Heads up - webchat with Jeremy Corbyn Monday 19th Sept @ 2pm.

[JustineMumsnet]

Hello,

We’re pleased to announce a webchat with the leader of the Labour Party (and candidate in the current leadership election) Jeremy Corbyn MP on Monday 19 September at 2pm.

Jeremy has been MP for Islington North since 1983, and before 2015 was best known as a rebellious backbencher and chair of the Stop the War coalition. His leadership of Labour over the past year has inspired enthusiastic support as well as attracting sustained criticism. Among other things, he’s taken a new crowd-sourced approach to Prime Minister’s Questions, opposed military intervention in Syria and proposed the renationalisation of the railways.

His last webchat on Mumsnet (alongside fellow leadership candidate in 2015, Liz Kendall) featured lively discussions about socialism, electability and the provenance of Jeremy’s vests (Holloway Road market, since you ask).

Please do join the chat on Monday at 2, or if you can’t make it, leave a question here in advance. If you know people who you think would like to ask Jeremy a question, do please share the link around on social media too.

(If you’re interested in our webchat with the other Labour leadership candidate Owen Smith, take a look here .)

As always, please do keep in mind our webchat guidelines - one question each, follow-ups if there’s time and above all, keep it civil [taps nose like that geezer Shaw Taylor in Police 5] (Horribly showing my age there).

The anti Semitism issue has been answered many times on TV and online and he has been clear on that too. In fact the Jewish community has backed him on this issue. A quick search on Google will show anyone who is not sure. There have been numerous episodes of online trolls asking these questions in order to try and slur him with 'guilty by association.'

Oh dear, oh dear. 'The anti Semitism issue' has only been answered in meaningless soundbites, not meaningfully or sincerely. 'The Jewish community' is not a monolith; fond as I am of the Jewish Socialist Group (and I genuinely am, not meaning that sarkily) they are not remotely representative. And I am hugely unimpressed by the implication that I and others were motivated by an anti-Corbyn agenda. Actually, I am a lifelong Labour voter, highly critical of Israel, and actually not decided how I feel about Corbyn overall (though this webchat hasn't exactly earned him points in my view). Telling the Jewish community, "Yes yes of course we are all opposed to all forms of discrimination" is NOT the same as taking the issue seriously, or understanding it. Corbyn clearly doesn't understand it, and doesn't care either.

Yes but HairyLittlePoet, there you go thinking that cruel, exploitative bastards using people's bodies to harvest their organs, is on the same continuum of entitlement as cruel, exploitative bastards using women's bodies to ejaculate into.

You're making the mistake so many women make, of believing that the group "women" has the same right to human dignity as the group "people". See that's where you silly feminists go wrong, you don't seem to understand that one of the main purposes of being a woman, is to be a general convenience for men.

Tut.

Very unimpressed with this. I didn't get around to posting a question (would have been brexit or education) as I was trying to decide which I wanted answered more. I noticed these subjects had already been brought up though and looked forward to reading the responses after work timing was rubbish, yes I filled in the survey
The important questions that he answered were bland non answers. Non committal and that doesn't show great leadership imho.

Wow that's a great analogy hairy. Thank you.

And yy to what spookyrachel said.

I see the Telegraph has focussed on the biscuit the key questions.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/19/miserable-jeremy-corbyn-takes-the-famous-mumsnet-biscuit-test-a/

But not in the DM. Yet..

Looking back over the web chat this morning, I think the Mumsnet encounter might have been one speed date too many for Jeremy. His answers were rather generic-sounding for the most part. He seemed more engaged and upbeat the first time he visited Mumsnet. Perhaps he is feeling a bit jaded, coming to the end of a long campaign.

I think the biscuit question sometimes ‘works’ and sometimes doesn’t.

For example, in Nicola Sturgeon’s web chat she got to the biscuit question after tackling quite a number of more serious questions in a focussed way. There was a feeling that she deserved the biscuit break and readers were ready for a spot of levity

In Jeremy’s case, he was reaching for the biscuit too soon - and he's not even a biscuit fan! It was just a way of filling up a few minutes and getting him closer to the end of the conversation.

I am still broadly supportive of Jeremy’s policies and he seems like an honest and principled man to me, but I feel Mumsnet was not a priority for him and his heart wasn't in it.

DH is in the JC-cult. Talking about this thread may lead to a divorce
He thinks we are all being meany vipers

his heart wasn't in it.

His heart isn't in anything it seems, unless he personally wants it. It isn't the way a leader should behave.

I don't think non revolutionaries are his people.

Favourite biscuits are being discussed on Daily Politics.....

Wow. Just wow. Peter Kyle said it all. Buries head in sand. Ignores any question he doesn't like , ignores questions from the media like a spoilt child. Good luck with him as leader.

That was a car crash of a web chat. Utter non-answers, plus irritating slowness. Was it a Nicola Sturgeon webchat where she got to the end, said she couldn't stay but she would leave members of her team to answer more questions, which they then did? I think politicians should take that approach, because of the serious nature of a lot of questions posed - shows they are taking us seriously.

I was in the Jeremy Corbyn camp based on many of his views, but not far enough to vote for him, as in Scotland the SNP policies more closely align with my beliefs. However, I have been wondering whether I should vote Labour next time around just to try and get the Tories out. I didn't hear anything today that made me think it would be worth doing that.

His heart isn't in anything it seems, unless he personally wants it. It isn't the way a leader should behave.
I tend to agree with this. One of his strengths is being 'honest and principled' as Outwith says, but the downside of this is his absolute intransigence once he's decided on a stance. His response to the prostitution question was a fine example of this IMO.

yes also his plan to persuade the middle to vote for him is to make his case for his existing extremist policies better. Hmmmm ok then!

At least he turned up! Politicians aren't obliged to do a MN web chat.

No, but if you are going to do it,make sure you do a good job.
Politicians with left wing policies will always be attacked by mainstream media. So you need to come across well when you have the chance.

I think we should set the bar a bit higher than just turning up!

I agree that the NS web chat was a good example of how these should be conducted (I say this despite not being overly keen on the SNP). She does take this type of thing (engagement with the public) more seriously, is intelligent and actually seems to care what people think. It shows.

Politicians - especially ones that are approaching a leadership election - need to do a lot more than just 'turn up'.

By contrast, JC seems to think all he has to do is turn up and give a few pat answers without much behind them.

I think once you look beyond the carefully constructed 'man of the people' image there isn't much of substance. And that's worrying.

As PP have said he comes across as exactly the sort of old fashioned lefty man who is terribly right-on about everything...except women's rights.

At least he turned up! Politicians aren't obliged to do a MN web chat.

No they aren't. However he is running for the leader of a party and apparently wants to be PM.

Just turning up doesn't cut it.

'At least he turned up'

No, he's not doing us favours by turning up. He's doing this so he can keep his job. He is selling something the same as all the other people who do these chats.

I turned up - was actually here earlier than him too

Can I be leader of the Labour Party now?

"I agree that the NS web chat was a good example of how these should be conducted (I say this despite not being overly keen on the SNP). She does take this type of thing (engagement with the public) more seriously, is intelligent and actually seems to care what people think. It shows."

If you call ignoring a massive referendum defeat for independence "engagement with the public", then yes, I agree.

Nobody is arguing for the SNP. But she did do a good web chat and did not patronise us.

I'm not saying everything NS or the SNP do is marvellous , just commenting on the differences between the web chats. I thought NS came across as much more switched on and engaged.