Jeremy Corbyn

You may well have a valid case maringer, but unfortunately hardly anyone engages in, listens to and takes on board intelligent discussion points. It always comes down to the economy stupid plus a love of Britain, British history, our supremacy , a distrust of Europe, and absolute god like devotion to the queen. You might not like it, it might be completely irrational but that's how it is. You cannot disrespect the queen, war heroes, our history, let alone consider that we are not amongst the masters of the universe! You're a lone voice in the wilderness maringer. Doesn't make you wrong and it's great you put forward such a cogent argument, however it just won't wash with the majority of the population. I love reading your posts and considering your arguments but it's me you and half a dozen others amongst 100+ posters.says it all really about the level of debate in UK politics

Disrespect is an noun, not a verb. Sorry, I'm not having a dig at you personally, but it is one of my pet peeves that it seems to have been 'verbified' over the past decade or so simply because of US rappers! Drives me nuts how this usage has become commonplace.  

Anyway, it is simply nonsense to claim that Corbyn showed any disrespect to the Battle of Britain bods by not singing the National Anthem, a song which let's not forget makes not a single mention of British armed forces! Unless you're talking about the final verse (never sung) praising Marshal Wade for beating down the Jacobite rebellion! The implication that Corbyn, a republican, was showing disrespect to war veterans by not singing the anthem was simply propaganda from the right-wing media - the first thing that they could attack him for other than being himself. Fallon's ridiculous posturing looking around for the cameras at that memorial service was more offensive, if you ask me.

I'm in agreement with you that some people conflate the royal family and patriotism, but I'd be surprised if there was quite the level of support for this view as you think there is. I'd imagine the older generations are more royalist due to the way in which they were raised but hopefully a much larger proportion of the younger generations will see what a load of claptrap this all is.

I have to admit that it is only relatively recently (earlier this year) that I've actually thought much about the Nuclear Deterrent. Obviously, I grew up during the Cold War and I can remember being scared as a kid about the thought of nuclear war. Could hear the Lightnings revving up their engines at Binbrook late at night and sometimes wondered what was occurring, if an attack was coming. Because of this, I had always thought it was good to have the deterrent but, as I have mentioned, in the current environment, who exactly is it deterring?

The Russians aren't going to launch a nuclear attack on the west because we are their trading partners and they rely on us for a market for their gas and oil. None of the other nuclear powers is situated anywhere near us - we're just not operating in similar spheres of influence, so there there is no chance any of those would or even could make a nuclear attack on us and we're not on bad terms with any of them. Note, I don't really classify North Korea as a 'proper' nuclear power as yet as they have only set off a couple of tiny devices but they are over 5,000 miles from us in any case so no threat at all.

If, heaven forbid, terrorists were able to get their hands on a nuclear device and launched an attack here or in the US, the nuclear deterrent isn't exactly going to make a difference there either! This is the biggest risk from nuclear weapons, I expect.

It's good to get people thinking about things instead of just accepting what they read in the media as the unadulterated truth, but I don't expect many people read this forum so I'm not expecting to change many (if any!) minds. I've spent 40-odd years thinking a deterrent is a good idea but now think, what's the point of it? If I can have my mind changed about something, anybody can.  

Morning, peeps. Not much to discuss for a while, but I thought I would pop in to note that I was (sort of) pleased to see that McDonnell dropped his plans to back Osborne's preposterous "Charter of Budget Responsibility". I realise that he originally only added backing in an attempt to point out how ludicrous the whole concept is but that was really poor planning and he has rightfully been the brunt of some mockery for the u-turn. Unfortunately, the media being what it is, this means that all the coverage of Osborne's stunt has been about McDonnell's apparent flip-flop instead of pointing out how utterly nonsensical the policy is. I think the issue is that most media commentators are probably about as clueless about macroeconomics as the average man on the street so have bought into the Tory propaganda equating the nation's economy with a household budget which is complete and utter drivel. Would be nice if some journalists could educate themselves about sectoral balances a smidgeon before accepting Osborne's ploy as some sort of a sensible policy. If McDonnell had opposed the ridiculous CBR from the start, he could have spent a couple of weeks attacking it so really poor politicking from him, apart from anything else.

I see there are a good proportion of poisonous Blairites MPs still trying to stick the knife in at any given opportunity instead of attempting to show any sort of a unity and I was disappointed to see Onn being named as one stirring the pot in the press the other week. If I didn't have a lot on at the moment, I might have gone to a local Labour Party meeting to ask her what the intercourse she was playing at, but then I'm not a member of the party so that perhaps wouldn't be quite right in any case. Hopefully, some of the actual local party members will take her to task.

It seems to me that the problem with Corbyn's leadership group at the moment is that, because they have long been outsiders, they don't have a political machine surrounding them with competent organisers and fixers arranging things. Now, the Labour Party did obviously have such people (of debatable competence at times, you'd have to say), but these were all integrated within the Blairite faction and, instead of backing the new leadership and helping out, they seem to be doing their darndest to put the boot in! I hope that Corbyn can get somebody to organise things and start cracking the whip because we desperately need a stronger opposition to confront the Tories and their appallingly cynical policies, all of which seem to be aiming for a further increase in the transfer of wealth to the rich.

Oh, I notice that the Treasury is being accused of deliberately fudging a report about the impacts of the benefit cuts, releasing a limited impact assessment which conveniently misses out a whole group of workers who will lose out:

http://www.theguardian.com/mon.....pact-tax-credit-cuts

We know that Cameron et al have been claiming nobody will lose out, or simply ignore any questions about this at PMQs the other day, so you can see why it is so important to have a capable opposition to point out when the government is lying whether baldly, or by omission.

A good job we've got the IFS around to produce their reports which show the truth of the matter. The difficulty is getting people to discover the truth, instead of believing the bluster they read in the media.

I agree with Ivano that Corbyn will never be Prime Minister because of his views on Royalty and defence,

I think he has been great in getting more people talking about politics,

It is great to have a leader saying what he believes instead of all the waffle we normally get,

BUT

Win an election ?  no chance.

We'll have to see. If the economy tanks at some point in the next four years, as seems quite likely, the Tories don't have anyone left to blame now - though I'm sure they and their captive press will try to blame the Labour party in some manner! Once the tax credit cuts hit next April, we're going to have millions of lower earners finding themselves worse off which will remove even more demand from the economy. Allied to this, rents have just reached a record high:

http://www.theguardian.com/mon.....ing-housing-shortage

No chance of the housing shortage being sorted out when Osborne won't consider any investment in this area and their housing policy remains ludicrous, just based on destroying the social housing sector to help pump up the property market further. We're still barely into recovery from the recession 6 years ago, GDP per capita only just nudging past 2008 levels and wage growth is only very gradual. The worst recovery from a recession since the South Sea Bubble almost 300 years ago! Productivity very poor and falling further behind our competitors. Fundamentally, the economy is in a very poor position and we have Osborne playing his political games rather than attempting to deal with them.

There is a lot of excrement around and plenty of time for it to hit the fan yet. Whether or not Corbyn remains in charge come the next election remains to be seen.

Don't forget Labour lost 40 seats in Scotland and are unlikely to win them back at the next general election at least,

So they will need a massive turn round in England to pip the tories,

I can not see that happening soon.

Sadly.

Don't get me wrong, Pete, I think it would be very difficult for Labour to win a majority in the next election, not just because of the SNP seats, but also because the Tories are fiddling around with the boundaries as well as reducing the number of MPs. Stands to reason that they will gerrymander to some degree.

However, it may be possible to win a few of the SNP seats back, I suppose, and a coalition with the SNP, Plaid Cymru plus the odd Green seat (and any LibDems, providing they don't side with their Tory mates again), might be more likely.

If this was to come to pass, I certainly hope that they would look to implement some sort of a proportional representation system again so we couldn't have the position where one party can do pretty much whatever they please after receiving the backing of just 24% of the electorate. As I've noted in the past, I think getting rid of first past the post would improve the standard of our politics enormously as we might then end up with a more sensible consensus. That said, as some of the bullshite the Blairite faction of Labour MPs have pulled in recent weeks shows, it could well take some time before enough sensible candidates could be found to break away from the old mentality!

I see he  is now vice president of CND,

Quoted from Maringer

Don't get me wrong, Pete, I think it would be very difficult for Labour to win a majority in the next election, not just because of the SNP seats, but also because the Tories are fiddling around with the boundaries as well as reducing the number of MPs. Stands to reason that they will gerrymander to some degree.

However, it may be possible to win a few of the SNP seats back, I suppose, and a coalition with the SNP, Plaid Cymru plus the odd Green seat (and any LibDems, providing they don't side with their Tory mates again), might be more likely.

If this was to come to pass, I certainly hope that they would look to implement some sort of a proportional representation system again so we couldn't have the position where one party can do pretty much whatever they please after receiving the backing of just 24% of the electorate. As I've noted in the past, I think getting rid of first past the post would improve the standard of our politics enormously as we might then end up with a more sensible consensus. That said, as some of the bullshite the Blairite faction of Labour MPs have pulled in recent weeks shows, it could well take some time before enough sensible candidates could be found to break away from the old mentality!

Wouldn't have been an issue if Labour had done that when they were in power as they claimed they were going to do. It just goes to show how far Labout have fallen when the SNP are mocking Labour.

Well I like him