And "ah but Corbyn loves terrorists" doesn't resonate any more - the clip of the police 2 years ago telling May that her police cuts would leave us wide open to terror attacks resonating far more powerfully.
Evidence for this?
Go talk to people. Police cuts have been a significant and growing issue for complaint in so many communities. People vote more on the here and now than the past, especially when the here and now threatens them and theirs. How can the Tories hope for "Corbyn is soft on terrorism" to suddenly gain traction when it hasn't before when the proof that May is soft on terrorism is in front of their eyes?
Yet crime is down. As for terrorism, the 7/7 attacks happened when there were significantly higher police numbers. I'm yet to be convinced of the causal link between police numbers and risk of terrorism. If anything, more money should be given to the intelligence services.
The ‘mistake’ was, surely, holding back in the first Iraq War. Saddam had made himself unpopular enough with his neighbours for everyone to want him gone and he coiuld, just about, have been replaced by a less undemocratic but still stable regime, without the religious bigotry which has recently been such a cause of problems in the country.
Less religious bigotry? Wasn't Saddam notorious for discriminating against religious minorities? What is to suggest another strongman would have been any different?
Saddam discriminated against the majority Shia population, but was really a secular Fascist. He did not persecute the substantial Yazidi or Christian minorities of Iraq.
Really? I think the Yazidi would disagree with that. Hussein's arabisation process caused many to flee the country.
"From early 1975, under the regime of Saddam Hussein, both Kurds and Yazidis were confronted with village destruction, depopulation and deportation.[1]"
And "ah but Corbyn loves terrorists" doesn't resonate any more - the clip of the police 2 years ago telling May that her police cuts would leave us wide open to terror attacks resonating far more powerfully.
Evidence for this?
Go talk to people. Police cuts have been a significant and growing issue for complaint in so many communities. People vote more on the here and now than the past, especially when the here and now threatens them and theirs. How can the Tories hope for "Corbyn is soft on terrorism" to suddenly gain traction when it hasn't before when the proof that May is soft on terrorism is in front of their eyes?
They say crime has fallen even with police cuts not so Car crime, house breaks have fallen.However fraud on the internet has risen massively many of this not recorded as just reported to banks.If you get your wallet stolen and report that to the police it is a crime.The same ,£20 over the net whistle Dixie.
And "ah but Corbyn loves terrorists" doesn't resonate any more - the clip of the police 2 years ago telling May that her police cuts would leave us wide open to terror attacks resonating far more powerfully.
Evidence for this?
Go talk to people. Police cuts have been a significant and growing issue for complaint in so many communities. People vote more on the here and now than the past, especially when the here and now threatens them and theirs. How can the Tories hope for "Corbyn is soft on terrorism" to suddenly gain traction when it hasn't before when the proof that May is soft on terrorism is in front of their eyes?
They say crime has fallen even with police cuts not so Car crime, house breaks have fallen.However fraud on the internet has risen massively many of this not recorded as just reported to banks.If you get your wallet stolen and report that to the police it is a crime.The same ,£20 over the net whistle Dixie.
Why wouldn't the banks be passing this information on to the police?
And I'm not sure how 10,000 new officers is going to stop online fraud.
JTAC recommended increasing the threat level. What was May supposed to do?
There's plenty of grounds to criticise her. The response to the Manchester bombing is not one of them.
Mr. City, whilst I agree that May wasn't 'match fit' for campaigning, the social care disaster was such an obviously stupid mistake to make I don't think the lack of a proper leadership campaign can be used to excuse it.
Mr. City, Miliband's price freeze was stupid, the price cap of the Conservatives only marginally less so. However, I think Miliband was a lot more likeable than May, and more trustworthy than Corbyn.
The same applies to Clegg. And Cameron.
F1: seen a new forecast. Still dry. Seems like small chance of showers but probably not.
Without the "Jeremy can't win" mantra you'd all be talking about how the Tories were in danger of being routed, how their massive paper lead was collapsing in the face of voters making real choices. Of people looking at their lives and once again realising that the deep blue sea may be better than the devil. Because what cards do the Tories have left to play to arrest their decline, never mind to seize the agenda again? Politics is story telling, spin a narrative people can believe in and you can get them to do anything - even vote for Trump. Or Brexit. Or a clown. Or a man in a monkey suit.
I am almost certain that it isn't going to happen. Labour may get a decent share of the popular vote, picking up additional votes in seats they have no chance of winning or are racing certainties, but due to the dynamics of FPTP and the loss of Scotland, labour need to win in marginal seats like Swindon as well as holding places like Dagenham, where notwithstanding the recent bounce in the polls Corbyn is still bad news. I cannot see anything other than a significantly increased conservative majority, and on June 9th the dementia tax fiasco will become a distant memory.
In my constituency we have a lot of local people energised to work on the campaign. However, there is a 5000 tory majority to overturn. The campaign literature, drafted by the candidate himself is refreshingly honest, detailed, and free of spin. I genuinely have no idea if his message has any traction though outside of the middle class bohemian area. I have no idea if someone on a Council estate is going to be impressed when the candidate writes that he hails from a working class background and his mother was a cliarvoyant. The UKIP leaflet, from a no-hoper paper candidate, seems to me to be more appealing - simply saying that if you want Brexit to happen and you can't bring yourself to vote tory, vote for us (the town voted to leave the EU). But as you say, these are volatile times and anything can happen. Thats why I'm not betting on anything.
And "ah but Corbyn loves terrorists" doesn't resonate any more - the clip of the police 2 years ago telling May that her police cuts would leave us wide open to terror attacks resonating far more powerfully.
Evidence for this?
Go talk to people. Police cuts have been a significant and growing issue for complaint in so many communities. People vote more on the here and now than the past, especially when the here and now threatens them and theirs. How can the Tories hope for "Corbyn is soft on terrorism" to suddenly gain traction when it hasn't before when the proof that May is soft on terrorism is in front of their eyes?
They say crime has fallen even with police cuts not so Car crime, house breaks have fallen.However fraud on the internet has risen massively many of this not recorded as just reported to banks.If you get your wallet stolen and report that to the police it is a crime.The same ,£20 over the net whistle Dixie.
Why wouldn't the banks be passing this information on to the police?
And I'm not sure how 10,000 new officers is going to stop online fraud.
Banks won't pass information about most attacks onto the police as the payouts doesn't affect the bottom line or their bonuses: they just pass the costs straight onto the customers. On the other hand, disclosing the number of cases hurts customer confidence.
I said the other day that a law ought to be brought in whereby all publicly-traded companies and government institutions should add the direct costs of cybercrime onto their accounts. Only then might government, companies and individuals start taking it seriously.
People have consistently underestimated Corbyn: both outside his party and inside. He's proven remarkably resilient, and now we're seeing the same in this election campaign.
Leaving aside his many negative attributes, his mettle's impressive. So far, May's hasn't been.
He's very relaxed, and I think he really enjoys the campaign. May does not. Not sure how that translates into competence for running the country though.
I think there's a feedback loop.
Even if he loses (which he will) he has demonstrated to many that a hard left approach can be popular. It will make it very difficult for the Blairites to "take back control"
Interesting comments from Paul Mason on Newsnight who I think to be fair has been quite bullish about Lab prospects from the start of the campaign:
1) He always thought it would be quite easy for Lab to get up to 35% by gathering all votes from the left. But then much harder to go much higher as that requires centrist votes.
2) He thinks big problem for Lab could well be piling up large numbers of extra votes in seats they win anyway - ie much less efficient votes to seats efficiency.
Some UKIP voters in 2015 are returning to Labour.
Given that UKIP are not standing in many constituencies, I and no doubt many others are likely to be tempted to do exactly this. Corbyn has accepted Brexit. Corbyn made an excellent well-balanced speech yesterday and TM's attack on him misquoted what he said. I applaud his non-interventionist attitude to foreign affairs, which was also shared by Farage.
There was a lot of speculation of Melenchon voters going to Le Pen a few weeks ago, but are we seeing the British equivalent in reverse. Le Pen to Melenchon in a British context is UKIP voters going back to Corbynite Labour.
To turn this into a Brexit election, Theresa has to outline her vision of Brexit. She has singularly failed to do so. She is an incompetent control freak which does not bode well, though I do expect Tories to gain seats.
She called the election ostensibly to strengthen her hand in the forthcoming Brexit negotiations, but we've heard precious little from her or her Party about this so far. If she doesn't start explaining soon, people might start to think the election was in fact unnecessary and was called for her own and the Party's advantage rather than the country's.
If that thought takes hold widely amongst the electorate, she's in trouble.
Interesting comments from Paul Mason on Newsnight who I think to be fair has been quite bullish about Lab prospects from the start of the campaign:
1) He always thought it would be quite easy for Lab to get up to 35% by gathering all votes from the left. But then much harder to go much higher as that requires centrist votes.
2) He thinks big problem for Lab could well be piling up large numbers of extra votes in seats they win anyway - ie much less efficient votes to seats efficiency.
How on earth anyone ANYWHERE near the centre ground could remotely consider voting for a party lead by Corbyn, McDonnell & Abbott is utterly beyond me.
Can any Corbyn apologist remind me what part of Germany's interventionist foreign policy lead to a terrorist mowing down 12 souls in Berlin last christmas ?
Why should anyone in the centre vote for a Tory government which has cut 25% from the Police budget since 2010 ?
Austerity has to go. Let normality return.
To avoid national bankruptcy from Gordon Brown's legacy.
Normality can resume once the deficit is gone, how you think that will happen with Corbynism is beyond me.
How do you think it will happen under the Tories , they are many years behind their initial lies and keep lying and borrowing to fund their pals.
There was considerable worldwide support for the NATO led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. International goodwill that was squandered in Iraq
I'm not arguing that our foreign policy has been flawless: far from. It's just that the extremists are far more responsive than we are, and are looking for reasons to be aggrieved.
bin Laden's an interesting example. Afghanistan is an odd place for a Saudi national to have got 'started', isn't it? Or perhaps he was radicalised elsewhere and went looking for a fight. And if that's the case, *any* intervention in *any* Muslim land, however valid, would lead to problems.
The final endpoint of your position is that we end up leaving all lands Muslim extremists call their own to them (even including places like much of Spain), and not to react when they preform heinous acts inside 'their' lands, or outside to us.
We can't go around not pandering to extremists, because they will always want more.
Britain (and other Western countries) spent much of the Sixties to Eighties propping up secular right wing dictatorships across the newly decolonised world. We were not bothered by Hussain, Assad, the Shah or Nasser, except to use them in proxies in the Cold war. There was little attempt to foster democracy and freedom. As such the Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood thrived as the opposition.
Pakistan in the Eighties spent more than half its government budget on its military, abandoning education to the madrassas. These became the only place for a poor child to get an education. We are now seeing the consequences of that neglect. The same happens all over MENA, where the Islamists are often the sole education, sole welfare, sole law and order and sole social care in these countries. The Islamist parties are particularly strong in opposing corruption.
People there often want these positive aspects of Islamist politics, and tolerate the violent aspects as the price. Aspirations of poor people in developing countries are surprisingly similar to our own, and the sense of frustration that comes from those opportunities being stifled by corrupt Western supported elites becomes manifest.
It is soft power that builds peace, not bombing. Economic development, particularly via women drives social progress. The education of women is the best value for money of any development spend.
Mr. Punter, it's been an odd, disjointed campaign. Agree entirely on that point, plus there's been a failure to hammer Corbyn over the IRA etc, and the social care policy was an obvious disaster.
Mr. Charles, indeed. Would the PLP split? Or just go along with five more years of Comrade Corbyn?
Edited extra bit: on that note, the time may be perfect for a soft, centrish party to newly emerge. May is not liked, Corbyn is not trusted. There's a huge gaping void for a fiscally dry and socially liberal new party.
And "ah but Corbyn loves terrorists" doesn't resonate any more - the clip of the police 2 years ago telling May that her police cuts would leave us wide open to terror attacks resonating far more powerfully.
Evidence for this?
Go talk to people. Police cuts have been a significant and growing issue for complaint in so many communities. People vote more on the here and now than the past, especially when the here and now threatens them and theirs. How can the Tories hope for "Corbyn is soft on terrorism" to suddenly gain traction when it hasn't before when the proof that May is soft on terrorism is in front of their eyes?
They say crime has fallen even with police cuts not so Car crime, house breaks have fallen.However fraud on the internet has risen massively many of this not recorded as just reported to banks.If you get your wallet stolen and report that to the police it is a crime.The same ,£20 over the net whistle Dixie.
Why wouldn't the banks be passing this information on to the police?
And I'm not sure how 10,000 new officers is going to stop online fraud.
The police without going into detail I should know need more specialised units internet fraud, firearms, intelligence, undercover, The banks do not pass on low level fraud to the police they use their own internal investigations if a crime number is required then an agency called action fraud provide it.Many of these low level frauds are never recorded as crime.
2) He thinks big problem for Lab could well be piling up large numbers of extra votes in seats they win anyway - ie much less efficient votes to seats efficiency.
The idea that all of Labour's improvement is down to younger voters and "metropolitan" areas (thus meaning they would just "pile up" votes in safe seats) isn't really borne out by the evidence. Look at Wales -- that has very few truly "metropolitan" areas, and has a higher average age than any English region, yet the latest YouGov from Wales shows Labour up considerably on 2015. Also subsamples this past week have generally been giving Labour healthy leads in the North again.
While Labour has made improvements with pretty much every group, there's lots to suggest that they're making especially sharp improvements with their white working-class "traditional" voters, who they were struggling with so much at the beginning of the campaign.
If this were "the Brexit election", you could imagine many UKIP voters who had previously voted Labour switching to the Tories as "the Brexit party". But if my auntie were my uncle she'd have a pair of knackers. It isn't and it won't become the Brexit election. That was Theresa May's big mistake.
Is Theresa the new Edward Heath?
Are you suggesting Tim Farron might be a new Jeremy Thorpe?
Given Mr Farron's views on gay sex I'd consider that very unlikely...
The ‘mistake’ was, surely, holding back in the first Iraq War. Saddam had made himself unpopular enough with his neighbours for everyone to want him gone and he coiuld, just about, have been replaced by a less undemocratic but still stable regime, without the religious bigotry which has recently been such a cause of problems in the country.
Less religious bigotry? Wasn't Saddam notorious for discriminating against religious minorities? What is to suggest another strongman would have been any different?
Actually, while I stand to be corrected, Saddam didn’t seem to have a particular problem with religious minorities. It was any opposition, actual or percieved, that ‘upset’him! His right hand man, Tariq Aziz, was a Christian.
As with most Middle Eastern strongmen Saddam worked on a tribal basis: picking off the people he needed. Essentially his alliance was Sunni + Christian vs Shiite vs Kurd.
But religion was a coincidence rather than a determinative factor
I find it interesting how the current close polls have embolden labour supporters on here. Over the last two year, apart from a few exceptions they have been remarkably quiet. It may be that expressing a view supporting any other party than the Tories normally results in a tirade of abuse and derision which is quite off putting to joining the debate. Full marks to mark senior and nick Palmer for staying the course.
We have a manifesto offering hope for a better future.
You really, really haven't. Even Donald Trump's 'we'll build a wall and get Mexico to pay for it' is more realistic than Corbyn's education policy (for example).
And where there is no realism, there is no hope.
Off my hiatus for one moment: the free tuition fees is what annoys me. It is not a structured investment, it is a sop to the middle classes to vote Labour and send your kids off for free. We have a number of problems with higher education to do with sustainability, skill levels, people on low incomes taking part etc etc which all need targeted solutions with extra funding. But to solve this they have just said "sweeties for all!" which actually makes a number of the problems worse in the short term and almost impossible to solve in the long term.
All at the same time keeping a lot of the cuts the Tories have made to the poorest, so in fact they are borrowing to....help those who need the help the least. Very fucking Labour;
JTAC recommended increasing the threat level. What was May supposed to do?
Your faith in the high mindedness of Tories is touching. Did the JTAC tell Tessy to say Jeremy Corbyn has said that terror attacks in Britain are our own fault?
People have consistently underestimated Corbyn: both outside his party and inside. He's proven remarkably resilient, and now we're seeing the same in this election campaign.
Leaving aside his many negative attributes, his mettle's impressive. So far, May's hasn't been.
He's very relaxed, and I think he really enjoys the campaign. May does not. Not sure how that translates into competence for running the country though.
I think there's a feedback loop.
Even if he loses (which he will) he has demonstrated to many that a hard left approach can be popular. It will make it very difficult for the Blairites to "take back control"
Morning all,
Indeed. If Labour don't win then they are going to be in an awful situation after this campaign - Corbyn won't be going anywhere and they will have done well enough to deflect the critics.
There was considerable worldwide support for the NATO led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. International goodwill that was squandered in Iraq.
Though perhaps the longer view requires looking at the funding and arming of the Mujahadin against the Soviets by Maggie and Ronnie in the Eighties. That is how Bin Laden started, back when Islamist terrorists were considered the good guys by our press barons.
Looking at the state of Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen now it is hard to defend the case that our foreign policy has been flawless. We should at least consider what we would do differently the next time a MENA country tears itself apart. Lobbing bombs at civil wars has not worked out well.
Jezza was not arguing that Western Foreign policy was soley responsible for the rise of Islamism, but it is nessecary to at least consider how much it contributed. The War on Terror is a unique war where each side specialises in self harm.
I'm not arguing that our foreign policy has been flawless: far from. It's just that the extremists are far more responsive than we are, and are looking for reasons to be aggrieved.
bin Laden's an interesting example. Afghanistan is an odd place for a Saudi national to have got 'started', isn't it? Or perhaps he was radicalised elsewhere and went looking for a fight. And if that's the case, *any* intervention in *any* Muslim land, however valid, would lead to problems.
The final endpoint of your position is that we end up leaving all lands Muslim extremists call their own to them (even including places like much of Spain), and not to react when they preform heinous acts inside 'their' lands, or outside to us.
We can't go around not pandering to extremists, because they will always want more.
He went to Afghanistan to join the Mujahadin (I have no idea how to spell that).
Perhaps someone should tell UKIP and Brexit supporters that May can't be trusted to deliver what they want. They should vote UKIP.
The PM has navigated Brexit through the courts, both houses and now signed Article50, I think they’ll put their faith in her for a little longer.
Meanwhile, I hear the Remainers trust in Tim Farron is going spiffingly well...
Still 2 weeks to go, and May's stock is falling fast. Watch the Tories panic, turn nasty, and convince more people that she is not to be trusted.
Time will tell, but there’s certainly a whiff of panic and nastiness about your post.
LOOL. PB Tories don't like it up em
Panic everywhere from te hfrothers, pant wetting reaches fllod stage as their idol of clay melts in the sun
It's up to the public. Always is. If they vote in Jezza then, just as with Brexit, it will be the less well off that suffer most while the better off will cope.
I'm not pant wetting; I just think it a shame that people who can least afford it will be affected most. It's the waste that is the most egregious.
Yeah Brown and Darling left an ANNUAL £156 billion turd on the doorstep when they left office, its going to take a lot longer to get rid of it and even longer the smell.. as I said Labour cannot be trusted on finances... and yet Corbyn want to splurge another 70 billion + a year.. bonkers
It makes me very angry to see such splurging. We should be aiming to have a balanced budget as soon as possible. Even the Tory commitment to "middle of the next decade" really got my hackles up, but I have nowhere else to go.
Tories have polished and added to that turd and made it a £1 trillion shiny thing.
Mr. Divvie, she responded to a speech Corbyn made when political campaigning resumed. Do you think that Corbyn's speeches should be protected from criticism?
You may recall I said a couple of months ago (several times) Boris should not be Foreign Secretary as he isn't up to the job.
You might also recall that, for some time now, I've been critical of May. Her main pro is simply that Corbyn is worse.
And "ah but Corbyn loves terrorists" doesn't resonate any more - the clip of the police 2 years ago telling May that her police cuts would leave us wide open to terror attacks resonating far more powerfully.
Evidence for this?
Go talk to people. Police cuts have been a significant and growing issue for complaint in so many communities. People vote more on the here and now than the past, especially when the here and now threatens them and theirs. How can the Tories hope for "Corbyn is soft on terrorism" to suddenly gain traction when it hasn't before when the proof that May is soft on terrorism is in front of their eyes?
They say crime has fallen even with police cuts not so Car crime, house breaks have fallen.However fraud on the internet has risen massively many of this not recorded as just reported to banks.If you get your wallet stolen and report that to the police it is a crime.The same ,£20 over the net whistle Dixie.
May lead vs Corbyn: +43 points, Rudd lead vs Abbott: +37 points.
It's unlikely, in the end, that people will vote for the candidate they don't trust to keep them safe, unless the Manchester bombing can be pinned on an error by May.
Perhaps the main lesson to take from both Corbyn and Trump is that party unity is overrated, particularly in the information age where everything is so immediate. Playing up splits might counterintuitively crowd out the other parties.
It occurs to me that I haven't seen anything at all from the Conservative Party this campaign. No billboards, no flage, no facebook adverts, no leaflets, certainly no actual humans. Nothing at all. Very little from any of the other parties either, but absolutely nothing from the Conservatives. Now I live in a safe Labour seat so maybe the campaign is being fought elsewhere. But two years ago I saw a lot more than this.
I find it interesting how the current close polls have embolden labour supporters on here. Over the last two year, apart from a few exceptions they have been remarkably quiet. It may be that expressing a view supporting any other party than the Tories normally results in a tirade of abuse and derision which is quite off putting to joining the debate. Full marks to mark senior and nick Palmer for staying the course.
I'm not sure that's true, I can think of some Labour supporters on here who fear a Corbyn victory as much as May.
Edited extra bit: on that note, the time may be perfect for a soft, centrish party to newly emerge. May is not liked, Corbyn is not trusted. There's a huge gaping void for a fiscally dry and socially liberal new party.
That would be like Clegg's LDs. Can't recall them winning a majority or even close, which suggests the platform isnt really the issue, its about familiarity, habit and trust, and for the most part, no being the other guys.
I think it would be a mistake to characterize a large chunk of the electorate as either socially liberal or fiscally dry. If the majority of voters were socially liberal there would not be huge majorities for policies such as corporal or capital punishment in opinion polls, a more realistic characterisation would be moderately socially conservative with a broad streak of not wanting to look unpleasant or out of date over the top of it. Similarly the evidence is that voters quite like authoritarian government so long as it doesnt interfere with them personally, and quite like a taxy spendy government, so long as it taxes someone else, and spends it on them.
Interesting comments from Paul Mason on Newsnight who I think to be fair has been quite bullish about Lab prospects from the start of the campaign:
1) He always thought it would be quite easy for Lab to get up to 35% by gathering all votes from the left. But then much harder to go much higher as that requires centrist votes.
2) He thinks big problem for Lab could well be piling up large numbers of extra votes in seats they win anyway - ie much less efficient votes to seats efficiency.
How on earth anyone ANYWHERE near the centre ground could remotely consider voting for a party lead by Corbyn, McDonnell & Abbott is utterly beyond me.
Can any Corbyn apologist remind me what part of Germany's interventionist foreign policy lead to a terrorist mowing down 12 souls in Berlin last christmas ?
Why should anyone in the centre vote for a Tory government which has cut 25% from the Police budget since 2010 ?
Austerity has to go. Let normality return.
Government debt has risen by over a trillion quid in the last decade.
How can that be described as 'austerity' ?
And what does 'let normality return' mean fiscally ?
We have a manifesto offering hope for a better future.
You really, really haven't. Even Donald Trump's 'we'll build a wall and get Mexico to pay for it' is more realistic than Corbyn's education policy (for example).
And where there is no realism, there is no hope.
Off my hiatus for one moment: the free tuition fees is what annoys me. It is not a structured investment, it is a sop to the middle classes to vote Labour and send your kids off for free. We have a number of problems with higher education to do with sustainability, skill levels, people on low incomes taking part etc etc which all need targeted solutions with extra funding. But to solve this they have just said "sweeties for all!" which actually makes a number of the problems worse in the short term and almost impossible to solve in the long term.
All at the same time keeping a lot of the cuts the Tories have made to the poorest, so in fact they are borrowing to....help those who need the help the least. Very fucking Labour;
Yeah Brown and Darling left an ANNUAL £156 billion turd on the doorstep when they left office, its going to take a lot longer to get rid of it and even longer the smell.. as I said Labour cannot be trusted on finances... and yet Corbyn want to splurge another 70 billion + a year.. bonkers
It makes me very angry to see such splurging. We should be aiming to have a balanced budget as soon as possible. Even the Tory commitment to "middle of the next decade" really got my hackles up, but I have nowhere else to go.
Tories have polished and added to that turd and made it a £1 trillion shiny thing.
yeah and your talking crap.. how do you suggest the Tories turn round 156 billion a year overspend?
I find it interesting how the current close polls have embolden labour supporters on here. Over the last two year, apart from a few exceptions they have been remarkably quiet. It may be that expressing a view supporting any other party than the Tories normally results in a tirade of abuse and derision which is quite off putting to joining the debate. Full marks to mark senior and nick Palmer for staying the course.
I'm not sure that's true, I can think of some Labour supporters on here who fear a Corbyn victory as much as May.
All very peculiar but interesting viewing
Fear is maybe a bit strong but I certainly didn't want a Corbyn government. I would prefer May. But I don't see as it makes that much difference, for reasons I've explained here enough.
I agree with the comments that the Labour manifesto is effectively an uncosted wish list and Corbyn would be a hopeless PM. It's a struggle for me even put an X in the box beside the candidates name.
But I am also starting to think that Corbyn has possibly saved the party from oblivion, and the conservative manifesto itself is evidence that -at least economically - he has moved the centre ground of British politics to the left. Corbyn and Brexit have facillitated a paradigm shift away from neoliberalism and the legacy of Thatcherism. There is a lot of hopelessness in this country. Brutal employment laws. No job security. No access to the housing market. Lots and lots of people just about making ends meet. This probably applies for the majority of working age people in the town I live in. And this is contrasted with a relaxed attitude for far too long about wealth and the entitlement of a minority. Corbyn is wrong on many things, particularly national security, but he gives people hope in the way that no-one from the moderate wing of the labour party can. As such, he has proved his point.
I believe that the tories will win the election, handsomely. But I don't think its the end of the road at all for Labour.
2) He thinks big problem for Lab could well be piling up large numbers of extra votes in seats they win anyway - ie much less efficient votes to seats efficiency.
The idea that all of Labour's improvement is down to younger voters and "metropolitan" areas (thus meaning they would just "pile up" votes in safe seats) isn't really borne out by the evidence. Look at Wales -- that has very few truly "metropolitan" areas, and has a higher average age than any English region, yet the latest YouGov from Wales shows Labour up considerably on 2015. Also subsamples this past week have generally been giving Labour healthy leads in the North again.
While Labour has made improvements with pretty much every group, there's lots to suggest that they're making especially sharp improvements with their white working-class "traditional" voters, who they were struggling with so much at the beginning of the campaign.
If this were "the Brexit election", you could imagine many UKIP voters who had previously voted Labour switching to the Tories as "the Brexit party". But if my auntie were my uncle she'd have a pair of knackers. It isn't and it won't become the Brexit election. That was Theresa May's big mistake.
Is Theresa the new Edward Heath?
Are you suggesting Tim Farron might be a new Jeremy Thorpe?
Given Mr Farron's views on gay sex I'd consider that very unlikely...
LOL, you have led a sheltered life. have been plenty who doth protest too much , especially Tories.
Mr. Indigo, partly disagree. It also depends a lot on the alternatives. Consider how a Cleggian Lib Dem party would've fared versus Corbyn and May. I think they would've made substantial gains.
Farron's campaign has been hamstrung by a combination of a daft EU position, and most early coverage being about whether he thought homosexuality was sinful.
Perhaps someone should tell UKIP and Brexit supporters that May can't be trusted to deliver what they want. They should vote UKIP.
The PM has navigated Brexit through the courts, both houses and now signed Article50, I think they’ll put their faith in her for a little longer.
Meanwhile, I hear the Remainers trust in Tim Farron is going spiffingly well...
Still 2 weeks to go, and May's stock is falling fast. Watch the Tories panic, turn nasty, and convince more people that she is not to be trusted.
Time will tell, but there’s certainly a whiff of panic and nastiness about your post.
LOOL. PB Tories don't like it up em
Panic everywhere from te hfrothers, pant wetting reaches fllod stage as their idol of clay melts in the sun
It's up to the public. Always is. If they vote in Jezza then, just as with Brexit, it will be the less well off that suffer most while the better off will cope.
I'm not pant wetting; I just think it a shame that people who can least afford it will be affected most. It's the waste that is the most egregious.
Corbyn will be no worse than May. At least he has a semblance of a heart left. May has proven she is a scheming self interested duplicitious leader who cannot be trusted on anything.
Interesting comments from Paul Mason on Newsnight who I think to be fair has been quite bullish about Lab prospects from the start of the campaign:
1) He always thought it would be quite easy for Lab to get up to 35% by gathering all votes from the left. But then much harder to go much higher as that requires centrist votes.
2) He thinks big problem for Lab could well be piling up large numbers of extra votes in seats they win anyway - ie much less efficient votes to seats efficiency.
How on earth anyone ANYWHERE near the centre ground could remotely consider voting for a party lead by Corbyn, McDonnell & Abbott is utterly beyond me.
Can any Corbyn apologist remind me what part of Germany's interventionist foreign policy lead to a terrorist mowing down 12 souls in Berlin last christmas ?
Why should anyone in the centre vote for a Tory government which has cut 25% from the Police budget since 2010 ?
Austerity has to go. Let normality return.
Government debt has risen by over a trillion quid in the last decade.
How can that be described as 'austerity' ?
And what does 'let normality return' mean fiscally ?
We will find out what 'austerity' means if Corbyn wins. There'll be a bond upswing and it'll cost the government a lot more to fund the existing deficit never mind free owls, microwaves, electricity and degrees for all.
It occurs to me that I haven't seen anything at all from the Conservative Party this campaign. No billboards, no flage, no facebook adverts, no leaflets, certainly no actual humans. Nothing at all. Very little from any of the other parties either, but absolutely nothing from the Conservatives. Now I live in a safe Labour seat so maybe the campaign is being fought elsewhere. But two years ago I saw a lot more than this.
Probaby lots of Facebook adverts, but if you are not in the target group, either because you are a known supporter, or because you are known to be a lost cause, you wont see them.
Perhaps someone should tell UKIP and Brexit supporters that May can't be trusted to deliver what they want. They should vote UKIP.
The PM has navigated Brexit through the courts, both houses and now signed Article50, I think they’ll put their faith in her for a little longer.
Meanwhile, I hear the Remainers trust in Tim Farron is going spiffingly well...
Still 2 weeks to go, and May's stock is falling fast. Watch the Tories panic, turn nasty, and convince more people that she is not to be trusted.
Time will tell, but there’s certainly a whiff of panic and nastiness about your post.
LOOL. PB Tories don't like it up em
Panic everywhere from te hfrothers, pant wetting reaches fllod stage as their idol of clay melts in the sun
It's up to the public. Always is. If they vote in Jezza then, just as with Brexit, it will be the less well off that suffer most while the better off will cope.
I'm not pant wetting; I just think it a shame that people who can least afford it will be affected most. It's the waste that is the most egregious.
Yes because the Tories have always had the interests of the poorest in society at heart.
What's that you say Sooty? The Tories opposed setting up the NHS and introducing the minimum wage?
No no boys and girls, that was the Conservative party, not the Theresa May party, they're quite quite different.
Labour have had pretty good campaign up to yesterday. They have made a big strategic error though by creating an open season on Corbyn and cos security risk. One suspects they arrogantly thought they could cover it all up as they were going well in the polls. Peak labour may well have been reached.
It occurs to me that I haven't seen anything at all from the Conservative Party this campaign. No billboards, no flage, no facebook adverts, no leaflets, certainly no actual humans. Nothing at all. Very little from any of the other parties either, but absolutely nothing from the Conservatives. Now I live in a safe Labour seat so maybe the campaign is being fought elsewhere. But two years ago I saw a lot more than this.
Ditto for me.
I do know that the Conservatives have been sending glossy leaflets in Bassetlaw though.
So there's likely some differential targeting taking place.
Yeah Brown and Darling left an ANNUAL £156 billion turd on the doorstep when they left office, its going to take a lot longer to get rid of it and even longer the smell.. as I said Labour cannot be trusted on finances... and yet Corbyn want to splurge another 70 billion + a year.. bonkers
It makes me very angry to see such splurging. We should be aiming to have a balanced budget as soon as possible. Even the Tory commitment to "middle of the next decade" really got my hackles up, but I have nowhere else to go.
Tories have polished and added to that turd and made it a £1 trillion shiny thing.
yeah and your talking crap.. how do you suggest the Tories turn round 156 billion a year overspend?
Spend less on bombs and submarines and foreign wars for a starter, less foreign aid , less moochers in HOL and Westminster, less vanity London projects and on and on
The West always feels a need to interfere because of the pressure from its liberal conscience. Blair was able to manipulate opinion against Iraq because Saddam was a brutal dictator who kept order by terror. That he happened to be a secular, equal opportunities dictator was ignored. And as such he verged on run-of-the mill.
I was against the Iraq war and happily voted for Charlie because I couldn't see what marked him out as special. There was Mugabe, the Jongs, and most Middle East countries. It felt more like a Bush reprisal tactic
Of course, the Umma dislike any Muslim deaths, no matter how inflicted. Being Christian I feel a bond with the Copts, but I also feel a bond with the Yazidis and Kurds.
But Jezza is being disingenuous here. What seems to distinguish the victims of terrorist attacks recently is the presence in the country of a large and growing Muslim population. Think Belgium and Sweden - not renowned for being aggressive Crusaders..
99.999% of Muslims may be just as outraged as we are, but a few will always believe that any attack on any Muslim is an attack on them. Even if it is a well-meaning attempt to relieve suffering.
Blair may not come into that category, but some others did. Yet how quickly people forget the clamour for action in Yugoslavia, any action.
IS want to kill us because they hate our way of life. We're not in Afghanistan because of material gain. The liberal left will say it's because we need to educate women.
Jezza dislikes war, unless it's against us, and that last bit is his Achilles heel. He elevates other groups because of that. Israel is aggressive in defence, probably too aggressive, but making Hamas into the saints is the work of a lunatic.
People are perfectly entitled to vote for Jezza, but I never will. I'm the same age, and I suspect when I was seventeen, I might have liked him. Not now.
Yeah Brown and Darling left an ANNUAL £156 billion turd on the doorstep when they left office, its going to take a lot longer to get rid of it and even longer the smell.. as I said Labour cannot be trusted on finances... and yet Corbyn want to splurge another 70 billion + a year.. bonkers
It makes me very angry to see such splurging. We should be aiming to have a balanced budget as soon as possible. Even the Tory commitment to "middle of the next decade" really got my hackles up, but I have nowhere else to go.
Tories have polished and added to that turd and made it a £1 trillion shiny thing.
A trillion pound annual deficit? Well, that's news.
There was considerable worldwide support for the NATO led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. International goodwill that was squandered in Iraq.
Though perhaps the longer view requires looking at the funding and arming of the Mujahadin against the Soviets by Maggie and Ronnie in the Eighties. That is how Bin Laden started, back when Islamist terrorists were considered the good guys by our press barons.
Looking at the state of Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen now it is hard to defend the case that our foreign policy has been flawless. We should at least consider what we would do differently the next time a MENA country tears itself apart. Lobbing bombs at civil wars has not worked out well.
Jezza was not arguing that Western Foreign policy was soley responsible for the rise of Islamism, but it is nessecary to at least consider how much it contributed. The War on Terror is a unique war where each side specialises in self harm.
I'm not arguing that our foreign policy has been flawless: far from. It's just that the extremists are far more responsive than we are, and are looking for reasons to be aggrieved.
bin Laden's an interesting example. Afghanistan is an odd place for a Saudi national to have got 'started', isn't it? Or perhaps he was radicalised elsewhere and went looking for a fight. And if that's the case, *any* intervention in *any* Muslim land, however valid, would lead to problems.
The final endpoint of your position is that we end up leaving all lands Muslim extremists call their own to them (even including places like much of Spain), and not to react when they preform heinous acts inside 'their' lands, or outside to us.
We can't go around not pandering to extremists, because they will always want more.
He went to Afghanistan to join the Mujahadin (I have no idea how to spell that).
Yes, I know, and that's my point. If you make a decision to go and join fighters in a foreign land, then you're already radicalised. He may have made contacts and learnt skills over there, and that's bad, but it's not as if he went over as a peace-loving young man wanting to find peace.
If as Mike says , the online pollsters are making the effort to reach and get the views of those often overlooked , how does including TSE and other pb Conservatives in every poll achieve that objective ?
I find it interesting how the current close polls have embolden labour supporters on here. Over the last two year, apart from a few exceptions they have been remarkably quiet. It may be that expressing a view supporting any other party than the Tories normally results in a tirade of abuse and derision which is quite off putting to joining the debate. Full marks to mark senior and nick Palmer for staying the course.
I'm not sure that's true, I can think of some Labour supporters on here who fear a Corbyn victory as much as May.
All very peculiar but interesting viewing
Fear is maybe a bit strong but I certainly didn't want a Corbyn government. I would prefer May. But I don't see as it makes that much difference, for reasons I've explained here enough.
Yes, it'll make a difference to some who see politics as tribalism in the way others follow football teams but regardless of the outcome we'll all just get on with whatever we're getting on with.
Interestingly if the narrowing of the gap is confirmed on election day it will be very difficult for anybody to challenge Corbyn.
Interesting comments from Paul Mason on Newsnight who I think to be fair has been quite bullish about Lab prospects from the start of the campaign:
1) He always thought it would be quite easy for Lab to get up to 35% by gathering all votes from the left. But then much harder to go much higher as that requires centrist votes.
2) He thinks big problem for Lab could well be piling up large numbers of extra votes in seats they win anyway - ie much less efficient votes to seats efficiency.
How on earth anyone ANYWHERE near the centre ground could remotely consider voting for a party lead by Corbyn, McDonnell & Abbott is utterly beyond me.
Can any Corbyn apologist remind me what part of Germany's interventionist foreign policy lead to a terrorist mowing down 12 souls in Berlin last christmas ?
Why should anyone in the centre vote for a Tory government which has cut 25% from the Police budget since 2010 ?
Austerity has to go. Let normality return.
Government debt has risen by over a trillion quid in the last decade.
How can that be described as 'austerity' ?
And what does 'let normality return' mean fiscally ?
We will find out what 'austerity' means if Corbyn wins. There'll be a bond upswing and it'll cost the government a lot more to fund the existing deficit never mind free owls, microwaves, electricity and degrees for all.
And we really would see the City more to Frankfurt, the car factories shut down, overseas investment end and the stock market crash.
I rather suspect a minority Corbyn government would be brought down within months, possibly weeks.
Isn't it interesting that Farron's ratings are now much worse that Corbyn's? As Lib Dem leaders (Clegg excepted) don't usually generate a lot of antipathy, I assume the gay sex cock-up is taking its toll.
Unless some people are confusing him with Michael Fallon.
ONE of the SNP’s big donors has switched his financial support to the Conservatives over Brexit and the economy, the Herald can reveal.
Businessman Bill Samuel, who has given the SNP £60,000 over the past decade and who publicly backed a Yes vote in 2014, has now handed £10,000 to the Tories.
Mr Samuel, 74, said he switched allegiance because he feared Nicola Sturgeon’s government did not understand the way the economy worked and he also wanted Brexit to go well.
He said the SNP appeared to have passed its “apogee”, or highest point, adding: “It’s very sad in a way. What an opportunity that was, what an opportunity. It’s just so sad.”
Edited extra bit: on that note, the time may be perfect for a soft, centrish party to newly emerge. May is not liked, Corbyn is not trusted. There's a huge gaping void for a fiscally dry and socially liberal new party.
That would be like Clegg's LDs. Can't recall them winning a majority or even close, which suggests the platform isnt really the issue, its about familiarity, habit and trust, and for the most part, no being the other guys.
I think it would be a mistake to characterize a large chunk of the electorate as either socially liberal or fiscally dry. If the majority of voters were socially liberal there would not be huge majorities for policies such as corporal or capital punishment in opinion polls, a more realistic characterisation would be moderately socially conservative with a broad streak of not wanting to look unpleasant or out of date over the top of it. Similarly the evidence is that voters quite like authoritarian government so long as it doesnt interfere with them personally, and quite like a taxy spendy government, so long as it taxes someone else, and spends it on them.
"huge majorities for policies such as corporal or capital punishment in opinion polls"
By 45-39% people tend to support the reintroduction of the death penalty for murder.
Support has been dropping steadily - in 2010, 51% were in favour and 37% opposed, and people born after 1964, in the 18-39 age bracket, tend to oppose its reintroduction. This may suggest that we are approaching a moment when people will tend to oppose it, but we are not there yet.
Interesting comments from Paul Mason on Newsnight who I think to be fair has been quite bullish about Lab prospects from the start of the campaign:
1) He always thought it would be quite easy for Lab to get up to 35% by gathering all votes from the left. But then much harder to go much higher as that requires centrist votes.
2) He thinks big problem for Lab could well be piling up large numbers of extra votes in seats they win anyway - ie much less efficient votes to seats efficiency.
How on earth anyone ANYWHERE near the centre ground could remotely consider voting for a party lead by Corbyn, McDonnell & Abbott is utterly beyond me.
Can any Corbyn apologist remind me what part of Germany's interventionist foreign policy lead to a terrorist mowing down 12 souls in Berlin last christmas ?
Why should anyone in the centre vote for a Tory government which has cut 25% from the Police budget since 2010 ?
Austerity has to go. Let normality return.
Government debt has risen by over a trillion quid in the last decade.
How can that be described as 'austerity' ?
And what does 'let normality return' mean fiscally ?
We will find out what 'austerity' means if Corbyn wins. There'll be a bond upswing and it'll cost the government a lot more to fund the existing deficit never mind free owls, microwaves, electricity and degrees for all.
And we really would see the City more to Frankfurt, the car factories shut down, overseas investment end and the stock market crash.
I rather suspect a minority Corbyn government would be brought down within months, possibly weeks.
"And we really would see the City more to Frankfurt, the car factories shut down, overseas investment end and the stock market crash."
Why won't these things happen if we leave the EU without a Brexit deal?
Love him or hate him Corbyn absolutely believes in what he says, has done for decades, a refreshing change from the vacuous chameleons such as Blair and Cameron. Perhaps his sincerity is appealing to people.
That's bollocks though.
His never wavering belief is that Trident should be scrapped, so when asked 6 times if he would scrap it, the sincere answer would have been yes, but he couldn't bring himself to say it.
His belief is that the IRA should have won, so when asked to condemn them the sincere answer would have been no, but he couldn't bring himself to say it.
Britain (and other Western countries) spent much of the Sixties to Eighties propping up secular right wing dictatorships across the newly decolonised world. We were not bothered by Hussain, Assad, the Shah or Nasser, except to use them in proxies in the Cold war. There was little attempt to foster democracy and freedom. As such the Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood thrived as the opposition.
Pakistan in the Eighties spent more than half its government budget on its military, abandoning education to the madrassas. These became the only place for a poor child to get an education. We are now seeing the consequences of that neglect. The same happens all over MENA, where the Islamists are often the sole education, sole welfare, sole law and order and sole social care in these countries. The Islamist parties are particularly strong in opposing corruption.
People there often want these positive aspects of Islamist politics, and tolerate the violent aspects as the price. Aspirations of poor people in developing countries are surprisingly similar to our own, and the sense of frustration that comes from those opportunities being stifled by corrupt Western supported elites becomes manifest.
It is soft power that builds peace, not bombing. Economic development, particularly via women drives social progress. The education of women is the best value for money of any development spend.
Yes, I get your view. It's all our fault.
Let me tell you: no, it isn't. The leaders of these people want power, and it's easy to control people through religion. But to really control them, you need an enemy to gather them against. And if you're an Islamic leader, what better enemy than the west, who are so un-Islamic, and have had the success and power that should rightly have been theirs?
They need us as an enemy, as it helps them control the faithful.
It is a bit rich to see people ready and willing to contemplate a no deal Brexit, even advocating it in some cases, pretending to care about the damage a Corbyn government might do to the UK.
I have a theory that all the labour vote is increasing in areas where it doesn't need votes; lib dem-tory marginals, safe tory seats or safe labour seats. However, I wanted to talk about mps in the tory party in safe seats that won't stand down.
I live in Southend East and Rochford (James Duddridge), I've voted tory since 2001, but my mp is frankly useless compared to David Amess (Southend West) and Rebecca Harris (Castle Point - I campaigned for her in 2015/in the non canvey island bit). For the first time in my life, I will not be voting Conservative but voting for the independent candidate. Duddridge has been the MP since 2005 and to be honest in 12 years has done nothing compared to Amess and Harris. Duddridge lives literally one street away from me and we rarely see him in the community but conservative association members were giving the impression that he would stand down after 2015. The independent candidate that I'm voting for is Ron Woodley who works at southend council, Mr. Duddridge has decided for some reason that he will not work with anyone on Southend council that is not a conservative. He will not work with independents - which Ron is - and I find that frankly a disgrace. When I contacted the conservative association on this, we were told this is Tory HQ policy. One of my close friends knows David Amess and when he raised this with him, he says its nonsense.
The point of this post is my sheer frustration that I've voted Tory all my life but have a member of parliament that will not stand down. I don't believe in term limits because the likes of David Amess have been great servants and advocates for the community but when you get a crap mp there is nothing we can do about it.
Mr. Indigo, partly disagree. It also depends a lot on the alternatives. Consider how a Cleggian Lib Dem party would've fared versus Corbyn and May. I think they would've made substantial gains.
Farron's campaign has been hamstrung by a combination of a daft EU position, and most early coverage being about whether he thought homosexuality was sinful.
At the outset, I thought their position on the EU would get them into the mid Teens.
Perhaps someone should tell UKIP and Brexit supporters that May can't be trusted to deliver what they want. They should vote UKIP.
The PM has navigated Brexit through the courts, both houses and now signed Article50, I think they’ll put their faith in her for a little longer.
Meanwhile, I hear the Remainers trust in Tim Farron is going spiffingly well...
Still 2 weeks to go, and May's stock is falling fast. Watch the Tories panic, turn nasty, and convince more people that she is not to be trusted.
Time will tell, but there’s certainly a whiff of panic and nastiness about your post.
LOOL. PB Tories don't like it up em
Panic everywhere from te hfrothers, pant wetting reaches fllod stage as their idol of clay melts in the sun
It's up to the public. Always is. If they vote in Jezza then, just as with Brexit, it will be the less well off that suffer most while the better off will cope.
I'm not pant wetting; I just think it a shame that people who can least afford it will be affected most. It's the waste that is the most egregious.
Corbyn will be no worse than May. At least he has a semblance of a heart left. May has proven she is a scheming self interested duplicitious leader who cannot be trusted on anything.
May has shown she is utterly inept and not able to handle any kind of pressure. Her cabinet is devoid of talent. The idea that she is storing and stable has been blown out of the water. Fallon on Channel 4 Nerws last night - supposedly one of the better Tory performers - was humiliated. All May offers is not being Corbyn. That will win her a decent majority. Then she actually has to start delivering. And that is when the fun will begin.
I find it interesting how the current close polls have embolden labour supporters on here. Over the last two year, apart from a few exceptions they have been remarkably quiet. It may be that expressing a view supporting any other party than the Tories normally results in a tirade of abuse and derision which is quite off putting to joining the debate. Full marks to mark senior and nick Palmer for staying the course.
I'm not sure that's true, I can think of some Labour supporters on here who fear a Corbyn victory as much as May.
All very peculiar but interesting viewing
Fear is maybe a bit strong but I certainly didn't want a Corbyn government. I would prefer May. But I don't see as it makes that much difference, for reasons I've explained here enough.
Yes, it'll make a difference to some who see politics as tribalism in the way others follow football teams but regardless of the outcome we'll all just get on with whatever we're getting on with.
Interestingly if the narrowing of the gap is confirmed on election day it will be very difficult for anybody to challenge Corbyn.
Corbyn 'aint going anywhere by looks of things, except possibly No.10, if the youth vote/never voted does turn out in mass and neutralize the grey vote.
Perhaps someone should tell UKIP and Brexit supporters that May can't be trusted to deliver what they want. They should vote UKIP.
The PM has navigated Brexit through the courts, both houses and now signed Article50, I think they’ll put their faith in her for a little longer.
Meanwhile, I hear the Remainers trust in Tim Farron is going spiffingly well...
Still 2 weeks to go, and May's stock is falling fast. Watch the Tories panic, turn nasty, and convince more people that she is not to be trusted.
Time will tell, but there’s certainly a whiff of panic and nastiness about your post.
LOOL. PB Tories don't like it up em
Panic everywhere from te hfrothers, pant wetting reaches fllod stage as their idol of clay melts in the sun
It's up to the public. Always is. If they vote in Jezza then, just as with Brexit, it will be the less well off that suffer most while the better off will cope.
I'm not pant wetting; I just think it a shame that people who can least afford it will be affected most. It's the waste that is the most egregious.
Yes because the Tories have always had the interests of the poorest in society at heart.
What's that you say Sooty? The Tories opposed setting up the NHS and introducing the minimum wage?
No no boys and girls, that was the Conservative party, not the Theresa May party, they're quite quite different.
Founding the NHS?? You mean the NHS founded 70 years ago? That's your attack line?
People have consistently underestimated Corbyn: both outside his party and inside. He's proven remarkably resilient, and now we're seeing the same in this election campaign.
Leaving aside his many negative attributes, his mettle's impressive. So far, May's hasn't been.
He's very relaxed, and I think he really enjoys the campaign. May does not. Not sure how that translates into competence for running the country though.
I think there's a feedback loop.
Even if he loses (which he will) he has demonstrated to many that a hard left approach can be popular. It will make it very difficult for the Blairites to "take back control"
Morning all,
Indeed. If Labour don't win then they are going to be in an awful situation after this campaign - Corbyn won't be going anywhere and they will have done well enough to deflect the critics.
If Corbyn stays on and May struggles to deliver on her promises, we all know what is likely to happen next.
Mr. Indigo, partly disagree. It also depends a lot on the alternatives. Consider how a Cleggian Lib Dem party would've fared versus Corbyn and May. I think they would've made substantial gains.
Farron's campaign has been hamstrung by a combination of a daft EU position, and most early coverage being about whether he thought homosexuality was sinful.
At the outset, I thought their position on the EU would get them into the mid Teens.
I'm surprised the Lib Dems haven't done a lot better too - and I don't think its just the general uselessness of Farron - I think the 'we'll find a way of staying in the EU' simply lacks credibility or appeal....
2) He thinks big problem for Lab could well be piling up large numbers of extra votes in seats they win anyway - ie much less efficient votes to seats efficiency.
The idea that all of Labour's improvement is down to younger voters and "metropolitan" areas (thus meaning they would just "pile up" votes in safe seats) isn't really borne out by the evidence. Look at Wales -- that has very few truly "metropolitan" areas, and has a higher average age than any English region, yet the latest YouGov from Wales shows Labour up considerably on 2015. Also subsamples this past week have generally been giving Labour healthy leads in the North again.
While Labour has made improvements with pretty much every group, there's lots to suggest that they're making especially sharp improvements with their white working-class "traditional" voters, who they were struggling with so much at the beginning of the campaign.
If this were "the Brexit election", you could imagine many UKIP voters who had previously voted Labour switching to the Tories as "the Brexit party". But if my auntie were my uncle she'd have a pair of knackers. It isn't and it won't become the Brexit election. That was Theresa May's big mistake.
Is Theresa the new Edward Heath?
Are you suggesting Tim Farron might be a new Jeremy Thorpe?
Such a suggestion is, personally, probably actionable! Although it doesn’t (yet) feel like it, Liberal/Liberal Democrat wise.
Well, it's worth remembering he took over a party with a handful of seats - and lost more.
IIRC under Thorpe the Libs sarted off with a loss (Carmarthen), improved, got hammered in 1970, but then started picking up seats both at by-elections and at the Feb 1974 general ekection.
There are a fair few Home Counties seats where Feb 74 still represents the high water mark for the third party vote. Thorpe may have been an unusual character but under his leadership we went from two-party to two-and-half party politics. Whether that change is finally undone this time we'll have to see..
How on earth anyone ANYWHERE near the centre ground could remotely consider voting for a party lead by Corbyn, McDonnell & Abbott is utterly beyond me.
Can any Corbyn apologist remind me what part of Germany's interventionist foreign policy lead to a terrorist mowing down 12 souls in Berlin last christmas ?
Why should anyone in the centre vote for a Tory government which has cut 25% from the Police budget since 2010 ?
Austerity has to go. Let normality return.
Government debt has risen by over a trillion quid in the last decade.
How can that be described as 'austerity' ?
And what does 'let normality return' mean fiscally ?
We will find out what 'austerity' means if Corbyn wins. There'll be a bond upswing and it'll cost the government a lot more to fund the existing deficit never mind free owls, microwaves, electricity and degrees for all.
And we really would see the City more to Frankfurt, the car factories shut down, overseas investment end and the stock market crash.
I rather suspect a minority Corbyn government would be brought down within months, possibly weeks.
"And we really would see the City more to Frankfurt, the car factories shut down, overseas investment end and the stock market crash."
Why won't these things happen if we leave the EU without a Brexit deal?
Maybe they would and maybe they wouldn't and maybe they'll be a Brexit deal and maybe there wont.
Of course all those things were meant to happen on a Leave vote alone but didn't. And then when A50 was triggered but didn't.
For that matter all those things were meant to happen if the UK left the ERM in 1992 or failed to join the Euro in 1999.
So currently we're running at 0/4 (at least) on the 'doom and disaster will happen if we don't do what Brussels wants' predictions.
Prime Minister Corbyn is, I suspect, is a scenario from an entirely different book.
If you could point out some countries where Corbyn's policies have been implemented they might give an idea as to what would happen in this country. As I remember Venezuela was much admired among the Corbynistas.
Edited extra bit: on that note, the time may be perfect for a soft, centrish party to newly emerge. May is not liked, Corbyn is not trusted. There's a huge gaping void for a fiscally dry and socially liberal new party.
It's the social liberalism people don't like about Corbyn and the fiscal dryness people don't like about May! The gap in the market is for exactly the opposite...
On topic, I note Butler is saying that a tie in terms of votes would put the Tories ahead in seats? This is the opposite from the forecast made in 2015 on the same boundaries.
I have a theory that all the labour vote is increasing in areas where it doesn't need votes; lib dem-tory marginals, safe tory seats or safe labour seats. However, I wanted to talk about mps in the tory party in safe seats that won't stand down.
I live in Southend East and Rochford (James Duddridge), I've voted tory since 2001, but my mp is frankly useless compared to David Amess (Southend West) and Rebecca Harris (Castle Point - I campaigned for her in 2015/in the non canvey island bit). For the first time in my life, I will not be voting Conservative but voting for the independent candidate. Duddridge has been the MP since 2005 and to be honest in 12 years has done nothing compared to Amess and Harris. Duddridge lives literally one street away from me and we rarely see him in the community but conservative association members were giving the impression that he would stand down after 2015. The independent candidate that I'm voting for is Ron Woodley who works at southend council, Mr. Duddridge has decided for some reason that he will not work with anyone on Southend council that is not a conservative. He will not work with independents - which Ron is - and I find that frankly a disgrace. When I contacted the conservative association on this, we were told this is Tory HQ policy. One of my close friends knows David Amess and when he raised this with him, he says its nonsense.
The point of this post is my sheer frustration that I've voted Tory all my life but have a member of parliament that will not stand down. I don't believe in term limits because the likes of David Amess have been great servants and advocates for the community but when you get a crap mp there is nothing we can do about it.
Welcome aboard. Interesting news from the ground. I like the idea of 'None of the above' on ballot papers.
Edited extra bit: on that note, the time may be perfect for a soft, centrish party to newly emerge. May is not liked, Corbyn is not trusted. There's a huge gaping void for a fiscally dry and socially liberal new party.
It's the social liberalism people don't like about Corbyn and the fiscal dryness people don't like about May! The gap in the market is for exactly the opposite...
There was considerable worldwide support for the NATO led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. International goodwill that was squandered in Iraq.
Though perhaps the longer view requires looking at the funding and arming of the Mujahadin against the Soviets by Maggie and Ronnie in the Eighties. That is how Bin Laden started, back when Islamist terrorists were considered the good guys by our press barons.
Looking at the state of Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen now it is hard to defend the case that our foreign policy has been flawless. We should at least consider what we would do differently the next time a MENA country tears itself apart. Lobbing bombs at civil wars has not worked out well.
Jezza was not arguing that Western Foreign policy was soley responsible for the rise of Islamism, but it is nessecary to at least consider how much it contributed. The War on Terror is a unique war where each side specialises in self harm.
I'm not arguing that our foreign policy has been flawless: far from. It's just that the extremists are far more responsive than we are, and are looking for reasons to be aggrieved.
bin Laden's an interesting example. Afghanistan is an odd place for a Saudi national to have got 'started', isn't it? Or perhaps he was radicalised elsewhere and went looking for a fight. And if that's the case, *any* intervention in *any* Muslim land, however valid, would lead to problems.
The final endpoint of your position is that we end up leaving all lands Muslim extremists call their own to them (even including places like much of Spain), and not to react when they preform heinous acts inside 'their' lands, or outside to us.
We can't go around not pandering to extremists, because they will always want more.
He went to Afghanistan to join the Mujahadin (I have no idea how to spell that).
Yes, I know, and that's my point. If you make a decision to go and join fighters in a foreign land, then you're already radicalised. He may have made contacts and learnt skills over there, and that's bad, but it's not as if he went over as a peace-loving young man wanting to find peace.
I could be wrong, but I seem to recall that at the time the Mujahadin were regarded, in significant parts of the West as well as the Muslim world, as brave freedom fighters opposing the might of the atheistic Soviets.
I agree with the comments that the Labour manifesto is effectively an uncosted wish list and Corbyn would be a hopeless PM. It's a struggle for me even put an X in the box beside the candidates name.
But I am also starting to think that Corbyn has possibly saved the party from oblivion, and the conservative manifesto itself is evidence that -at least economically - he has moved the centre ground of British politics to the left. Corbyn and Brexit have facillitated a paradigm shift away from neoliberalism and the legacy of Thatcherism. There is a lot of hopelessness in this country. Brutal employment laws. No job security. No access to the housing market. Lots and lots of people just about making ends meet. This probably applies for the majority of working age people in the town I live in. And this is contrasted with a relaxed attitude for far too long about wealth and the entitlement of a minority. Corbyn is wrong on many things, particularly national security, but he gives people hope in the way that no-one from the moderate wing of the labour party can. As such, he has proved his point.
I believe that the tories will win the election, handsomely. But I don't think its the end of the road at all for Labour.
I agree with you. I also think sensible Labour moderates will be learning lessons about not being afraid of the power of the right wing press - that is the really valuable lesson that Corbyn has taught. The Tories have accepted the notion of the state as a powerful force for good. For a Labour leader without Corbyn's past and an ability to see beyond the comfort zone, that is a powerful positive; as is the fact that the Tories really aren't very good.
People have consistently underestimated Corbyn: both outside his party and inside. He's proven remarkably resilient, and now we're seeing the same in this election campaign.
Leaving aside his many negative attributes, his mettle's impressive. So far, May's hasn't been.
He's very relaxed, and I think he really enjoys the campaign. May does not. Not sure how that translates into competence for running the country though.
I think there's a feedback loop.
Even if he loses (which he will) he has demonstrated to many that a hard left approach can be popular. It will make it very difficult for the Blairites to "take back control"
Morning all,
Indeed. If Labour don't win then they are going to be in an awful situation after this campaign - Corbyn won't be going anywhere and they will have done well enough to deflect the critics.
If Corbyn stays on and May struggles to deliver on her promises, we all know what is likely to happen next.
I find it interesting how the current close polls have embolden labour supporters on here. Over the last two year, apart from a few exceptions they have been remarkably quiet. It may be that expressing a view supporting any other party than the Tories normally results in a tirade of abuse and derision which is quite off putting to joining the debate. Full marks to mark senior and nick Palmer for staying the course.
I'm not sure that's true, I can think of some Labour supporters on here who fear a Corbyn victory as much as May.
All very peculiar but interesting viewing
Fear is maybe a bit strong but I certainly didn't want a Corbyn government. I would prefer May. But I don't see as it makes that much difference, for reasons I've explained here enough.
Yes, it'll make a difference to some who see politics as tribalism in the way others follow football teams but regardless of the outcome we'll all just get on with whatever we're getting on with.
Interestingly if the narrowing of the gap is confirmed on election day it will be very difficult for anybody to challenge Corbyn.
Corbyn 'aint going anywhere by looks of things, except possibly No.10, if the youth vote/never voted does turn out in mass and neutralize the grey vote.
That's why the tories will win a huge majority because as we keep seeing the young/never voters respond to polls but can't be bothered to vote.
Bashing the rich is always popular, and free money even more so. Hardly surprising that many of Jezza's policies attract. The downside wouldn't matter as he'll blame the ... what's the modern equivalent of the gnomes of Zurich?
In some ways, the Tories deserve to lose. It's as if they're holding fire until they see the whites of their enemies eyes. or perhaps they have no ammunition?
I thought they might mention Venezuela. And the Labour manifesto criticisms have been far too generic. Labour claims it will gain £49 billion (IFS say £40 billion) in taxes through taking a little more from the fats cats and Corporation tax - what's not to like?
As for Jezza, surely someone will keep him locked in the attic, he does look like he's already been neutered, doesn't it?
The Tories need to give the plebs a reason to vote for them.
People have consistently underestimated Corbyn: both outside his party and inside. He's proven remarkably resilient, and now we're seeing the same in this election campaign.
Leaving aside his many negative attributes, his mettle's impressive. So far, May's hasn't been.
He's very relaxed, and I think he really enjoys the campaign. May does not. Not sure how that translates into competence for running the country though.
I think there's a feedback loop.
Even if he loses (which he will) he has demonstrated to many that a hard left approach can be popular. It will make it very difficult for the Blairites to "take back control"
Morning all,
Indeed. If Labour don't win then they are going to be in an awful situation after this campaign - Corbyn won't be going anywhere and they will have done well enough to deflect the critics.
If Corbyn stays on and May struggles to deliver on her promises, we all know what is likely to happen next.
Are you still predicting a split in Labour ?
That looks a lot less likely now. I will not vote Labour while Corbyn leads the party, but I do think that he has shown it is possible to run a campaign and get a hearing without kow-towing to the right press. We will see what the result will be - I still cannot see beyond a big Tory win - but things don't look so bleak for Labour as they did at the start of the campaign. There is a way back.
I have a theory that all the labour vote is increasing in areas where it doesn't need votes; lib dem-tory marginals, safe tory seats or safe labour seats. However, I wanted to talk about mps in the tory party in safe seats that won't stand down.
I live in Southend East and Rochford (James Duddridge), I've voted tory since 2001, but my mp is frankly useless compared to David Amess (Southend West) and Rebecca Harris (Castle Point - I campaigned for her in 2015/in the non canvey island bit). For the first time in my life, I will not be voting Conservative but voting for the independent candidate. Duddridge has been the MP since 2005 and to be honest in 12 years has done nothing compared to Amess and Harris. Duddridge lives literally one street away from me and we rarely see him in the community but conservative association members were giving the impression that he would stand down after 2015. The independent candidate that I'm voting for is Ron Woodley who works at southend council, Mr. Duddridge has decided for some reason that he will not work with anyone on Southend council that is not a conservative. He will not work with independents - which Ron is - and I find that frankly a disgrace. When I contacted the conservative association on this, we were told this is Tory HQ policy. One of my close friends knows David Amess and when he raised this with him, he says its nonsense.
The point of this post is my sheer frustration that I've voted Tory all my life but have a member of parliament that will not stand down. I don't believe in term limits because the likes of David Amess have been great servants and advocates for the community but when you get a crap mp there is nothing we can do about it.
Another unwelcome product of our broken voting system. There are seats like this all over the place. For example in the Isle of Wight even the Tories had been trying to get rid of their useless MP for years, yet he clung on to general despair. He's gone now, due to the lucky accident of a gaffe at a local school just as this campaign started.
How on earth anyone ANYWHERE near the centre ground could remotely consider voting for a party lead by Corbyn, McDonnell & Abbott is utterly beyond me.
Can any Corbyn apologist remind me what part of Germany's interventionist foreign policy lead to a terrorist mowing down 12 souls in Berlin last christmas ?
Why should anyone in the centre vote for a Tory government which has cut 25% from the Police budget since 2010 ?
Austerity has to go. Let normality return.
Government debt has risen by over a trillion quid in the last decade.
How can that be described as 'austerity' ?
And what does 'let normality return' mean fiscally ?
We will find out what 'austerity' means if Corbyn wins. There'll be a bond upswing and it'll cost the government a lot more to fund the existing deficit never mind free owls, microwaves, electricity and degrees for all.
And we really would see the City more to Frankfurt, the car factories shut down, overseas investment end and the stock market crash.
I rather suspect a minority Corbyn government would be brought down within months, possibly weeks.
"And we really would see the City more to Frankfurt, the car factories shut down, overseas investment end and the stock market crash."
Why won't these things happen if we leave the EU without a Brexit deal?
Maybe they would and maybe they wouldn't and maybe they'll be a Brexit deal and maybe there wont.
Of course all those things were meant to happen on a Leave vote alone but didn't. And then when A50 was triggered but didn't.
For that matter all those things were meant to happen if the UK left the ERM in 1992 or failed to join the Euro in 1999.
So currently we're running at 0/4 (at least) on the 'doom and disaster will happen if we don't do what Brussels wants' predictions.
Prime Minister Corbyn is, I suspect, is a scenario from an entirely different book.
If you could point out some countries where Corbyn's policies have been implemented they might give an idea as to what would happen in this country. As I remember Venezuela was much admired among the Corbynistas.
I don't support Corbyn; I don't support a Brexit with no deal. I want a strong and stable UK.
Unknown statistics In 2015, what % of people in England voted Conservative because of the SNP? What % of people that didn't vote in 2015, but voted in the referendum will vote in 2017?
Is there any evidence of liberal democrat voters voting for labour candidates in tory-lab marginals in england? Labour voters gave votes to liberal democrats in sw london and southwest but it does seem a one way street.
My big fear is enthusiasm. Tory vote is not enthusiastic about voting for may but stopping corbyn. May is not likeable. Ed Miliband and Clinton could get no-one to attend rallies but sanders and corbyn have no problem with enthusiasm.
At heart I am a Lib Dem. Living in what was then a Lab/Con marginal I voted Tory in 2015, simply to avoid Labour winning, being worried about their then economic polices. However I cannot vote for this government, I find myself tending to disagree with many things they say and do, including the calling of this election. I also have grave doubts over May's competence. Could I vote Labour, with their nationalisation and expenditure plans, obviously not, do not want the IMF in again, so my postal went Lib Dem, it might help them save their deposit. PS have also re-joined them a party member despite anticipating them falling to about 5 MPs. What was that you said about blind loyalty!!!
People have consistently underestimated Corbyn: both outside his party and inside. He's proven remarkably resilient, and now we're seeing the same in this election campaign.
Leaving aside his many negative attributes, his mettle's impressive. So far, May's hasn't been.
He's very relaxed, and I think he really enjoys the campaign. May does not. Not sure how that translates into competence for running the country though.
I think there's a feedback loop.
Even if he loses (which he will) he has demonstrated to many that a hard left approach can be popular. It will make it very difficult for the Blairites to "take back control"
Morning all,
Indeed. If Labour don't win then they are going to be in an awful situation after this campaign - Corbyn won't be going anywhere and they will have done well enough to deflect the critics.
If Corbyn stays on and May struggles to deliver on her promises, we all know what is likely to happen next.
Are you still predicting a split in Labour ?
That looks a lot less likely now. I will not vote Labour while Corbyn leads the party, but I do think that he has shown it is possible to run a campaign and get a hearing without kow-towing to the right press. We will see what the result will be - I still cannot see beyond a big Tory win - but things don't look so bleak for Labour as they did at the start of the campaign. There is a way back.
The one heartening thing about this campaign so far is that there is at least space for a radical viewpoint and he's getting a hearing despite the best efforts of the tabloids. Indeed as print circulation drops away, perhaps this is the election when the tabloids finally lose their influence? Which would be a very good thing.
Bashing the rich is always popular, and free money even more so. Hardly surprising that many of Jezza's policies attract. The downside wouldn't matter as he'll blame the ... what's the modern equivalent of the gnomes of Zurich?
In some ways, the Tories deserve to lose. It's as if they're holding fire until they see the whites of their enemies eyes. or perhaps they have no ammunition?
I thought they might mention Venezuela. And the Labour manifesto criticisms have been far too generic. Labour claims it will gain £49 billion (IFS say £40 billion) in taxes through taking a little more from the fats cats and Corporation tax - what's not to like?
As for Jezza, surely someone will keep him locked in the attic, he does look like he's already been neutered, doesn't it?
The Tories need to give the plebs a reason to vote for them.
Comments
"From early 1975, under the regime of Saddam Hussein, both Kurds and Yazidis were confronted with village destruction, depopulation and deportation.[1]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ba'athist_Arabization_campaigns_in_North_Iraq
And I'm not sure how 10,000 new officers is going to stop online fraud.
JTAC recommended increasing the threat level. What was May supposed to do?
There's plenty of grounds to criticise her. The response to the Manchester bombing is not one of them.
Mr. City, whilst I agree that May wasn't 'match fit' for campaigning, the social care disaster was such an obviously stupid mistake to make I don't think the lack of a proper leadership campaign can be used to excuse it.
Mr. City, Miliband's price freeze was stupid, the price cap of the Conservatives only marginally less so. However, I think Miliband was a lot more likeable than May, and more trustworthy than Corbyn.
The same applies to Clegg. And Cameron.
F1: seen a new forecast. Still dry. Seems like small chance of showers but probably not.
In my constituency we have a lot of local people energised to work on the campaign. However, there is a 5000 tory majority to overturn. The campaign literature, drafted by the candidate himself is refreshingly honest, detailed, and free of spin. I genuinely have no idea if his message has any traction though outside of the middle class bohemian area. I have no idea if someone on a Council estate is going to be impressed when the candidate writes that he hails from a working class background and his mother was a cliarvoyant. The UKIP leaflet, from a no-hoper paper candidate, seems to me to be more appealing - simply saying that if you want Brexit to happen and you can't bring yourself to vote tory, vote for us (the town voted to leave the EU). But as you say, these are volatile times and anything can happen. Thats why I'm not betting on anything.
I said the other day that a law ought to be brought in whereby all publicly-traded companies and government institutions should add the direct costs of cybercrime onto their accounts. Only then might government, companies and individuals start taking it seriously.
Even if he loses (which he will) he has demonstrated to many that a hard left approach can be popular. It will make it very difficult for the Blairites to "take back control"
If that thought takes hold widely amongst the electorate, she's in trouble.
Pakistan in the Eighties spent more than half its government budget on its military, abandoning education to the madrassas. These became the only place for a poor child to get an education. We are now seeing the consequences of that neglect. The same happens all over MENA, where the Islamists are often the sole education, sole welfare, sole law and order and sole social care in these countries. The Islamist parties are particularly strong in opposing corruption.
People there often want these positive aspects of Islamist politics, and tolerate the violent aspects as the price. Aspirations of poor people in developing countries are surprisingly similar to our own, and the sense of frustration that comes from those opportunities being stifled by corrupt Western supported elites becomes manifest.
It is soft power that builds peace, not bombing. Economic development, particularly via women drives social progress. The education of women is the best value for money of any development spend.
Mr. Charles, indeed. Would the PLP split? Or just go along with five more years of Comrade Corbyn?
Edited extra bit: on that note, the time may be perfect for a soft, centrish party to newly emerge. May is not liked, Corbyn is not trusted. There's a huge gaping void for a fiscally dry and socially liberal new party.
But religion was a coincidence rather than a determinative factor
We have a number of problems with higher education to do with sustainability, skill levels, people on low incomes taking part etc etc which all need targeted solutions with extra funding. But to solve this they have just said "sweeties for all!" which actually makes a number of the problems worse in the short term and almost impossible to solve in the long term.
All at the same time keeping a lot of the cuts the Tories have made to the poorest, so in fact they are borrowing to....help those who need the help the least. Very fucking Labour;
https://twitter.com/ExcelPope/status/868172353183903744
'I don't agree..err..agree with Boris.'
Indeed. If Labour don't win then they are going to be in an awful situation after this campaign - Corbyn won't be going anywhere and they will have done well enough to deflect the critics.
I'm not pant wetting; I just think it a shame that people who can least afford it will be affected most. It's the waste that is the most egregious.
You may recall I said a couple of months ago (several times) Boris should not be Foreign Secretary as he isn't up to the job.
You might also recall that, for some time now, I've been critical of May. Her main pro is simply that Corbyn is worse.
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/june2017/2017/05/why-tories-falling-poll-lead-believable
All very peculiar but interesting viewing
Edit: excellent that the subject should arise in a conversation started by Icarus.
I think it would be a mistake to characterize a large chunk of the electorate as either socially liberal or fiscally dry. If the majority of voters were socially liberal there would not be huge majorities for policies such as corporal or capital punishment in opinion polls, a more realistic characterisation would be moderately socially conservative with a broad streak of not wanting to look unpleasant or out of date over the top of it. Similarly the evidence is that voters quite like authoritarian government so long as it doesnt interfere with them personally, and quite like a taxy spendy government, so long as it taxes someone else, and spends it on them.
How can that be described as 'austerity' ?
And what does 'let normality return' mean fiscally ?
https://twitter.com/rob_francis/status/868029263148199936/photo/1
But I am also starting to think that Corbyn has possibly saved the party from oblivion, and the conservative manifesto itself is evidence that -at least economically - he has moved the centre ground of British politics to the left. Corbyn and Brexit have facillitated a paradigm shift away from neoliberalism and the legacy of Thatcherism. There is a lot of hopelessness in this country. Brutal employment laws. No job security. No access to the housing market. Lots and lots of people just about making ends meet. This probably applies for the majority of working age people in the town I live in. And this is contrasted with a relaxed attitude for far too long about wealth and the entitlement of a minority. Corbyn is wrong on many things, particularly national security, but he gives people hope in the way that no-one from the moderate wing of the labour party can. As such, he has proved his point.
I believe that the tories will win the election, handsomely. But I don't think its the end of the road at all for Labour.
Farron's campaign has been hamstrung by a combination of a daft EU position, and most early coverage being about whether he thought homosexuality was sinful.
PS: I would have thought your very very expensive education would have let you realise it was an allegory
What's that you say Sooty? The Tories opposed setting up the NHS and introducing the minimum wage?
No no boys and girls, that was the Conservative party, not the Theresa May party, they're quite quite different.
I do know that the Conservatives have been sending glossy leaflets in Bassetlaw though.
So there's likely some differential targeting taking place.
The West always feels a need to interfere because of the pressure from its liberal conscience. Blair was able to manipulate opinion against Iraq because Saddam was a brutal dictator who kept order by terror. That he happened to be a secular, equal opportunities dictator was ignored. And as such he verged on run-of-the mill.
I was against the Iraq war and happily voted for Charlie because I couldn't see what marked him out as special. There was Mugabe, the Jongs, and most Middle East countries. It felt more like a Bush reprisal tactic
Of course, the Umma dislike any Muslim deaths, no matter how inflicted. Being Christian I feel a bond with the Copts, but I also feel a bond with the Yazidis and Kurds.
But Jezza is being disingenuous here. What seems to distinguish the victims of terrorist attacks recently is the presence in the country of a large and growing Muslim population. Think Belgium and Sweden - not renowned for being aggressive Crusaders..
99.999% of Muslims may be just as outraged as we are, but a few will always believe that any attack on any Muslim is an attack on them. Even if it is a well-meaning attempt to relieve suffering.
Blair may not come into that category, but some others did. Yet how quickly people forget the clamour for action in Yugoslavia, any action.
IS want to kill us because they hate our way of life. We're not in Afghanistan because of material gain. The liberal left will say it's because we need to educate women.
Jezza dislikes war, unless it's against us, and that last bit is his Achilles heel. He elevates other groups because of that. Israel is aggressive in defence, probably too aggressive, but making Hamas into the saints is the work of a lunatic.
People are perfectly entitled to vote for Jezza, but I never will. I'm the same age, and I suspect when I was seventeen, I might have liked him. Not now.
Interestingly if the narrowing of the gap is confirmed on election day it will be very difficult for anybody to challenge Corbyn.
I rather suspect a minority Corbyn government would be brought down within months, possibly weeks.
Unless some people are confusing him with Michael Fallon.
Businessman Bill Samuel, who has given the SNP £60,000 over the past decade and who publicly backed a Yes vote in 2014, has now handed £10,000 to the Tories.
Mr Samuel, 74, said he switched allegiance because he feared Nicola Sturgeon’s government did not understand the way the economy worked and he also wanted Brexit to go well.
He said the SNP appeared to have passed its “apogee”, or highest point, adding: “It’s very sad in a way. What an opportunity that was, what an opportunity. It’s just so sad.”
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15313190.SNP_big_donor_transfers_support_to_the_Conservatives/
"It's my arse on the line, and I do not want a cock up!"
By 45-39% people tend to support the reintroduction of the death penalty for murder.
https://yougov.co.uk/news/2014/08/13/capital-punishment-50-years-favoured/
Support has been dropping steadily - in 2010, 51% were in favour and 37% opposed, and people born after 1964, in the 18-39 age bracket, tend to oppose its reintroduction. This may suggest that we are approaching a moment when people will tend to oppose it, but we are not there yet.
Why won't these things happen if we leave the EU without a Brexit deal?
His never wavering belief is that Trident should be scrapped, so when asked 6 times if he would scrap it, the sincere answer would have been yes, but he couldn't bring himself to say it.
His belief is that the IRA should have won, so when asked to condemn them the sincere answer would have been no, but he couldn't bring himself to say it.
He's sincerely cynical...
Let me tell you: no, it isn't. The leaders of these people want power, and it's easy to control people through religion. But to really control them, you need an enemy to gather them against. And if you're an Islamic leader, what better enemy than the west, who are so un-Islamic, and have had the success and power that should rightly have been theirs?
They need us as an enemy, as it helps them control the faithful.
Agree with your last paragraph though.
I live in Southend East and Rochford (James Duddridge), I've voted tory since 2001, but my mp is frankly useless compared to David Amess (Southend West) and Rebecca Harris (Castle Point - I campaigned for her in 2015/in the non canvey island bit). For the first time in my life, I will not be voting Conservative but voting for the independent candidate. Duddridge has been the MP since 2005 and to be honest in 12 years has done nothing compared to Amess and Harris. Duddridge lives literally one street away from me and we rarely see him in the community but conservative association members were giving the impression that he would stand down after 2015. The independent candidate that I'm voting for is Ron Woodley who works at southend council, Mr. Duddridge has decided for some reason that he will not work with anyone on Southend council that is not a conservative. He will not work with independents - which Ron is - and I find that frankly a disgrace. When I contacted the conservative association on this, we were told this is Tory HQ policy. One of my close friends knows David Amess and when he raised this with him, he says its nonsense.
The point of this post is my sheer frustration that I've voted Tory all my life but have a member of parliament that will not stand down. I don't believe in term limits because the likes of David Amess have been great servants and advocates for the community but when you get a crap mp there is nothing we can do about it.
Welcome to pb.com, Mr. Bay.
Must say I'm not a fan of term limits, but do appreciate how infuriating that situation must be.
@Dannythefink: Corbynite responses: 1. How dare you suggest he said link was causal you Tory 2. All the experts agree with him it'… https://twitter.com/i/web/status/868369522448887808
https://twitter.com/MSmithsonPB/status/868375570916290560
Of course all those things were meant to happen on a Leave vote alone but didn't. And then when A50 was triggered but didn't.
For that matter all those things were meant to happen if the UK left the ERM in 1992 or failed to join the Euro in 1999.
So currently we're running at 0/4 (at least) on the 'doom and disaster will happen if we don't do what Brussels wants' predictions.
Prime Minister Corbyn is, I suspect, is a scenario from an entirely different book.
If you could point out some countries where Corbyn's policies have been implemented they might give an idea as to what would happen in this country. As I remember Venezuela was much admired among the Corbynistas.
They prefer protesting to voting
Bashing the rich is always popular, and free money even more so. Hardly surprising that many of Jezza's policies attract. The downside wouldn't matter as he'll blame the ... what's the modern equivalent of the gnomes of Zurich?
In some ways, the Tories deserve to lose. It's as if they're holding fire until they see the whites of their enemies eyes. or perhaps they have no ammunition?
I thought they might mention Venezuela. And the Labour manifesto criticisms have been far too generic. Labour claims it will gain £49 billion (IFS say £40 billion) in taxes through taking a little more from the fats cats and Corporation tax - what's not to like?
As for Jezza, surely someone will keep him locked in the attic, he does look like he's already been neutered, doesn't it?
The Tories need to give the plebs a reason to vote for them.
In 2015, what % of people in England voted Conservative because of the SNP?
What % of people that didn't vote in 2015, but voted in the referendum will vote in 2017?
Is there any evidence of liberal democrat voters voting for labour candidates in tory-lab marginals in england? Labour voters gave votes to liberal democrats in sw london and southwest but it does seem a one way street.
My big fear is enthusiasm. Tory vote is not enthusiastic about voting for may but stopping corbyn. May is not likeable. Ed Miliband and Clinton could get no-one to attend rallies but sanders and corbyn have no problem with enthusiasm.
However I cannot vote for this government, I find myself tending to disagree with many things they say and do, including the calling of this election. I also have grave doubts over May's competence. Could I vote Labour, with their nationalisation and expenditure plans, obviously not, do not want the IMF in again, so my postal went Lib Dem, it might help them save their deposit.
PS have also re-joined them a party member despite anticipating them falling to about 5 MPs.
What was that you said about blind loyalty!!!