to wonder why Corbyn isn't more popular considering the battering Theresa May/the Tories is getting?

[mothertruck3r]

The Tories/Theresa May have been getting an absolute kicking in the press recently (rightly deserved) and every day there seems to be a new controversy. May seems completely inefficient and doesn't seem to know whether she is coming or going (literally).

However, I am surprised that Corbyn/Labour is not polling higher. On all the polls I have looked at his rating seems to be either equal to, very slightly above or very slightly below May. He should be well out in front at this point.

I am not a Corbyn/Labour fan (although agree with a lot of their policies) but I am wondering why is he not polling better?

I'm left-wing, quite radically so on some issues. Corbyn presents like a decent person and a mediocre but adequate MP. But it seems as if a lot of his supporters are trying to artificially inflate his stature, constructing a narrative of him being a great socialist Messiah - a kind of lab generated, not-so-tory Tony Blair - to save the party.

I think a lot of people are untrusting of that kind of stage-managed flashiness, especially when it's such a poor fit for his genuine character, and are concerned he'll start to believe the PR hype.

He's a lovely cuddly figurehead. But those behind him pulling the strings are neither lovely nor cuddly. They are sinister and frightening. I'm hoping that most people have realised the sort of country we'd end up with if they ever got their hands on power. At least we can openly criticise Corbyn now without getting jailed for it.

The media (conservative lead) has made Corbyn look like an idiot. So peoples perception of him isn't that great, but goes to show how thick the general public are... I mean look at brexit.

Just realised they could have been describing May.

What have we got such incompetent leaders .

Corbyn, McConnell, Abbott, Rayner, Chakrabarti

Nuff said.

Choco - you do realise that you're The General public??
(and I love those ChocLeibniz biscuits - but usually wait til they are 2 for 1)

Choco - they don't need to make him look like an idiot, he does that all by himself!

Lizzie - we do indeed have incompetent leaders at every turn. Makes you wonder if democracy is worth it!

I've voted both Labour and Tory in the past. I just couldn't vote for Labour the last couple of times. Milliband was a joke, Corbyn is a fool. Labour need to accept that they've caused themselves to lose the last two elections and until they put up a leader and shadow cabinet who aren't a laughing stock, they'll remain in opposition for the foreseeable future.

May and her lot are also hopeless, but they're the best of a bad lot at the moment.

We desperately need a new generation of decent politicians. If the two main parties can't do it, then we need some new parties. The country deserves better.

Because his policies are totally unrealistic. Free stuff for everyone, scrap certain taxes, free uni, higher wages. We can't have it all.

The media (conservative lead) has made Corbyn look like an idiot. So peoples perception of him isn't that great, but goes to show how thick the general public are... I mean look at brexit.

In all fairness, the media is making the Tories look like idiots too, they certainly haven't been lenient on any of them and Corbyn has done some very dodgy things in the past so he should be brought to task over them. I think we unfortunately have a very poor choice of politicians. Very few decent ones and extreme opinions, corruption and greed seems to have become something which they wear with pride.

I don't think this is a problem specific to Corbyn but a general shift in the way politics works in the western world now.

Politics has become so personality based and people have become far more fixed in their views. Supporting a political party seems to be more like supporting a team where you should stay loyal as opposed to different groups offering alternative visions and you choosing the one which most suits you at the time.

One of the strengths of Corbyn as a leader for me is that, although his views are often to the left of mine, he doesn't put his personal views above those of the party. He has reiterated again and again that policies should be generated by the party and not the leader's whim. Hence the difference between his position on Trident and that of the Labour Party. However, people tend to hear his personal views (which he is honest and open about) and assume that this will be the position of the party.

I don't agree on his personal position on the EU which is probably the most important political issue for me personally at the moment but I would potentially still vote for him as I think his personal anti-EU feelings would be tempered by the view of the party as a whole.

There is also the well publicised issue where people are getting more news from the internet instead of reading newspapers. Search engines supply you with more and more information which is similar to what you have already read, making our views more and more entrenched and it more and more difficult to see another viewpoint.

I did some research on Britain First and white supremacy a few months ago following incidents in the USA and suddenly my news feed has lurched massively to the right as Google analyses what it thinks I am interested in.

Conversations about politics are no longer people discussing their view of the same information, but people formulating a view and then finding a wealth of "evidence" to back it up.

I used to enjoy discussing politics and am genuinely interested in how others view the way in which people plan to take the country forward, but it has become so much that one side is good and the other is evil, that it can often be a pretty painful experience.

It would be interesting for me to take 2 people from opposite sides of any political issue - Brexit, Corbyn etc. and just see how much common information they had been exposed to. I doubt it would be very much :-(

I love Corbyn and I don't care who knows it

To be honest I wonder why Labour haven't leapt on the Tories recent embarrassment, but they seem to have been very quiet about it.... What have they got to hide?

It's attitudes like yours, Choco, that helped to cause Brexit! Brexit is the result of a lot of factors, but stupidity isn't one of them.

Anger - at London and the wealthy
Poor govt - meaning that some areas have suffered hugely from a lack of investment since ww2 from red and blue governments alike
Immigration - whilst I am very pro immigration, I live in central London. I can totally see how, if you live in a deprived area where chronic underfunding and lack of investment has meant poor employment prospects, you would blame the immigrants when they come in and take the job. It's wrong but it's understandable
Dislike of EU policies - I know several people who voted out who work in banking, finance etc. They think the EU is a dinosaur, corrupt, and that it has made life a misery for people in areas like Greece and southern Italy. And Juncker really doesn't do it or himself any favours!
"Not what I voted for" - a lot of the generation who voted to join the EU voted to leave it because it's now a totally different beast
The papers told me to do it - yeah, the press has a lot to answer for
Fucked up campaign - blame the bus. It was just so so wrong.

To dismiss all these reasons and just say the general public is stupid is really... well...!

(I voted in, btw, but I think it's pointless to pretend that those who voted leave didn't have reasons that they believe in)

Why make this another thread about Brexit?

Because Brexit is a big part of why people don't like corbyn? If he had campaigned harder for it in the labour heartlands it might have tipped the scale. But everyone knows he's a eurosceptic.

He just doesn't appeal to enough people - even within his on party, let alone the general public.
If you replaced him with Yvette on the other hand...

*within his own party

Mirai yes but I feel like I'm more intelligent than the collective voice of society.

I buy chocoleibniz even when not on offer, I'm that addicted.

Exactly what Kazzyhoward said. In a nutshell. I despise Theresa May and her bunch of bungling overgrown public school bumblewits. Truly I do. Boris Johnson alone is enough but they're ALL like him to a greater or lesser degree.
However - look at the alternative. Labour are a fucking joke. They want to take the country back to the 70's - presumably where their glory-days memories still live.
There is nobody of any standing in politics at the moment. It's almost as if it's all prescribed and the decent ones are just letting the monkeys and chimps run amok - but to what end I can't begin to guess.

It's not labour that's the problem it's Corbyn. He's practically outed himself as a communist, he's a terrorist sympathiser, his policies are extreme and his stewardship of the Labour Party a bit draconian. To top it all of he's so slow witted that he give Theresa a run for her money. Both of them are so hopeless. I can understand why the Tories are hesitant to get rid of May (although I think that they are idiots). When Corbyn is still labour leader though is beyond me. Labour has an easy win here, all they have to do is choose someone even remotely palatable.

Labour should give Chukka a go.

Diane Abbott didn't help him at the last election either. Nor did mcdonnell, who makes Corbyn look like Donald trump! It's not just him - it's the concern that his cabinet would be woefully incompetent.

Because no matter the opposite side, a cunt is a cunt is a cunt.