Well, there we have it: Jeremy Corbyn has just been announced the next Labour Leader

[InTheBox]

With 59% of the vote (first round).

I've just been following the live BBC broadcast and just wanted them to get on with it.

No doubt people on both sides of the political spectrum will be overjoyed with the result.

Why all the complaints about him not including women in the shadow cabinet I would be far more disappointed if he had bowed to pressure and done so, if they had not been the best choice for the positions.

Clearly he chose those who would support him best without worrying about filling some equality quota. For that I respect him.

'You seemed to be saying that JC will stand firmly for out.'

No I never said that. I don't think he has the courage to do it. I think he will be surrounded by Oxbridge people who will tell him don't do it and he will go along with them. However, if the EU banking elite start making signals saying that it is illegal to nationalise or support industry with state investment or to do People's QE, then I think he will ignore the Oxbridge voices and say that he will challenge the EU and that may possibly mean saying that in that case he wants to leave. But since he is a democrat, he will allow the Oxbridge voices in Labour to disagree with him and they will probably win because they will be backed by the media and the Establishment.

'What is he actually going to do in respect of the referendum that makes you so excited?'

I think he will bottle it, I don't think he has the courage to challeneg the Establishment on that issue, but I am excited by the fact that I think he will challenge the Establishment on the economy.

Fortunately, Chuka has gone, but he is putting out the message that it has something to do with Corbyn not giving a guarantee that he will campaign to stay in. Not sure if that is true or not, but if it is, then it suggests that Corbyn is not prepared to commit to the Establishment's position and is keeping his options open. However, the pressure he will be under from Oxbridge will be enormous, so in the end I think he will cave in. But we don't know because Corbyn's brother, the eminent scientist, Piers Corbyn, who rightly and bravely says that "man-made climate change" is a scam says that "the Corbyns fear no one". If that is true, then the game is on.

I don't know what will happen, but hoping against hope it will go well.

He was a really good constituency MP when I lived in his constituency imo.

JC has pretty much said he won't campaign one way or the other on the EU referendum.

And I think he intends to leave it up to individual MPs as to what they do. I think ti will be a very wishy washy response.

Thank God Chuka is gone.

I think I am a few years younger than you Mistigri and I can definitely remember power cuts in the 70s. We lived in village so the rubbish wasn't horrendous as it was in big towns and cities. But I can still remember having a back log and my dad taking it up to the skips and finding they were overflowing.
(Also we had much less packaging /waste in the 70s - and lots of people had open fires were they could burn paper waste etc - it would be 100x worse these days)
I can also remember when our phone wasn't working being told it would take 3 weeks for an engineer to come and look at it but it was 5 by the time they did actually come. (We had a phone for my Dad's job - his company's office was based elsewhere in the country - he had to spend a few hours a week making phone calls - he spent 5 weeks doing that from the phone box down the road...). And we had just had a phone installed at my grandparent's house because they were both unwell - and my mum went to the phone box everyday to check on them and they had a neighbour's phone number in case of emergency (And had to use it to tell us one had admitted to hospital.) There was no point in complaining - or threatening to go elsewhere - there wasn't anywhere... So I think privatising BT was a good thing!!

British Rail was a nightmare - IME things have improved service wise - but not sure about the complicated ticketing and integration etc - and the same true for the buses. But at least you don't get quite the same attitude I came across a few times from BR staff...remembering asking one if he knew how long the delay was (had someone meeting me - pre-mobile days wanted to if I had time to phone from the station before we left to tell them I'd phone when I got there instead) and he basically said don't know, won't try to find out, I don't care - it looks like I'll be getting overtime ...they might privately think that now, they might not be able to tell you the info - but it won't go with the same attitude!

I'm unclear why people are suggesting we'll return to the 70s The current Trade Union bill to be debated (if defeated) takes us nowhere near the power that the TUs had in the 70s. Their influence has been substantially eroded in the decades since.

The new bill decimates worker's rights.

According to The Guardian : the number of working days lost due to strikes was 704,000 in the 12 months to April 2015, but this is a far cry from the near 13m days lost through strike action on average in the 70s so if the Trade Union bill is defeated then we're only looking at similar numbers to the last year ie 704,000 not the 13m that it was in the 70s.

There seems to be a lot of scaremongering going on.

unlucky there is no doubt that privatisation, if it enables real competition, can have positive effects. I am not anti competition - in fact I am positively in favour of competition, as long as it's real competition.

However, privately-held monopolies are as bad if not worse than state-run ones. Two years ago my elderly mother, who lives alone, was left without a telephone service for a month, and there is no mobile reception in her house either. So much for privatisation, eh? ;)

SheGot I wouldn't blame Labour if they told the Tories that the EU referendum was their idea and it's their problem. They got shafted in the Scottish referendum, after all. Personally I would like Labour to come out strongly in favour of staying in the EU - but Im not sure it is in their best interests to do so.

Regarding his commitment to include women in the shadow cabinet - he didn't promise to give women the senior positions. He solely committed to numbers not roles. And according to the BBC this morning, there are more women than men in the shadow cabinet so he had kept that commitment.

Also, I'm guessing Yvette may have been given one of the senior roles if she hadn't said no. It seems a bit disingenuous of people like Margaret Curran to be saying JC has to rethink his cabinet and put more women in when Yvette; Liz; Rachel, etc, all ruled themselves out.

His cabinet includes:
Angela Eagle; Diane Abbott; Lucy Powell; Heidi Alexander; Seema Malhotra and Rosie Winterton as Chief Whip.
The men are: Andy Burnham; John McDonnell; Lord Falconer; Vernon Coaker and Ian Murray

To me, that looks as though he kept his promise regarding women in the shadow cabinet.

There seems to be a lot of scaremongering going on

not 'alf!!

The Today programme this morning however points out that no senior roads like shadow chancellor, home affairs etc etc went to a woman, just nuisnor posts like international development. So same old same old so far.

They also had a labour man on saying Corbyn was committed to staying in the EU by the which surprised the interviewer so I suspect both Tory and Labour parties will want us to stay in as do I and as I suspect will be the result of the referendum.

Chief Whip is a major role, isn't it?

Quite a bit of misinformation going around, too!

The so-called Winter of Discontent had nothing to do with the 3 day week - that was introduced by a CONSERVATIVE government - Ted Heath's to be exact. It depends on your viewpoint whether you blame the NUT for working to rule (not striking) or Ted Heath's government for mismanaging the economy so that inflation was soaring and the payrise wanted by the NUT was not forthcoming.
As an aside, take a look at those payrises. 16.5% offered! It seems like a dream these days to those who have effectively taken paycuts due to tiny pay cuts and pay freezes. The gap between the haves and the have nots is ever growing.

And strikes! There were strikes in 80s and 90s, too. The miners, the electricians, the teachers, the firemen... I can remember the odious Edwina Curry (she of the "knit yourself a scarf" message to the freezing pensioners) going off to patronise the rubbish collectors - yep! Rubbish on the streets in the 80s, too. There are still strikes going on today. It doesn't matter who is in Government.
Power cuts these days, too. Only caused by business and not by strikes, so that's OK, isn't it?

And while we're correcting misinformation, an E is a pass at A level, not a fail.

I've seen complaints that Labour are trailing the feminist cause because they've never had a female leader. In fact, they've had 2: Margaret Beckett and Harriet Harman (twice).

unlucky83
I read your post with interest. I am 53, so I remember the 70s - most of what you describe about poor BT and rail services still applies today and I think you must've been exceptionally lucky if you've not had any bad attitude and rubbish service from privatised industries. As for threatening BT to go elsewhere - don't make me laugh, they still have an almost total stranglehold on the infrastructure, so even if you flounce off "the competition" it'll still be BT (not) repairing the fault

But how about Angela Eagle's role?
I've heard that described today (on Victoria Derbyshire prog) as being the Number 2 role and will be standing in for JC at PMQ's in his absence?
I forget the title exactly - maybe they should change it to the simpler "deputy" and make it clear she's a senior member of the shadow cabinet and will be attending meetings in that capacity - ie of the senior shadow cabinet.
I really like her!
Does anyone know on what particular grounds Yvette Cooper ruled herself out of serving in JC's shadow cabinet? I'm disappointed by that as I voted for her but nevertheless am pleased to see JC win with such strong support.
Personally I voted for her just ahead of JC as I felt she may be more electable to PM and also of course she's a woman - and yes that does influence me as I know it will have a strong influence on her priorities

The media wanted Angela Eagle to be Shadow Chancellor. Corbyn showed courage in resisting the media and the great and the good's pressure over that and appointed his closest ally, McDonnell, because Corbyn is serious about implementing a socialist economic policy.

He had to give Burnham a serious role and he got one. Why he bothered keeping Benn is a mystery, but Benn is supposedly a big figure and so he would have wanted a big role. So those three positions were near enough taken and he couldn't offer them to anyone else.

I feel expectations of Corbyn are getting ahead of themselves here.

Corbyn has come into power with a set of valuable communication skills, and one thing he is more than capable of achieving is challenging that ridiculous school boy culture at PQT. It's broadcast to the whole world and not surprisingly Westminister gets judged very badly, particularly from the likes of the Irish and Scottish. If he could do that - that would be massive.

Maybe that's his calling - making a small yet massive change to Westminster culture. And that could be all for now.

I think unfortunately that Corbyn's weaknesses are starting to become clear. He can't take criticism, he reacts tetchily, he avoids media questioning and he can't handle them diplomatically. The Tories and the media are going tio be able to rile him and wind him up with ease on a daily basis and at first the public will be on his side since we all know that the Establishment is against him, but after a while the public will think that Corbyn is chyrlish in not being able to handle questioning well. Then he will fall out of favour with the public. Hopefully he can turn this around but I am not sure he can.