Morning. I see BoZo's biggest fan is up with the lark.
Personally, I cannot stand the slovenly buffoon with a penchant for fancy dress photo opportunities. Its like watching the Generation Game at times, and sometimes worse.
About two thirds of care home staff have accepted the offer of a vaccine, Professor Anthony Harnden, the deputy chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation JCVI, said.
That's very disappointing number.
Given the demographics of the poorly paid, low credentialed jobs - inevitable.
It should clearly be compulsory to have the vaccine if you want to work in a care home.
If I was UnDictator* of Britain - Yes
What will you do about the 1/3rd of the staff who, almost certainly, don't want to take it?
*Anyone else remember this trope from the days of alt.history.what-if?
You have 6 weeks to change your mind or you're out of a job. That will get almost all of them over the line.
It would require an Act of Parliament since they're not under any contractual obligations.
No. What @MaxPB suggests is possible. There is a mechanism whereby anyone’s employment contract can be changed. Simplistically what you do is offer a new contract and give a deadline for acceptance. If they refuse you bring the old contract to an end (which is technically a dismissal) and immediately offer reengagement on the new terms. It’s a bit more complex than that procedurally, requiring consultation, but it can be a fair dismissal under the “some other substantial reason” head and, further, even if an unfair dismissal is found the damages are close to zero as the employee would have failed to mitigate their loss by refusing a new contract at the same salary.
The difficulties are (1) industrial action if sufficiently large numbers are involved and (2) a discrimination claim under the Equality Act. (1) would have zero public sympathy and (2) requires not having the vaccine to infringe ones religious or similar philosophical belief but such indirect discrimination I think is wholly justified.
MaxPB then suggested putting it in the Healthcare Bill which matches what I said, it's an issue for Parliament to address.
What you are suggesting is theoretically possible but it is not swift or timely or easily done. Have you ever been through the process of changing contracts with a workforce that doesn't want it changing? It's not exactly quick and easy, especially when the Home is dealing with all the stresses of the pandemic.
An Act of Parliament to put this as a public health requirement for the job short circuits the contractual issues and is far more realistic. Without that realistically the pandemic will be over before contracts are 100% switched over.
“Have you ever been the process of changing contracts with a workforce that doesn’t want it changing?”
Yes. Literally dozens of times. I’m an employment lawyer - it’s what I do for a living. Takes 45 days tops if done properly.
Fair enough then from a lawyer's perspective but most businesses aren't ran by HR lawyers. I've done it before from a small business perspective following legal advice and possibly were advised to move slowly and with precautions every step of the way. Possibly their risk profile wanting to ensure every i dotted and every t crossed but still.
Having to deal with lawyers tends to make businesses, especially smaller ones that don't have in house lawyers, act much more risk averse. Which is a bit of the point of the law in the first place.
If this is a public health issue then the government or PHE etc should take the lead on this to remove liability for changing contracts from the employers.
Any contract I've ever seen has provisos in it for meeting legal requirements or changes of the law so if the law is changed to require a vaccine in that role then that should surely square off contractual issues without months of wrangling and dealing with lawyers.
You’ve not been talking to the right employment lawyer. There’s no f**king way a relatively straightforward contractual change should take months. If the client is prepared to shoulder a bit more risk it should take a fortnight.
Well that risk issue is key then isn't it?
Our lawyers indemnified us so that if we followed their advice then they shouldered the risk, but then we had to do everything to their timescale. No letters could go to a staff member without them checking it first, if it did and wasn't their advice then it could void the indemnification.
Why should the clients be the ones shouldering the risk in this situation if it's a public health issue? Put it in the health bill and that lifts the risk from the clients.
You didn’t use Peninsular did you? Tell me you didn’t use Peninsula.
LOL!
No but probably a very similar company.
It's bad enough working with people who don't want to change terms and conditions - setting the law aside you still need to work with and rely upon these people every day. Doing so while taking on "risk" that you don't need to take - it's easy to become risk averse.
The problem with companies that indemnify you though is that you have to do exactly what they say to stay indemnified - whatever your internal risk profile. It’s employment law by numbers. There are a range of options and tactics you can take to change contracts (making a pay rise or promotion contingent on one for example) and a range of risk profiles, from near zero to suicidal, you can take also.
My take is that the more professional the average level of your employees, the less you want to do anything, let alone something as fundamental as their employment contract, by numbers.
With professionals tell them their promotion/pay rise/bonus is contingent on a new contract.
That brute force approach might work in the short-term to get the contract you want very quickly, but is unlikely to get the highest levels of performance, innovation, loyalty or retention as you'd really like.
Personally, I'd rather take extra time to know what they want to do, and mutually agree how they can do that while helping the company thrive. If the contractual change is something necessary for corporate well-being, that should be an easy sell unless they are already looking for any pretext to leave.
I am a blunt instrument kind of lawyer. In truth I tend to get called in when the kind of approach you outline has failed. Then I start making offers people can’t refuse.
The problem is that not every refusal to get the vaccine is the same so blanket approaches like offer a bonus don't work.
Eg I know of someone, care worker, refusing the vaccine because she's trying for a child and is scared that the vaccine could effect an unborn child, thalidomide style. She has been at the home for many years but point blank refuses the vaccine due to fears related to pregnancy. She's made sure everyone knows potential pregnancy is her reason for refusing.
If she was to be disciplined or fired for refusing the vaccine, having given potential pregnancy and her fears related to that as her reason, how much risk would you advise the employer would take over firing her?
Pregnancy or planning for such is a genuine reason, I know very few women in that category taking the vaccine, and it’s definitely suggested to not take the vaccine if trying for a baby.
About two thirds of care home staff have accepted the offer of a vaccine, Professor Anthony Harnden, the deputy chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation JCVI, said.
That's very disappointing number.
Given the demographics of the poorly paid, low credentialed jobs - inevitable.
It should clearly be compulsory to have the vaccine if you want to work in a care home.
If I was UnDictator* of Britain - Yes
What will you do about the 1/3rd of the staff who, almost certainly, don't want to take it?
*Anyone else remember this trope from the days of alt.history.what-if?
You have 6 weeks to change your mind or you're out of a job. That will get almost all of them over the line.
It would require an Act of Parliament since they're not under any contractual obligations.
No. What @MaxPB suggests is possible. There is a mechanism whereby anyone’s employment contract can be changed. Simplistically what you do is offer a new contract and give a deadline for acceptance. If they refuse you bring the old contract to an end (which is technically a dismissal) and immediately offer reengagement on the new terms. It’s a bit more complex than that procedurally, requiring consultation, but it can be a fair dismissal under the “some other substantial reason” head and, further, even if an unfair dismissal is found the damages are close to zero as the employee would have failed to mitigate their loss by refusing a new contract at the same salary.
The difficulties are (1) industrial action if sufficiently large numbers are involved and (2) a discrimination claim under the Equality Act. (1) would have zero public sympathy and (2) requires not having the vaccine to infringe ones religious or similar philosophical belief but such indirect discrimination I think is wholly justified.
MaxPB then suggested putting it in the Healthcare Bill which matches what I said, it's an issue for Parliament to address.
What you are suggesting is theoretically possible but it is not swift or timely or easily done. Have you ever been through the process of changing contracts with a workforce that doesn't want it changing? It's not exactly quick and easy, especially when the Home is dealing with all the stresses of the pandemic.
An Act of Parliament to put this as a public health requirement for the job short circuits the contractual issues and is far more realistic. Without that realistically the pandemic will be over before contracts are 100% switched over.
“Have you ever been the process of changing contracts with a workforce that doesn’t want it changing?”
Yes. Literally dozens of times. I’m an employment lawyer - it’s what I do for a living. Takes 45 days tops if done properly.
Fair enough then from a lawyer's perspective but most businesses aren't ran by HR lawyers. I've done it before from a small business perspective following legal advice and possibly were advised to move slowly and with precautions every step of the way. Possibly their risk profile wanting to ensure every i dotted and every t crossed but still.
Having to deal with lawyers tends to make businesses, especially smaller ones that don't have in house lawyers, act much more risk averse. Which is a bit of the point of the law in the first place.
If this is a public health issue then the government or PHE etc should take the lead on this to remove liability for changing contracts from the employers.
Any contract I've ever seen has provisos in it for meeting legal requirements or changes of the law so if the law is changed to require a vaccine in that role then that should surely square off contractual issues without months of wrangling and dealing with lawyers.
You’ve not been talking to the right employment lawyer. There’s no f**king way a relatively straightforward contractual change should take months. If the client is prepared to shoulder a bit more risk it should take a fortnight.
Well that risk issue is key then isn't it?
Our lawyers indemnified us so that if we followed their advice then they shouldered the risk, but then we had to do everything to their timescale. No letters could go to a staff member without them checking it first, if it did and wasn't their advice then it could void the indemnification.
Why should the clients be the ones shouldering the risk in this situation if it's a public health issue? Put it in the health bill and that lifts the risk from the clients.
You didn’t use Peninsular did you? Tell me you didn’t use Peninsula.
LOL!
No but probably a very similar company.
It's bad enough working with people who don't want to change terms and conditions - setting the law aside you still need to work with and rely upon these people every day. Doing so while taking on "risk" that you don't need to take - it's easy to become risk averse.
The problem with companies that indemnify you though is that you have to do exactly what they say to stay indemnified - whatever your internal risk profile. It’s employment law by numbers. There are a range of options and tactics you can take to change contracts (making a pay rise or promotion contingent on one for example) and a range of risk profiles, from near zero to suicidal, you can take also.
My take is that the more professional the average level of your employees, the less you want to do anything, let alone something as fundamental as their employment contract, by numbers.
With professionals tell them their promotion/pay rise/bonus is contingent on a new contract.
That brute force approach might work in the short-term to get the contract you want very quickly, but is unlikely to get the highest levels of performance, innovation, loyalty or retention as you'd really like.
Personally, I'd rather take extra time to know what they want to do, and mutually agree how they can do that while helping the company thrive. If the contractual change is something necessary for corporate well-being, that should be an easy sell unless they are already looking for any pretext to leave.
I am a blunt instrument kind of lawyer. In truth I tend to get called in when the kind of approach you outline has failed. Then I start making offers people can’t refuse.
The problem is that not every refusal to get the vaccine is the same so blanket approaches like offer a bonus don't work.
Eg I know of someone, care worker, refusing the vaccine because she's trying for a child and is scared that the vaccine could effect an unborn child, thalidomide style. She has been at the home for many years but point blank refuses the vaccine due to fears related to pregnancy. She's made sure everyone knows potential pregnancy is her reason for refusing.
If she was to be disciplined or fired for refusing the vaccine, having given potential pregnancy and her fears related to that as her reason, how much risk would you advise the employer would take over firing her?
The legal risk would not be that high, although morally it would be far more difficult decision for the employer to take. She would not covered by whistleblowing legislation and, assuming the vaccine was found to be safe for people wanting to get pregnant, there would be little coverage from H&S law either. It’s a harsh example, such cases make for bad law, but ultimately such fears right now would not make much difference to the legal risk profile.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I'll be honest the part that makes it confusing for me is MexicanPete doesn't even really like the left, hell he doesn't even seem that enthused by the current right wing led Labour party which is spending its time prioritising kicking left wing people like me bringing back in members who wished left wing activists died in fires...
I mean if this right wing led thoroughly anti left wing Labour party is still too left wing for him why he is even arguing about his family being 'leftier than thou' (an argument he started) I didn't try and claim a more centrist existence or background than him!
Edit: I shouldn't be here recruiting but seriously the current leadership of the Labour party despise left wingers more than MexicanPete could possibly dream, if you genuinely aren't a Tory shouldn't that be right up his street?
The single purpose of Jeremy Corbyn is to undermiine the Labour leadership, be that Starmer, Milliband, Brown, Blair or Kinnock, to perpetuate Conservative Governments. It has worked almost perfectly since 1979, except Blair blotted his copybook with Corbyn, not once but three times.
That would make sense if Corbyn had done 1,000th of what the Labour right did to him during his leadership. The entire point of the Labour right has been to help the Conservatives, they do it election after election because the party isn't enough like the Conservatives for the liking...
They didn't just do it to Corbyn, they did it to Ed as well, constant briefing that helped push Ed so far to the right he made an offer not worth voting for. After the 2017 election he said he should have offered that manifesto, that extremely popular vote winning manifesto that back in 2015 could have been enough to make the difference...
Why couldn't Ed present a left wing manifesto that would have been in line with his views as leader of the Labour party?
The Tories best friend, the Labour right, there to give them a helping hand when they need it, don't worry David we'll stop Ed offering anything appealing so you can win and we can replace him with Blair mark 2.
I notice you avoided the question and just went on the attack, wonder why? bit awkward for you?
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I do apologise. It is not normally something I would feel obliged to share. However I decided to put the Jezziah's accusation of my public-school Tory-boy status to the sword. My own upbringing I would have to concede was nonetheless very comfortable. Does that necessarily make me a Tory?
In the meantime this pointless bickering has lost the votes of many who had voted Labour their whole lives - including me. Take your arguments into a room, hammer out a position, and present it as a united front to the public. You two having this argument here and, to pick a random example, Oxford Uni Labour Society’s public pillorying of John McDonnell yesterday just make people think “I’m never going to be good enough for these people”. The right have their arguments too, but they are welcoming to converts. The left make it clear you cannot have any ideological skeletons whatsoever.
Culture wars issues are currently causing terrible ructions in both main left-leaning parties: the John McDonnell spat and the SNP split are both examples of public catfights that have broken out over transsexuals (who, even on the most expansive estimates, constitute less than 1% of the population.) For most voters who've noticed any of this it's bound to be a turn-off.
For the SNP, it doesn't matter much because everything in Scotland is swamped by the independence issue. Labour doesn't have something like that to use as a shield to hide behind. It just looks a bit mental.
The Alice Roberts Stonehenge documentary last night on BBC2 is well worth a watch
Indeed. Watching In was reminded of the book on the genetics of the British and how they showed the patterns of migration, the title of which I cannot remember, but which opined that the evidence demonstrated that post Ice-Age Britain was repopulated from two main and one minor directions; up the west coast of what is now France, from Iberia and into the Western part of the British Isles and from the East, across the Channel and North Sea. The Westerners uniting with the Easterners might well have accounted for the movement of the Henge.
That was Oppenheimer's book. I enjoyed that too, and found it convincing - especially the earlier chapters before it descended deeply into the minutiae of the DNA.
But Tyndall told me it has mostly since been discredited.
New evidence sadly. It is now apparent that the original post glacial inhabitants of the British isles were almost entirely wiped out at the end of the Neolithic. It appears there is a 90% plus annihilation of the pre-existing population of the British isles within perhaps as little as one generation and their replacement by a new peoples originating (we think) in Spain. I was educated in the 80s in exactly the sort of migration hypothesis you talk about but it is now well out of date.
It is not clear what actually led to the almost complete removal of the native population - disease is the most obvious cause with the new arrivals inadvertently bringing something with them that they themselves were immune to. But no one knows for sure.
This is how the Independent reported the new hypothesis back in 2018
To ask the obvious dumb question: these geographically-based genetic differences only arise because mutations occur and spread through a population, and we also know that within a relatively short period (hundreds of years) most people are interrelated given the number of ancestors they have (this effect magnified in hugely smaller populations).
So what supports the conclusion that this genetic change represents extermination and replacement by migration, rather than mutation and spread by reproduction?
As an aside, by strange coincidence this afternoon I have just attended via zoom a talk hosted by the Nene Valley Archaeological Trust. Presented by Christopher Evans it was a an overview of the latest work being done in Bronze Age archaeology in Eastern England and included the news that DNA analysis has now identified a second, less extreme population replacement episode between the Middle and Later Bronze Ages. In this case the sudden change of some 20% of the population. This coincides with a huge change in settlement and monument styles which has long been known from this transition (and which already formed the basis of the division between mile and late Bronze Age).
Another vindication of our "vaccinate double the people" strategy. If one jab gives that level of onwards transmission drop then that's definitely a huge factor on why the R has stayed below 1 for so long.
To be fair, last spring we got case numbers down, deaths down and cleared the hospitals without vaccinating a single person.
Lockdown and the current restrictions have played a huge part in stopping the second phase of this virus - vaccination means the lifting of restrictions carries less risk of a renewed surge of cases as those vaccinated are not only less likely to contract the virus and require hospitalisation but also less likely to transmit the virus to others.
Ensuring we go through the full vaccination programme (which means providing the second doses) should mean we don't have to go through the cycle of lifting restrictions, seeing case numbers rise and having to re-impose restrictions.
Slight concerns - we don't know how long immunity lasts from one vaccination let alone two and it's something that needs to be monitored. Will those who have had both vaccinations by May still have immunity in September or will we have to plan a new round of vaccinations (only one per person I would imagine) for the autumn? I hope and believe the concern over variants is misplaced but it's something for which we will have to watch worldwide.
From a personal view, my brother, who has a weakened immune system following pre-existing health conditions and wrestled with mild Covid for five months last year, had his vaccination last week and suffered a moderately severe response of flu like symptoms and I've heard similar from others. One thing we ought to be doing is looking for ways to provide relief to those with weakened immune systems - antibody treatments perhaps?
Antibody treatments have been linked to severe mutations of the virus they two experts I've interviewed for our research on this have both said that the government and WHO should recommend that the treatment option no longer be used until the effect of antibody based treatments on mutations can be investigated properly.
Ultimately, it feels like you're looking for reasons to believe that the government has taken the wrong path because you want them to be wrong. On vaccines the government gets top marks and the small risks taken in delaying second doses looks like it's going to pay off hugely for us and for the world as it becomes the standard dosing regime to ensure more people are immunised in a shorter period of time.
What we should be doing is making more vaccines and making them faster, that's the only way out of this. Everything else is tinkering around the edges and I'm glad that the government has recognised this and is building ~800m annual manufacturing capacity in the UK to make vaccines.
Another vindication of our "vaccinate double the people" strategy. If one jab gives that level of onwards transmission drop then that's definitely a huge factor on why the R has stayed below 1 for so long.
To be fair, last spring we got case numbers down, deaths down and cleared the hospitals without vaccinating a single person.
Lockdown and the current restrictions have played a huge part in stopping the second phase of this virus - vaccination means the lifting of restrictions carries less risk of a renewed surge of cases as those vaccinated are not only less likely to contract the virus and require hospitalisation but also less likely to transmit the virus to others.
Ensuring we go through the full vaccination programme (which means providing the second doses) should mean we don't have to go through the cycle of lifting restrictions, seeing case numbers rise and having to re-impose restrictions.
Slight concerns - we don't know how long immunity lasts from one vaccination let alone two and it's something that needs to be monitored. Will those who have had both vaccinations by May still have immunity in September or will we have to plan a new round of vaccinations (only one per person I would imagine) for the autumn? I hope and believe the concern over variants is misplaced but it's something for which we will have to watch worldwide.
From a personal view, my brother, who has a weakened immune system following pre-existing health conditions and wrestled with mild Covid for five months last year, had his vaccination last week and suffered a moderately severe response of flu like symptoms and I've heard similar from others. One thing we ought to be doing is looking for ways to provide relief to those with weakened immune systems - antibody treatments perhaps?
Quick weather report - here in Seattle, in the past 12 hours or so, just over half a foot of snow has fallen and is now piled up on the porch outside my humble shack. And it's still coming down at a rapid clip.
We got a light dusting Friday morning, but this is our first real winter snow storm. Very powdery, great for skiers . . . IF they can make it to the slopes. Though today you can go cross-country in the city!
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I'll be honest the part that makes it confusing for me is MexicanPete doesn't even really like the left, hell he doesn't even seem that enthused by the current right wing led Labour party which is spending its time prioritising kicking left wing people like me bringing back in members who wished left wing activists died in fires...
I mean if this right wing led thoroughly anti left wing Labour party is still too left wing for him why he is even arguing about his family being 'leftier than thou' (an argument he started) I didn't try and claim a more centrist existence or background than him!
Edit: I shouldn't be here recruiting but seriously the current leadership of the Labour party despise left wingers more than you could possibly dream, if you genuinely aren't a Tory shouldn't that be right up your street?
In the meantime this pointless bickering has lost the votes of many who had voted Labour their whole lives - including me. Take your arguments into a room, hammer out a position, and present it as a united front to the public. You two having this argument here and, to pick a random example, Oxford Uni Labour Society’s public pillorying of John McDonnell yesterday just make people think “I’m never going to be good enough for these people”. The right have their arguments too, but they are welcoming to converts. The left make it clear you cannot have any ideological skeletons whatsoever.
TBH neither me nor MexicanPete are Labour either, Labour lost my vote as well.
The Labour right decided purity was a useful attack line, the problem was the impossible standards they set have screwed absolutely everyone over.
The Campaign against anti Semitism. Just an anti left wing group really but the Labour right worked hard to help makes their accusations credible are now going after Angela Rayner, the member voted deputy leader, what the hell is Starmer supposed to do with that?
Lay down with dogs and you get fleas but as a now non Labour voter or member that isn't my problem.
The Alice Roberts Stonehenge documentary last night on BBC2 is well worth a watch
Indeed. Watching In was reminded of the book on the genetics of the British and how they showed the patterns of migration, the title of which I cannot remember, but which opined that the evidence demonstrated that post Ice-Age Britain was repopulated from two main and one minor directions; up the west coast of what is now France, from Iberia and into the Western part of the British Isles and from the East, across the Channel and North Sea. The Westerners uniting with the Easterners might well have accounted for the movement of the Henge.
That was Oppenheimer's book. I enjoyed that too, and found it convincing - especially the earlier chapters before it descended deeply into the minutiae of the DNA.
But Tyndall told me it has mostly since been discredited.
New evidence sadly. It is now apparent that the original post glacial inhabitants of the British isles were almost entirely wiped out at the end of the Neolithic. It appears there is a 90% plus annihilation of the pre-existing population of the British isles within perhaps as little as one generation and their replacement by a new peoples originating (we think) in Spain. I was educated in the 80s in exactly the sort of migration hypothesis you talk about but it is now well out of date.
It is not clear what actually led to the almost complete removal of the native population - disease is the most obvious cause with the new arrivals inadvertently bringing something with them that they themselves were immune to. But no one knows for sure.
This is how the Independent reported the new hypothesis back in 2018
To ask the obvious dumb question: these geographically-based genetic differences only arise because mutations occur and spread through a population, and we also know that within a relatively short period (hundreds of years) most people are interrelated given the number of ancestors they have (this effect magnified in hugely smaller populations).
So what supports the conclusion that this genetic change represents extermination and replacement by migration, rather than mutation and spread by reproduction?
As an aside, by strange coincidence this afternoon I have just attended via zoom a talk hosted by the Nene Valley Archaeological Trust. Presented by Christopher Evans it was a an overview of the latest work being done in Bronze Age archaeology in Eastern England and included the news that DNA analysis has now identified a second, less extreme population replacement episode between the Middle and Later Bronze Ages. In this case the sudden change of some 20% of the population. This coincides with a huge change in settlement and monument styles which has long been known from this transition (and which already formed the basis of the division between mile and late Bronze Age).
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I'll be honest the part that makes it confusing for me is MexicanPete doesn't even really like the left, hell he doesn't even seem that enthused by the current right wing led Labour party which is spending its time prioritising kicking left wing people like me bringing back in members who wished left wing activists died in fires...
I mean if this right wing led thoroughly anti left wing Labour party is still too left wing for him why he is even arguing about his family being 'leftier than thou' (an argument he started) I didn't try and claim a more centrist existence or background than him!
Edit: I shouldn't be here recruiting but seriously the current leadership of the Labour party despise left wingers more than MexicanPete could possibly dream, if you genuinely aren't a Tory shouldn't that be right up his street?
The single purpose of Jeremy Corbyn is to undermiine the Labour leadership, be that Starmer, Milliband, Brown, Blair or Kinnock, to perpetuate Conservative Governments. It has worked almost perfectly since 1979, except Blair blotted his copybook with Corbyn, not once but three times.
That would make sense if Corbyn had done 1,000th of what the Labour right did to him during his leadership. The entire point of the Labour right has been to help the Conservatives, they do it election after election because the party isn't enough like the Conservatives for the liking...
They didn't just do it to Corbyn, they did it to Ed as well, constant briefing that helped push Ed so far to the right he made an offer not worth voting for. After the 2017 election he said he should have offered that manifesto, that extremely popular vote winning manifesto that back in 2015 could have been enough to make the difference...
Why couldn't Ed present a left wing manifesto that would have been in line with his views as leader of the Labour party?
The Tories best friend, the Labour right, there to give them a helping hand when they need it, don't worry David we'll stop Ed offering anything appealing so you can win and we can replace him with Blair mark 2.
I notice you avoided the question and just went on the attack, wonder why? bit awkward for you?
PB Tories must be loving this red on pink Tory action.
I would like to see a non- Conservative Government, and I consider Johnson to be a scoundrel. That does not make me blind to faults on my side of argument. Blair's role as Bush's lapdog over Iraq was outrageous, and Starmer needs to pull his finger out if he plans any sort of centre-left revolution. However Corbyn was never a magic bullet to see the back of the Tories. His behaviour either directly or indirectly towards Luciana Berger for example was that of a xenophobic bully. Simply horrible. I would go on about the unrealistic spending plans, although events, and Boris Johnson have shot that argument down in flames.
This pretty much sums it up, miles behind in the polls but the 1980's re-enactment society is having a blast
"Guys we are now polling at the same level as the 2019 result which we claimed proved Corbyn was the worlds worst person and 7 points behind Corbyn's 2017 result I am starting to panic..."
"Don't worry, just heard we fixed up the Bristol CLP right wing clean sweep Corbynista's in the mud!!"
Suddenly a chorus of things can only get better begins and the champagne corks start popping.
They may be an utterly useless opposition and have no hope of forming a government or doing much to push the government in a positive direction but you would have to have a heart of stone to not feel at least a little happy for them living out their dreams.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
What's particularly funny about die-hard Labour supporters using it is that it's one of the most conservative forms of argument in existence, going back at least to the Bronze Age and probably well before it. It was old even when Glaucus and Diomedes met on the battlefield!
And then did the glorious son of Hippolochus address him: 'Great-hearted son of Tydeus, why pray do you ask my descent? As are the generations of leaves, such too are those of men: for the wind scatters some leaves upon the ground, but others the forest as it blooms puts forth anew, when the season of spring arrives. So does one generation of men flourish, while another passes away. But if you wish to learn these matters too, so that you may well know my lineage, so be it - and many men know it already ...
The Alice Roberts Stonehenge documentary last night on BBC2 is well worth a watch
Indeed. Watching In was reminded of the book on the genetics of the British and how they showed the patterns of migration, the title of which I cannot remember, but which opined that the evidence demonstrated that post Ice-Age Britain was repopulated from two main and one minor directions; up the west coast of what is now France, from Iberia and into the Western part of the British Isles and from the East, across the Channel and North Sea. The Westerners uniting with the Easterners might well have accounted for the movement of the Henge.
That was Oppenheimer's book. I enjoyed that too, and found it convincing - especially the earlier chapters before it descended deeply into the minutiae of the DNA.
But Tyndall told me it has mostly since been discredited.
New evidence sadly. It is now apparent that the original post glacial inhabitants of the British isles were almost entirely wiped out at the end of the Neolithic. It appears there is a 90% plus annihilation of the pre-existing population of the British isles within perhaps as little as one generation and their replacement by a new peoples originating (we think) in Spain. I was educated in the 80s in exactly the sort of migration hypothesis you talk about but it is now well out of date.
It is not clear what actually led to the almost complete removal of the native population - disease is the most obvious cause with the new arrivals inadvertently bringing something with them that they themselves were immune to. But no one knows for sure.
This is how the Independent reported the new hypothesis back in 2018
To ask the obvious dumb question: these geographically-based genetic differences only arise because mutations occur and spread through a population, and we also know that within a relatively short period (hundreds of years) most people are interrelated given the number of ancestors they have (this effect magnified in hugely smaller populations).
So what supports the conclusion that this genetic change represents extermination and replacement by migration, rather than mutation and spread by reproduction?
As an aside, by strange coincidence this afternoon I have just attended via zoom a talk hosted by the Nene Valley Archaeological Trust. Presented by Christopher Evans it was a an overview of the latest work being done in Bronze Age archaeology in Eastern England and included the news that DNA analysis has now identified a second, less extreme population replacement episode between the Middle and Later Bronze Ages. In this case the sudden change of some 20% of the population. This coincides with a huge change in settlement and monument styles which has long been known from this transition (and which already formed the basis of the division between mile and late Bronze Age).
Would they call that the Br-iron age?
LOL. Nope. Still many centuries before the Iron Age.... unless you happen to be an international traveller in those days in which case you can travel through time from the Iron to he Bronze Age and back again as many times as you like just by going on a foreign holiday
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I'll be honest the part that makes it confusing for me is MexicanPete doesn't even really like the left, hell he doesn't even seem that enthused by the current right wing led Labour party which is spending its time prioritising kicking left wing people like me bringing back in members who wished left wing activists died in fires...
I mean if this right wing led thoroughly anti left wing Labour party is still too left wing for him why he is even arguing about his family being 'leftier than thou' (an argument he started) I didn't try and claim a more centrist existence or background than him!
Edit: I shouldn't be here recruiting but seriously the current leadership of the Labour party despise left wingers more than MexicanPete could possibly dream, if you genuinely aren't a Tory shouldn't that be right up his street?
The single purpose of Jeremy Corbyn is to undermiine the Labour leadership, be that Starmer, Milliband, Brown, Blair or Kinnock, to perpetuate Conservative Governments. It has worked almost perfectly since 1979, except Blair blotted his copybook with Corbyn, not once but three times.
That would make sense if Corbyn had done 1,000th of what the Labour right did to him during his leadership. The entire point of the Labour right has been to help the Conservatives, they do it election after election because the party isn't enough like the Conservatives for the liking...
They didn't just do it to Corbyn, they did it to Ed as well, constant briefing that helped push Ed so far to the right he made an offer not worth voting for. After the 2017 election he said he should have offered that manifesto, that extremely popular vote winning manifesto that back in 2015 could have been enough to make the difference...
Why couldn't Ed present a left wing manifesto that would have been in line with his views as leader of the Labour party?
The Tories best friend, the Labour right, there to give them a helping hand when they need it, don't worry David we'll stop Ed offering anything appealing so you can win and we can replace him with Blair mark 2.
I notice you avoided the question and just went on the attack, wonder why? bit awkward for you?
PB Tories must be loving this red on pink Tory action.
I would like to see a non- Conservative Government, and I consider Johnson to be a scoundrel. That does not make me blind to faults on my side of argument. Blair's role as Bush's lapdog over Iraq was outrageous, and Starmer needs to pull his finger out if he plans any sort of centre-left revolution. However Corbyn was never a magic bullet to see the back of the Tories. His behaviour either directly or indirectly towards Luciana Berger for example was that of a xenophobic bully. Simply horrible. I would go on about the unrealistic spending plans, although events, and Boris Johnson have shot that argument down in flames.
Now go and harrass some proper Tories.
I wish he would he has dominated this site all day.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I'll be honest the part that makes it confusing for me is MexicanPete doesn't even really like the left, hell he doesn't even seem that enthused by the current right wing led Labour party which is spending its time prioritising kicking left wing people like me bringing back in members who wished left wing activists died in fires...
I mean if this right wing led thoroughly anti left wing Labour party is still too left wing for him why he is even arguing about his family being 'leftier than thou' (an argument he started) I didn't try and claim a more centrist existence or background than him!
Edit: I shouldn't be here recruiting but seriously the current leadership of the Labour party despise left wingers more than you could possibly dream, if you genuinely aren't a Tory shouldn't that be right up your street?
In the meantime this pointless bickering has lost the votes of many who had voted Labour their whole lives - including me. Take your arguments into a room, hammer out a position, and present it as a united front to the public. You two having this argument here and, to pick a random example, Oxford Uni Labour Society’s public pillorying of John McDonnell yesterday just make people think “I’m never going to be good enough for these people”. The right have their arguments too, but they are welcoming to converts. The left make it clear you cannot have any ideological skeletons whatsoever.
TBH neither me nor MexicanPete are Labour either, Labour lost my vote as well.
The Labour right decided purity was a useful attack line, the problem was the impossible standards they set have screwed absolutely everyone over.
The Campaign against anti Semitism. Just an anti left wing group really but the Labour right worked hard to help makes their accusations credible are now going after Angela Rayner, the member voted deputy leader, what the hell is Starmer supposed to do with that?
Lay down with dogs and you get fleas but as a now non Labour voter or member that isn't my problem.
On the basis of that last paragraph, you may well be Jeremy Corbyn. Good luck with your appeal against expulsion.
Quick weather report - here in Seattle, in the past 12 hours or so, just over half a foot of snow has fallen and is now piled up on the porch outside my humble shack. And it's still coming down at a rapid clip.
We got a light dusting Friday morning, but this is our first real winter snow storm. Very powdery, great for skiers . . . IF they can make it to the slopes. Though today you can go cross-country in the city!
I do feel sorry for the Scottish ski resorts. They have had the best snow conditions in living memory but no one is allowed to ski.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
What's particularly funny about die-hard Labour supporters using it is that it's one of the most conservative forms of argument in existence, going back at least to the Bronze Age and probably well before it. It was old even when Glaucus and Diomedes met on the battlefield!
And then did the glorious son of Hippolochus address him: 'Great-hearted son of Tydeus, why pray do you ask my descent? As are the generations of leaves, such too are those of men: for the wind scatters some leaves upon the ground, but others the forest as it blooms puts forth anew, when the season of spring arrives. So does one generation of men flourish, while another passes away. But if you wish to learn these matters too, so that you may well know my lineage, so be it - and many men know it already ...
Thank goodness I didn't have a classical education.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I'll be honest the part that makes it confusing for me is MexicanPete doesn't even really like the left, hell he doesn't even seem that enthused by the current right wing led Labour party which is spending its time prioritising kicking left wing people like me bringing back in members who wished left wing activists died in fires...
I mean if this right wing led thoroughly anti left wing Labour party is still too left wing for him why he is even arguing about his family being 'leftier than thou' (an argument he started) I didn't try and claim a more centrist existence or background than him!
Edit: I shouldn't be here recruiting but seriously the current leadership of the Labour party despise left wingers more than MexicanPete could possibly dream, if you genuinely aren't a Tory shouldn't that be right up his street?
The single purpose of Jeremy Corbyn is to undermiine the Labour leadership, be that Starmer, Milliband, Brown, Blair or Kinnock, to perpetuate Conservative Governments. It has worked almost perfectly since 1979, except Blair blotted his copybook with Corbyn, not once but three times.
That would make sense if Corbyn had done 1,000th of what the Labour right did to him during his leadership. The entire point of the Labour right has been to help the Conservatives, they do it election after election because the party isn't enough like the Conservatives for the liking...
They didn't just do it to Corbyn, they did it to Ed as well, constant briefing that helped push Ed so far to the right he made an offer not worth voting for. After the 2017 election he said he should have offered that manifesto, that extremely popular vote winning manifesto that back in 2015 could have been enough to make the difference...
Why couldn't Ed present a left wing manifesto that would have been in line with his views as leader of the Labour party?
The Tories best friend, the Labour right, there to give them a helping hand when they need it, don't worry David we'll stop Ed offering anything appealing so you can win and we can replace him with Blair mark 2.
I notice you avoided the question and just went on the attack, wonder why? bit awkward for you?
PB Tories must be loving this red on pink Tory action.
I would like to see a non- Conservative Government, and I consider Johnson to be a scoundrel. That does not make me blind to faults on my side of argument. Blair's role as Bush's lapdog over Iraq was outrageous, and Starmer needs to pull his finger out if he plans any sort of centre-left revolution. However Corbyn was never a magic bullet to see the back of the Tories. His behaviour either directly or indirectly towards Luciana Berger for example was that of a xenophobic bully. Simply horrible. I would go on about the unrealistic spending plans, although events, and Boris Johnson have shot that argument down in flames.
Now go and harrass some proper Tories.
TBH Berger needed to go and was happy to see her go, Starmer has been a bastard to the left as well, quite frankly after the Labour right had spent several years 'trying to break Corbyn as a man' he decided to stop taking their crap. The man has the patience of a saint I would have snapped at those backstabbing Blairite bastards years before Corbyn and not listened to a word from any of those only determined to bring me down.
As for the rest we disagree but thanks for an answer.
Antibody treatments have been linked to severe mutations of the virus they two experts I've interviewed for our research on this have both said that the government and WHO should recommend that the treatment option no longer be used until the effect of antibody based treatments on mutations can be investigated properly.
Ultimately, it feels like you're looking for reasons to believe that the government has taken the wrong path because you want them to be wrong. On vaccines the government gets top marks and the small risks taken in delaying second doses looks like it's going to pay off hugely for us and for the world as it becomes the standard dosing regime to ensure more people are immunised in a shorter period of time.
What we should be doing is making more vaccines and making them faster, that's the only way out of this. Everything else is tinkering around the edges and I'm glad that the government has recognised this and is building ~800m annual manufacturing capacity in the UK to make vaccines.
I do think the decision not to proceed with the second Pfizer vaccination three weeks after the initial dose - as suggested by the manufacturers - was a gamble and it's paid off but I'm not going to strew rose petals in Johnson's path because of that - too many other mistakes have been made for one correct decision to be some kind of free pass.
Of course, more and better vaccines are coming down the line and that's to be expected - as Hancock suggested this morning, we will probably have to live with a larger vaccination programme than that for influenza (15 million) for a while until a vaccine is developed which provides longer protection.
As an aside, we need the whole world to get the vaccines they need as soon as possible - it's about so much more than petty points-scoring against the EU. As "Global Britain" it serves our needs to get as much of the global economy open as quickly as possible. That includes getting tourism moving again.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I do apologise. It is not normally something I would feel obliged to share. However I decided to put the Jezziah's accusation of my public-school Tory-boy status to the sword. My own upbringing I would have to concede was nonetheless very comfortable. Does that necessarily make me a Tory?
This can get overthunk imo. You're a Tory (and for that matter a Leaver) if you voted Tory at GE19. That's my start point. That's the default. It can be set aside on a case by case basis but only if there were extremely extenuating circumstances, e.g. you'd lost your glasses and couldn't see the ballot paper properly.
For someone who doesn`t follow cricket (i.e. me) can someone explain what was so good about that particular delivery and why the batsman was so confused?
The ball was way off the line of the stumps that he thought it was safe to play a shot. But it moved sideways so much it hit the bails off. It was the amount of spin movement.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I'll be honest the part that makes it confusing for me is MexicanPete doesn't even really like the left, hell he doesn't even seem that enthused by the current right wing led Labour party which is spending its time prioritising kicking left wing people like me bringing back in members who wished left wing activists died in fires...
I mean if this right wing led thoroughly anti left wing Labour party is still too left wing for him why he is even arguing about his family being 'leftier than thou' (an argument he started) I didn't try and claim a more centrist existence or background than him!
Edit: I shouldn't be here recruiting but seriously the current leadership of the Labour party despise left wingers more than MexicanPete could possibly dream, if you genuinely aren't a Tory shouldn't that be right up his street?
The single purpose of Jeremy Corbyn is to undermiine the Labour leadership, be that Starmer, Milliband, Brown, Blair or Kinnock, to perpetuate Conservative Governments. It has worked almost perfectly since 1979, except Blair blotted his copybook with Corbyn, not once but three times.
That would make sense if Corbyn had done 1,000th of what the Labour right did to him during his leadership. The entire point of the Labour right has been to help the Conservatives, they do it election after election because the party isn't enough like the Conservatives for the liking...
They didn't just do it to Corbyn, they did it to Ed as well, constant briefing that helped push Ed so far to the right he made an offer not worth voting for. After the 2017 election he said he should have offered that manifesto, that extremely popular vote winning manifesto that back in 2015 could have been enough to make the difference...
Why couldn't Ed present a left wing manifesto that would have been in line with his views as leader of the Labour party?
The Tories best friend, the Labour right, there to give them a helping hand when they need it, don't worry David we'll stop Ed offering anything appealing so you can win and we can replace him with Blair mark 2.
I notice you avoided the question and just went on the attack, wonder why? bit awkward for you?
PB Tories must be loving this red on pink Tory action.
I would like to see a non- Conservative Government, and I consider Johnson to be a scoundrel. That does not make me blind to faults on my side of argument. Blair's role as Bush's lapdog over Iraq was outrageous, and Starmer needs to pull his finger out if he plans any sort of centre-left revolution. However Corbyn was never a magic bullet to see the back of the Tories. His behaviour either directly or indirectly towards Luciana Berger for example was that of a xenophobic bully. Simply horrible. I would go on about the unrealistic spending plans, although events, and Boris Johnson have shot that argument down in flames.
Now go and harrass some proper Tories.
TBH Berger needed to go and was happy to see her go, Starmer has been a bastard to the left as well, quite frankly after the Labour right had spent several years 'trying to break Corbyn as a man' he decided to stop taking their crap. The man has the patience of a saint I would have snapped at those backstabbing Blairite bastards years before Corbyn and not listened to a word from any of those only determined to bring me down.
As for the rest we disagree but thanks for an answer.
The cure for such infighting must, of course, be more infighting.
Just caught up on the cricket. A pretty good day for India in terms of the score. But a pretty poor one with regards to their sportsmanship, umpiring and commentators.
About two thirds of care home staff have accepted the offer of a vaccine, Professor Anthony Harnden, the deputy chair of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation JCVI, said.
That's very disappointing number.
Given the demographics of the poorly paid, low credentialed jobs - inevitable.
It should clearly be compulsory to have the vaccine if you want to work in a care home.
If I was UnDictator* of Britain - Yes
What will you do about the 1/3rd of the staff who, almost certainly, don't want to take it?
*Anyone else remember this trope from the days of alt.history.what-if?
You have 6 weeks to change your mind or you're out of a job. That will get almost all of them over the line.
It would require an Act of Parliament since they're not under any contractual obligations.
No. What @MaxPB suggests is possible. There is a mechanism whereby anyone’s employment contract can be changed. Simplistically what you do is offer a new contract and give a deadline for acceptance. If they refuse you bring the old contract to an end (which is technically a dismissal) and immediately offer reengagement on the new terms. It’s a bit more complex than that procedurally, requiring consultation, but it can be a fair dismissal under the “some other substantial reason” head and, further, even if an unfair dismissal is found the damages are close to zero as the employee would have failed to mitigate their loss by refusing a new contract at the same salary.
The difficulties are (1) industrial action if sufficiently large numbers are involved and (2) a discrimination claim under the Equality Act. (1) would have zero public sympathy and (2) requires not having the vaccine to infringe ones religious or similar philosophical belief but such indirect discrimination I think is wholly justified.
MaxPB then suggested putting it in the Healthcare Bill which matches what I said, it's an issue for Parliament to address.
What you are suggesting is theoretically possible but it is not swift or timely or easily done. Have you ever been through the process of changing contracts with a workforce that doesn't want it changing? It's not exactly quick and easy, especially when the Home is dealing with all the stresses of the pandemic.
An Act of Parliament to put this as a public health requirement for the job short circuits the contractual issues and is far more realistic. Without that realistically the pandemic will be over before contracts are 100% switched over.
“Have you ever been the process of changing contracts with a workforce that doesn’t want it changing?”
Yes. Literally dozens of times. I’m an employment lawyer - it’s what I do for a living. Takes 45 days tops if done properly.
Fair enough then from a lawyer's perspective but most businesses aren't ran by HR lawyers. I've done it before from a small business perspective following legal advice and possibly were advised to move slowly and with precautions every step of the way. Possibly their risk profile wanting to ensure every i dotted and every t crossed but still.
Having to deal with lawyers tends to make businesses, especially smaller ones that don't have in house lawyers, act much more risk averse. Which is a bit of the point of the law in the first place.
If this is a public health issue then the government or PHE etc should take the lead on this to remove liability for changing contracts from the employers.
Any contract I've ever seen has provisos in it for meeting legal requirements or changes of the law so if the law is changed to require a vaccine in that role then that should surely square off contractual issues without months of wrangling and dealing with lawyers.
You’ve not been talking to the right employment lawyer. There’s no f**king way a relatively straightforward contractual change should take months. If the client is prepared to shoulder a bit more risk it should take a fortnight.
Well that risk issue is key then isn't it?
Our lawyers indemnified us so that if we followed their advice then they shouldered the risk, but then we had to do everything to their timescale. No letters could go to a staff member without them checking it first, if it did and wasn't their advice then it could void the indemnification.
Why should the clients be the ones shouldering the risk in this situation if it's a public health issue? Put it in the health bill and that lifts the risk from the clients.
You didn’t use Peninsular did you? Tell me you didn’t use Peninsula.
LOL!
No but probably a very similar company.
It's bad enough working with people who don't want to change terms and conditions - setting the law aside you still need to work with and rely upon these people every day. Doing so while taking on "risk" that you don't need to take - it's easy to become risk averse.
The problem with companies that indemnify you though is that you have to do exactly what they say to stay indemnified - whatever your internal risk profile. It’s employment law by numbers. There are a range of options and tactics you can take to change contracts (making a pay rise or promotion contingent on one for example) and a range of risk profiles, from near zero to suicidal, you can take also.
My take is that the more professional the average level of your employees, the less you want to do anything, let alone something as fundamental as their employment contract, by numbers.
With professionals tell them their promotion/pay rise/bonus is contingent on a new contract.
That brute force approach might work in the short-term to get the contract you want very quickly, but is unlikely to get the highest levels of performance, innovation, loyalty or retention as you'd really like.
Personally, I'd rather take extra time to know what they want to do, and mutually agree how they can do that while helping the company thrive. If the contractual change is something necessary for corporate well-being, that should be an easy sell unless they are already looking for any pretext to leave.
I am a blunt instrument kind of lawyer. In truth I tend to get called in when the kind of approach you outline has failed. Then I start making offers people can’t refuse.
The problem is that not every refusal to get the vaccine is the same so blanket approaches like offer a bonus don't work.
Eg I know of someone, care worker, refusing the vaccine because she's trying for a child and is scared that the vaccine could effect an unborn child, thalidomide style. She has been at the home for many years but point blank refuses the vaccine due to fears related to pregnancy. She's made sure everyone knows potential pregnancy is her reason for refusing.
If she was to be disciplined or fired for refusing the vaccine, having given potential pregnancy and her fears related to that as her reason, how much risk would you advise the employer would take over firing her?
It is a bit of a daft argument though. I'd think the vaccine would be better for the unborn child than actual Covid.
It is the same as those refusing to take the vaccine because 'it hasn't been tested properly'. It has been tested on well over 10m people now and whilst there have been some reactions, they really haven't been that serious. Covid has been tested on around 10m unvaccinated people in the UK and the results are there for everyone to see.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I'll be honest the part that makes it confusing for me is MexicanPete doesn't even really like the left, hell he doesn't even seem that enthused by the current right wing led Labour party which is spending its time prioritising kicking left wing people like me bringing back in members who wished left wing activists died in fires...
I mean if this right wing led thoroughly anti left wing Labour party is still too left wing for him why he is even arguing about his family being 'leftier than thou' (an argument he started) I didn't try and claim a more centrist existence or background than him!
Edit: I shouldn't be here recruiting but seriously the current leadership of the Labour party despise left wingers more than you could possibly dream, if you genuinely aren't a Tory shouldn't that be right up your street?
In the meantime this pointless bickering has lost the votes of many who had voted Labour their whole lives - including me. Take your arguments into a room, hammer out a position, and present it as a united front to the public. You two having this argument here and, to pick a random example, Oxford Uni Labour Society’s public pillorying of John McDonnell yesterday just make people think “I’m never going to be good enough for these people”. The right have their arguments too, but they are welcoming to converts. The left make it clear you cannot have any ideological skeletons whatsoever.
TBH neither me nor MexicanPete are Labour either, Labour lost my vote as well.
The Labour right decided purity was a useful attack line, the problem was the impossible standards they set have screwed absolutely everyone over.
The Campaign against anti Semitism. Just an anti left wing group really but the Labour right worked hard to help makes their accusations credible are now going after Angela Rayner, the member voted deputy leader, what the hell is Starmer supposed to do with that?
Lay down with dogs and you get fleas but as a now non Labour voter or member that isn't my problem.
On the basis of that last paragraph, you may well be Jeremy Corbyn. Good luck with your appeal against expulsion.
Actually Jezza is a member of the Labour party, the NEC restored the whip to him then Starmer had to personally withdraw the whip... and that perfectly planned stitch up where Starmer could feign innocence went out the window and Starmer had to take responsibility for his decision...
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I do apologise. It is not normally something I would feel obliged to share. However I decided to put the Jezziah's accusation of my public-school Tory-boy status to the sword. My own upbringing I would have to concede was nonetheless very comfortable. Does that necessarily make me a Tory?
This can get overthunk imo. You're a Tory (and for that matter a Leaver) if you voted Tory at GE19. That's my start point. That's the default. It can be set aside on a case by case basis but only if there were extremely extenuating circumstances, e.g. you'd lost your glasses and couldn't see the ballot paper properly.
That looks like a crude oversimplification. Are there really 13,966,451 Tories in the UK?
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I'll be honest the part that makes it confusing for me is MexicanPete doesn't even really like the left, hell he doesn't even seem that enthused by the current right wing led Labour party which is spending its time prioritising kicking left wing people like me bringing back in members who wished left wing activists died in fires...
I mean if this right wing led thoroughly anti left wing Labour party is still too left wing for him why he is even arguing about his family being 'leftier than thou' (an argument he started) I didn't try and claim a more centrist existence or background than him!
Edit: I shouldn't be here recruiting but seriously the current leadership of the Labour party despise left wingers more than MexicanPete could possibly dream, if you genuinely aren't a Tory shouldn't that be right up his street?
The single purpose of Jeremy Corbyn is to undermiine the Labour leadership, be that Starmer, Milliband, Brown, Blair or Kinnock, to perpetuate Conservative Governments. It has worked almost perfectly since 1979, except Blair blotted his copybook with Corbyn, not once but three times.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I'll be honest the part that makes it confusing for me is MexicanPete doesn't even really like the left, hell he doesn't even seem that enthused by the current right wing led Labour party which is spending its time prioritising kicking left wing people like me bringing back in members who wished left wing activists died in fires...
I mean if this right wing led thoroughly anti left wing Labour party is still too left wing for him why he is even arguing about his family being 'leftier than thou' (an argument he started) I didn't try and claim a more centrist existence or background than him!
Edit: I shouldn't be here recruiting but seriously the current leadership of the Labour party despise left wingers more than you could possibly dream, if you genuinely aren't a Tory shouldn't that be right up your street?
In the meantime this pointless bickering has lost the votes of many who had voted Labour their whole lives - including me. Take your arguments into a room, hammer out a position, and present it as a united front to the public. You two having this argument here and, to pick a random example, Oxford Uni Labour Society’s public pillorying of John McDonnell yesterday just make people think “I’m never going to be good enough for these people”. The right have their arguments too, but they are welcoming to converts. The left make it clear you cannot have any ideological skeletons whatsoever.
The extreme left within the Labour Party had a choice in April, to work constructively with Starmer or to undermine his leadership. They chose the latter from the very start. Starmer had no alternative but to act against first Long-Bailey and then more significantly Corbyn in response to their very specific provocations. What you are seeing play out is so far very much a rerun of the actions that Kinnock took against Militant in the 1980s. I don't think it's going to lead to many expulsions, because Momentum are not a "party within a party" in the same way that Militant were, but it clear that their members still see their loyalty first and foremost to Momentum rather than to the wider Labour Party.
The overwhelmingly public generally support Starmer's actions. IPSOS-Mori found that 48% think that Starmer has changed Labour for the better, and only 4% think the change is for the worse. Of the electorate who voted Labour in 2019, under Corbyn's leadership, the figures are 54% for the better and still only 8% for the worse.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
What's particularly funny about die-hard Labour supporters using it is that it's one of the most conservative forms of argument in existence, going back at least to the Bronze Age and probably well before it. It was old even when Glaucus and Diomedes met on the battlefield!
And then did the glorious son of Hippolochus address him: 'Great-hearted son of Tydeus, why pray do you ask my descent? As are the generations of leaves, such too are those of men: for the wind scatters some leaves upon the ground, but others the forest as it blooms puts forth anew, when the season of spring arrives. So does one generation of men flourish, while another passes away. But if you wish to learn these matters too, so that you may well know my lineage, so be it - and many men know it already ...
Thank goodness I didn't have a classical education.
Well, in this particular area you seem adept at replicating the tropes of Homeric rhetoric without needing one! Though shouldn't the grammar school you mentioned have done a bit of that?
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I do apologise. It is not normally something I would feel obliged to share. However I decided to put the Jezziah's accusation of my public-school Tory-boy status to the sword. My own upbringing I would have to concede was nonetheless very comfortable. Does that necessarily make me a Tory?
This can get overthunk imo. You're a Tory (and for that matter a Leaver) if you voted Tory at GE19. That's my start point. That's the default. It can be set aside on a case by case basis but only if there were extremely extenuating circumstances, e.g. you'd lost your glasses and couldn't see the ballot paper properly.
I am not sure what your argument is here.
Voting Conservative at a GE is on my bucket list, but once inside the polling booth, old habits die hard, and I am yet to fulfil that ambition.
On the matter of what Labour needs to do to make progress in the next election, and also bearing in mind some discussion of the Lib Dems last night - here's some information on where each party's priority targets are in 2024 (and yes, I know we've still got boundary change to come, but that shouldn't change the numbers radically.) For these purposes I count a marginal as being any seat available on a swing of 5% or less.
Labour - 56 targets
London: 4 Rest of South (SE, SW & East Anglia): 9 Midlands: 9 North: 21 Scotland: 4 Wales: 9
Incidentally, for the SNP every remaining uncaptured seat in Scotland is available on a swing of less than 5% save for Orkney & Shetland and Edinburgh South. Plaid Cymru has one such target, Ynys Mon.
Digging into the numbers tells you everything. The big battlefield for the main parties is the Red/Blue Wall - again. Labour needs to rebuild there to get back into the game; the Tories need to knock the rest over to get into landslide territory and properly brick Labour up inside the cities. The Lib Dems are now essentially a party for posh Southern Europhiles with a small Scottish Unionist branch.
I don't think it is widely understood how near Labour was to total disaster in northern England in 2019.
IIRC there are ten constituencies in Yorkshire alone where Labour's majority was below 3k.
It was perhaps to Labour's benefit that so many of the Conservative targets were historically unlikely meaning they didn't spread their aim wider allowing the BXP to hoover up potential voters.
Antibody treatments have been linked to severe mutations of the virus they two experts I've interviewed for our research on this have both said that the government and WHO should recommend that the treatment option no longer be used until the effect of antibody based treatments on mutations can be investigated properly.
Ultimately, it feels like you're looking for reasons to believe that the government has taken the wrong path because you want them to be wrong. On vaccines the government gets top marks and the small risks taken in delaying second doses looks like it's going to pay off hugely for us and for the world as it becomes the standard dosing regime to ensure more people are immunised in a shorter period of time.
What we should be doing is making more vaccines and making them faster, that's the only way out of this. Everything else is tinkering around the edges and I'm glad that the government has recognised this and is building ~800m annual manufacturing capacity in the UK to make vaccines.
I do think the decision not to proceed with the second Pfizer vaccination three weeks after the initial dose - as suggested by the manufacturers - was a gamble and it's paid off but I'm not going to strew rose petals in Johnson's path because of that - too many other mistakes have been made for one correct decision to be some kind of free pass.
Of course, more and better vaccines are coming down the line and that's to be expected - as Hancock suggested this morning, we will probably have to live with a larger vaccination programme than that for influenza (15 million) for a while until a vaccine is developed which provides longer protection.
As an aside, we need the whole world to get the vaccines they need as soon as possible - it's about so much more than petty points-scoring against the EU. As "Global Britain" it serves our needs to get as much of the global economy open as quickly as possible. That includes getting tourism moving again.
You're projecting your own views onto me. I haven't suggested that Boris or the government be given a free pass because they got vaccines right, it's little comfort for the families of the people who have died over the last year because of poor isolation, quarantine and testing.
Also, you brought up the EU, I didn't. Where in my post did you detect any point scoring on this? Even the government has had a very dignified response to all the EU vaccine posturing. You're projecting what you want to believe onto the actual situation. The UK has invested £3.5-4bn on vaccine procurement and production. That's going to help the whole world get out of this, our annual needs will be a maximum of 130m doses, we're going to be making 800m doses per year from 2022 onwards, that's 335m people from all over the world that will benefit from out government's decisions to invest in vaccine production. I'm proud of that, I think it does speak to "Global Britain" and I can only hope that other rich countries will build vaccine 5x more vaccine manufacturing capacity than they need for their own population.
Look at the local authorities at the bottom of that list, above the isolated Scottish islands, andwe have a list of local authorities in densely populated SE England that were badly hit by the Kent variant - starting with Canterbury, which borders Swale, where it started. Can someone give me a convincing explanation for that that doesn’t involve a degree of population immunity starting to show? It’s sure as hell not more compliance with restrictions than elsewhere.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I do apologise. It is not normally something I would feel obliged to share. However I decided to put the Jezziah's accusation of my public-school Tory-boy status to the sword. My own upbringing I would have to concede was nonetheless very comfortable. Does that necessarily make me a Tory?
Just to clarify again you did start the you should be in another party, you moved me to the left and I moved you to the right, if one is fine then so is the other, if one is objectionable then so is the other.
On a serious note I don't care if you came from a line of kings and princes or a line of beggars and thieves, plenty of good rich people and good poor people, plenty of crappy both. You might be lucky or privileged to have a comfortable upbringing but it isn't anything that makes you lesser or worse. There can be an argument about achievement being tougher for people for poorer backgrounds.
Also Tony Benn grew up pretty nicely a little bit before my time but his Iraq speech is awesome and I like plenty of other bits and pieces from him, doesn't come across as a Tory...
On the matter of what Labour needs to do to make progress in the next election, and also bearing in mind some discussion of the Lib Dems last night - here's some information on where each party's priority targets are in 2024 (and yes, I know we've still got boundary change to come, but that shouldn't change the numbers radically.) For these purposes I count a marginal as being any seat available on a swing of 5% or less.
Labour - 56 targets
London: 4 Rest of South (SE, SW & East Anglia): 9 Midlands: 9 North: 21 Scotland: 4 Wales: 9
Incidentally, for the SNP every remaining uncaptured seat in Scotland is available on a swing of less than 5% save for Orkney & Shetland and Edinburgh South. Plaid Cymru has one such target, Ynys Mon.
Digging into the numbers tells you everything. The big battlefield for the main parties is the Red/Blue Wall - again. Labour needs to rebuild there to get back into the game; the Tories need to knock the rest over to get into landslide territory and properly brick Labour up inside the cities. The Lib Dems are now essentially a party for posh Southern Europhiles with a small Scottish Unionist branch.
I don't think it is widely understood how near Labour was to total disaster in northern England in 2019.
IIRC there are ten constituencies in Yorkshire alone where Labour's majority was below 3k.
It was perhaps to Labour's benefit that so many of the Conservative targets were historically unlikely meaning they didn't spread their aim wider allowing the BXP to hoover up potential voters.
Yes, Labour weren't far away from something even worse. Their 30 most vulnerable defences after GE2019, with majorities under 3,000, are almost all in traditional heartland areas, principally in the North. The only Southern constituencies on that list are Bedford, Dagenham and Canterbury.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I do apologise. It is not normally something I would feel obliged to share. However I decided to put the Jezziah's accusation of my public-school Tory-boy status to the sword. My own upbringing I would have to concede was nonetheless very comfortable. Does that necessarily make me a Tory?
This can get overthunk imo. You're a Tory (and for that matter a Leaver) if you voted Tory at GE19. That's my start point. That's the default. It can be set aside on a case by case basis but only if there were extremely extenuating circumstances, e.g. you'd lost your glasses and couldn't see the ballot paper properly.
I am not sure what your argument is here.
Voting Conservative at a GE is on my bucket list, but once inside the polling booth, old habits die hard, and I am yet to fulfil that ambition.
It's not an argument it's just my working definition of a Tory - a person who voted Tory at the last election. As for you personally, I sense you will die with that most herculean of challenges unmet.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I do apologise. It is not normally something I would feel obliged to share. However I decided to put the Jezziah's accusation of my public-school Tory-boy status to the sword. My own upbringing I would have to concede was nonetheless very comfortable. Does that necessarily make me a Tory?
This can get overthunk imo. You're a Tory (and for that matter a Leaver) if you voted Tory at GE19. That's my start point. That's the default. It can be set aside on a case by case basis but only if there were extremely extenuating circumstances, e.g. you'd lost your glasses and couldn't see the ballot paper properly.
That looks like a crude oversimplification. Are there really 13,966,451 Tories in the UK?
Only pure Ikarrans socialists are to be allowed in the Vanguard! Of! The! Revolution! Comrade!.
Look at the local authorities at the bottom of that list, above the isolated Scottish islands, andwe have a list of local authorities in densely populated SE England that were badly hit by the Kent variant - starting with Canterbury, which borders Swale, where it started. Can someone give me a convincing explanation for that that doesn’t involve a degree of population immunity starting to show? It’s sure as hell not more compliance with restrictions than elsewhere.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
What's particularly funny about die-hard Labour supporters using it is that it's one of the most conservative forms of argument in existence, going back at least to the Bronze Age and probably well before it. It was old even when Glaucus and Diomedes met on the battlefield!
And then did the glorious son of Hippolochus address him: 'Great-hearted son of Tydeus, why pray do you ask my descent? As are the generations of leaves, such too are those of men: for the wind scatters some leaves upon the ground, but others the forest as it blooms puts forth anew, when the season of spring arrives. So does one generation of men flourish, while another passes away. But if you wish to learn these matters too, so that you may well know my lineage, so be it - and many men know it already ...
Thank goodness I didn't have a classical education.
Well, in this particular area you seem adept at replicating the tropes of Homeric rhetoric without needing one! Though shouldn't the grammar school you mentioned have done a bit of that?
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I do apologise. It is not normally something I would feel obliged to share. However I decided to put the Jezziah's accusation of my public-school Tory-boy status to the sword. My own upbringing I would have to concede was nonetheless very comfortable. Does that necessarily make me a Tory?
This can get overthunk imo. You're a Tory (and for that matter a Leaver) if you voted Tory at GE19. That's my start point. That's the default. It can be set aside on a case by case basis but only if there were extremely extenuating circumstances, e.g. you'd lost your glasses and couldn't see the ballot paper properly.
That looks like a crude oversimplification. Are there really 13,966,451 Tories in the UK?
Yes. And it's not crude - it's a bullshit strainer.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I do apologise. It is not normally something I would feel obliged to share. However I decided to put the Jezziah's accusation of my public-school Tory-boy status to the sword. My own upbringing I would have to concede was nonetheless very comfortable. Does that necessarily make me a Tory?
This can get overthunk imo. You're a Tory (and for that matter a Leaver) if you voted Tory at GE19. That's my start point. That's the default. It can be set aside on a case by case basis but only if there were extremely extenuating circumstances, e.g. you'd lost your glasses and couldn't see the ballot paper properly.
That looks like a crude oversimplification. Are there really 13,966,451 Tories in the UK?
Sounds like the old Jeff Foxworthy skit, "If you've ever x, you might be a redneck"
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I'll be honest the part that makes it confusing for me is MexicanPete doesn't even really like the left, hell he doesn't even seem that enthused by the current right wing led Labour party which is spending its time prioritising kicking left wing people like me bringing back in members who wished left wing activists died in fires...
I mean if this right wing led thoroughly anti left wing Labour party is still too left wing for him why he is even arguing about his family being 'leftier than thou' (an argument he started) I didn't try and claim a more centrist existence or background than him!
Edit: I shouldn't be here recruiting but seriously the current leadership of the Labour party despise left wingers more than MexicanPete could possibly dream, if you genuinely aren't a Tory shouldn't that be right up his street?
The single purpose of Jeremy Corbyn is to undermiine the Labour leadership, be that Starmer, Milliband, Brown, Blair or Kinnock, to perpetuate Conservative Governments. It has worked almost perfectly since 1979, except Blair blotted his copybook with Corbyn, not once but three times.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I'll be honest the part that makes it confusing for me is MexicanPete doesn't even really like the left, hell he doesn't even seem that enthused by the current right wing led Labour party which is spending its time prioritising kicking left wing people like me bringing back in members who wished left wing activists died in fires...
I mean if this right wing led thoroughly anti left wing Labour party is still too left wing for him why he is even arguing about his family being 'leftier than thou' (an argument he started) I didn't try and claim a more centrist existence or background than him!
Edit: I shouldn't be here recruiting but seriously the current leadership of the Labour party despise left wingers more than you could possibly dream, if you genuinely aren't a Tory shouldn't that be right up your street?
In the meantime this pointless bickering has lost the votes of many who had voted Labour their whole lives - including me. Take your arguments into a room, hammer out a position, and present it as a united front to the public. You two having this argument here and, to pick a random example, Oxford Uni Labour Society’s public pillorying of John McDonnell yesterday just make people think “I’m never going to be good enough for these people”. The right have their arguments too, but they are welcoming to converts. The left make it clear you cannot have any ideological skeletons whatsoever.
The extreme left within the Labour Party had a choice in April, to work constructively with Starmer or to undermine his leadership. They chose the latter from the very start. Starmer had no alternative but to act against first Long-Bailey and then more significantly Corbyn in response to their very specific provocations. What you are seeing play out is so far very much a rerun of the actions that Kinnock took against Militant in the 1980s. I don't think it's going to lead to many expulsions, because Momentum are not a "party within a party" in the same way that Militant were, but it clear that their members still see their loyalty first and foremost to Momentum rather than to the wider Labour Party.
The overwhelmingly public generally support Starmer's actions. IPSOS-Mori found that 48% think that Starmer has changed Labour for the better, and only 4% think the change is for the worse. Of the electorate who voted Labour in 2019, under Corbyn's leadership, the figures are 54% for the better and still only 8% for the worse.
They made a big push of those figures but if the net result of improving the party is not improving the parties electoral fortunes what is the point?
The party is going backwards in polls. I mean if for example Tories who don't plan on voting Labour are happy Starmer is attacking the left whilst people who do vote Labour aren't and thus plan on stopping voting Labour then it is actually counter productive...
Lots of Tories on here who have no plans at all to vote Labour will think the party has improved because they are attacking the left and moving right but if they aren't actually voting for you then it doesn't help.
These polling numbers in conjunction with Labour voting numbers moving in the right direction would indicate Starmer's approach is working. What seems to be happening instead is he is pleasing people who aren't voting Labour but annoying people who were voting Labour.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I do apologise. It is not normally something I would feel obliged to share. However I decided to put the Jezziah's accusation of my public-school Tory-boy status to the sword. My own upbringing I would have to concede was nonetheless very comfortable. Does that necessarily make me a Tory?
This can get overthunk imo. You're a Tory (and for that matter a Leaver) if you voted Tory at GE19. That's my start point. That's the default. It can be set aside on a case by case basis but only if there were extremely extenuating circumstances, e.g. you'd lost your glasses and couldn't see the ballot paper properly.
That looks like a crude oversimplification. Are there really 13,966,451 Tories in the UK?
Yes. And it's not crude - it's a bullshit strainer.
It's extremely silly. Labour isn't entitled to take the loyalty of its voters for granted.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I do apologise. It is not normally something I would feel obliged to share. However I decided to put the Jezziah's accusation of my public-school Tory-boy status to the sword. My own upbringing I would have to concede was nonetheless very comfortable. Does that necessarily make me a Tory?
This can get overthunk imo. You're a Tory (and for that matter a Leaver) if you voted Tory at GE19. That's my start point. That's the default. It can be set aside on a case by case basis but only if there were extremely extenuating circumstances, e.g. you'd lost your glasses and couldn't see the ballot paper properly.
That looks like a crude oversimplification. Are there really 13,966,451 Tories in the UK?
Sounds like the old Jeff Foxworthy skit, "If you've ever x, you might be a redneck"
That's a funny sketch. But my definition of a Tory is actually not like that at all. The opposite really. It's very simple and specific. A list with one item.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I'll be honest the part that makes it confusing for me is MexicanPete doesn't even really like the left, hell he doesn't even seem that enthused by the current right wing led Labour party which is spending its time prioritising kicking left wing people like me bringing back in members who wished left wing activists died in fires...
I mean if this right wing led thoroughly anti left wing Labour party is still too left wing for him why he is even arguing about his family being 'leftier than thou' (an argument he started) I didn't try and claim a more centrist existence or background than him!
Edit: I shouldn't be here recruiting but seriously the current leadership of the Labour party despise left wingers more than MexicanPete could possibly dream, if you genuinely aren't a Tory shouldn't that be right up his street?
The single purpose of Jeremy Corbyn is to undermiine the Labour leadership, be that Starmer, Milliband, Brown, Blair or Kinnock, to perpetuate Conservative Governments. It has worked almost perfectly since 1979, except Blair blotted his copybook with Corbyn, not once but three times.
That would make sense if Corbyn had done 1,000th of what the Labour right did to him during his leadership. The entire point of the Labour right has been to help the Conservatives, they do it election after election because the party isn't enough like the Conservatives for the liking...
They didn't just do it to Corbyn, they did it to Ed as well, constant briefing that helped push Ed so far to the right he made an offer not worth voting for. After the 2017 election he said he should have offered that manifesto, that extremely popular vote winning manifesto that back in 2015 could have been enough to make the difference...
Why couldn't Ed present a left wing manifesto that would have been in line with his views as leader of the Labour party?
The Tories best friend, the Labour right, there to give them a helping hand when they need it, don't worry David we'll stop Ed offering anything appealing so you can win and we can replace him with Blair mark 2.
I notice you avoided the question and just went on the attack, wonder why? bit awkward for you?
PB Tories must be loving this red on pink Tory action.
I would like to see a non- Conservative Government, and I consider Johnson to be a scoundrel. That does not make me blind to faults on my side of argument. Blair's role as Bush's lapdog over Iraq was outrageous, and Starmer needs to pull his finger out if he plans any sort of centre-left revolution. However Corbyn was never a magic bullet to see the back of the Tories. His behaviour either directly or indirectly towards Luciana Berger for example was that of a xenophobic bully. Simply horrible. I would go on about the unrealistic spending plans, although events, and Boris Johnson have shot that argument down in flames.
Now go and harrass some proper Tories.
As a Tory can I say it is good news for us if it's happening in the party but it is stultifyingly boring on here. Just as bad when our side does it too. Those endless Hyufd v the rest threads. Ugh! All utterly and stupidly self-indulgent twaddle.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
What's particularly funny about die-hard Labour supporters using it is that it's one of the most conservative forms of argument in existence, going back at least to the Bronze Age and probably well before it. It was old even when Glaucus and Diomedes met on the battlefield!
And then did the glorious son of Hippolochus address him: 'Great-hearted son of Tydeus, why pray do you ask my descent? As are the generations of leaves, such too are those of men: for the wind scatters some leaves upon the ground, but others the forest as it blooms puts forth anew, when the season of spring arrives. So does one generation of men flourish, while another passes away. But if you wish to learn these matters too, so that you may well know my lineage, so be it - and many men know it already ...
Thank goodness I didn't have a classical education.
Well, in this particular area you seem adept at replicating the tropes of Homeric rhetoric without needing one! Though shouldn't the grammar school you mentioned have done a bit of that?
It wasn't a very good Grammar School.
That's a pity. Underneath my usual wryness, I did find the antique nature of the exchange between you and the Jezziah genuinely fascinating - for most people, that kind of thing really only exists in books now, and yet here are two 21st-century Britons carrying it on at length, in detail, and in all apparent seriousness.
Look at the local authorities at the bottom of that list, above the isolated Scottish islands, andwe have a list of local authorities in densely populated SE England that were badly hit by the Kent variant - starting with Canterbury, which borders Swale, where it started. Can someone give me a convincing explanation for that that doesn’t involve a degree of population immunity starting to show? It’s sure as hell not more compliance with restrictions than elsewhere.
The antibody survey from the ONS suggest not.
But that does not discount population immunity by other routes. I read of a study in the autumn that suggested SARS-CoV-2-reactive T cells were also identified in about 40 to 60% of unexposed individuals, suggesting cross-reactive T cell recognition between circulating ‘‘common cold’’ coronaviruses and SARS-CoV-2.
Anyway, even if there is not, I am still searching for other explanations.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I do apologise. It is not normally something I would feel obliged to share. However I decided to put the Jezziah's accusation of my public-school Tory-boy status to the sword. My own upbringing I would have to concede was nonetheless very comfortable. Does that necessarily make me a Tory?
This can get overthunk imo. You're a Tory (and for that matter a Leaver) if you voted Tory at GE19. That's my start point. That's the default. It can be set aside on a case by case basis but only if there were extremely extenuating circumstances, e.g. you'd lost your glasses and couldn't see the ballot paper properly.
That looks like a crude oversimplification. Are there really 13,966,451 Tories in the UK?
Only pure Ikarrans socialists are to be allowed in the Vanguard! Of! The! Revolution! Comrade!.
Ho ho. But actually the very opposite. I want to minimize the number of Tories in the country. Like, next time, I hope there's just the 10m or so.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I do apologise. It is not normally something I would feel obliged to share. However I decided to put the Jezziah's accusation of my public-school Tory-boy status to the sword. My own upbringing I would have to concede was nonetheless very comfortable. Does that necessarily make me a Tory?
This can get overthunk imo. You're a Tory (and for that matter a Leaver) if you voted Tory at GE19. That's my start point. That's the default. It can be set aside on a case by case basis but only if there were extremely extenuating circumstances, e.g. you'd lost your glasses and couldn't see the ballot paper properly.
That looks like a crude oversimplification. Are there really 13,966,451 Tories in the UK?
Yes. And it's not crude - it's a bullshit strainer.
It's extremely silly. Labour isn't entitled to take the loyalty of its voters for granted.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I'll be honest the part that makes it confusing for me is MexicanPete doesn't even really like the left, hell he doesn't even seem that enthused by the current right wing led Labour party which is spending its time prioritising kicking left wing people like me bringing back in members who wished left wing activists died in fires...
I mean if this right wing led thoroughly anti left wing Labour party is still too left wing for him why he is even arguing about his family being 'leftier than thou' (an argument he started) I didn't try and claim a more centrist existence or background than him!
Edit: I shouldn't be here recruiting but seriously the current leadership of the Labour party despise left wingers more than MexicanPete could possibly dream, if you genuinely aren't a Tory shouldn't that be right up his street?
The single purpose of Jeremy Corbyn is to undermiine the Labour leadership, be that Starmer, Milliband, Brown, Blair or Kinnock, to perpetuate Conservative Governments. It has worked almost perfectly since 1979, except Blair blotted his copybook with Corbyn, not once but three times.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I'll be honest the part that makes it confusing for me is MexicanPete doesn't even really like the left, hell he doesn't even seem that enthused by the current right wing led Labour party which is spending its time prioritising kicking left wing people like me bringing back in members who wished left wing activists died in fires...
I mean if this right wing led thoroughly anti left wing Labour party is still too left wing for him why he is even arguing about his family being 'leftier than thou' (an argument he started) I didn't try and claim a more centrist existence or background than him!
Edit: I shouldn't be here recruiting but seriously the current leadership of the Labour party despise left wingers more than you could possibly dream, if you genuinely aren't a Tory shouldn't that be right up your street?
In the meantime this pointless bickering has lost the votes of many who had voted Labour their whole lives - including me. Take your arguments into a room, hammer out a position, and present it as a united front to the public. You two having this argument here and, to pick a random example, Oxford Uni Labour Society’s public pillorying of John McDonnell yesterday just make people think “I’m never going to be good enough for these people”. The right have their arguments too, but they are welcoming to converts. The left make it clear you cannot have any ideological skeletons whatsoever.
The extreme left within the Labour Party had a choice in April, to work constructively with Starmer or to undermine his leadership. They chose the latter from the very start. Starmer had no alternative but to act against first Long-Bailey and then more significantly Corbyn in response to their very specific provocations. What you are seeing play out is so far very much a rerun of the actions that Kinnock took against Militant in the 1980s. I don't think it's going to lead to many expulsions, because Momentum are not a "party within a party" in the same way that Militant were, but it clear that their members still see their loyalty first and foremost to Momentum rather than to the wider Labour Party.
The overwhelmingly public generally support Starmer's actions. IPSOS-Mori found that 48% think that Starmer has changed Labour for the better, and only 4% think the change is for the worse. Of the electorate who voted Labour in 2019, under Corbyn's leadership, the figures are 54% for the better and still only 8% for the worse.
They made a big push of those figures but if the net result of improving the party is not improving the parties electoral fortunes what is the point?
The party is going backwards in polls. I mean if for example Tories who don't plan on voting Labour are happy Starmer is attacking the left whilst people who do vote Labour aren't and thus plan on stopping voting Labour then it is actually counter productive...
Lots of Tories on here who have no plans at all to vote Labour will think the party has improved because they are attacking the left and moving right but if they aren't actually voting for you then it doesn't help.
These polling numbers in conjunction with Labour voting numbers moving in the right direction would indicate Starmer's approach is working. What seems to be happening instead is he is pleasing people who aren't voting Labour but annoying people who were voting Labour.
The figures speak for themselves. As does your attempt to rubbish such an overwhelmingly conclusive poll.
Actually Jezza is a member of the Labour party, the NEC restored the whip to him then Starmer had to personally withdraw the whip... and that perfectly planned stitch up where Starmer could feign innocence went out the window and Starmer had to take responsibility for his decision...
Don't listen to @Yorkcity -- I am very interested to hear your views. You (or anyone else) is welcome to "dominate the site all day" in his terminology.
In posting on pb.com, it is important to remember its peculiar demographics.
Oh yes, there is a good mix of red-blooded Socialists and Liberals here, but they enjoy their Sunday dinner with a Jereboam ... and not Jeremy.
It is often quite modest -- just Oysters Rockefeller to start, or a clear consomme, followed by Striploin Wagyu beef steak with a very good bottle & creme brulee to finish.
In fact, the site is at its most amusing when it functions as a fashion, drink and food blog -- bespoke tailoring, high-end restaurants & best apres-ski in Courchevel or Zermatt, etc.
In truth, the Tory/LibDem posters often start the discussion, but what passes for the Left usually joins in with gusto.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I'll be honest the part that makes it confusing for me is MexicanPete doesn't even really like the left, hell he doesn't even seem that enthused by the current right wing led Labour party which is spending its time prioritising kicking left wing people like me bringing back in members who wished left wing activists died in fires...
I mean if this right wing led thoroughly anti left wing Labour party is still too left wing for him why he is even arguing about his family being 'leftier than thou' (an argument he started) I didn't try and claim a more centrist existence or background than him!
Edit: I shouldn't be here recruiting but seriously the current leadership of the Labour party despise left wingers more than MexicanPete could possibly dream, if you genuinely aren't a Tory shouldn't that be right up his street?
The single purpose of Jeremy Corbyn is to undermiine the Labour leadership, be that Starmer, Milliband, Brown, Blair or Kinnock, to perpetuate Conservative Governments. It has worked almost perfectly since 1979, except Blair blotted his copybook with Corbyn, not once but three times.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I'll be honest the part that makes it confusing for me is MexicanPete doesn't even really like the left, hell he doesn't even seem that enthused by the current right wing led Labour party which is spending its time prioritising kicking left wing people like me bringing back in members who wished left wing activists died in fires...
I mean if this right wing led thoroughly anti left wing Labour party is still too left wing for him why he is even arguing about his family being 'leftier than thou' (an argument he started) I didn't try and claim a more centrist existence or background than him!
Edit: I shouldn't be here recruiting but seriously the current leadership of the Labour party despise left wingers more than you could possibly dream, if you genuinely aren't a Tory shouldn't that be right up your street?
In the meantime this pointless bickering has lost the votes of many who had voted Labour their whole lives - including me. Take your arguments into a room, hammer out a position, and present it as a united front to the public. You two having this argument here and, to pick a random example, Oxford Uni Labour Society’s public pillorying of John McDonnell yesterday just make people think “I’m never going to be good enough for these people”. The right have their arguments too, but they are welcoming to converts. The left make it clear you cannot have any ideological skeletons whatsoever.
The extreme left within the Labour Party had a choice in April, to work constructively with Starmer or to undermine his leadership. They chose the latter from the very start. Starmer had no alternative but to act against first Long-Bailey and then more significantly Corbyn in response to their very specific provocations. What you are seeing play out is so far very much a rerun of the actions that Kinnock took against Militant in the 1980s. I don't think it's going to lead to many expulsions, because Momentum are not a "party within a party" in the same way that Militant were, but it clear that their members still see their loyalty first and foremost to Momentum rather than to the wider Labour Party.
The overwhelmingly public generally support Starmer's actions. IPSOS-Mori found that 48% think that Starmer has changed Labour for the better, and only 4% think the change is for the worse. Of the electorate who voted Labour in 2019, under Corbyn's leadership, the figures are 54% for the better and still only 8% for the worse.
They made a big push of those figures but if the net result of improving the party is not improving the parties electoral fortunes what is the point?
The party is going backwards in polls. I mean if for example Tories who don't plan on voting Labour are happy Starmer is attacking the left whilst people who do vote Labour aren't and thus plan on stopping voting Labour then it is actually counter productive...
Lots of Tories on here who have no plans at all to vote Labour will think the party has improved because they are attacking the left and moving right but if they aren't actually voting for you then it doesn't help.
These polling numbers in conjunction with Labour voting numbers moving in the right direction would indicate Starmer's approach is working. What seems to be happening instead is he is pleasing people who aren't voting Labour but annoying people who were voting Labour.
This is a risk. Certainly we are never short on here of advice to Labour from Tories (my definition thereof). But we need to see how the locals go. That's real votes, flesh & blood units, pencils on paper.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I'll be honest the part that makes it confusing for me is MexicanPete doesn't even really like the left, hell he doesn't even seem that enthused by the current right wing led Labour party which is spending its time prioritising kicking left wing people like me bringing back in members who wished left wing activists died in fires...
I mean if this right wing led thoroughly anti left wing Labour party is still too left wing for him why he is even arguing about his family being 'leftier than thou' (an argument he started) I didn't try and claim a more centrist existence or background than him!
Edit: I shouldn't be here recruiting but seriously the current leadership of the Labour party despise left wingers more than MexicanPete could possibly dream, if you genuinely aren't a Tory shouldn't that be right up his street?
The single purpose of Jeremy Corbyn is to undermiine the Labour leadership, be that Starmer, Milliband, Brown, Blair or Kinnock, to perpetuate Conservative Governments. It has worked almost perfectly since 1979, except Blair blotted his copybook with Corbyn, not once but three times.
That would make sense if Corbyn had done 1,000th of what the Labour right did to him during his leadership. The entire point of the Labour right has been to help the Conservatives, they do it election after election because the party isn't enough like the Conservatives for the liking...
They didn't just do it to Corbyn, they did it to Ed as well, constant briefing that helped push Ed so far to the right he made an offer not worth voting for. After the 2017 election he said he should have offered that manifesto, that extremely popular vote winning manifesto that back in 2015 could have been enough to make the difference...
Why couldn't Ed present a left wing manifesto that would have been in line with his views as leader of the Labour party?
The Tories best friend, the Labour right, there to give them a helping hand when they need it, don't worry David we'll stop Ed offering anything appealing so you can win and we can replace him with Blair mark 2.
I notice you avoided the question and just went on the attack, wonder why? bit awkward for you?
PB Tories must be loving this red on pink Tory action.
I would like to see a non- Conservative Government, and I consider Johnson to be a scoundrel. That does not make me blind to faults on my side of argument. Blair's role as Bush's lapdog over Iraq was outrageous, and Starmer needs to pull his finger out if he plans any sort of centre-left revolution. However Corbyn was never a magic bullet to see the back of the Tories. His behaviour either directly or indirectly towards Luciana Berger for example was that of a xenophobic bully. Simply horrible. I would go on about the unrealistic spending plans, although events, and Boris Johnson have shot that argument down in flames.
Now go and harrass some proper Tories.
As a Tory can I say it is good news for us if it's happening in the party but it is stultifyingly boring on here. Just as bad when our side does it too. Those endless Hyufd v the rest threads. Ugh! All utterly and stupidly self-indulgent twaddle.
I thought it a private dispute between myself and Mr Corbyn.
Look at the local authorities at the bottom of that list, above the isolated Scottish islands, andwe have a list of local authorities in densely populated SE England that were badly hit by the Kent variant - starting with Canterbury, which borders Swale, where it started. Can someone give me a convincing explanation for that that doesn’t involve a degree of population immunity starting to show? It’s sure as hell not more compliance with restrictions than elsewhere.
The antibody survey from the ONS suggest not.
I have serious issues with the ONS antibody surveys as people treat them as a gold standard. Unfortunately they aren't becuase they don't look for t-cell immunity. Neutralising antibodiesay fade pretty fast, someone infected in the first wave wouldn't now show up with antibodies to a detectable level for the ONS survey but it doesn't mean they have no immunity. If their t-cells are still able to recognise the virus then it could result in reinfection causing very mild or no symptoms for someone who would show up as negative for antibodies in current surveys.
Unfortunately there's no easy way to test people for specific t-cell response like we can with antibodies. It does, however, lessen the value of the ONS immunity survey.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I do apologise. It is not normally something I would feel obliged to share. However I decided to put the Jezziah's accusation of my public-school Tory-boy status to the sword. My own upbringing I would have to concede was nonetheless very comfortable. Does that necessarily make me a Tory?
This can get overthunk imo. You're a Tory (and for that matter a Leaver) if you voted Tory at GE19. That's my start point. That's the default. It can be set aside on a case by case basis but only if there were extremely extenuating circumstances, e.g. you'd lost your glasses and couldn't see the ballot paper properly.
That looks like a crude oversimplification. Are there really 13,966,451 Tories in the UK?
Yes. And it's not crude - it's a bullshit strainer.
It's extremely silly. Labour isn't entitled to take the loyalty of its voters for granted.
How am I saying that?
The voters change sides, they get written off as "Tories," which is evidently a form of insult. The Lab-Con defectors aren't all Tories, they're people who have given up on Labour. That's not the same thing at all.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
What's particularly funny about die-hard Labour supporters using it is that it's one of the most conservative forms of argument in existence, going back at least to the Bronze Age and probably well before it. It was old even when Glaucus and Diomedes met on the battlefield!
And then did the glorious son of Hippolochus address him: 'Great-hearted son of Tydeus, why pray do you ask my descent? As are the generations of leaves, such too are those of men: for the wind scatters some leaves upon the ground, but others the forest as it blooms puts forth anew, when the season of spring arrives. So does one generation of men flourish, while another passes away. But if you wish to learn these matters too, so that you may well know my lineage, so be it - and many men know it already ...
Thank goodness I didn't have a classical education.
Well, in this particular area you seem adept at replicating the tropes of Homeric rhetoric without needing one! Though shouldn't the grammar school you mentioned have done a bit of that?
It wasn't a very good Grammar School.
That's a pity. Underneath my usual wryness, I did find the antique nature of the exchange between you and the Jezziah genuinely fascinating - for most people, that kind of thing really only exists in books now, and yet here are two 21st-century Britons carrying it on at length, in detail, and in all apparent seriousness.
Perhaps a little naval gazing by some of the Boris ramping posters might provide them with a little enlightenment.
Look at the local authorities at the bottom of that list, above the isolated Scottish islands, andwe have a list of local authorities in densely populated SE England that were badly hit by the Kent variant - starting with Canterbury, which borders Swale, where it started. Can someone give me a convincing explanation for that that doesn’t involve a degree of population immunity starting to show? It’s sure as hell not more compliance with restrictions than elsewhere.
The antibody survey from the ONS suggest not.
I have serious issues with the ONS antibody surveys as people treat them as a gold standard. Unfortunately they aren't becuase they don't look for t-cell immunity. Neutralising antibodiesay fade pretty fast, someone infected in the first wave wouldn't now show up with antibodies to a detectable level for the ONS survey but it doesn't mean they have no immunity. If their t-cells are still able to recognise the virus then it could result in reinfection causing very mild or no symptoms for someone who would show up as negative for antibodies in current surveys.
Unfortunately there's no easy way to test people for specific t-cell response like we can with antibodies. It does, however, lessen the value of the ONS immunity survey.
Has there been any published work on trying to test for a t-cell response?
Look at the local authorities at the bottom of that list, above the isolated Scottish islands, andwe have a list of local authorities in densely populated SE England that were badly hit by the Kent variant - starting with Canterbury, which borders Swale, where it started. Can someone give me a convincing explanation for that that doesn’t involve a degree of population immunity starting to show? It’s sure as hell not more compliance with restrictions than elsewhere.
The antibody survey from the ONS suggest not.
I have serious issues with the ONS antibody surveys as people treat them as a gold standard. Unfortunately they aren't becuase they don't look for t-cell immunity. Neutralising antibodiesay fade pretty fast, someone infected in the first wave wouldn't now show up with antibodies to a detectable level for the ONS survey but it doesn't mean they have no immunity. If their t-cells are still able to recognise the virus then it could result in reinfection causing very mild or no symptoms for someone who would show up as negative for antibodies in current surveys.
Unfortunately there's no easy way to test people for specific t-cell response like we can with antibodies. It does, however, lessen the value of the ONS immunity survey.
Has there been any published work on trying to test for a t-cell response?
Yes, pharmaceutical trials do it all the time, but it is very expensive and time consuming, by the time the ONS have done the research it will be well out of date. It's still worth doing though.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
What's particularly funny about die-hard Labour supporters using it is that it's one of the most conservative forms of argument in existence, going back at least to the Bronze Age and probably well before it. It was old even when Glaucus and Diomedes met on the battlefield!
And then did the glorious son of Hippolochus address him: 'Great-hearted son of Tydeus, why pray do you ask my descent? As are the generations of leaves, such too are those of men: for the wind scatters some leaves upon the ground, but others the forest as it blooms puts forth anew, when the season of spring arrives. So does one generation of men flourish, while another passes away. But if you wish to learn these matters too, so that you may well know my lineage, so be it - and many men know it already ...
Thank goodness I didn't have a classical education.
Well, in this particular area you seem adept at replicating the tropes of Homeric rhetoric without needing one! Though shouldn't the grammar school you mentioned have done a bit of that?
It wasn't a very good Grammar School.
That's a pity. Underneath my usual wryness, I did find the antique nature of the exchange between you and the Jezziah genuinely fascinating - for most people, that kind of thing really only exists in books now, and yet here are two 21st-century Britons carrying it on at length, in detail, and in all apparent seriousness.
Perhaps a little naval gazing by some of the Boris ramping posters might provide them with a little enlightenment.
I tried that once, but in the (slightly apocryphal) words of Admiral Nelson, I saw no ships...
Look at the local authorities at the bottom of that list, above the isolated Scottish islands, andwe have a list of local authorities in densely populated SE England that were badly hit by the Kent variant - starting with Canterbury, which borders Swale, where it started. Can someone give me a convincing explanation for that that doesn’t involve a degree of population immunity starting to show? It’s sure as hell not more compliance with restrictions than elsewhere.
The antibody survey from the ONS suggest not.
I have serious issues with the ONS antibody surveys as people treat them as a gold standard. Unfortunately they aren't becuase they don't look for t-cell immunity. Neutralising antibodiesay fade pretty fast, someone infected in the first wave wouldn't now show up with antibodies to a detectable level for the ONS survey but it doesn't mean they have no immunity. If their t-cells are still able to recognise the virus then it could result in reinfection causing very mild or no symptoms for someone who would show up as negative for antibodies in current surveys.
Unfortunately there's no easy way to test people for specific t-cell response like we can with antibodies. It does, however, lessen the value of the ONS immunity survey.
Neil Ferguson, not noted for his sunny disposition on such matters, certainly implied that London was close as a result of T-Cells and vaccination.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
What's particularly funny about die-hard Labour supporters using it is that it's one of the most conservative forms of argument in existence, going back at least to the Bronze Age and probably well before it. It was old even when Glaucus and Diomedes met on the battlefield!
And then did the glorious son of Hippolochus address him: 'Great-hearted son of Tydeus, why pray do you ask my descent? As are the generations of leaves, such too are those of men: for the wind scatters some leaves upon the ground, but others the forest as it blooms puts forth anew, when the season of spring arrives. So does one generation of men flourish, while another passes away. But if you wish to learn these matters too, so that you may well know my lineage, so be it - and many men know it already ...
Thank goodness I didn't have a classical education.
Well, in this particular area you seem adept at replicating the tropes of Homeric rhetoric without needing one! Though shouldn't the grammar school you mentioned have done a bit of that?
It wasn't a very good Grammar School.
That's a pity. Underneath my usual wryness, I did find the antique nature of the exchange between you and the Jezziah genuinely fascinating - for most people, that kind of thing really only exists in books now, and yet here are two 21st-century Britons carrying it on at length, in detail, and in all apparent seriousness.
Perhaps a little naval gazing by some of the Boris ramping posters might provide them with a little enlightenment.
I tried that once, but in the words of Admiral Nelson, I saw no ships...
Look at the local authorities at the bottom of that list, above the isolated Scottish islands, andwe have a list of local authorities in densely populated SE England that were badly hit by the Kent variant - starting with Canterbury, which borders Swale, where it started. Can someone give me a convincing explanation for that that doesn’t involve a degree of population immunity starting to show? It’s sure as hell not more compliance with restrictions than elsewhere.
The antibody survey from the ONS suggest not.
I have serious issues with the ONS antibody surveys as people treat them as a gold standard. Unfortunately they aren't becuase they don't look for t-cell immunity. Neutralising antibodiesay fade pretty fast, someone infected in the first wave wouldn't now show up with antibodies to a detectable level for the ONS survey but it doesn't mean they have no immunity. If their t-cells are still able to recognise the virus then it could result in reinfection causing very mild or no symptoms for someone who would show up as negative for antibodies in current surveys.
Unfortunately there's no easy way to test people for specific t-cell response like we can with antibodies. It does, however, lessen the value of the ONS immunity survey.
Neil Ferguson, not noted for his sunny disposition on such matters, certainly implied that London was close as a result of T-Cells and vaccination.
Yes, I think we may hit herd immunity a lot faster than expected in some areas. Especially those particularly hard hit by the Kent variant. I'd love to see the ONS do random sampling of t-cell immunity to COVID for under 50s, in some areas more than 40-50% may already have it meaning the vaccine programme is going to be high effective from just the first dose.
Look at the local authorities at the bottom of that list, above the isolated Scottish islands, andwe have a list of local authorities in densely populated SE England that were badly hit by the Kent variant - starting with Canterbury, which borders Swale, where it started. Can someone give me a convincing explanation for that that doesn’t involve a degree of population immunity starting to show? It’s sure as hell not more compliance with restrictions than elsewhere.
The antibody survey from the ONS suggest not.
I have serious issues with the ONS antibody surveys as people treat them as a gold standard. Unfortunately they aren't becuase they don't look for t-cell immunity. Neutralising antibodiesay fade pretty fast, someone infected in the first wave wouldn't now show up with antibodies to a detectable level for the ONS survey but it doesn't mean they have no immunity. If their t-cells are still able to recognise the virus then it could result in reinfection causing very mild or no symptoms for someone who would show up as negative for antibodies in current surveys.
Unfortunately there's no easy way to test people for specific t-cell response like we can with antibodies. It does, however, lessen the value of the ONS immunity survey.
Has there been any published work on trying to test for a t-cell response?
Yes, pharmaceutical trials do it all the time, but it is very expensive and time consuming, by the time the ONS have done the research it will be well out of date. It's still worth doing though.
Look at the local authorities at the bottom of that list, above the isolated Scottish islands, andwe have a list of local authorities in densely populated SE England that were badly hit by the Kent variant - starting with Canterbury, which borders Swale, where it started. Can someone give me a convincing explanation for that that doesn’t involve a degree of population immunity starting to show? It’s sure as hell not more compliance with restrictions than elsewhere.
The antibody survey from the ONS suggest not.
I have serious issues with the ONS antibody surveys as people treat them as a gold standard. Unfortunately they aren't becuase they don't look for t-cell immunity. Neutralising antibodiesay fade pretty fast, someone infected in the first wave wouldn't now show up with antibodies to a detectable level for the ONS survey but it doesn't mean they have no immunity. If their t-cells are still able to recognise the virus then it could result in reinfection causing very mild or no symptoms for someone who would show up as negative for antibodies in current surveys.
Unfortunately there's no easy way to test people for specific t-cell response like we can with antibodies. It does, however, lessen the value of the ONS immunity survey.
Has there been any published work on trying to test for a t-cell response?
Look at the local authorities at the bottom of that list, above the isolated Scottish islands, andwe have a list of local authorities in densely populated SE England that were badly hit by the Kent variant - starting with Canterbury, which borders Swale, where it started. Can someone give me a convincing explanation for that that doesn’t involve a degree of population immunity starting to show? It’s sure as hell not more compliance with restrictions than elsewhere.
The antibody survey from the ONS suggest not.
I have serious issues with the ONS antibody surveys as people treat them as a gold standard. Unfortunately they aren't becuase they don't look for t-cell immunity. Neutralising antibodiesay fade pretty fast, someone infected in the first wave wouldn't now show up with antibodies to a detectable level for the ONS survey but it doesn't mean they have no immunity. If their t-cells are still able to recognise the virus then it could result in reinfection causing very mild or no symptoms for someone who would show up as negative for antibodies in current surveys.
Unfortunately there's no easy way to test people for specific t-cell response like we can with antibodies. It does, however, lessen the value of the ONS immunity survey.
Has there been any published work on trying to test for a t-cell response?
Yes, pharmaceutical trials do it all the time, but it is very expensive and time consuming, by the time the ONS have done the research it will be well out of date. It's still worth doing though.
I meant - for COVID?
Yes, Pfizer and AZ just did it for the SA variant to find out what kind of t-cell immunity response they get from their vaccines designed for original COVID. Both did extremely well fwiw.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I do apologise. It is not normally something I would feel obliged to share. However I decided to put the Jezziah's accusation of my public-school Tory-boy status to the sword. My own upbringing I would have to concede was nonetheless very comfortable. Does that necessarily make me a Tory?
This can get overthunk imo. You're a Tory (and for that matter a Leaver) if you voted Tory at GE19. That's my start point. That's the default. It can be set aside on a case by case basis but only if there were extremely extenuating circumstances, e.g. you'd lost your glasses and couldn't see the ballot paper properly.
That looks like a crude oversimplification. Are there really 13,966,451 Tories in the UK?
Yes. And it's not crude - it's a bullshit strainer.
It's extremely silly. Labour isn't entitled to take the loyalty of its voters for granted.
How am I saying that?
The voters change sides, they get written off as "Tories," which is evidently a form of insult. The Lab-Con defectors aren't all Tories, they're people who have given up on Labour. That's not the same thing at all.
Ok, but you misunderstand me. I'm not writing people off or insulting them. I'm simply giving my working definition of what a Tory is. They may well have become a Tory (my definition) through disillusionment with Labour. They may have been a Tory all their life. They may alternate between being a Tory and being something else, election by election. The much sought after floating voter. It's all very nuanced and I'm not discounting that or uninterested in it. It's the meat and drink of politics. But voting Tory at a GE makes you a Tory in my eyes in the here and now. That's the headline. It's a fact. All else is drilldown. Relevant, yes, but to be treated with caution since it's open to bullshit. I'm sure you know what I mean.
Actually Jezza is a member of the Labour party, the NEC restored the whip to him then Starmer had to personally withdraw the whip... and that perfectly planned stitch up where Starmer could feign innocence went out the window and Starmer had to take responsibility for his decision...
Don't listen to @Yorkcity -- I am very interested to hear your views. You (or anyone else) is welcome to "dominate the site all day" in his terminology.
In posting on pb.com, it is important to remember its peculiar demographics.
Oh yes, there is a good mix of red-blooded Socialists and Liberals here, but they enjoy their Sunday dinner with a Jereboam ... and not Jeremy.
It is often quite modest -- just Oysters Rockefeller to start, or a clear consomme, followed by Striploin Wagyu beef steak with a very good bottle & creme brulee to finish.
In fact, the site is at its most amusing when it functions as a fashion, drink and food blog -- bespoke tailoring, high-end restaurants & best apres-ski in Courchevel or Zermatt, etc.
In truth, the Tory/LibDem posters often start the discussion, but what passes for the Left usually joins in with gusto.
As Harold Wilson said in 1962, Labour is a moral refuge for those slightly embarrassed at enjoying the good things in life or it is nothing!
Look at the local authorities at the bottom of that list, above the isolated Scottish islands, andwe have a list of local authorities in densely populated SE England that were badly hit by the Kent variant - starting with Canterbury, which borders Swale, where it started. Can someone give me a convincing explanation for that that doesn’t involve a degree of population immunity starting to show? It’s sure as hell not more compliance with restrictions than elsewhere.
The antibody survey from the ONS suggest not.
I have serious issues with the ONS antibody surveys as people treat them as a gold standard. Unfortunately they aren't becuase they don't look for t-cell immunity. Neutralising antibodiesay fade pretty fast, someone infected in the first wave wouldn't now show up with antibodies to a detectable level for the ONS survey but it doesn't mean they have no immunity. If their t-cells are still able to recognise the virus then it could result in reinfection causing very mild or no symptoms for someone who would show up as negative for antibodies in current surveys.
Unfortunately there's no easy way to test people for specific t-cell response like we can with antibodies. It does, however, lessen the value of the ONS immunity survey.
Has there been any published work on trying to test for a t-cell response?
Yes, pharmaceutical trials do it all the time, but it is very expensive and time consuming, by the time the ONS have done the research it will be well out of date. It's still worth doing though.
I meant - for COVID?
Yes, Pfizer and AZ just did it for the SA variant to find out what kind of t-cell immunity response they get from their vaccines designed for original COVID. Both did extremely well fwiw.
T-Cell studies of people who had SARS showed that 17 years later they still provoked an immunity response.
The Alice Roberts Stonehenge documentary last night on BBC2 is well worth a watch
Indeed. Watching In was reminded of the book on the genetics of the British and how they showed the patterns of migration, the title of which I cannot remember, but which opined that the evidence demonstrated that post Ice-Age Britain was repopulated from two main and one minor directions; up the west coast of what is now France, from Iberia and into the Western part of the British Isles and from the East, across the Channel and North Sea. The Westerners uniting with the Easterners might well have accounted for the movement of the Henge.
That was Oppenheimer's book. I enjoyed that too, and found it convincing - especially the earlier chapters before it descended deeply into the minutiae of the DNA.
But Tyndall told me it has mostly since been discredited.
New evidence sadly. It is now apparent that the original post glacial inhabitants of the British isles were almost entirely wiped out at the end of the Neolithic. It appears there is a 90% plus annihilation of the pre-existing population of the British isles within perhaps as little as one generation and their replacement by a new peoples originating (we think) in Spain. I was educated in the 80s in exactly the sort of migration hypothesis you talk about but it is now well out of date.
It is not clear what actually led to the almost complete removal of the native population - disease is the most obvious cause with the new arrivals inadvertently bringing something with them that they themselves were immune to. But no one knows for sure.
This is how the Independent reported the new hypothesis back in 2018
Interesting. I might read his book again to see where, other than looking for evidence for a preferred conclusion, his analysis might be flawed
I don't think it is necessarily fair to say his analysis was flawed. It was based on the evidence available in the early 2000s. Obviously if he was still persisting in claiming everything he said was true one might question whether he is rather stuck in the mud. But the new evidence only emerged in 2018 so I don't think he can be accused of preferring a particular conclusion at the time of writing
As I recall, a big part of his conclusion was that the population of much of England was already speaking some form of Germanic language before the anglo saxons arrived, and therefore before the Romans arrived, rather than being celtic as often assumed. The prior population replacement by the beaker people post-2000 BC isn’t in itself total disproof
Not sure that is a popular theory with linguists. Much of the naming of rivers and other natural features are definitely not Germanic and I have never seen any evidence that there as widespread usage of any form of Germanic language in Britain before the Romans. What is possible is that during the RB period there was a massive influx of Germanic speakers as Foederati and settlers but that doesn't support the idea of an extant Germanic population prior to the 1st century AD.
The whole period 400 to 600 is such a blank canvass in our country's history. What do you think happened during that period?
Historically it is blank. Archaeologically not so much. For example at West Heslerton in Yorkshire they have been able to use isotope analysis of teeth to understand where the inhabitants in the supposedly Anglo-Saxon cemetery grew up. Somewhat surprisingly in spite of dating to the start of the invasion period and being dressed in an Anglian fashion, the majority were born and grew up in Lancashire and Cumbria.
Personally I think the picture developed by Francis Pryor which is now pretty mainstream is probably the most accurate.
Starting with the Roman occupation, you have the land stripped of most of its Iron-age inhabitants who are concentrated into towns and onto large Roman industrial farming villas. Across much of Southern and Eastern Britain native occupation outside of the villa economy almost ceases to exist.
Later there are large influxes of Germanic peoples well prior to the end of the RB period as a result of the use of Foederati from the German tribes and the associated settlement.
This is followed by a series of great plagues across the Empire during the 4th century and the withdrawal of the main Roman authority from Britain at the start of the 5th century. This results in the collapse of the villa landscape and the whole economy. Due to the previous dominance of the villa landscape this leaves much of lowland Britain effectively unoccupied or at least sparsely occupied.
You then get the continuation of the mass migrations of Germanic peoples into Britain but rather than coming as aggressive conquerors they are coming to settle in a much underpopulated landscape. This is, to a large extent, a peaceful settlement with most of the conflict being in the West on the fringes of what was Roman Britain where the native population survived.
At West Haslerton there is continuous occupation of the site from the Bronze Age to the late AS period with the first indications of violence not occurring until the 9th century when the Danes arrived. There are many cemeteries across the country where RB and AS funerary practices are seen side by side in the same cemetery from the same period.
Is this a true reflection of what happened - probably not exactly but it certainly matches the evidence far better than the traditional narrative which is why it is .
+1
Agree, a great post.
Pryor’s books on the subject, however, are mostly of the same period as Oppenheimers. I notice he has one due for publication this autumn, which hopefully will update previous thinking?
Look at the local authorities at the bottom of that list, above the isolated Scottish islands, andwe have a list of local authorities in densely populated SE England that were badly hit by the Kent variant - starting with Canterbury, which borders Swale, where it started. Can someone give me a convincing explanation for that that doesn’t involve a degree of population immunity starting to show? It’s sure as hell not more compliance with restrictions than elsewhere.
The antibody survey from the ONS suggest not.
I have serious issues with the ONS antibody surveys as people treat them as a gold standard. Unfortunately they aren't becuase they don't look for t-cell immunity. Neutralising antibodiesay fade pretty fast, someone infected in the first wave wouldn't now show up with antibodies to a detectable level for the ONS survey but it doesn't mean they have no immunity. If their t-cells are still able to recognise the virus then it could result in reinfection causing very mild or no symptoms for someone who would show up as negative for antibodies in current surveys.
Unfortunately there's no easy way to test people for specific t-cell response like we can with antibodies. It does, however, lessen the value of the ONS immunity survey.
Neil Ferguson, not noted for his sunny disposition on such matters, certainly implied that London was close as a result of T-Cells and vaccination.
Yes, I think we may hit herd immunity a lot faster than expected in some areas. Especially those particularly hard hit by the Kent variant. I'd love to see the ONS do random sampling of t-cell immunity to COVID for under 50s, in some areas more than 40-50% may already have it meaning the vaccine programme is going to be high effective from just the first dose.
Folkestone and Hythe District, which had one of the very highest first and second wave death rates, saw a 40% decline in tested cases in the last 7 days. That is a freakish drop.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I'll be honest the part that makes it confusing for me is MexicanPete doesn't even really like the left, hell he doesn't even seem that enthused by the current right wing led Labour party which is spending its time prioritising kicking left wing people like me bringing back in members who wished left wing activists died in fires...
I mean if this right wing led thoroughly anti left wing Labour party is still too left wing for him why he is even arguing about his family being 'leftier than thou' (an argument he started) I didn't try and claim a more centrist existence or background than him!
Edit: I shouldn't be here recruiting but seriously the current leadership of the Labour party despise left wingers more than MexicanPete could possibly dream, if you genuinely aren't a Tory shouldn't that be right up his street?
The single purpose of Jeremy Corbyn is to undermiine the Labour leadership, be that Starmer, Milliband, Brown, Blair or Kinnock, to perpetuate Conservative Governments. It has worked almost perfectly since 1979, except Blair blotted his copybook with Corbyn, not once but three times.
That would make sense if Corbyn had done 1,000th of what the Labour right did to him during his leadership. The entire point of the Labour right has been to help the Conservatives, they do it election after election because the party isn't enough like the Conservatives for the liking...
They didn't just do it to Corbyn, they did it to Ed as well, constant briefing that helped push Ed so far to the right he made an offer not worth voting for. After the 2017 election he said he should have offered that manifesto, that extremely popular vote winning manifesto that back in 2015 could have been enough to make the difference...
Why couldn't Ed present a left wing manifesto that would have been in line with his views as leader of the Labour party?
The Tories best friend, the Labour right, there to give them a helping hand when they need it, don't worry David we'll stop Ed offering anything appealing so you can win and we can replace him with Blair mark 2.
I notice you avoided the question and just went on the attack, wonder why? bit awkward for you?
PB Tories must be loving this red on pink Tory action.
I would like to see a non- Conservative Government, and I consider Johnson to be a scoundrel. That does not make me blind to faults on my side of argument. Blair's role as Bush's lapdog over Iraq was outrageous, and Starmer needs to pull his finger out if he plans any sort of centre-left revolution. However Corbyn was never a magic bullet to see the back of the Tories. His behaviour either directly or indirectly towards Luciana Berger for example was that of a xenophobic bully. Simply horrible. I would go on about the unrealistic spending plans, although events, and Boris Johnson have shot that argument down in flames.
Now go and harrass some proper Tories.
I wish he would he has dominated this site all day.
Others frequently do the same without being admonished for doing so.
It would be *bold* to declare any kind of victory when the majority of the population is still waiting.
But all those in the top priority group will have been offered one, who account for around 90% of all deaths I think. Worth trumpeting as good progress towards getting everyone done.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn veryy
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
The four Yorkshiremen wasn’t a Monty Python sketch.
You are indeed correct Professor Peach. Apologies.
Your Italian Job knowledge is exemplary... this is, however, my actual name... Benny Hill comparisons at school were painful...
And the solution to the conundrum at the end of the film is:
Break the windows at the back to reduce weight.
Break two windows at the front, hold one gang member upside down out of the window to deflate the front tires and stabilize the vehicle.
Drain the rear fuel tank through an access panel at the bottom of the bus.
Gang members leave one by one from the front, collecting stones to replace their weight.
Keep adding stones until someone can safely go to the rear to retrieve the gold.
It would be *bold* to declare any kind of victory when the majority of the population is still waiting.
The finish line is in sight IMO. It's a minor miracle that we're anywhere near this.
If the industry rumours are to be believed then AZ have continued to ramp up their UK production to a level that allows for second doses to be given without needing to slow down the first dose programme. Once we add in new vaccines from April we could be in a position to do 3-4m first doses per week as well as the 3m doses per week that we need for second doses.
I (obviously) liked Corbyn personally but it was the policies for me, I think the vast majority of Corbyn supporters would have easily transferred over to someone actually offering 'Corbynism without Corbyn' as it was termed, I think everyone knew the game that was being played with people stating that without meaning it at all.
Almost regardless of what happens from this point on I can't see myself voting Labour next election..
I agree with you, at least in part.
Corbyn very definitely excited a whole bunch of people to vote for him. I remember many friends (including some unexpected ones) being very, very exhilarated by the Labour 2017 manifesto.
The buzz & excitement that Corbyn generated could & should have been followed up by the Labour party to build him up as a winner in 2019. Instead, his enemies destroyed him and it was obvious he was going down to a big defeat. Some people in Labour preferred that, because they could then recapture the party.
A reasonable analogy is George McGovern. It is absolutely clear in 'Fear & Loathing' that many Democrats preferred to see McGovern completely destroyed in 1972, so they could regain control of the Democratic Party, So, they were happy to collude in the smearing of McGovern as the 'Amnesty, Abortion, Acid' candidate. It remains the biggest ever US Presidential loss.
I can't see anyone being very excited by SKS -- except elderly Liberal Democrats with no hair. This constituency is well represented on pb.com, though
I shall never forget or forgive what they did.
Interesting bit about George McGovern there, I wonder if that whole amnesty and abortion angle they played on their own side came back to bite them at some point... nah probably not.
Why don't you and your happy band of Corbynistas just set up your own party? You could call it Momentum, the Corbyn Party or you could simply join the SWP. Let us see how that flies. I can't wait to watch the red wall Tory vote tumble.
Or here is an idea a party for Labour, rather than the rich, you could call it the Labour party, people who want a party for the rich could join the Conservative party...
Win, win.
Why should I support the Conservative Party, when my family heritage is standing shoulder to shoulder with Jim Griffith's and the miners of East Carmarthenshire.
Jeremy Corbyn is not representative of the party of Keir Hardie, Bevan or Bevin. He is a man who conflates and confuses hostile military intervention against individual Palestinians on behalf of Netanyahu with a hatred of the both the State of Israel and Judaism. He is an idiot who took the Labour Party down a Soviet style blind alley. He no more represents working people than does Jacob Rees Mogg.
The Labour Party can only survive as a left of centre Social Democratic Coalition, and it is not there yet. Socialist Workers need not apply.
You told me to join the SWP, I am just sending you to your natural home of voting Tory.
My grandad was a South Wales Coal Miner, my other Grandad was a factory (and in the navy or merchant navy at some point, I rarely saw this guy TBH) worker in the midlands, my grandmothers did secretarial and other that sorta of low paid women's (at the time) work, I was raised by a single mother who worked in the NHS almost her entire life I grew up in my grandparents house (with my mum) a little terraced house in a poor part of south wales before moving to a slightly smaller terraced house in an even poorer rougher part of Wales.
I have more fucking Labour in the DNA of my little finger than you do in your entire pitiful existence, don't you dare question me Tory boy, Labour wasn't built to screw over the poor, however much you may have forgotten your heritage I have NOT!
Labour was not founded to support Apartheid, my grandparents (the mining one) Labour to their core were telling their kids decades and decades ago about Apartheid they wouldn't have not supported it against the Muslims anymore than they did the Black South Africans. Because they are proper Labour, it didn't matter if people claiming South Africa was our ally, Nelson Mandela is a communist, Nelson Mandela is a terrorist, they knew right from wrong.
If Corbyn didn't represent working people he would have had rich donors like Starmer telling him what to do, he wouldn't have turned the Labour party membership into a much poorer, younger one and he wouldn't have won with working voters in 2017.
It is retired people Corbyn doesn't represent, which TBH was the problem, if Corbyn didn't represent working people but instead represented retired (basically a 2017 reversal)people he would have won.
My paternal grandfather was a miner at Carway Colliery as were all his brothers and my paternal grandmother's brothers. My maternal grandmother's brothers were miners in the colliery between Burry Port and Pwll. My grandfather's working life was always as a coal miner except for working at the ROF in Pembrey during the war, which was equally dangerous. He retired from Cyneidre Colliery in 1966.
I don't want to appear like the Monty Python Yorkshiremen, trying to outdo your Labour Party credentials, but please don't tell me I am a liberal middle class Tory sell-out fraud.
A Labour Party in perpetual opposition, which would be the electoral outcome under a Corbynista programme for Government, is as much use as a chocolate teapot.
These “my dad is more socialist than your dad” type arguments are exactly the type of purity test that alienates so many from the left.
I do apologise. It is not normally something I would feel obliged to share. However I decided to put the Jezziah's accusation of my public-school Tory-boy status to the sword. My own upbringing I would have to concede was nonetheless very comfortable. Does that necessarily make me a Tory?
This can get overthunk imo. You're a Tory (and for that matter a Leaver) if you voted Tory at GE19. That's my start point. That's the default. It can be set aside on a case by case basis but only if there were extremely extenuating circumstances, e.g. you'd lost your glasses and couldn't see the ballot paper properly.
That looks like a crude oversimplification. Are there really 13,966,451 Tories in the UK?
Yes. And it's not crude - it's a bullshit strainer.
It's extremely silly. Labour isn't entitled to take the loyalty of its voters for granted.
How am I saying that?
The voters change sides, they get written off as "Tories," which is evidently a form of insult. The Lab-Con defectors aren't all Tories, they're people who have given up on Labour. That's not the same thing at all.
Telling anyone who disagreed with St. Jeremy that they were Tories, worked really well for the Tories in 2019
I see the Lincoln Project has basically collapsed. Ontop of the alleged sexual predator amongst their management they turned a blind eye to (and I wonder how many in the media did too, as they were such a powerful anti-Trump operation), looks like very sleazy all round.
Comments
They didn't just do it to Corbyn, they did it to Ed as well, constant briefing that helped push Ed so far to the right he made an offer not worth voting for. After the 2017 election he said he should have offered that manifesto, that extremely popular vote winning manifesto that back in 2015 could have been enough to make the difference...
Why couldn't Ed present a left wing manifesto that would have been in line with his views as leader of the Labour party?
The Tories best friend, the Labour right, there to give them a helping hand when they need it, don't worry David we'll stop Ed offering anything appealing so you can win and we can replace him with Blair mark 2.
I notice you avoided the question and just went on the attack, wonder why? bit awkward for you?
For the SNP, it doesn't matter much because everything in Scotland is swamped by the independence issue. Labour doesn't have something like that to use as a shield to hide behind. It just looks a bit mental.
Ultimately, it feels like you're looking for reasons to believe that the government has taken the wrong path because you want them to be wrong. On vaccines the government gets top marks and the small risks taken in delaying second doses looks like it's going to pay off hugely for us and for the world as it becomes the standard dosing regime to ensure more people are immunised in a shorter period of time.
What we should be doing is making more vaccines and making them faster, that's the only way out of this. Everything else is tinkering around the edges and I'm glad that the government has recognised this and is building ~800m annual manufacturing capacity in the UK to make vaccines.
We got a light dusting Friday morning, but this is our first real winter snow storm. Very powdery, great for skiers . . . IF they can make it to the slopes. Though today you can go cross-country in the city!
The Labour right decided purity was a useful attack line, the problem was the impossible standards they set have screwed absolutely everyone over.
The Campaign against anti Semitism. Just an anti left wing group really but the Labour right worked hard to help makes their accusations credible are now going after Angela Rayner, the member voted deputy leader, what the hell is Starmer supposed to do with that?
Lay down with dogs and you get fleas but as a now non Labour voter or member that isn't my problem.
Cases, hospitalizations and deaths continue the steady downwards trend
England managed to make them look slightly better than that.
Really poor fare.
I would like to see a non- Conservative Government, and I consider Johnson to be a scoundrel. That does not make me blind to faults on my side of argument. Blair's role as Bush's lapdog over Iraq was outrageous, and Starmer needs to pull his finger out if he plans any sort of centre-left revolution. However Corbyn was never a magic bullet to see the back of the Tories. His behaviour either directly or indirectly towards Luciana Berger for example was that of a xenophobic bully. Simply horrible. I would go on about the unrealistic spending plans, although events, and Boris Johnson have shot that argument down in flames.
Now go and harrass some proper Tories.
"Guys we are now polling at the same level as the 2019 result which we claimed proved Corbyn was the worlds worst person and 7 points behind Corbyn's 2017 result I am starting to panic..."
"Don't worry, just heard we fixed up the Bristol CLP right wing clean sweep Corbynista's in the mud!!"
Suddenly a chorus of things can only get better begins and the champagne corks start popping.
They may be an utterly useless opposition and have no hope of forming a government or doing much to push the government in a positive direction but you would have to have a heart of stone to not feel at least a little happy for them living out their dreams.
τὸν δ’ αὖθ’ Ἱππολόχοιο προσηύδα φαίδιμος υἱός·
'Τυδείδη μεγάθυμε, τίη γενεὴν ἐρεείνεις;
οἵη περ φύλλων γενεή, τοίη δὲ καὶ ἀνδρῶν.
φύλλα τὰ μέν τ’ ἄνεμος χαμάδις χέει, ἄλλα δέ θ’ ὕλη
τηλεθόωσα φύει, ἔαρος δ’ ἐπιγίνεται ὥρη·
ὣς ἀνδρῶν γενεὴ ἣ μὲν φύει, ἣ δ’ ἀπολήγει.
εἰ δ’ ἐθέλεις καὶ ταῦτα δαήμεναι, ὄφρ’ εὖ εἴδηις
ἡμετέρην γενεήν, πολλοὶ δέ μιν ἄνδρες ἴσασιν...
And then did the glorious son of Hippolochus address him:
'Great-hearted son of Tydeus, why pray do you ask my descent?
As are the generations of leaves, such too are those of men:
for the wind scatters some leaves upon the ground, but others the forest
as it blooms puts forth anew, when the season of spring arrives.
So does one generation of men flourish, while another passes away.
But if you wish to learn these matters too, so that you may well know
my lineage, so be it - and many men know it already ...
As for the rest we disagree but thanks for an answer.
Of course, more and better vaccines are coming down the line and that's to be expected - as Hancock suggested this morning, we will probably have to live with a larger vaccination programme than that for influenza (15 million) for a while until a vaccine is developed which provides longer protection.
As an aside, we need the whole world to get the vaccines they need as soon as possible - it's about so much more than petty points-scoring against the EU. As "Global Britain" it serves our needs to get as much of the global economy open as quickly as possible. That includes getting tourism moving again.
It is the same as those refusing to take the vaccine because 'it hasn't been tested properly'. It has been tested on well over 10m people now and whilst there have been some reactions, they really haven't been that serious. Covid has been tested on around 10m unvaccinated people in the UK and the results are there for everyone to see.
Been downhill ever since.
@Yorkcity I shall be on my way, apologies...
The overwhelmingly public generally support Starmer's actions. IPSOS-Mori found that 48% think that Starmer has changed Labour for the better, and only 4% think the change is for the worse. Of the electorate who voted Labour in 2019, under Corbyn's leadership, the figures are 54% for the better and still only 8% for the worse.
Voting Conservative at a GE is on my bucket list, but once inside the polling booth, old habits die hard, and I am yet to fulfil that ambition.
IIRC there are ten constituencies in Yorkshire alone where Labour's majority was below 3k.
It was perhaps to Labour's benefit that so many of the Conservative targets were historically unlikely meaning they didn't spread their aim wider allowing the BXP to hoover up potential voters.
From cases
From hospitalisations
Also, you brought up the EU, I didn't. Where in my post did you detect any point scoring on this? Even the government has had a very dignified response to all the EU vaccine posturing. You're projecting what you want to believe onto the actual situation. The UK has invested £3.5-4bn on vaccine procurement and production. That's going to help the whole world get out of this, our annual needs will be a maximum of 130m doses, we're going to be making 800m doses per year from 2022 onwards, that's 335m people from all over the world that will benefit from out government's decisions to invest in vaccine production. I'm proud of that, I think it does speak to "Global Britain" and I can only hope that other rich countries will build vaccine 5x more vaccine manufacturing capacity than they need for their own population.
On a serious note I don't care if you came from a line of kings and princes or a line of beggars and thieves, plenty of good rich people and good poor people, plenty of crappy both. You might be lucky or privileged to have a comfortable upbringing but it isn't anything that makes you lesser or worse. There can be an argument about achievement being tougher for people for poorer backgrounds.
Also Tony Benn grew up pretty nicely a little bit before my time but his Iraq speech is awesome and I like plenty of other bits and pieces from him, doesn't come across as a Tory...
As for you personally, I sense you will die with that most herculean of challenges unmet.
And it's not crude - it's a bullshit strainer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RboPCdiP_AI
The party is going backwards in polls. I mean if for example Tories who don't plan on voting Labour are happy Starmer is attacking the left whilst people who do vote Labour aren't and thus plan on stopping voting Labour then it is actually counter productive...
Lots of Tories on here who have no plans at all to vote Labour will think the party has improved because they are attacking the left and moving right but if they aren't actually voting for you then it doesn't help.
These polling numbers in conjunction with Labour voting numbers moving in the right direction would indicate Starmer's approach is working. What seems to be happening instead is he is pleasing people who aren't voting Labour but annoying people who were voting Labour.
Anyway, even if there is not, I am still searching for other explanations.
In posting on pb.com, it is important to remember its peculiar demographics.
Oh yes, there is a good mix of red-blooded Socialists and Liberals here, but they enjoy their Sunday dinner with a Jereboam ... and not Jeremy.
It is often quite modest -- just Oysters Rockefeller to start, or a clear consomme, followed by Striploin Wagyu beef steak with a very good bottle & creme brulee to finish.
In fact, the site is at its most amusing when it functions as a fashion, drink and food blog -- bespoke tailoring, high-end restaurants & best apres-ski in Courchevel or Zermatt, etc.
In truth, the Tory/LibDem posters often start the discussion, but what passes for the Left usually joins in with gusto.
Unfortunately there's no easy way to test people for specific t-cell response like we can with antibodies. It does, however, lessen the value of the ONS immunity survey.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00367-7
Pryor’s books on the subject, however, are mostly of the same period as Oppenheimers. I notice he has one due for publication this autumn, which hopefully will update previous thinking?
BBC News - Covid-19 pandemic: China 'refused to give data' to WHO team
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-56054468
They must be piling through them now.
Break the windows at the back to reduce weight.
Break two windows at the front, hold one gang member upside down out of the window to deflate the front tires and stabilize the vehicle.
Drain the rear fuel tank through an access panel at the bottom of the bus.
Gang members leave one by one from the front, collecting stones to replace their weight.
Keep adding stones until someone can safely go to the rear to retrieve the gold.
If the industry rumours are to be believed then AZ have continued to ramp up their UK production to a level that allows for second doses to be given without needing to slow down the first dose programme. Once we add in new vaccines from April we could be in a position to do 3-4m first doses per week as well as the 3m doses per week that we need for second doses.