Webchat with Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour Party, Tuesday 30 May at midday

[BojanaMumsnet]

Hello,

We’re pleased to announce a webchat with the leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn on Tuesday 30 May at midday.

Jeremy has been MP for Islington North since 1983, and has been Labour leader since 2015, having been re-elected when Owen Smith stood against him in 2016. Labour’s manifesto for the election on June 8 proposes ‘a Brexit deal that puts our economy and living standards first’, tax rises for the top 5% of earners, the renationalisation of the railways, free school meals for all primary pupils, the abolition of university tuition fees, and a £250 billion investment fund for infrastructure and the economy.

Please do join the chat on Tuesday at midday, or if you can’t make it, leave a question here in advance. Please do share the webchat on social - the more, the merrier!

As always, please remember our webchat guidelines - one question each, follow-ups if there’s time and please keep it civil .

(As we approach the General Election we will endeavour to offer you a balanced diet of webchats with politicians from different parties. More announcements coming soon.)

Thanks
MNHQ

Hello Mr Corbyn
What message would you give to children and young people? What assurances can you give them that a less privileged background will not hold them back? Can you narrow the gap that is becoming a chasm?
PS I am voting Labour for the first time. Good luck.

Why won't you admit that it was Labour who introduced University Fees and stop implying it was a Tory policy. Just admit you got it wrong?
And as a previous poster said, where will you protect small businesses? The extra bank holidays and increase in minimum wage (and the knock on effect of everyone else in the small business who will want an increase as well) will cause many small businesses to become economically non viable .
I work for a very large rich company who can easily absorb this but the small business (less than 10/15 staff) cannot and will fold. Where does that help anyone?

In the unlikely event of a hung Parliament, how would you feel if there was a genuine all party Coalition, like the wartime Coalition?

If labour win a majority, will Dianne Abbott, john Mc Donnell and other senior shadow front benchers have key roles in a labour government?

Many of your plans seem to be funded by rises in corporation taxes and other taxes such as a financial transactions tax. Are you aware that, thanks to Brexit, many banks are now planning to move hundreds if not thousands of staff to mainland Europe? There is no doubt that this will accelerate if you impose further taxes on the banking industry. Have you budgeted for this outcome in your spending plans?

I would like to know how you intend to fund your spending plans if and when many of the banks currently based in London, relocate all or parts of their businesses to Paris, Frankfurt or Dublin? Are you going to increase borrowing or impose further taxes rises on the squeezed middle, or will you admit that the things you promised in your manifesto such as an end to tuition fees are actually unaffordable?

Hi Jeremy,

I am a young married mother of one. I have been a life long labour supporter and was a member of the Labour Party up until very recently. I voted for Yvette Cooper in the 2015 labour leadership election and voted for Owen Smith in the most recent leadership election. Obviously I'm not a strong supporter of yourself (which I have to admit is very unusual in my social circle).

I work in local government and I have had many heated debates with friends and family about your outlook for the future. While I support your general policies for the county, providing a fairer society and a better economic outlook for the county, I am concerned about how you can achieve these goals outside of the EU.

Can you give me a clear and concise answer to how you plan to govern and provide strong economic stability to public services while being outside of the European Union?

Theoretically, I support labour, and most of your policies.
We own our own business, and have two children with SEN. In theory, labour should be our obvious vote....but we have just had to remove our eldest from state schooling and scrape to get him into a private school that will meet his needs, and hopefully stop the god awful bullying. There is no state school near us suitable for him. We won't be able to keep him in this school if we need to pay Tax on the fees too. Most of the people I personally know who send there kids to private school around here do so because they are failed massively by the state system. For our son, this is on the back of waiting four years for an autism diagnosis, (that is, in the end, just a bit of paper with no help or anything else...)
So, I have a choice, vote for what I believe in, or vote for a party that will let me make my own choices about spending our money on private education. Things are not as straightforward as 'rich and poor'. We make huge sacrifices to afford our sons school.
My question is- what are your thoughts around the shameful state of CAMHs in this country, and do you feel it's right my son will have to return to the comp. that is failing him in every way, and that he fears going to, if you follow through with your policy on taxing school fees?

Why didn't you show up for the Leaders debate? I felt like you didn't bother to show up to argue for my vote. I am now considering voting SNP instead.

Like CloudPerson, I'd like to ask for Jeremy Corbyn's response to what is apparently - according to local press reports - a proposal by Merton CCG (Clinical Commissioning Group) to refuse to refer children for autism diagnosis unless they have additional mental health conditions.

This appears to be on cost grounds.

Details here

It is shocking.

There is a lot of focus on helping first time buyers - help that wasn't available when I bought my flat in 2006. I have 2 children now and we desperately need more space. The flat has not gone up in value at all. Will you look at helping people who are struggling to move? I find it quite hard that my high earning younger brother has bought in London and qualified for help with his deposit through the ISA scheme but nothing available for me. Freeing up flats like mine would help first time buyers also! Should add my husband is self employed so we have to jump through a lot of hoops just to get a mortgage. Please please look at this issue Jeremy!

Do you have any plans to address the north/south divide? I don't just mean putting infrastructure/money into the cities, I mean the areas further north. Anything at Manchester doesn't benefit my area as we are still 3 hours away.

What did you think of Theresa May holding hands with Donald Trump?

where do you stand on Brexit which is the democratic will of the people?

Dear Jeremy,

What would a Labour government do to prevent/punish outright lies, misinformation and fake news being published in the mainstream media? This seems to be a huge problem and once something is in print it is taken as 'the truth' even when discredited later; it's pretty scary.

Thank you and all the best for 8th June. You've got my vote.

#forthemany

Can't wait!!

Well done MN.

My question is

Who aside from yourself do you think would make a good Prime Minister of the U.K. at this time? Why? What, if anything, differentiates you from them?

What will you do with your allotment when you are in No10?

Hello Jeremy,

Can you stop the horrendous underfunding and changes to education which now have our children only being taught about dead white men? Learning facts by rote in seried ranks as Mr Gove wanted?
What would your govt do about this?

I am not a teacher

I am a very concerned parent

What plans do you have to help young families trying to purchase a home in a renters economy?

The biggest issue we find is that due to high rental costs and estate agent fees it's virtually impossible to gather a deposit for a home. We have moved from England to Northern Ireland to lessen the blow of these.

It's also crazy that 14 years of provable rental history with no missed payments cannot be used to lower lending risk with a mortgage.

Glad to see you on MN at this crucial time.

I have voted labour for the first time in my life (usually green) as I think it's so important that we don't have another Tory government.

However I am very shocked at how many people believe the mainstream press and are voting Tory without questioning the word of papers like the Mail (Mayle?! )

Do you see a way around this press bias in the future? Do you envisage that we will ever again have a free press and media in the U.K.?

I've heard you have no sense of humour, can you tell us a joke?

Given the recent appalling lesson we've had on why Middle Eastern politics are still relevant to Britain (following 200 years of our interference there), can you be any more specific about the directions in which you would like to see policy go? Would you support the foundation of Kurdistan and help the Yazidis, or the Palestinians, for instance, and how? How would you tackle Saudi Arabia?

I'll miss this chat as like all of my colleagues I'll still be ploughing through my morning surgery, paperwork and visits as a GP. If you repeal the Health and Social Care Act 2012 when in government what will you replace it with? What will you do regarding the so called internal market in the NHS and what are your thoughts on the purchaser/provider split in the NHS? What do you think of Accountable Care Organisations? How will Labour tackle the rising demand for healthcare as a commodity service (I.e. People believing it's their right to see a GP whenever they want, not taking care of even minor illnesses for themselves without consulting a GP)? Thanks.

Hi Jeremy

Apparently Amber Rudd is representing the Tories on the Beeb Election Debate.

Surely you will turn up to speak for Labour yourself?

You would be nuts not to. May clearly has issues with speaking off the cuff - a terrible weakness in a PM frankly - and you are brilliant at debate.

Hi Jeremy,

My 18 year old DD and I came to hear you speak last week, and will definitely be voting Labour. Having seen your battle bus, we wondered -

1. Do you all get on, or are you getting a bit fed up of being cooped up together?

1. What kind of food do you have on board? Is it healthy stuff, or are you living on crisps and Haribo Tangfastics?

(We do discuss serious policy issues, too)

Thank you