That McDonnell stuff on knee-capping is just poison.
Every time I despair of TMay (about every five minutes) and start to think Hmm, maybe Labour would be OK, I am reminded that the Corbyn leadership team is actively evil.
Not inept, or misguided, or silly, or overly naive, but actively nasty, cruel, dangerous and treasonable. UGH.
"deplorable"?
For me shocking and I'm not easily shocked. I'm intrigued and appalled as to any context when you could make a joke out of this. Surely it isn't genuine.
Well, IMO whoever wins is in for an utterly brutal time. Won't last five years.
Yes, I think the party will be gunning for May as soon as Brexit is done. Lots of unhappy people with the leftist crap on energy price caps and the racial pay charter.
But what's the difference between May's energy cap and Cameron's 2015 rail fares cap ?
ROCs receive subsidies from the taxpayers and energy companies don't?
You mean TOCs. And actually that's not the issue. The issue is that for some rail users (like me, but perhaps not you, but I'm not sure) there is no choice but to commute to work by train.
Yah, ROCs is a work acronym that auto-correct changed.
Yes, it is is either use the train to get to Manchester or stay in Manchester overnight.
Driving over Woodhead or Snake Pass on a daily basis isn't really an option for me
Love the Snake Pass, when it's open,
If only there was an electrified mainline between Manchester and Sheffield....
Tell me about it, so long as it stops at Dore & Totley
I was referring to the Woodhead Line so scandalously closed in 1981:
Well, IMO whoever wins is in for an utterly brutal time. Won't last five years.
Yes, I think the party will be gunning for May as soon as Brexit is done. Lots of unhappy people with the leftist crap on energy price caps and the racial pay charter.
But what's the difference between May's energy cap and Cameron's 2015 rail fares cap ?
ROCs receive subsidies from the taxpayers and energy companies don't?
You mean TOCs. And actually that's not the issue. The issue is that for some rail users (like me, but perhaps not you, but I'm not sure) there is no choice but to commute to work by train.
Indeed, it's why I think railways (along with water) could probably be nationalised without anyone really noticing.
Can we ditch the romanticism about British Rail, please?
I remember the nationalised railways as much as anyone, and it was a story of very old rolling stock, trains run for the convenience of the staff, not passengers, indifferent customer service, awful catering and regular strikes. There were some impressive high-profile projects, like Intercity 125 and 225, but - as is usual with nationalised industries - these investments on the mainline intercity routes, which were the most sexy projects.
Much of the current problems Network Rail has in delivery and maintenance is down to it being a huge monolith.
Well, IMO whoever wins is in for an utterly brutal time. Won't last five years.
Yes, I think the party will be gunning for May as soon as Brexit is done. Lots of unhappy people with the leftist crap on energy price caps and the racial pay charter.
But what's the difference between May's energy cap and Cameron's 2015 rail fares cap ?
ROCs receive subsidies from the taxpayers and energy companies don't?
You mean TOCs. And actually that's not the issue. The issue is that for some rail users (like me, but perhaps not you, but I'm not sure) there is no choice but to commute to work by train.
Yah, ROCs is a work acronym that auto-correct changed.
Yes, it is is either use the train to get to Manchester or stay in Manchester overnight.
Driving over Woodhead or Snake Pass on a daily basis isn't really an option for me
Love the Snake Pass, when it's open,
If only there was an electrified mainline between Manchester and Sheffield....
Tell me about it, so long as it stops at Dore & Totley
I was referring to the Woodhead Line so scandalously closed in 1981:
Looking forward to the QT on Friday, I think May will have learnt a lot from tonight. As for Corbyn, he can't bluff his way out of the things he said and did, they are what they are. That Irish fella nailed Corbyn about commemorating the IRA, which has curiously not been mentioned much. It destroyed Corbyn's claim to care about the police.
Still May by a mile. But it will be a phyrric victory.
A win is a win. But the next five years are going to be very, very hard for May. And if Labour learns the right lesson from this campaign, it will be in serious contention in 2022. Big if, though.
If Labour lose seats it's, historically, two elections to get back. If they don't lose seats, there will be no change in leadership. And so on...
All sides in Labour need to reflect. Moderates must accept a left-wing message can be sold; the left has to accept it can only be effectively sold by someone without the kind of baggage Corbyn has.
Clive Lewis.
- Had a career in the military (so no issues with patriotism) - Left wing enough for the membership to accept - Normal, personable.
I like him, despite disagreeing with him on a few things.
It's the worst CON campaign of all time! We should have focused on proper policies such as stopping all 'tax credits' which are really handouts to underachieving people to encourage them to produce children and also a radical tax cutting agenda ie allowing people to keep their money ie wot they have worked for.
But its still not Corbyn Abbot or McDonnell!
So it's 45 - 35 min and 40 maj!!!
Then when we do win we can make Amber PM!!!!
Nah. We want Ruth!!!
Maybe after her second term as First Minister?
No time to waste. George can be her chancellor...All will be well in the world again.
Corbyn was head and shoulders against the turncoat tonight, she was shifty and evasive while he came across as a human being with actual blood in his veins.
Am watching now. Jezz did well with Faisal and the audience... But floundering with Paxman I think.
That McDonnell stuff on knee-capping is just poison.
Every time I despair of TMay (about every five minutes) and start to think Hmm, maybe Labour would be OK, I am reminded that the Corbyn leadership team is actively evil.
Not inept, or misguided, or silly, or overly naive, but actively nasty, cruel, dangerous and treasonable. UGH.
"deplorable"?
For me shocking and I'm not easily shocked. I'm intrigued and appalled as to any context when you could make a joke out of this. Surely it isn't genuine.
Well according to the write up his spokesperson responded by saying McDonnell doesn't recollect saying it, but still insists it is taken out of context, so I am very sure it is genuine. Otherwise they'd say he has no recollection and it must be a fabrication.
It's the worst CON campaign of all time! We should have focused on proper policies such as stopping all 'tax credits' which are really handouts to underachieving people to encourage them to produce children and also a radical tax cutting agenda ie allowing people to keep their money ie wot they have worked for.
But its still not Corbyn Abbot or McDonnell!
So it's 45 - 35 min and 40 maj!!!
Then when we do win we can make Amber PM!!!!
Nah. We want Ruth!!!
Maybe after her second term as First Minister?
You tories are not right in the head, that dud will go nowhere.
It's the worst CON campaign of all time! We should have focused on proper policies such as stopping all 'tax credits' which are really handouts to underachieving people to encourage them to produce children and also a radical tax cutting agenda ie allowing people to keep their money ie wot they have worked for.
But its still not Corbyn Abbot or McDonnell!
So it's 45 - 35 min and 40 maj!!!
Then when we do win we can make Amber PM!!!!
Nah. We want Ruth!!!
Maybe after her second term as First Minister?
You tories are not right in the head, that dud will go nowhere.
Better be respectful, you're talking about the third Conservative Prime Minister.
It might be after she wins the nobel prize though.
Joe Rich has spun it. McDonnell is supposed to have been quoted in the Deptford and Peckham Mercury as "joking" that Labour councillors who stayed away from a meeting held by a Labour group on Ireland in 1986 which was attended by a Sinn Fein councillor were "gutless wimps" and that "kneecapping might help change their mind". If true he was a complete fuckwit, there's no doubt about that.
Well, no crime in making horrible jokes, I've made more offensive ones, although that context makes it worse than if it were just quoted from the aether, frankly.
Sure, in another context it may just have been tasteless. But in the context of a meeting on Northern Ireland held during the Troubles, it was (if true) or would have been (if false) disgusting and thuggish.
I'm beginning to think the shy Tory thing is a little bit in effect in the country again
There's still plenty of folk for whom admitting they were voting Tory for the first time would be social death. Keep their heads down, keep schtum, vote for Theresa May and keep their fingers crossed no-one finds out....
A very good friend of mine is rabidly anti-Tory. He has no idea his wife voted for Thatcher in '79!
It's the worst CON campaign of all time! We should have focused on proper policies such as stopping all 'tax credits' which are really handouts to underachieving people to encourage them to produce children and also a radical tax cutting agenda ie allowing people to keep their money ie wot they have worked for.
But its still not Corbyn Abbot or McDonnell!
So it's 45 - 35 min and 40 maj!!!
Then when we do win we can make Amber PM!!!!
If Con get 45% the majority will be a lot bigger than 40?
Hopefully GIN but as a Watford fan I am always cautious
I don't rule out 48 - 26 yet!
No need to be cautious,hudders keeping one relegation spot warm ;-)
Corbyn was head and shoulders against the turncoat tonight, she was shifty and evasive while he came across as a human being with actual blood in his veins.
Am watching now. Jezz did well with Faisal and the audience... But floundering with Paxman I think.
not at all GIN, paxman was patronising and crap , Jeremy just laughed at his juvenile antics. He did not land one blow.
Looking forward to the QT on Friday, I think May will have learnt a lot from tonight. As for Corbyn, he can't bluff his way out of the things he said and did, they are what they are. That Irish fella nailed Corbyn about commemorating the IRA, which has curiously not been mentioned much. It destroyed Corbyn's claim to care about the police.
Corbyn finished in the bunker on security; May finished with a flourish on Brexit.
Corbyn 5/10, May 6/10
That would be my score too. Although it's events like this when I do miss Dave!
Agree too.
Dave wasn't particularly good against Paxman, and avoided debates like the plague.
Thatcher? No problem.
Thatcher relished a good argument; it's a very notable difference between her and TMay.
To me, consensus seems to be: the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values, and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues that need to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner ‘I stand for consensus’? - M.H. Thatcher, 1981.
It keeps coming back to Corbyn's past. In a normal election, any one of his past deeds or utterances would probably be fatal. Yet, here we are, 10 days before the election, and Labour are apparently polling as high as 38%. I just can't get my head around it.
They are not getting cut-through. Who is reporting them? The right-wing press who are preaching to the converted. Unless the BBC goes big on some of this material it won't impact. Maybe it's having an impact online with the attack video but we won't know until June 9th.
It certainly puts Ed Miliband in perspective. I might have thought some of his policies a bit crap, but morally he is on a different plane to the current Labour leadership.
I agree completely - Corbyn and his supposed acolytes are utterly toxic.
Looking forward to the QT on Friday, I think May will have learnt a lot from tonight. As for Corbyn, he can't bluff his way out of the things he said and did, they are what they are. That Irish fella nailed Corbyn about commemorating the IRA, which has curiously not been mentioned much. It destroyed Corbyn's claim to care about the police.
Crikey there is more of this to come? I'm glad I'm out of the country. Socialists will be pleased to know my postal vote has not turned up.
Effectively the proposition is for government to own the TOCs. Which is fine, but self-defeating; there is nothing that the state-run TOC can do that the private one can't.
It's not fine. We've been through all this before (I'm old enough to remember!). The sequence goes:
1. Great rejoicing by the unions, they now have political influence and their man is in No 10, doling out the beer and sandwiches (nowadays, sparkling water and canapés)
2. They get a bung from the Labour government, which keeps them quiet for a bit.
3. They realise that they have the government by the short'n'curlies, so they ask for more.
4. The government resists, so the strikes begin
5. The government gives in.
6. Repeat steps 3 to 5 for as long as the public finances can stand it.
7. Finally even a Corbyn government can't hack it any longer, and has to say no and finally mean it.
8. The trains stop altogether.
It's the invariable outcome of any hard-left government, from Atlee to Maduro.
Has anyone considered the possibility that the polls may be misleading simply because the issues concentrated in the campaign as it has gone do not correlate with the issues upon which large numbers of people will vote? When the campaign started the main reason why Conservatives seemed to be on for a landslide was simple. Voters (including many remainers) bought into the basic line that May needed an increased majority in order to deliver Brexit (or in the remainers case, a tolerable Brexit). Since then the campaign has barely focussed on it as the noise generated by other issues has crowded it out. But that may be all it is - noise. If large numbers of people still buy into the basic reason why we this election was called then that is how they will vote.
As an aside i've always suspected that a problem with political polling, especially YouGov type panels where the same people get polled repeatedly, is that people use the voting intention as a proxy for expressing an opinion on the day's/week's events - to the extent that they reflect on the performance of the parties. And therefore modify their voting intention (be it by switching party or changing their certainty to vote) whilst never actually changing their ultimate preference.
I have emailed Mike a thread which I wrote last night on just that subject. He hasn't replied... maybe I am still on probation! If he doesn't use it I will put it on my own blog and link it on here
that should be enough to finish any opposition party. strange times
McDonnell scares me the most out of all three musketeers.
He has often referred to taking politics to the streets... 'the revolution cannot be made in Parliament,' etc. I shall not be surprise if at some time in the next five years he decides, out of sheer frustration at having to behave himself in the HoC to nil net effect, to put that theory into practice. I shall be watching for him whenever there is news video of street disturbances.
Part of me wonders whether JC actually wants Labour to be totally screwed in this election. Consider this.
The modern Labour party is a tension between the trendy, urbanites, educated youngsters who love JC and what he stands for re open borders, multiculturalism etc and the more traditional WWC voters in non-urban areas who are socially conservative. JC obviously gets his support from the first group and the opposition amongst his PLP mainly comes from those who represent the second.
Anecdotally, JC seems to be repelling many of the second group (see the Atul Hatwal article on Labour Uncut). But, for JC, whose aim is to ensure his brand of hard-Leftism takes ultimate control of the party, that might not be a bad thing. Because, if the non-urban WWC do turn decisively against Labour, it will take many of his Parliamentary opponents with him. What would then be left is a Labour party based in the cities which gets its support from the first group. Their MPs will represent their views and, if they don't, they will get deselected.
End result. JC and his friends end up controlling the Labour Party. Yes, Labour may have shrunk to <120 or possibly <100 but, to the hard Left, that will be a price worth paying to ensure their long-term control of the party. And it will represent a massive leap forward for the hard Left in terms of the ability to project their agenda than they have ever reached before.
Comments
NEW THREAD
I remember the nationalised railways as much as anyone, and it was a story of very old rolling stock, trains run for the convenience of the staff, not passengers, indifferent customer service, awful catering and regular strikes. There were some impressive high-profile projects, like Intercity 125 and 225, but - as is usual with nationalised industries - these investments on the mainline intercity routes, which were the most sexy projects.
Much of the current problems Network Rail has in delivery and maintenance is down to it being a huge monolith.
- Had a career in the military (so no issues with patriotism)
- Left wing enough for the membership to accept
- Normal, personable.
I like him, despite disagreeing with him on a few things.
It might be after she wins the nobel prize though.
A very good friend of mine is rabidly anti-Tory. He has no idea his wife voted for Thatcher in '79!
He did not land one blow.
- M.H. Thatcher, 1981.
1. Great rejoicing by the unions, they now have political influence and their man is in No 10, doling out the beer and sandwiches (nowadays, sparkling water and canapés)
2. They get a bung from the Labour government, which keeps them quiet for a bit.
3. They realise that they have the government by the short'n'curlies, so they ask for more.
4. The government resists, so the strikes begin
5. The government gives in.
6. Repeat steps 3 to 5 for as long as the public finances can stand it.
7. Finally even a Corbyn government can't hack it any longer, and has to say no and finally mean it.
8. The trains stop altogether.
It's the invariable outcome of any hard-left government, from Atlee to Maduro.
Britain Elects
@britainelects
CON: 43% (-)
LAB: 37% (+3)
LDEM: 8% (-)
UKIP: 4% (-)
(via @Survation / 26 - 27 May)
The modern Labour party is a tension between the trendy, urbanites, educated youngsters who love JC and what he stands for re open borders, multiculturalism etc and the more traditional WWC voters in non-urban areas who are socially conservative. JC obviously gets his support from the first group and the opposition amongst his PLP mainly comes from those who represent the second.
Anecdotally, JC seems to be repelling many of the second group (see the Atul Hatwal article on Labour Uncut). But, for JC, whose aim is to ensure his brand of hard-Leftism takes ultimate control of the party, that might not be a bad thing. Because, if the non-urban WWC do turn decisively against Labour, it will take many of his Parliamentary opponents with him. What would then be left is a Labour party based in the cities which gets its support from the first group. Their MPs will represent their views and, if they don't, they will get deselected.
End result. JC and his friends end up controlling the Labour Party. Yes, Labour may have shrunk to <120 or possibly <100 but, to the hard Left, that will be a price worth paying to ensure their long-term control of the party. And it will represent a massive leap forward for the hard Left in terms of the ability to project their agenda than they have ever reached before.