Be Excellent To Each Other

Whilst they do, I think that's a very cynical viewpoint.

I'm assuming that was meant with his tongue wedged firmly in his cheek

Mostly wedged, although it's certainly a way of mating two birds with one crisis, or something.

On a basic level, does Germany:

a) Have housing currently spare to house 500k unexpected people.
b) Build houses at this rate *in excess* of current population growth trends.

And aside from all of the other requirements, how's that going to work?

Part of me believes that if anyone can do such a mental undertaking, it's the Germans and their efficiency. I still doubt it though. Watch Germany closely for the foreseeable.

That's the point innit:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/04/2 ... 5Z20150428

Shrinking population sounds good to me, even if most of them are older.

Shrinking and ageing is bad, because your workforce shrinks so your GDP drops, and your population ages so your %gdp spent on old people increases.

But it's not sustainable though, you need young people to work and pay taxes and be economically active. You can't have most of your population drawing pensions and driving very slowly whilst complaining about things.

They're being quite honest about it over here, actively targeting immigration in the order of 10,000+ over the next ten years, and this is with a total population now of around 100,000.

Did anyone here pay their £2 £3 to help Labour pick a winner?

I was tempted to be honest, but decided it'd be unethical. Besides, I'm sure they didn't need my help.

I really hope Corbyn wins. He won't win an election but I think he can reframe the political debate and explain how things don't have to be how New Labour and the Tories tell us things have to be.

I was thinking about this the other day. If Corbyn can covert all those people who flooded in to support him into a new form of organisational base, he might get a similar army of enthusiasts on the ground to that the SNP were able to form after the Indyref.

Absolutely Kern, I don't doubt this is possible; this is the pesky reality-free 'new politics' that Blair was talking about in that last piece linked by Mali. Unlike Scotland, though, the English electorate are far less likely to vote for a party/set of policies that have no economic credentials ("It's the Economy, stupid"), so this swivel-eyed movement would never attain critical mass, unless something REALLY bad happens.

Mate, you need to stop using phrases like "swivel-eyed". It's beneath you to resort to name calling just because you don't agree with people's policies.

Soz mate, not actually trying to piss anyone off (and I'm not saying Labour = 'swivel eyed'), but I genuinely think Corbyn and his policies are off the scale, and anyone who seriously believes this back to the 60s dark ages politics is going to work is IMO being totally irrational, as so many other commentators (far more worthy than me lol) have also said too.

But fair enough, I'll stop.

I understand why you don't like him, and I fundamentally agree with you in that spending promises without hard numbers is just fantasy, but British Politics (capital letters) needs something to shake it up, before we're doomed to an endless line of Cameron clones. Although it could be argued that Dave is just a Blair-clone in demeanour.

*sigh*

Yet quite a lot of other commentators can see some value in what he's saying. Even The Telegraph published a piece the other day titled 'Five things Corbyn is right about' (something like that anyway).

And yes, the swivel-eyed thing is exactly the sort of thing you tear a strip off other people for if they direct such comments in the opposite direction. (Calling Osborne 'Gideon' for example.)

I think it arguably is the one good use of Swivel-eyed to apply to the policy of "He'll never become prime minister but I'm voting for him to change the narrative against the EVIL TORIES and ensure that by doing so the EVIL TORIES will go virtually unchallenged in the next election and by doing so I think we'll have less EVIL TORY POWER as in 2025 people will be really pissed off and probably vote in Ed Balls so there will be no more EVIL TORIES."

It's up there with voting for a party as they will renew trident because although you disagree with it for its world destructing capabilities it does enhance the prospect of nuclear war which although you are terrified of the destruction that will cause will have the key benefit that if the planet is turned to glass, our CO2 emissions will go right down so that's the greenhouse effect sorted.*


*May not be a valid comparison.

Huh. I thought it was something Cavey said a lot, but it turns out he's only said it 14 times: search.php?keywords=swivel&terms=all&author=cavey&sc=1&sf=all&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&st=0&ch=300&t=0&submit=Search

Swivel on, I say!

If you look in a mirror and say it 3 times, Corbyn appears and steals your Earl Gray.

Hmmm... guess I'm just a bit sensitive to it.

And some of the time I'm talking about UKIP voters, too.

I have to agree as a 'strategy' it does sound totally bonkers to my mind. Having a wholly unelectable leader just can never be a good thing, surely, if the only time you can actually do stuff that you want to see done is when you're elected into government and thus have your mitts on the levers of power?

It's all genuinely, genuinely perplexing to me, and I honestly think Labour are at the brink of another wilderness decade or two.

Actually it's me that gets annoyed by that.

I get annoyed whenever you post something.

I think you need to look to the election beyond the next one. The other candidates offer nothing much different than Miliband was serving up at the last election, albeit with a a more 'electable face' perhaps, but nowhere near enough to win an election and what would be the point anyway? We need a proper left wing party in British Politics.

My feeling is Corbyn has the ability to reframe the entire political debate in the country, and bring in a generation of people who have almost shunned politics entirely. Doubtless there are a lot of 'bogus' voters in the leadership election but a large number of those people are going to be folks who are genuinely energised to see someone stand up and speak fearlessly for them.

So yeah, he won't win the next election (well, almost certainly not), but he can set the party up to offer a genuine alternative at the election after that.

Kind of like Kinnock paved the way for a Labour victory in 97, whilst never really looking like he'd win an election himself. (Unfortunately that let Blair in, but the reality is that John Smith would have won that election he didn't like, y'know, die.)

Do you have funny eyes then Dave?

I've never "torn a strip" off anyone, for any such thing.

Still, I suppose it's too much to expect you to get your basic facts straight, when there's another opportunity for a "dig 'n derail" to be had, play the man not the ball.
Sigh. Sure the Windows 10 thread could do with another update re. how stupid people are to install it; any chance of a breather in this thread?

I ike to think I'm pretty open-minded, but I do find that I pretty much skim read or entirely skip many of your posts that keep re-hashing the same silly name calling, because the phrases catch my glance and it makes me skip over them. I think this is because the focus is too much on playground names rather than what you actually want to say, which I am sure is (or could be) interesting and of another viewpoint to the one I find myself at according to my own nature and beliefs.

Expand, please. Unless you mean "Paved the way" by losing so badly that the New Labour project was the only way forward and electing Corbyn will go against the party's own research into what they need to do to win.

Sorry to hear that Mimi.
As APOD has noted, much of the whole Corbyn thing *is* irrational to an awful lot of pretty sensible, mainstream people. I try to accommodate people where I can, but I'm sorry, I'm me, I do write in mildly polemic terms and if people honestly don't know where I'm coming from after 10 years that makes me sad - but sorry, I'm not changing. People don't have to read my posts or visit my thread, I'm not making them.

Last word regarding me personally, CBA commenting further on that score.

You're being really unpleasant to me recently.

You've just picked out one sentence from several entirely 'proper' posts I've made to this thread in the last few days and picked me up on that, and then chucked in yet another dig about other 'lesser' threads that I should be posting to instead.

EBG's profane and vitriolic rants directed at Bamba though? Just fine apparently, he got what he was asking for.

You're not going to bully me out of this thread.

He did do a lot to remove the far left from the party (the entryism of the Trots for example), started to refashion the party's approach on issues like business etc, and to reshape Labour's image to something more professional. I'd say he laid the foundations for Smith and then Blair to build on.

I sometimes wonder how things would have panned out had John Smith not died...

That's such rubbish and you know it. I only picked YOU up for claiming something, to score points, that actually I hadn't even done. So pardon me for pointing out this inaccuracy.

I'm not raking over the EBG/Bamba coals again. I purposely kept out of it and said so, and have moved on. I'm not EBG's (or Bamba's) keeper.

But it's the last point I really take issue with - I've never bullied anyone in my life. If you think me calling you out is "bullying" (as against a backdrop of knowing me personally for thirteen bloody years when I've stuck up for you dozens of times), you're off your head. For clarity: I'm happy for anyone to post in this thread for what little that is worth, as long as they're constructive. I don't mind people falling out, being polemic to a point etc., I'm no saint, but when seemingly the sole reason some people post is to piss Person (A) off, or wind up Person (B) because of some historical shite or other, and in so doing they derail a really interesting discussion and/or discourage our quieter (often intellectual) posters from contributing, that pisses me off.

Thank you.

I still remember Major's tribute to Smith. Which I find touching to this day

He moderated and modernised the party, and he was a bloody good orator as well.

Without the Kinnock years New Labour would never happened, a bloke like John Smith would never have become leader.

I'd really like to see an alternate timeline where John Smith won a general election.

EDIT - See Kern got there first

thank you. I wasn't really aware of that to that extent.

Fair enough I shouldn't have used the word 'bully', and I apologise for that.

I do feel like you're jumping on my head when there's one sentence out of place though, against a backdrop of making mostly constructive contributions to the thread, albeit from a different political viewpoint to yours.

Either way, the snarking at each other isn't achieving anything and doesn't help the thread so I'll stop it.

Listen, chap, I *like* most of your 'serious' stuff/input to this thread, please continue as far as I'm concerned.

Just, you know, stop being such a total arse.

I've heard you talk about your thread before, but I don't know which thread you are talking about

I guess the problem, for me, is that your name-calling takes away from the substance of your posts, so it appears to weaken your arguments and the points you are making. Fair enough if you don't care, but the more you say it the more you seem to be rallying against something unsubstantial with objections made of playground opposition.

Stupid new page.

This one.



I'm genuinely surprised and sorry to hear you think this, Mimi; I like to think that I don't indulge in name-calling for the sake of it, but I guess clearly others disagree. (Even then, I do try to change if someone like DavPaz lets me know it is pissing them off).

At the end of the day, though, this is a Debate thread and as such things will get rough from time to time, and to be honest it's hardly as though I can completely change my spots and become this super-serene Type B personality or whatever, even assuming I wanted to (which I don't btw). Sorry, I am who I am, Mimi.

Anyway... do people think a Corbyn victory on Saturday is now a foregone conclusion (as I do), or could one of the others yet force a second round and/or even win?

DP on standby/on ice this end. Standing by, DEFCON 2.

Yes he did, and since Bamba is the one that told Cavey he needs to 'suck it up' because 'it's an internet forum', he should take a leaf out of his own book on Delicate Sensibilities.

You won't find me making too many Corbyn comments as I genuinely didn't know much about him before he was thrust into the limelight and I don't know what to make of the guy. The fact the Labour leadership are terrified the party might elect someone they clearly want to vote for is more than a little amusing though. It's like they've lost all sense of what they represent and which way they swing.

I think there's still a chance of a Burnham win. I don't think that Corbyn will quite get 50% in the first round.

Kendall out first is a foregone conclusion. Her votes will split between Cooper and Burnham.

Then if Cooper takes enough of those to oust Burnham, Corbyn wins, as he'll get some 2nd choice from Burnham supporters.

If Burnham makes the last round though, he'll likely pick up the 2nd choice from most of Cooper's votes and Kendall's 3rd choices. So it's not impossible that the AV system will bring in Burnham instead of Corbyn.

That might actually be the best for the Labour party too, as long as Burnham gives Corbyn a prominent role in the shadow cabinet to reflect the shift in party mood.

Corbyn to win overall still favourite, but I think Burnham's a decent enough shout for me to stick a tenner on at 7/1.

Hmm, interesting permutation/possibilities - but if this does come to pass, especially as a result of second/third preference type stuff, I can foresee the Left of the party being pretty peeved!

Oh god yes, if Corbyn fails to win by any means whatsoever, they're going to mental.

They'll also potentially lose the left of the party for good. So there's a fair chance that both ways they're screwed, which I think is not good for politics, unless you're a rabid mid-far right Tory instead of one of the more reasonable ones. Politics without meaningful opposition is kinda rubbish and scary.

I don't think it's a fait accompli that Corbyn can't win a General Election either. I'd say it is unlikely, but stranger things have happened. And if he comes in, polls terribly with the public at large, gets wiped out in council and European elections, then they'll need a White Knight to come riding in to lead the into the election (David Miliband, Dan Jarvis, Cavey , etc), which might end up being a better option than Burnham or Cooper would have been in any case. I think that Corbyn would step down rather than see the party obliterated, if that was the way it all pointed after he had given it a fair crack.

An excellent read on feeling conflicted by Corbyn

http://thequietus.com/articles/18714-jeremy-corbyn-labour-election-rally-policies

I like this guy:



Some well-reasoned concerns about Corbyn though:



He does seem to have had dealings with some dodgy types by choice, and continued to speak well of them after the fact.

Part of me thinks the right-wing press are largely just waiting for him to become leader, and then they'll really go for him.

Erk:

-----------

Just as no one really thinks that Corbyn has a Hamas poster blu-tacked to his bedroom wall, no one believes he thought of Osama bin Laden as a superstud. We know what he meant: that an assassination, rather than an arrest and trial, appeared barbaric, and would provide more fuel for those who see Bin Laden as a martyr. Now, you could say that's a bit naïve – this stuff is shadowy, and we don't know the half of it, but it's unlikely that when those Navy SEALs burst in Osama threw his hands up and said “OK, it's a fair cop” – but it's a reasonable view. Barack Obama, too, says he'd have preferred to put Bin Laden on trial, for the same very obvious reasons.

But any politician with ambition should know better than to be so unbelievably careless. A tragedy? What was he thinking? Surely, if there's one essential quality required for the office of Prime Minister, or Leader of the Opposition – whether Right or Left – it's judgment. And if there's one thing Corbyn lacks, it's judgment. This is someone who still believes that Slobodan Milosevic was misunderstood; someone who signed an Early Day Motion calling for research into homeopathy to be “placed on the national agenda as a credible scientific field of inquiry”; someone who's already made it plain that he'd take Britain out of NATO if he could – even though he probably couldn't – thereby burning bridges which he hasn't even come to yet. (Deserting all our allies and then preaching them a sermon might cause certain folk to clap their hands in glee, but it's best avoided, really.)

It doesn't get any better, either: Corbyn went on to draw an equivalence between the death of the architect of 9/11, and 9/11 itself – oh yes he did – and anyway: what was he even doing on Press TV, best known for parroting the government line on Western journalists tortured for “spying”, and broadcasting theories of the Holocaust as perfidious Zionist hoax? It's not the only time he's popped up on there, never so ungracious as to criticise a government which hangs gay men from the gibbets of cranes – a government which he believes has been “demonised” by the West.

One or two of these clangers could be written off as “gaffes”; three or four you could brush under the rug... perhaps. But we seem to be looking at a lifetime of this stuff. And those of us who care about such things, and are prepared to say so, just face snarky, eye-rolling ridicule from people whose instincts are so acute that six years back they were telling us that George Galloway was a principled opponent of tyranny. (Corbyn, incidentally, sent a congratulatory tweet on the occasion of Galloway's victory in the Bradford West by-election. Always good for the party leader to be on record celebrating the election defeat of a Labour MP. Inspires loyalty, that.)