordingly we should expect a lengthy period of ferocious blood letting once it finally dawns on the faithful that Corbyn isn't the messiah but just a very naughty chap.
Sky News Newsdesk @SkyNewsBreak 8 mins8 minutes ago
Andy Burnham has called for an urgent meeting over concerns of "large scale" infiltration by Conservatives in the #Labour leadership race 25 retweets 14 favorites
Yep thats right Andy...it's all the Tories fault.
The only expression that sums up this Labour contest to succeed Ed Miliband is blank-eyed incomprehension, head slightly held to one side, with slack jaw and awkward posture.
Yep, every time that Ed Miliband struck that pose, he could have been staring into the future he has bequeathed his party.
Sky News Newsdesk @SkyNewsBreak 8 mins8 minutes ago
Andy Burnham has called for an urgent meeting over concerns of "large scale" infiltration by Conservatives in the #Labour leadership race 25 retweets 14 favorites
Yep thats right Andy...it's all the Tories fault.
Is this a joke? Has Burnham only just noticed? It's become one of the largest open primaries in the world. Desperate and far far too late. But knows maybe some obscure legal ruling will halt the whole thing - one reason I'm staying away from JC bets.
Either way, it's going to be fun.
Corbyn gets in and Labour self destruct. Or Butcher calls a halt, and Labour self destruct.
I've got the be honest, I still can't quite believe Labour will actually do it. Will actually throw themselves off the mountain with Corbyn?
Surely they will step back from the brink at the last minute, right?
No.
Think Conservatives voting for IDS but with knobs on.
In the Labour party there's always been a strong strain hankering for ideological purity over the pragmatism of achieving power. Their electoral pain threshold is much greater than with the Conservatives who dispensed with IDS in a bloodless coup.
Accordingly we should expect a lengthy period of ferocious blood letting once it finally dawns on the faithful that Corbyn isn't the messiah but just a very naughty chap.
''Accordingly we should expect a lengthy period of ferocious blood letting once it finally dawns on the faithful that Corbyn isn't the messiah but just a very naughty chap.''
Except, 'the faithful' don't exist in anything like the numbers or the way that they used to because of the end of mass manufacturing, industry and mining.
And that is why this event is possibly life threatening for labour, in a way that the Foot leadership was never going to be.
Sky News Newsdesk @SkyNewsBreak 8 mins8 minutes ago
Andy Burnham has called for an urgent meeting over concerns of "large scale" infiltration by Conservatives in the #Labour leadership race 25 retweets 14 favorites
Yep thats right Andy...it's all the Tories fault.
Is this a joke? Has Burnham only just noticed? It's become one of the largest open primaries in the world. Desperate and far far too late. But knows maybe some obscure legal ruling will halt the whole thing - one reason I'm staying away from JC bets.
Perhaps he wants a meeting with David Cameron - to see if the next Labour leader has to take the Conservative whip in the House?
[Snipped for length] SO's and Cyclefree's view is that sitting down with and making polite noises to extremists is tantamount to wanting our enemies to succeed, but I think that's mistaken. Extremists usually grow out of a climate of perceived oppression, which is something which should interest people (perhaps especially on the left), and if we aren't seen to be listening to the grudges with a degree of sympathy we have zero chance of making them less nutty. In the same way, I'm willing to sit with people who hate immigration and listen politely, because I want to find out exactly what their real issue is (jobs, income, culture, racism, or what?) - I publicly opposed the far-left "no platform for racists" line, which seemed to me both undemocratic and seriously counter-productive. More than being left-wing or right-wing, I'm anti-confrontation and pro-dialogue in most circumstances - that's why I post here, really.
.
2 points:-
1. You persist in saying that I am opposed to dialogue. Wrong. My opposition to Corbyn is not that he wants to find a solution to problems - I don't think he does and I've seen no evidence that he has ever done anything to advance solutions. There are, for instance, organisations which seek to promote reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians but he has not involved himself with those. It is that he actively promotes and allies himself with those who are part of the problem and does nothing to challenge their hateful views.
2. You have the naive view that extremism comes from oppression. Well, sometimes it may do. But that does not mean that those groups arising out of such oppression are the answer. They may be even worse and even more oppressive. And sometimes extremism comes from ideology - as is the case with Islamist extremism. It is a total misreading to think that Islamism arises because people are oppressed by the West and if only we talked to them nicely they would stop being so angry and be nice back. The Islamists hate the West. They don't want to talk to us. They want to defeat us totally. They want to overthrow Western values.
It is not protest. It is sedition.
And this fundamental misunderstanding is why the Left has so often allied itself with extremists in the Islamic world rather than the moderates and liberals that there are.
For a party based on ideology, Labour people are remarkably stupid in not understanding how ideology animates and motivates others.
The Islamists would also regard such a move as demonstrative of weakness on the West's part. Far from causing them to moderate, it would be more likely to encourage them to intensify their actions. Negotiation and talking is fine but only from a position of strength, only when there are agreed terms to be discussed and only without unilateral pre-concessions.
Someone mentioned this lady the other evening... How can she have a vote for him?
Labour leadership frontrunner Jeremy Corbyn was dragged into a fresh row over his links with extremists today after it emerged one of his aides said the 7/7 London tube bombings were revenge for the Iraq war.
Radical anti-war campaigner Salma Yaqoob, who is a member of a committee organising Mr Corbyn's bid to become Labour leader, claimed the suicide attacks which killed 52 were 'a reprisal event'.
The former Birmingham councillor also refused to join a standing ovation for war veteran awarded the George Cross for bravery after throwing himself on a Taliban grenade to protect his comrades during an ambush in 2008. Ms Yaqoob sparked fury after staying seated in protest when L/Cpl Matt Croucher was invited into the Birmingham city council chamber. The 43-year-old radical once lead the left-wing Respect Party and has stood in general elections against Labour MPs.
Today's revelations, reported by the Sun, after a string of revelations about Mr Corbyn's links to hard-left extremists and terror apologists. Last night it emerged Mr Corbyn had spoken at the annual meeting of a group allied to the American 'neo-Nazi' LaRouche movement.
Comments
There were no power cuts in Scotland in 1978-79. I suspect they exist in much the same way as Callaghan's statement 'Crisis? What crisis?'.
Still, the 5/2 bet is not bad. Since there's no unifying figure available to replace him, he'll probably drift on as leader amidst unending and debilitating talk of plots, coups, counter-coups, resistance, and union skulduggery. That's not a formula for a revival.
I know it's not all about looks, but David Cameron is better looking and Nick Clegg is the best looking of them all.
So what is it? That gawky smile? His sense of humour? His wit? His small talk? Hmm.
It makes not a jot of sense to me.
If he is still there in 2020 it is unlikely that I'll still be a member and I've been one for almost twenty years.
Sad times.
This is then validated by the Office of the Rail Regulator, and the loops goes around until a work package for each CP is agreed a few years in advance. The government commits to give NR the money (over and above what NR earns for itself), and NR commits to do the work. There are three main areas of NR's work: everyday maintenance, renewals, and enhancements (such as electrification).
The worst thing about NR's utter and abject failure is not the expansion work such as electrification. It is that they are failing utterly on the bread and butter work of maintaining the existing network, something the railways have been doing since the 1830s.
It is utter failure.
low oil price is good for UK (low commodity prices in general) but not so generalised economic malaise worldwide of course.
If it wasn't for the fact that most of a generation is either priced out of the housing market, or is locked in to relentlessly high mortgage payments for many years to come, and is concomitantly vulnerable to small interest rate rises, i would be mildly optimistic for UKplc
Asked Paddy Power to open a market on the #Milibeard. Remember a few people here making a couple of quid off of Paxo's
http://www.politico.eu/article/corbyn-calamity-labour-leadership-race-uk-blair-hamas-murdoch/
"We may lose the vote today, and the result may deal this party a grave blow. It may not be possible to prevent this, but there are some of us, I think many of us, who will not accept that this blow need be mortal: who will not believe that such an end is inevitable. There are some of us, Mr Chairman, who will fight, and fight, and fight again, to save the party we love. We will fight, and fight, and fight again, to bring back sanity and honesty and dignity, so that our party -- with its great past -- may retain its glory and its greatness."
The best PM Labour never had.
But that's not entirely true. Things like Crossrail, GWE and HS2 have been central government policy decisions. This govrernment (to its credit) wants massive improvements to our rail network but there just ain't the resource in the industry to deliver it in the timescales demanded. Planning and delivering complex pieces of infrastructure and signalling work into three or four 72 hour possessions each year, and delivering it, requires highly skilled PM and technical skills.
Beating up NR won't make any difference. Any similar organisation would have the same problems. It would be marginally better if it wasn't crippled by its public sector culture, and personally I would prefer a railtrack type body, but the main issue is industry resource to deliver.
But look at Milliband's big brown eyes. My dog looks at me like that.
You and SO represent an entirely decent strand in British politics. One we need to encourage because we cannot healthily have the Tories there forever. We need a reasonable effective alternative who won't bugger up the lives of Mr and Mrs average, be it Labour, be it a revived and expanded LD's, or an SDP mark 2 led by horrified moderate Labour MP's.
I too am puzzled by NP's support of Corbyn (though he has every right to do so of course), and I am sure such support will be exploited by the Tories who (not unreasonably) will be able to point out that even apparently normal Labour candidates can be shown capable of supporting a card carrying, anti UK, economic loon. It will put the Labour cause back years, and ultimately that's not a good thing for us all.
I wish you well, but if JC wins I haven't got the faintest idea what you and people like are going to do.
I honestly can't imagine that he'd get any job requiring CTC [counter-terrorism] given his friends. I needed that vetting to get just a senior police job.
If at some point someone comes along with another reasonable compromise, I'll have a look at it, but for now I think we need to recharge our idealism. Sure, there are bits of Corbyn's platform that I disagree with - for instance, I'd rather we were members of NATO urging restraint and dialogue than walk out - but I don't see him as a mad Trot as some here do, and I trust him not to have some purge of everyone who disagrees on anything.
SO's and Cyclefree's view is that sitting down with and making polite noises to extremists is tantamount to wanting our enemies to succeed, but I think that's mistaken. Extremists usually grow out of a climate of perceived oppression, which is something which should interest people (perhaps especially on the left), and if we aren't seen to be listening to the grudges with a degree of sympathy we have zero chance of making them less nutty. In the same way, I'm willing to sit with people who hate immigration and listen politely, because I want to find out exactly what their real issue is (jobs, income, culture, racism, or what?) - I publicly opposed the far-left "no platform for racists" line, which seemed to me both undemocratic and seriously counter-productive. More than being left-wing or right-wing, I'm anti-confrontation and pro-dialogue in most circumstances - that's why I post here, really.
That's enough about me for today - need to work.
It's been pretty clear for years to anyone reading Nick Palmer's post that he's an unconstructed Eurocommunist deep down. He just didn't think that platform would win anymore.
Until now.
'By contrast, the most enthusiasm is from people who have voted Labour in the past but stopped doing so around 2001, and who have voted LibDems, Green or UKIP. A lot of them say with some bemusement that they'll actually join if he wins the leadership. It misreads them to think they're nutty Trots - these are disaffected mostly middle-class people who felt the major parties didn't represent them'
Is this as reliable as the information you were giving us about your canvass returns during the GE campaign ?
"Or has the Vicar of Bray decamped to Broxtowe?"
The Vicar of Bray's strategy worked for him.
But is that? He has big eyes and looks at wistfully at ladies like an attention hungry dog?
Chortle.
http://labourlist.org/2015/08/jeremy-corbyn-doesnt-have-the-election-all-sewn-up-says-yvette-cooper/
Go Cooper!
And lo! Turns out they are. And it is precisely Nick's sound reasoning that will hammer another nail into Lab's coffin.
Add that to the fact he's only ever sung kumbaya with fellow travelers, and it's only going to get worse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_members_of_the_British_Privy_Council
In the case of Crossrail, it's much more complex than that, isn't it? It's being built by Crossrail Ltd, which is owned by TfL, not NR, excluding a couple of branches that will remain in NR's ownership. Therefore most of it is irrelevant to NR's woes.
HS2 was not specified by Network Rail; in fact, NR's alternative proposal for a high-speed line was rejected. NR's current problems have little to do with HS2; that project is essentially a black box. Again, it is irrelevant to NR's current woes.
As for Great Western Electrification: I thought that was an NR proposal; not a governmental one. Might be wrong on that, though.
So NR needs beating up because they said they could do the work, and have utterly failed. The reasons matter, but were foreseeable. They should have known what resources they had (or could get) to deliver what they had agreed.
NR needs congratulating for many things, and I have done so in the past. However when it comes to utter and abject failure, as has occurred during CP5, I also criticise them.
Let's hope they can turn CP5 around and deliver what they committed to.
(Note, IANAE, and might well be wrong on some of this).
He may not be identikit politician but he has very little experience outside of politics.
250 Guineas a night .... not including non existent breakfast.
1. You persist in saying that I am opposed to dialogue. Wrong. My opposition to Corbyn is not that he wants to find a solution to problems - I don't think he does and I've seen no evidence that he has ever done anything to advance solutions. There are, for instance, organisations which seek to promote reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians but he has not involved himself with those. It is that he actively promotes and allies himself with those who are part of the problem and does nothing to challenge their hateful views.
2. You have the naive view that extremism comes from oppression. Well, sometimes it may do. But that does not mean that those groups arising out of such oppression are the answer. They may be even worse and even more oppressive. And sometimes extremism comes from ideology - as is the case with Islamist extremism. It is a total misreading to think that Islamism arises because people are oppressed by the West and if only we talked to them nicely they would stop being so angry and be nice back. The Islamists hate the West. They don't want to talk to us. They want to defeat us totally. They want to overthrow Western values.
It is not protest. It is sedition.
And this fundamental misunderstanding is why the Left has so often allied itself with extremists in the Islamic world rather than the moderates and liberals that there are.
For a party based on ideology, Labour people are remarkably stupid in not understanding how ideology animates and motivates others.
I agree that NR senior management make all sorts of commitments the implications of which they are not fully cognisant of. But beating them over the head won't make the rail industry any better.
Getting more good PMs and engineers and getting it out of the public sector might. Just might.
Many are chosen but few get access to the sweetie jar. It's a very British pragmatic and unwritten compromise.
Could it honestly get any better for the tories?
And Mr Palmer does deserve criticism for saying now that Burnham et al are oh so 'meh', when he was peddling them for all they were worth 6 months ago. He also deserves criticism for defending Corbyn and his record because even at best it shows what an utter pratt he, NP, is for taking it all in at face value.
Mr NP is a complete classic example of why on so many levels Labour are not to be trusted and unfit to be let anywhere near government. He and people like him are why the nation was delivered into the utter bonkers hands of G.Brown for 13 years.
Andy Burnham has called for an urgent meeting over concerns of "large scale" infiltration by Conservatives in the #Labour leadership race
25 retweets 14 favorites
Yep thats right Andy...it's all the Tories fault.
Surely they will step back from the brink at the last minute, right?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/11815341/State-schools-outperforming-average-private-schools.html
Meanwhile in Wales....
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/school-standards-wales-improving-huw-9898858
Yep, every time that Ed Miliband struck that pose, he could have been staring into the future he has bequeathed his party.
The ABCers ducked it when there was a chance to defeat him. They should NEVER have let him go unchallenged/had lazy campaigns/sucked up to him.
They only have themselves to blame.
Certain major constitutional issues can garner enough support to sway voters away from their "natural" ideology. Look at the SNP in Scotland which is filled with natural Tories who put the achievement of Scottish Independence ahead of their ideology.
It is quite conceivable that a republican Labour ticket could attract enough Tories and Lib Dems (probably not many Kippers) who, along with an extant Labour vote could get the party to 40%. And remember 40% is enough under the broken, undemocratic FPTP system.
Ironically, the Conservative adherence to the FPTP is the greatest danger to the Conservative adherence to unjustified privilege.
Besides, what a nonsense to call for a meeting as if it's an end in itself. If he's serious that there's been large-scale infiltration (and I'd like to see the evidence), then he should be calling for the election to be halted and requesting a meeting to enable that.
I'd agree if it weren't for Nick Palmer's posts on the site today.
This isn;t a criticism of him, but it does show you how Corbyn is able to scoop up people one wouldn;t associate with him necessarily.
His personal best is 22 seconds.
In 20 years of polling the low point for monarchism has been 65% and the high point for republicanism has been 22%.
Think Conservatives voting for IDS but with knobs on.
In the Labour party there's always been a strong strain hankering for ideological purity over the pragmatism of achieving power. Their electoral pain threshold is much greater than with the Conservatives who dispensed with IDS in a bloodless coup.
Accordingly we should expect a lengthy period of ferocious blood letting once it finally dawns on the faithful that Corbyn isn't the messiah but just a very naughty chap.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KX5jNnDMfxA
Corbyn gets in and Labour self destruct. Or Butcher calls a halt, and Labour self destruct.
adam behr @AdamBehrLive
@rafaelbehr Increasingly hard to come up with a prognosis in which Lab aren't 'VSF': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWSjyB14NR8 …
NSFW
Except, 'the faithful' don't exist in anything like the numbers or the way that they used to because of the end of mass manufacturing, industry and mining.
And that is why this event is possibly life threatening for labour, in a way that the Foot leadership was never going to be.
The man is fool.