Well done Labour NEC - Corbyn can stand

[claig]

They have voted 18-14 to allow Corbyn to stand in the leadership election.

One less stitch-up in a season os stitch-ups.

Go Corbyn!

Iirc Adams grammar or somesuch

I'm pretty sure it was voluntary aided so effectively independent but funded by the local authority (my old school was similar but reverted to completely independent status in the 1970s). He definitely went to a fee-paying prep school though

Yes I stand corrected. Sorry.

Radio 5 are having a phone in about Corbyn right now, for those interested. Many fervent Corbyn supporters so far.

Mistake to think that those opposing Corbyn, simply oppose his "principles". Unless his principles" are supposed to mean treating his party colleagues like dirt, and publicly contradicting LP's supposed policy. If Corbyn were a canny operator & consensus builder, than he would have easily towed an eager-for-power PLP over to support his vision & this party implosion would not be happening. Instead, Corbynista politics seems to be about a populist leader speaking from the hip regardless of what was agreed with colleagues, reneging on promises to support Remain, no desire to present a competent and coherent management team, and entrenched clinging to power regardless of what it does to party unity. Corbyn doesn't care about loyalty, of course, we knew that before.

I ponied up my £25 so I get a vote. It's great that Owen Smith has industry experience working in Big Pharma. He knows exactly how the Bastards operate.

Claig - I find it odd that you refer to Labour Party Members as 'the people'. Which people exactly? They aren't representative of the general population.

As mentioned in my previous post:

Stats on Labour Party membership from Prof Tim Bale:

"They are an unusual set of people - for a start they joined a political party, only about 1 to 2 % of people ever do that"

"They are unusual as well because about three-quarters of them are middle class people, over half of them are graduates, average age is around 51, so they don't really represent the population as a whole."

And, anecdotally, every SWP-leaning person I've ever met personally has been a public schoolboy. Some I knew when they were actual schoolboys in the 80s, others just haven't grown out of it.

'Claig - I find it odd that you refer to Labour Party Members as 'the people'. Which people exactly?'

I use the term 'people' to refer to individuals who are not part of the established political class, whereas the 172 are the established political class who are trying to overthrow a Labour leader voted in in a landslide (which shocked the Establishment) just 9 months ago with the biggest mandate in UK political history.

Corbyn has been an MP since 1983 - sounds pretty 'established' to me?

the 172 are the established political class who are trying to overthrow a Labour leader voted in in a landslide

Well, they have a lot in common with Corbyn then, who has spent the last 3 decades plotting to overthrow Labour leaders.

'Well, they have a lot in common with Corbyn then, who has spent the last 3 decades plotting to overthrow Labour leaders.'

Yes, but COrbyn is a rebel, true and steadfast to his convictions, opposing Blairite wars from the start.

The 172 aren't rebels, they are Establishment, many of them voted for war the Iraq War and even voted to stop the enquiry into it, they contain the Establishment's favourites and Corbyn is definitely not one of those.

Owen Smith was a lobbyist for Pfizer and a SPAD, Jeremy Corbyn was a socialist running Stop the War.

Credit: Alex Treece on Twitter:

Just because he has held the same, non-mainstream, ideas for a long time doesn't make him all that different to the others, he just hasn't managed to make himself and those ideas at all popular until recently. He's just as capable of hypocricy as anyone else.

Hilariously, Corbyn is today giving MPs a telling off for disloyalty, saying that he is "not going to tolerate continued sniping and discontent".

I am sickened by the childish behaviour of Labour MPs atm. At least in PMQ you support your leader, or you've supported the Tories in all but name. Spoilt brattiness which just made them look like playground sulkers.

I am now considering joining Labour and paying the 25 quid to vote for JC. Just because of that. Idiots whom I really don't want anywhere near power. I hope JC, should Labour win the next GE, does indeed expel them all.

JC doesn't even support the Labour Party, though, does he? Their policies are agreed at their annual conference, in partnership with Labour Party members, so why the fuck is he voting against the will of his own party? I thought this was the man who cared oh-so-much about party members? No, he doesn't, he cares about him. The more I see and hear the more of an arrogant hypocrite I think he is. And his sycophants aren't helping one bit. Playground sulkers? He's the best example of one I've ever seen.

You're too late, Memoires - 48-hour window ended 5pm yesterday

I agree about the PLP MPs' behaviour.

And his, Low? The fact that he votes against his own party's democratically agreed policies?

I am open about JC trying to persuade the whole party over to his views. Really. But he would have to do it by logic & intellectual rigor, and dare I say it, charisma & canniness. He isn't doing that.

There are just so many stories about JC undermining his parliamentary colleagues. About lack of willingness to listen or engage with other viewpoints. His "principles" mean little room for compromise. How does any party get power without some compromise? Maybe the experience of LibDems in coalition proves that the British hate compromise, I dunno.

I don't warm to his policies, but his policies aren't why I've come to personally dislike JC. He's a lousy leader.

I reckon he wants to be like Nicola Sturgeon and make his MPs sign a contract so they can't vote against the party line. Oh wait, that would mean he'd need to follow the party line, though, wouldn't it...?

Agree llkjj.

Memoires - it's a bit rich calling the MPs childish and disloyal when that is everything that Corbyn himself embodies. He and his cronies get their kicks by feeling different and self righteous but cant behave like professional grown-ups because then they wouldn't be 'woo so rebellious' any more.

Sorry - lljkk !

Does anyone think that Owen Smith could win against Corbyn? He's a bit of a non-entity, isn't he? I hadn't heard of him a week ago.

I did some googling today and found out a few things about him...

Apparently he accepted a £60,000 in kind donation from Price Waterhouse Cooper at the same time as the Public Accounts Committee were investigating PwC for promoting tax avoidance.

And then there's the suggestion that he got a job at the BBC because his Dad was in a senior role at the Corporation, plus the claims of BBC insiders that he's a bit dim - did anyone else hear the thing about how he called 999 when his bosses told him they wanted to get a senior police officer on the radio? His response was that he was being bullied at the time. If that's the case, then I am very sorry for him - but it doesn't make me confident that he'd have the nerve to face down Isis, or for that matter drive a hard bargain with Angela Merkel, cut a deal with Nicola Sturgeon, etc...

Also watched an excerpt of a bizarre interview with Piers Morgan in which they joke about viagra, and Smith says he wants to take Corbyn on 'like a Duracell Bunny'. It got even more cringing when he went all coy and said that, whether or not he had tried Viagra was for him 'and Mrs Smith to know about'. Could he not have deflected Morgan and focused on matters of policy? Fgs - the United Kingdom is about to go down the toilet, and the EU's not likely to fare much better - could he not have said something of substance?

Anyway, I'd advise any of you who are thinking of voting for Smith to be our next PM to google it. I'm trying to imagine what he'd be like as a global leader: maybe he could organise a competitive shag-a-thon with Putin, or compare dick size with Trump?

The worse thing though is his support for NHS privatisation - that's certainly not a laughing matter. And how, as a lobbyist and later an MP, he undermined the efforts of the NHS to cut costs by using generic drugs. One of the companies he worked for sounds seriously dodgy:

While Smith was employed by Amgen, the company was battling a US investigation into one of its most successful anaemia drugs, Aranesp. Amgen was fined $762m (£579m) in 2012 for illegally promoting the drug to cancer patients in a way that increased the likelihood of their deaths. Amgen was hit with the fines after it emerged that the California company was “pursuing profits at the risk of patient safety” as it promoted a non-approved use of Aranesp. [...] Smith was in charge of corporate affairs, corporate and internal communications and public affairs at the British division of Amgen between 2008 and 2010. [http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/20/owen-smith-i-have-never-advocated-privatisation-of-the-nhs]

What do you think?

Was Smith suppose to not answer the Viagra question directly; do we now prefer politicians who don't answer questions?

I like the fact that Owen Smith worked for Big Pharma, he knows how the bastards operate. I prefer his communications/management background to Cameron PPE-parliamentary secretary or Corbyn union agitator/serial party rebel.

PwC have donated a lot to Labour party; since Corbyn is part of the Labour party, he's guilty of benefiting from their unsalubrious money, too.

Today show is pretty demanding & mercilous on its staff, I don't know if Smith is being accused of nepotism as only reason why he had a job there.

Conor McGinn MP (Labour whip) claim today that Corbyn threatening to phone Conor ex Sinn Fein cllr dad to 'get him to talk to him' when he challenged Corbyn over something is extremely chilling.

I despair that the Labour Party are wasting time pissing about with a leadership contest when you look how quickly the tories have moved to have a new PM. Seamless and we've all forgotten about the Gove/leadsom debacle.

Labour should be establishing themselves as a strong opposition. Especially at this time of year when the government seeks to bury bad news at the end of parliament.

It is ludicrous.

Was Smith suppose to not answer the Viagra question directly [...]? No, he should have realised that it was designed to make him look like a fool. Corbyn is criticised for not being media savvy, but he'd have see mile off. It would've been easy to smile and says, 'Thanks Piers, but I'd rather focus on my priorities for leadership, which are x, y and z'. (Or maybe not so easy if you haven't actually got a clue what direction you want to take this country in, but just fancied having a big, shiny job title...?)

The whole cringingly embarrassing situation would not have occurred if he'd had the sense to prioritise an interview on a serious news programme. It's just so patronising - presumably he thinks this is the kind of idiotic rubbish British people enjoy. Reminded me of when Blair appeared on Des O'Connor and did a mockney accent.

I like the fact that Owen Smith worked for Big Pharma, he knows how the bastards operate. Isn't that a bit like saying it'd be good to have somebody whose been high up in Islamic State, because they'd know what was what?!?

And I'm pretty sure Cameron did have commercial experience - he'd worked in television at Granada.

Today show is pretty demanding & mercilous on its staff, Yes, it'd be interesting to know how long Smith lasted after the 999 gaffe.

Corbyn threatening to phone Conor ex Sinn Fein cllr dad to 'get him to talk to him' Why is it chilling to get a phone call from your Dad? Sein Fein is a respectable party of Government - has been for years. Am I missing something?

I despair that the Labour Party are wasting time pissing about with a leadership contest when you look how quickly the tories have moved to have a new PM. Seamless and we've all forgotten about the Gove/leadsom debacle. Yes, I agree. I can't understand why the rebel MPs chose to do this at such a time of peril for our country.