Corbyn - deeply selfish?

[nostaples]

I have been a Labour supporter all my life. Have never had faith in Corbyn BUT whatever you think of him and even if you're not a Labour supporter it is in the interest of the country as a whole to have a strong party in opposition. Even if you support Corbyn the fact is that he is not leading his party effectively. The fact is that if people think you're a poor leader you are a poor leader, whatever your strengths. He needs to do the honourable thing and stand down. The fact that he isn't says he is extremely selfish - willing to destroy the party for his own personal reasons - unable to put the party and country first.

another 10% gain in Anna Soubry's constituency...These were all Tory strongholds for years

Bollocks. Soubry's constituency had been Labour since '97 when she got it in 2010. The lie that the last election was some kind of victory for Labour when they LOST, despite the shambolic campaign run by the Tories and years of austerity the country has endured, is one of the most tiresome, insane and misguided things that I've heard in politics.

Yes, he's completely and utterly selfish.

Interesting thread

@Thymeout I think you must live near me! I agree with everything you've said there.

Labour should be at least 20% ahead of the shambolic, dysfunctional Brexit Tories in the polls. The fact that we aren’t ahead of them at all is entirely due to Corbyn.

He is not, and never will be, a credible candidate to be Prime Minister of a G7 country.

Labour needs to find some method of dumping him, and it needs to stop supporting and voting for Brexit.

bastardkitty
"He is incredibly selfish. He proved that when he lost the no confidence vote but stayed because he said the people were on his side.
No sense of irony. Have you heard of the Prime Minister at all?"

Talk about whatabouterry. She's a muppet too. But this is a thread about Corbyn. I repeat - you can criticise Corbyn without being a Tory. In fact it used to be perfectly normal in the Labour party to be able to criticise the leader without being dismissed as a Tory.

Those who think Corbyn is doing a great job ....

Are you all happy that he is happy about the Hard Brexit that is coming down the tracks?

Are you happy that Labour voters will lose their jobs because of it ?

Are you happy that Corbyn is not holding the Government to account (a job he is paid £120,000 a year to do)

Are you happy that the man who voted against his own government hundreds of times is now drumming out of the party those who disagree with him ?

@Ta1kinpeace I agree.

I used to work with men like Corbyn. They would always complain about the way things were being run and showed a complete lack of team spirit, but had no suggestions as to how things should be run. I couldn't help but feel they didn't want change because they were too lazy. The idea of one of them being put in charge would have been funny, but now of course it's happened and it's not funny at all.

I don't think you can have a can't-be-arsed attitude at work for decades and then change into a leader. I don't think you can repeatedly vote against your own party and then expect everyone to vote with you.

I've always voted Labour and it's really distressing not knowing who the hell to vote for now. I couldn't vote Tory, there's no point in voting Lib Dem and I've gone right off the Green Party. There literally isn't anyone to vote for!

Frank Field has done far more for disadvantaged children than Jeremy Corbyn:

www.frankfield.co.uk/campaigns/foundation-years-action-group.aspx

See also the Foundation Years Trust, Birkenhead.

What was Jeremy Corbyn doing during the Blair/Brown years, when money was pumped into initiatives like Sure Start children's centres, the NHS and schools, initiatives that would benefit the poorer members of society and from which we still benefit today? Labour had a massive majority and that was a once-in-a-generation opportunity for him to get involved in government and influence policy for the benefit of the working class. But because it wasn't being done in quite the right ideological fashion, he deigned to get involved. From any of the biographical portraits I have read, he mostly devoted that time to external pressure groups and being an irritant to the Labour leadership.

I agree OP. No time to write more!

I disagree. Corbyn's popularity goes up and down based on what he's doing which is invariably based on his principles. That's how it should be. Most politicians act based on how it will affect their personal popularity. Or their property portfolio.

Israel, like any other powerful nation with the ability to use big guns (and a vulnerable nation right next door) shouldn't be above criticism. Corbyn sees that.

There have been many concerted efforts to bring him down. This is just one of them. He won't go while he still thinks there's a job to do. In the past, people have come around to that and admired him for it. We've been here before.

Lifelong Labour supporter here now totally demoralised with the Corbyn Labour Party. I don’t understand how deluded some of his followers are. Labour should be miles ahead in the polls now, not floundering around at their current percentage. Corbyn is just not fit for purpose. The only reason that Labour wasn’t dealt a crushing defeat at the last election (an election the Tories did everything they could to lose) was that a lot of people naively thought that secretly Labour was anti-Brexit. A lot of new Labour votes were a vote against Brexit and a lot of votes from younger people were due to the promise that tuition fees would be scrapped. Now that it’s obvious that neither of those two reasons to vote were true, Labour will lose the next election massively as people in marginal seats will never vote for him. The last election was a freak event - and even then Labour lost - the next election will be a catastrophe for Labour.

Frank Field was very briefly a minister in the Blair years and then argued with Blair over something and went to the back benches. Jeremy Corbyn wasn't. Surestart children's centres were introduced by that government, but many of the people who have tried to take credit for doing so since then, such as Yvette Cooper in the 2015 leadership election, didn't have much to do with it.

Frank Field was then appointed to a post by the Tory-Lib Dem coalition government (!) to look into ways of tackling poverty. He doesn't seem to have even suggested that that government should keep Surestart. In my area the first big round of cuts was in 2011, hitting children's centres that only opened in 2008 and 2009. An academy chain took over a local primary school in 2012 against the wishes of 94% of parents, at the behest of the DfE (and Michael Gove) but with support against the school from the Labour Party. One of the first things the organisation now running the school decided to do: cut children's centre services including some of the best baby and toddler groups in our area. They might have encouraged more families from deprived backgrounds (in this very poor area with some gentrification) to apply to the school, that wouldn't have done at all. My kids' school fought off academisation - the much smaller chain that wanted to take us over wanted nothing to do with our lovely children's centre.

Under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown the last Labour government continued the policies of privatisation, for example housing. In opposition, under Ed Miliband, they didn't oppose Tory and Lib Dem policies such as cutting funding for local government, cutting benefits and increasing sanctions that particularly hit single parents and people with disabilities and carers, among others. My very right wing Labour council from 2010 to 2015 welcomed and went along with forced academisation. Only 6 Labour MPs voted against the Tories' hostile environment legislation in 2014 - including Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and Diane Abbott, and my own MP (who's not as left wing.

That is the background to Jeremy Corbyn's election as leader, many of us actually wanted a leader who wouldn't continue with the policies that had failed under Gordon Brown, who would oppose the Tories in a way that our MPs hadn't done under Ed Miliband.

Also a lifelong Labour supporter here, often frequently demoralised with the Labour Party.

How can we fight the Tories if we never get into power though?

elkiedee

I'm no fan of some of Tony Blair's policies - private-public partnerships, academisation, and PFI deals for starters.

But far more was achieved with a centre-ground pragmatist in government than by an idealist sitting in opposition.

They need to do an Australia and just overthrow him as leader. We're experts now.

Corbyn cant even lead an opposition party no way will he be able to lead the country as PM especially not through the Brexit he is so for. Labour will not win a GE until he is gone, the fact he couldn't even beat Teresa May despite the Tories god awful election campaign speaks volumes. He is definitely selfish OP.

He is an agitator like many on the left

He isn’t interested in grown up politics where real decisions and policies are worked on that’s too much like hard word he is only interested in putting the world to right over discussions with people who have the same views those views are always anti west

Even after all the issues over these past few months he wanted to make a stand claiming it was about freedom of speech that he didn’t want to accept all of the IHRA rules he is covering for himself and others on the left

I was thinking the other week that maybe his time is up but there is no one Momentum can replace him with so Labour are stuck him

And we are stuck with the Tories doing as they please because this is the most useless opposition party I have ever known

I have just read Frank Field has received threats this is what the Labour Party have become now ruled by those who are in think anti semitism isn’t a problem and threats are everyday occurrence. Utterly shameful the party is a disgrace I’m no longer a member I would feel ashamed to be

Enthusiasm great post.
I will confess to being a staunch Tory supporter. However I believe that we need a good Labour leader to provide an effective opposition. It makes for better government.
Tbh I think Corbyn is one of the reasons the Yes vote prevailed in the Brexit referendum. He was invisible in the campaign because he is actually anti EU but doesn't have the guts to admit it. Now we're in this mess, he does nothing to help sort it.