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

He took time out from his election schedule to come onto Mumsnet. That he was unable to stay for a full hour was regrettable but again hardly his fault. He was on his way to a policy launch FFS.

I'm not being funny, but Corbyn isn't doing us a favour - we're doing him one by engaging with him and allowing him to present his policies. He wants our votes? He needs to earn them. Turning up late is disrespectful. Only answering a few, mainly fawning questions is disrespectful. Pissing off early is very rude.

RTKangaMummy If Corbyn can't do all the engagements he's promised then it's his fault for being disorganised. I don't like the implication that a certain group of people - mainly women, mainly mothers - is an inconvenience distracting him from the important stuff.

He took time out from his election schedule to come onto Mumsnet. That he was unable to stay for a full hour was regrettable but again hardly his fault. He was on his way to a policy launch FFS.

^^ He didn't "take time out of his elections schedule" - this was his election schedule... He didn't just decide to pop into the One Show tonight on his way home either, that was on the election schedule too.... So if he walked out of the One Show after 15 minutes and announced he had a train to catch would you have said - "fair enough, busy man..."

AllThePrettySeahorses he could have been here all day and you'd still be moaning. You aren't a voter to be convinced, you are set against him.

I'm extraordinarily proud that I'm the only person on this thread today who's got a guaranteed result of a vote from what they've posted

Can we have a campaign so that those people who insist they want to spoil their paper draw a little extra box with the option by it of "Honey's anal fissures cookies"?

If it comes to that HoneyDragon, then yes I will

Oh god

They'll be no reasoning with honey now

ExplodedCloud I'm pretty convinced by Corbyn. I've gone from a Labour member until very recently to thinking I can never vote for the party again. This just reinforces what I think.

Well my coup on this place failed as Justine's REALLY tetchy about people trying to take over her website

Time to think further afield.

I think it was probably his team telling him where to go/when rather than him personally being disorganised

*Please tell us when TM is coming to MN HQ?

Has she been asked?

What was her excuse if she said no?
*

Yep. Arrive late, leave early. Answer fluffy questions including two paragraphs about biscuits then go.

Maybe people shouldn't ask so many fluffy questions, and that bloody biscuit thing annoys me a lot more than it should. Good well thought out questions always ignored for the sake of a 'whats your fave biscuit'. And if the chats are covered by the press, the main focus is always on fucking biscuits making us all look like the luvvies over at net huns

But yes, I will be voting Labour. I do like JC a lot. But this was a piss poor showing I am afraid. Rather enjoyed Paxmans attempt to goad and annoy him going largely ignored. Didn't see this childcare question on womans hour but I expect its been massively blown out of proportion as is everything he does...OMGz Corbyn flushed the loo TWICE!!! Won't someone think of the water waste, what a demon he is...etc etc. But this...was disappointing to say the very least.

Still..I guess everyone has their minds made up now anyway, and anyone who reckons their vote was going to be decided by a mumsnet webchat likely won't even bother their arse to actually vote anyway...and this is probably a very stressful time for him I guess. But could have given us a bit more surely...

What is going to be done about the disgusting two child cap and rape clause and the cuts to PIP and ATOS and CAPITA who are treating people like animals!

Labour plan to end the WCA completely from what I heard on the news this morning, apparently thats in the manifesto? Along with scrapping the ridiculous and unfair bedroom tax.

Scrapping the WCA may well mean you need consultant reports, or higher than a GP/sicknote to prove your illness, but at least it won't be the horrific assessments followed by outright lies, a rubber stamping excercise with MR, followed by months waiting for a tribunal before finally getting your rightful award. Not sure how its happening, but WCAs are to be stopped anyway. And about time too. Surely the Capita/ATOS contracts and sheer amount of wrong decisions costs more than it 'saves'. And anything that is 'saved' is likely to be by denying seriously ill people money they are entitled to...the ones who are too ill to actually go through the harsh appeals stage

Bedroom tax seems to be 'popular' among those who do not know anything about it and are jealous that some council tenants have a 'spare' room. I doubt it would be such a popular policy if people knew that the places to downsize to just are not there, so people have no choice to move, like is claimed is easy. Nor that a hell of a lot of these 'spare rooms' are not even spare at all...and some aren't even larger enough to be deemed a 'bedroom' as some don't even fit single beds in!

I'll be voting Corbyn - can't think who the fuck else to vote for. Maybe libdem, But meh.

Schools, NHS, and as a plus we'd have Keir Starmer doing brexit negotiations. So Yeah. Labour.

www.independent.co.uk/voices/jeremy-corbyn-media-bias-labour-mainstream-press-lse-study-misrepresentation-we-cant-ignore-bias-a7144381.html

Our report found that 75% of press coverage misrepresents Jeremy Corbyn – we can't ignore media bias anymore.

David Dimbleby has also said in The Independent that he thinks the press is being very biased.

It's a shame and undermines democracy IMO. I think you can totally see the influence of that bias on MN. The man can do no right in many people's eyes and links are posted of him saying utterly sensible and humane things but presented or commented on as though he is a terrible person.

Just look at all the posters (some of whom are presumably genuine) parroting stuff they've read in a biased press about terrorism. It's pathetic. The man's a pacifist.

And the Tory campaign is just one ad hominem after another.

I have seen practically no posts on here actually disagreeing with the Labour manifesto or Corbyn in a substantial way - it's all silly crap about "money trees" and Corbyn supporting terrorism. And yet the Tory manifesto is uncosted and May does arms deals with real terrorist suppliers.

I think Labour will loose this election and I think it is potentially a watershed moment for the UK. We will see more damage done to our health, education and political systems and brexit will be a Tory deal that is focused on the demands of the rich. It will be hard if not impossible to come back from these things. And we may see the break up of the UK as a result.

The British press used to be something to be proud of but now like so much in this country it focuses on the interests of the rich to the detriment of those who are not and never will be.

Is TM coming in ? ( so we can ask her daft questions about her fave biscuits)

There have been some pretty nasty things said about May too. I think Corbyn and May are good people. I support May's policies more than Corbyn.

I do not agree the woman's hour was blown out of proportion. I had to turn it off when listening live - it was so excrutiating he could not answer the cost question when he must have known it woudl be question no. 1 after Diane A's problems.

the 'independent' complaining about press bias
you are joking. Their standard of journalism and biased reporting of the facts would put a school magazine to shame
Ditto the guardian.

I am fed up with hearing about press bias.

Any views I hold on Jeremy Corbyn have been formed through watching and listening to him; I am also perfectly capable of doing my own background digging whenever a claim is made about him - the difference between now & 20 yrs ago is that we all have access to a wealth of information at our fingertips.

I have noticed that the most dogmatic of JC haterz (including me) on MN are not just parroting newspaper articles but have actually looked further & formed their opinion based on more than tabloid headlines.

Please credit people with a bit of critical thought.

Just turned on the news to hear the BBC saying Labour's figures are "unbelievable".

No mention, in the interests of parity, that the Conservatives either haven't bothered to do the figures or if the have they are hiding them from the voters.

And yet what did the press show us Corbyn and May doing yesterday? Corbyn launching a Race and Faith manifesto and a free childcare plan and May slagging Corbyn off and going on about how "strong and stable" she is.

But he's an idiot because he couldn't remember a figure and May is what?

May was slagging Corbyn for not being ready to do the brexit negotiations which will begin (ominous voice) 11 days after the results of the election. Yeah they will and yet do you hear the press criticising May for calling an election at a time when we would all have done with less division and party politics? Do we hear the press questioning the democratic values of a government that will call an election just before brexit and then fight that election almost entirely on the basis of scaremongering about brexit (a brexit that they have brought upon us all and which our Prime Minister is against)? Do we hell.

I'm no Conservative supporter but up until May called this election I believed the propaganda that she was "a safe pair of hands". But no, she's using brexit to further her political party rather than the interests of the public.

*Just turned on the news to hear the BBC saying Labour's figures are "unbelievable".

No mention, in the interests of parity, that the Conservatives either haven't bothered to do the figures or if the have they are hiding them from the voters.*

Tories have been, and continue to be, slagged off for not costing anything.

And yet what did the press show us Corbyn and May doing yesterday? Corbyn launching a Race and Faith manifesto and a free childcare plan and May slagging Corbyn off and going on about how "strong and stable" she is.

But he's an idiot because he couldn't remember a figure and May is what?*

Just as much of a twat? Repeatedly gets ripped apart for her roboticism & inability to interact with real people.

May was slagging Corbyn for not being ready to do the brexit negotiations which will begin (ominous voice) 11 days after the results of the election. Yeah they will and yet do you hear the press criticising May for calling an election at a time when we would all have done with less division and party politics?

Yes.
Repeatedly.

Do we hear the press questioning the democratic values of a government that will call an election just before brexit and then fight that election almost entirely on the basis of scaremongering about brexit (a brexit that they have brought upon us all and which our Prime Minister is against)?

Yes, repeatedly.

I suggest that you may be watching the news etc with a bias eye.
May gets roasted just as much as Corbyn when she fucks up.
It was relentless after the manifesto launch.

Charmageddon, I'm giving people plenty of credit - I read their posts and follow and read their links. But I've yet to read much of any substance. Upthread Piglet posted a link that was apparently evidence of what a bad 'un Corbyn is and it was an article with him voicing humane, sensible and intelligent views about the strive for peace in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Did you read the link I just posted? Properly I mean? The report was from the LSE media and communications department - it wasn't authored by The Independent, they just wrote about it (there is a link in the first paragraph).

www.lse.ac.uk/media@lse/research/Mainstream-Media-Representations-of-Jeremy-Corbyn.aspx

If you read the threads on here objectivly Mumsnet apparently has a simultaneous bias toward Labour and Conservative.

Beach, Corbyn has been mocked & ridiculed since he came to the fore in his first leadership election.

It was awful, and I too thought it was extremely unfair & that he represented something different- a breath of fresh air & a different, better way of doing politics.

I think he comes across as a likeable & genuinely interested person - he has without doubt been an extraordinary activist during his whole life & never turned a blind eye to the underdog - his ideas & manifesto vision are mostly great.
I still think this about him.

However, over the last 2 years he has time & again shown me that he does not have the capacity to be PM.
His vision for Britain is great - but it will bankrupt us.
I don't trust him to make the difficult decisions that come with being PM in a pragmatic & immediate way - he will have to make often ruthless decisions that may go against his very core, and nothing I have seen or heard of him makes me confident that he will.

He will continually be crippled between what he believes to be right, and what is necessary & must be done - I don't think he will be able to abandon his long held principles for the 'greater good' and actually, to be fair to him, I don't think he should.

Does that make sense? (Very waffly, sorry!)

Are you kidding, Beachcomber? Look at the biased language in the newspaper link. Look at the assumption that Corbyn's words should be reported when he had barely said anything at the time and most of his published words were actually about Hamas and the IRA - oh yeah, and agitating against whoever was Labour leader at the time. How about the expectation of equal positive/negative letters etc when his personal ratings were minus 30 odd? The report just smacks of confirmation bias to me, simultaneously expecting a whitewash and media fawning.