to think Corbyn is dead in the water

[oldshilling]

Yes he's a nice chap with a nice beard, but silliness (principled though it might be) like refusing to sing the national anthem is not going to endear him to more than a small minority of the population.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34263447

And the signs are that he intends to be the gift that keeps on giving, in terms of pointless gestures that don't really achieve anything but make him a mega-target for the right-wing press.

Either he gets turfed out before the next GE, or he surpasses Michael Foot as the biggest loser in Labour's history.

Sorry Bertrand - the reply re: homeopathy was meant for Boite.

Indeed. Taken alongside his unpalatable foreign policy views (support for Hamas/ Hizbollah, Sinn Fein/ IRA, Putin; his leanings towarads anti-semitism) not singing the National Anthem is very consistent. In a troubling way.

I'd really love to see some evidence of this rather than quotes purposely taken out of context and right wing propaganda.

pointless gestures that don't really achieve anything

I'm actually beginning to wonder if there is something endemically wrong with the left wing in this country. Many of them seem so radical, so emeshed in their pointless and ridiculous principles, that they have, and never will have, any popular mass appeal that will result in power. ie power with the responsibility and ability to do something.

Instead, many left wingers in this country seem to have established themselves in certain public sector organisations which as a result have become remarkably poor at delivery to the public. They seem instead to be set up for the benefit of their employees and the unions.

Cameron and Corbyn have a lot in commen.

Around about the time Cameron was a member of the Bullingdon Club, Corbyn was on the streets campaigning against apartheid - whilst the rest of the world looked the other way or still believed Mandela was a terrorist.

JC and DC have fuck all in common.

Tories will prevail
I think Corbyn is Labour playing the long game. Letting him have his moments of glory, recording everything he says, letting him shoot himself in the (Michael) Foot as the great British public becomes increasingly horrified by his pronouncements (we're an aging population; more of us remember the 1970s than don't, old people like to use their vote). In-party votes of 'no confidence', Labour party implodes, the Left dies (again) and electable Labour finds a new Tony Blair. Labour know they can't get into power yet, this is a good time to deal with the dead wood.

A prime minister who refuses to sing his own country's national anthem, how would that work, then? Or would he start singing it if he got elected?

Giving the Left a voice and a large amount of publicity is a good way of reminding people how unrealistic and unworkable their policies actually are. As a Tory trade unionist I was delighted to vote for Corbyn.

They seem instead to be set up for the benefit of their employees and the unions.

Well I'll be damned. Imagine having a job with benefits like holidays, sick pay, maternity leave and the right to union representation. Perhaps you can raise this the next time you see your GP or maybe you don't use public services? Maybe we need more bankers and city speculators.

Corbyn has jumped on every left-wing band-wagon there's been - some good, like the anti-apartheid movement, some bad. His stances on foreign policy have mostly been immature acts of rebellion.

The worry is that he has never outgrown his school-boy rebellious phase.

But hey, ho. I don't think there's much to worry about really as he'll never be PM.

As a Tory trade unionist I was delighted to vote for Corbyn.

How does your Tory supporting fit with their plans to curtail trade union rights?

Corbyn has jumped on every left-wing band-wagon there's been

There called principles an alien concept I'm sure to self interested, entitled Tories.

Instead, many left wingers in this country seem to have established themselves in certain public sector organisations which as a result have become remarkably poor at delivery to the public. They seem instead to be set up for the benefit of their employees and the unions.

Like what/where? Making an accusation like that is pointless unless you name the organisations.

How does your Tory supporting fit with their plans to curtail trade union rights?

I am a Labour supporter but I don't agree with all their policies and I don't agree with JC.

There called principles an alien concept I'm sure to self interested, entitled Tories.

Why do threads like this disintegrate to lazy name calling and stereotyping, on both sides?

Prosperity doesn't come from thin air. It certainly doesn't come from printing more money, like Jem appears to believe.

Ha Effing Ha.

Gideon Osborne's Quantitative Easing has been the biggest Money printing Exercise in HISTORY

And if you are going to slag off Jeremy Corbyn for his lack of experience outside politics,
lets just look at the CVs of the other party leaders, chancellors and hangers on ....

Ghosty, as I see it the union modernisation plans will bring democracy back into TUs. Boris put it very well when he described the impact of striking tube drivers (£50K plus) on fellow trade unionists.

The media are just going to make a big thing of anything that could possibly look wrong about Corbyn. Because hey ho, big businesses opinions are much more important in a "democracy".

I live in Mexico and they did the same thing with the most popular presidential candidate at the time, because he went against seriously important national and international interests. He told the president at the time to shut up and we never heard the end of it. Enough people still voted for him to win, so then they committed fraud and we got a president for six years who killed over 100,000 people but, hey hoo, he was polite while he did it.

"Gideon Osborne's Quantitative Easing has been the biggest Money printing Exercise in HISTORY"

Hmm, I don't suppose that you have a link to the analysis underpinning that assertion?

How is curtailing workers rights democratic? Even David Davis called parts of the bill "Franco-style".

www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/sep/13/david-davis-attack-tories-trade-union-bill-franco

Corbyn believes in promoting peace, his "weakness" being that he does so to all sides. Our government sells weapons to be used by thirteen year old soldiers in the democratic republic of Congo.
I received a harrowing circular from doctors without borders today, about the bombing of the Yemen by Saudi Arabia. Ordinary people, women and children are being blown up. Who's supplying those weapons? We are.
When the government was opposed on the bombing of Syria last time, it wasn't Isis they were planning on bombing, but their enemies. That doesn't mean they were supporting IS, it just mean the situation is too fucking complicated to just go in bombing people. When you intervene with arms, you're just cutting off the hydra's head.
Do we want to maintain a peace keeping force in some ear torn middle Eastern country for decades? Of course we don't. Do we think bombing then to shit will solve anything? Of course it won't.
So who benefits from us taking a military rather than a political approach to the middle East? The arms trade. Just one of the big enemies Corbyn is standing up against. These people sell death for a living. They really are not precious about the idea of life. When people joke about "accidents" happening, I don't think they would be completely far fetched if people really thought corbyn was in with a real chance. Right now, lots of major interests are probably hoping their ally, Murdoch, does the job for them. If the bookies ever start giving odds better that 3 to 1, I guarantee some circles will start consisting more permanent solutions.
Lots of people oppose corbyn for perfectly noble reasons. I am not wearing aa tin foil hat, I don't think he's gandalf galloping over the horizon.

But also, lots of vested interests oppose corbyn for lots of horrible reasons, and I place Murdoch firmly on the side of evil. It's well worth bearing this in mind when you watch the media circus at work.

redbinneo
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantitative_easing
Follow the links : the central banks have created money in MASSIVE amounts to prop up bond prices
its why interest rates for savers have been so shit for so long - too much money has been created

I wasn't aware Boris was a trade unionist - yet he claims to speak for trade union members?

The union laws are a disgrace - even the more sane Tories know that

I've been looking at my FB friends who have been ecstatic about Corbyn's victory.

Without exception, they are all people whose current job was advertised in The Guardian. And nearly 25% of them live in Hampstead. And the other 75% would like to.

That doesn't mean that I don't understand the many real concerns that social care professionals, education professionals, health professionals and media bods etc have about the current government's policies. But I do think that vanishingly few of them understand that socialist policies would cost a fortune, a fortune that GB doesn't have without its enormous financial interests and place in the world as a banking and commercial capital.

As a country, we have come a long way with ethical investment policies. It is easily possible to ensure that our pension pots are only invested in clean and green companies for instance. I think we need to focus on selling our ethical financial service business model (so that we can reap tax revenues from it) rather than some of the more simplistic stuff.

As for the not singing the National Anthem bit... well, that's just silly and childish. Yes, it IS drivel, and I would love to replace it with 'Jerusalem' for England only events and something a bit less gung ho and obviously stuck in the 18th century for entire UK events. I have absolute respect for Elizabeth II, I think she's done a really difficult job in the goldfish bowl of publicity all her life, and I sincerely pity her family, who are consistently damned if they do and damned if they don't and haven't got the option of retiring. Edward VIII tried that one and didn't succeed.

But the absolutely best thing about Corbyn's victory is that it's got us talking, properly, about politics. It's been about 30 years since there was last anything more than a sliver of tissue paper between viewpoints of Conservative, Labour and Lib Dems. So, for that alone, ta mucho Jezza.