Diane Abbott: Shadow Foreign Secretary

[longfingernails]

It is now a serious possibility.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-to-dismiss-disloyal-shadow-ministers-in-new-year-reshuffle-a6786956.html

AIBU to be glad at the pitiful state of Labour?

We can have significantly more right-wing policies as a result (assuming Cameron takes the opportunity to be less of a wet), which will result in more prosperity, less poverty and a better country.

Do you also hate the Scottish Greens? They also support independence.

Red Tories cant really be insulted by that as I am and have always been a Labour supporter, never to the far left if I was I would be a member of the Labour Socialist Party. I have been a member for many years and have always voted Labour and can not see that changing though I am not a supporter as many other Labour party members of JC

the point I was making as you know that there are parties who fundamental polices people disagree with so much (and that might be for many be just one in regards to Scotland) they would rather vote for a party they do not support to stop them getting a seat especially when the issue would make such huge changes

voting Tory if I were living somewhere that had a strong Tory and UKIP support and little Labour would help stop UKIP getting in. Or I could stick to my true values and vote for a party that has no chance. That at times is could be wasted vote, or worse I could not bother at all which I would never do and thankfully I have not been in a position where I need to think about voting to keep a party out so I have always voted Labour

people talk passionately about politics, I rather see more of it

I rather see the word hate used than the line I do not bother to vote nothing changes or can't be arsed they are all the same

There's tactical voting and then there's tactical voting. Labour supporters voting Tory is pretty significant but it's entirely normal for crypto conservative Blairites who have always been Tories at heart anyway.

probably been mentioned many times but she is his ex lover so its no surprise.

So, you think it's reasonable for supporter of a supposedly left of centre party simply because they support political independence for the country in which they are based, to the degree that they are prepared to vote for their right wing conservative sworn enemies instead?

It's totally and utterly irrational.

People only pick on her because she's black and a woman. I would delighted if Corbyn gave labour women the top 4 cabinet posts on a reshuffle. I am not a Labour voter but I do think DA gets far too much unjust criticism.

No they pick on her because she's a champagin. Soclist

She prescribe the soclist medicine for other but won't take it herself

We have a labour mister and a labour leader who's son went to private and grammar school while the Tory leaders child attends a comp

To my mind, Diane Abbott is a snarling racist. Her comments about white people, on several occasions, have been surprising and totally unnecessary. To quote ex Lib Dem Prime Minister Nick Clegg: her comments were a "stupid and crass generalisation". Nadhim Zahawi, Conservative MP, said: "This is racism. If this was a white member of Parliament saying that all black people want to do bad things to us he would have resigned within the hour or been sacked"

This very unpleasant woman should not have been allowed to stay in Office with these obscene views. The sooner she is booted out of office to save us all the hassle of listening to her drivel, the better.

I don't give a shit what colour she is. She's a hypocritical arsehole, end of. 'Empty Vessel' was invented for her. IMHO.

I'm pretty sure a vast swathe of [potential] voters have no idea who the hell Diane Abbott is. Don't overestimate the level of political debate in this country.
Hence the Tory policy of only mentioning JC as 'a threat to our national security' etc, need a simple message to be hammered home and retained somewhere subconscious.

Nice to see you back, longfingernails, haven't seen you round these parts for a while. Used to be I could recognise your thread titles at a glance, this one caught me on the hop.

claig - are you absolutely sure you aren't a member of the metropolitan elite yourself?
I saw this quiz today and thought of you .

I would delighted if Corbyn gave labour women the top 4 cabinet posts

Would it matter if they were suitable for the job, or do you just want him to throw any four women in there?

On the subject of Diane Abbott and AQG of her career, it seems she was mostly a TV researcher/reporter and then a council press officer; I don't know how that qualifies her for foreign relations and overseeing some of our spy agencies. (This is a gripe I have with our political system as a whole, not not just Abbot/Corbyn/Labour).

To my mind, Diane Abbott is a snarling racist.

There are some people that claim that only those in a position of power and privilege can be racist (or sexist) and therefore only white men can be racist and sexist, because they're the ones in power and privileged. I don't know how they reconcile the fact that she's a politician and therefore in power. Perhaps that muddies the water a bit.

The Red Tories rhetoric is incessant. Is it to erase the memory of the SNP's old nickname of the Tartan Tories?

I liked the idea of Diane Abbott when she arrived on the political scene but am not impressed with how she turned out a few decades later. That's normal though!

Jess thingy was rude to her but if the reports are true Abbott was being very patronising and essentially putting down the newcomer.

The old "Tartan Tories" smears ire away in the 1990s. Labour in Scotland particularly earned the Res Tory moniker from the 1990s onward but their record before that was pretty bad in Scotland too.

50 years of failure.
Fiddling the 1979 devolution referendum
Being opposed to devolution even during Thatcher's worst excesses
50 Scottish Labour MPs standing idly by while Thatcher decimated Scotland.

In Scotland, Labour's chickens are home, roosting. What they sowed, so they have reaped.

So one is a smear but the other a truthful, earned description. Rightio!

Unless you can provide any policies linking the SNP and the Tories or provide examples of SNP activists encouraging people to tactically vote Tory, correct. Can you?

John Swinney's budget wasn't massively dissimilar to George Osborne's. Always looking after the middle classes and couldn't give a fuck about the poor.

That's a remarkable thing to say. One is a devolved budget and the other is a central budget John Swinney's budget is delivered with a diminishing Block Grant from Osborne and the Scottish Parliament still doesn't have borrowing powers.

And even in those dire circumstances, it's a pretty popular budget which maintains the council tax freeze as well as free personal care for the elderly, free prescriptions and free hospital car parking.

£300 million underspend could have been spent on poor people in Scotland last year but apparently not. Much more important that middle class people get free prescriptions, council tax free and the children having free university education.

John Swinney could have raised taxes to help poor people but chose not to. He is as much a socialist as Maggie Thatcher.

That's a funny comment. £300 million out of a budget of over £33billion is a very small contingency indeed, and considering that last year's "underspend" was spent this year, and this year's "underspend" will be spent next year, it looks to all the normal world like responsible accounting practice, given that the Scottish Government cannot borrow and cannot accrue debt on the international markets like Osborne can.

What would you suggest, just blow the lot and be left with no contingency at all for now or in the future?

Do you know what Labour and the Lib Dems used to do with "under spends" totalling billions at Holyrood? The used to hand it back to the Treasury in Whitehall.

By the way! The othe parties at Holyrood including Labour agreed that now was not the right time to raise the rate of Scottish income tax.

Could blow the lot as per your suggestion or, I dunno, spend it on folk using food banks.

Still the SNP weren't called the tartan tories for nothing.

The SNP Government do spend a lot of money on food banks and they completely mitigated the bedroom tax in Scotland so that nobody would be effected.

You've ignored the fact that over spends are routine in the absence of overdraft and are routinely spent the following year. And you've ignored that the unionist parties used to send their under spends back to London rather than spend the following year in Scotland.

You say the SNP weren't call the Tarta Tories for nothing. Enlighten us, why were they called the Tartan Tories?

They were called the tartan tories because they are right wing and love supporting well paid people get freebies.

The £300 million could have been spent this year, right now,to help poor people but the SNP would rather roll it over to next year. Odd set of priorities.