Jeremy Corbyn.

[London Irish]

http://www.greekcrisis.net/2015/09/alexis-through-looking-glass-world-of.html

You are right, what a difference he has made!

Yet everything is the same because Syriza signed up in July for a €86bn bailout from its European creditors. The government accepted a trade-off between financial aid and internationally supervised domestic reform — just as its centre-left, technocratic and centre-right predecessors did between 2010 and 2014. Mr Tsipras even relied on the parliamentary support of his centre-left and centre-right adversaries to legitimise the bailout. Hard-pressed Greeks can be excused for asking why it is necessary to elect a new parliament for the fifth time since October 2009, and what practical difference it will make to their lives if they vote for Syriza or any of its mainstream rivals.

You can cut and paste what you like back at me - you can't refute the facts. He got more money from Europe which no one from the IMF from the bloke on the Syntagma omnibus expects to get paid back.

That's why there was a revolt in the German parliament about paying it to the Greeks. Now could Tsipras wave a magic wand and get the money condition-free? Of course not - but he'll carry on fighting and his sovereign power in government will find many ways to alleviate the bail-out conditions, and far better than New Democracy who actually believe in the austerity being imposed

 

[jakarta]

He got more money from Europe which no one from the IMF from the bloke on the Syntagma omnibus expects to get paid back... but he'll carry on fighting and his sovereign power in government will find many ways to alleviate the bail-out conditions

Which is a long winded way of saying he is a liar and a crook?

 

[Gwylan]

This is a strange appointment to the Shadow cabinet.
[tweet]644896091004084224[/tweet]

Surprised he's from Scotland and not from Croydon

I hadn't seen the full list until now: I see my old mate Chi Onwurah has two jobs now ... which is nice for her

 

[London Irish]

Which is a long winded way of saying he is a liar and a crook?

Yeh you could have done this Sun reader stuff a few posts back and saved us both time.

 

[pastafarian]

"Tory, Tory, Tory. You’re a Tory.’ The level of hatred directed by the Corbyn left at Labour people who have fought Tories all their lives is as menacing as it is ridiculous."

http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9637452/why-ive-finally-given-up-on-the-left/



*It's an interesting viewpoint, not aimed at you particularly, Sim, but definitely at those who never supported Labour in the last election but now want to join the Party and drive out long-established party activists because they're too right-wing.

blooming heck,he doesnt hold back any punches in that article does he.


"Jeremy Corbyn did not become Labour leader because his friends in the Socialist Workers party organised a Leninist coup. Nor did the £3 click-activist day-trippers hand him victory. He won with the hearty and freely given support of ‘decent’ Labour members.

And yes, thank you, I know all about the feebleness of Corbyn’s opponents. But the fact remains that the Labour party has just endorsed an apologist for Putin’s imperial aggression; a man who did not just appear on the propaganda channel of Russia, which invades its neighbours and persecutes gays, but also of Iran, whose hangmen actually execute gays. Labour’s new leader sees a moral equivalence between 9/11 and the assassination of bin Laden, and associates with every variety of women-hating, queer-bashing, Jew-baiting jihadi, holocaust denier and 9/11 truther. His supporters know it, but they don’t care."

 

[jakarta]

Yeh you could have done this Sun reader stuff a few posts back and saved us both time.

Sun Reader.

The Quote was from the FT, it has sadly gone off in the last few years but I'm most likely to read the Torygraph (the Sport and Obituaries are still good!)

I take it deceiving the EU and not repaying their Bailout is acceptable to you then?

 

[cunning fergus]

Probably the two most prominent socialist politicians in Europe right now are Alexis Tsipras and Jeremy Corbyn - both have already proved they are, by nature, consensus politicians basing their politics on the common sense of much of their electorate, rather than the caricature the press paints of class warriors

You are right about Corbyn and Tsipras being prominent however their socialist credentials have certainly become more flexible than the mandate on which both were elected. Both were elected on anti austerity tickets to face down the corporatists and bankers squeezing the life out of the poor.

In Greece it is Varafakis the Finance Minister that resigned that can hold his head up high by not bowing down to the corporatists and bankers running the ECB, IMF and European Commission.

Earlier this year Corbyn wrote an article on it..........and stated the following:

"The only sensible way forward is to cancel the Greek debt (or at least substantial swathes of it) and for the international community to support Greece's democratically elected government to rebuild its society and its economy. "

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/jeremy-corbyn/greece-economy_b_7688576.html

It is his long standing uncompromising anti austerity position and views that makes him different to other pro austerity politicians (like it was Tsipras). If Corbyn starts yielding on these beliefs he is finished.........just like Tsipras.

 

[beorhthelm]

Tsipras showed good judgement in fighting hard for concessions for the Greek people while not plunging his country into the uncertainty of life outside the EU - he just needs more help from other politicians in Europe - and this is where Corbyn comes in

i'd be interested to know what concesssions you think Tsipras won, he capitulated and went back with his tail between his legs within days of his referndum when he realised the alternative - complete banking system shutdown and exiting the euro - was a very real possibility. all the analysis i read at the time was the final deal was near the same as that put to the referendum, with the addition of having to put up €50bn worth of national assets as security on the loans.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I have learned so much from this thread.

One thing I haven't learned yet is the state of the balance sheet:

How many voters have switched into labour (from anywhere including 'don't or won't vote')?

versus how many labour voters have swittched elsewhere?

And how much of the switching is happening in swing seats?

The intentions (and opinions) of die hard labourists (like me) and die hard antilabourists (I won't point fingers) is not relevant in this regard.

 

[Machiavelli]

I have learned so much from this thread.

One thing I haven't learned yet is the state of the balance sheet:

How many voters have switched into labour (from anywhere including 'don't or won't vote')?

versus how many labour voters have swittched elsewhere?

And how much of the switching is happening in swing seats?

The intentions (and opinions) of die hard labourists (like me) and die hard antilabourists (I won't point fingers) is not relevant in this regard.

But why does this matter at this stage?
My view is quite simple: politics goes through long stages where there is a 'normality', and that is defined by simple messages (something that I suspect Corbyn is rubbish at). Corbyn's election, like Syriza, like Podemos, like even Donald Trump, is a sign that, increasingly, there is something wrong with this 'normality'. The big question is whether this 'normality' is really under threat, whether there is anything that can challenge it, and so on. I hold little hope for Corbyn, but good on him. Politics in this country seems strange, rather than normal. That's because despite the fact that he's apparently been born to control events, he's been superseded by them (e.g. Europe, Scottish independence), that it's all of a sudden Nicola Sturgeon that seems to be in control, that the Lib Dems have reverted to non-existence, that the parties that promise to take over don't (UKIP especially, but also the Greens). Most of all, it's because representative democracy is failing, and that people are searching for something beyond that to express, to exercise their rule.
Which is perhaps another way of saying, forget about swing seats; for the moment at least.

 

[Gwylan]

I have learned so much from this thread.

One thing I haven't learned yet is the state of the balance sheet:

How many voters have switched into labour (from anywhere including 'don't or won't vote')?

versus how many labour voters have swittched elsewhere?

And how much of the switching is happening in swing seats?

The intentions (and opinions) of die hard labourists (like me) and die hard antilabourists (I won't point fingers) is not relevant in this regard.

The only thing I've seen was an opinion poll in the Independent which had a fifth of Labour voters ready to desert to the Tories (and 37% threatened to) - although he did have a slight rise in Labour voters in Scotland (36% of SNP voters were more likely to vote Labour)

 

[pastafarian]

im not sure i will ever be able to remove the notion of Jez knobbing Diane Abbot in a Cotswold field

I pray the poor bloke was at least instructed to knob her doggy and spared full facial contact

 

[Working class pride]

I find it amazing how many people want the state to run their lives for them and even more amazing that despite the tyranny socialism (whether National Socialism, Communism or whatever) has reaped in Germany, Russia, Eastern Europe, Cuba and China, just how the BBC manage to dress it up as a cuddly nice system and how these people are portrayed as the "nice guys" whilst us liberal free market people who believe in freedom for the individual are portrayed as "nasty". The state telling people what to do is not liberal and nice. Quite the reverse. Those who voted for Corbyn should be ashamed of themselves. However I will support him on the monarchy. Well done for not singing that illiberal song. I wont sing it either.

 

[cirC]

im not sure i will ever be able to remove the notion of Jez knobbing Diane Abbot in a Cotswold field

I pray the poor bloke was at least instructed to knob her doggy and spared full facial contact

lol,classic.

 

[Bladders]

Hemed off the line, made up for the miss

Edit: oops , wrong thread

 

[Working class pride]

Utter nonsense. You can have a socialist system without the government telling you what to do all the time!

No you cant. That is the entire point of socialism. It is a state official who decides the allocation of resources instead of resources being created to meet the desires of consumers. You either believe a state official should decide what we want or we let us decide. If you had lived under socialism or if you knew a few people who had then you would understand the fantastic freedom that the free market brings and that we all take for granted. Indeed the free market is even a dirty word in some areas of the BBC as they believe the politician should decide what I should want.

 

[beorhthelm]

Utter nonsense. You can have a socialist system without the government telling you what to do all the time!

examples?

 

[Dorset Seagull]

Doesn't matter which colour you support it always comes down to the same thing. As human beings we always support what is in our own best interests. Survival of the fittest.

 

[Herr Tubthumper]

Doesn't matter which colour you support it always comes down to the same thing. As human beings we always support what is in our own best interests. Survival of the fittest.

Rubbish. I've never voted for my own interests.

 

[Dorset Seagull]

Rubbish. I've never voted for my own interests.

So whose interests did you vote for?