Corbyn

[dvbuk55]

it IS the policies that are obnoxious .

OK - I'm all ears DVB.

Could you be specific ? I've asked this several times now over the course of the 2 Corbyn threads and been ignored. I've cited his policies several times now to no comment. Neither yourself nor FT nor anyone else seems to be able to clarify. You seem more stuck on ridiculing the guy like a Kelvin McKenzie on steroids.

Lets start playing the ball and not the man hey ?

Re-nationalise RM - ridiculous, the railways - ridiculous, building schools, hospitals and houses - ridiculous - has he actually published the method of funding these things - don't you get it yet he's preaching all the things you and the other corbynistas long to hear but is never going to fulfil any of them even if he ever came to power.

[Tman]

Although it's been interesting to see if jet will ever actually acknowledge there's a problem with Corbyn's leadership, it's also clear that were you to go around to jet's house and put granite slabs engraved with "This is what is wrong with Corbyn's policies..." all over his front lawn he would still refuse to recognise them. The whole thread has consisted of listing what's wrong with the old bluffer's policies, and yet still jet can't see them??
None so blind...and all that.

[fishtank]

You don't get it jet.
The reason Corbyn is dead in the water is because he can't even get his message across to the PLP never mind the electorate as a whole. If those 170+ MPs had thought for one minute that Corbyn's vision was the future of the Labour party they would have jumped on that bandwagon without a second thought. Leadership is mainly about selling your ideas, getting people to believe in them.The ideas themselves mostly come from policy advisors of which Corbyn has many but someone needs to take ownership of those ideas and sell them....Corbyn couldn't sell water to a man dying of thirst.

I won't vote for Corbyn not because nobody will vote for him but because I believe he's an arrogant, foolish narcissist unable to articulate reasonable policies in a way that makes them sound appealing to a large cross-section of the electorate. Why is that important? It's important because any idiot knows that you can't move political opinion from generally centre-right to left overnight. Progressive socialism has to be incremental and the first task is winning the right to make the kind of changes that can help people.

[jetblack]

Re-nationalise RM - ridiculous,

OK - now we are getting somewhere.

I reckon, what with this being a RM forum, that this might be a good place to start.

Could you just explain why having RM operate along the same lines that it did successfully for 360 years is, in your words, "ridiculous" ?

Please don't tell me that we can't afford it. If this country could afford to sell it off in the first place it can certainly afford to take it back into public ownership. What did it go for ? £2 billion ? Peanuts. The Bank of England has just created out of thin air £70 billion - but we can't find £2 billion to take back Royal Mail ? Don't tell me - I'm a Trotskyist miltant hard left commie fantasist etc etc

So, come on - explain why a publicly owned Royal Mail is a "ridiculous" idea. Can't wait for this.

You don't get it jet.
I won't vote for Corbyn .. because ... unable to articulate reasonable policies

Same question to FT.

To me, well, once you get past the "he's a joke", "but, he's unelectable", "He's a throwback to Pol Pot" etc etc, you fellas are struggling here.

You can tell me that I aint getting it as much as you want - but a quarter of a million ordinary people that have felt strongly enough to join a political party can't be getting it as well.
What is this truth that you are in posession of that is lost on myself and the other 250,000 easily led Trots ?
Oh wait - I remember now - Rupert Murdoch won't go for it will he

If you aren't part of the solution you are part of the problem chaps. And I'll be buggered if I can see what solutions to the problems that this country is facing, you are proposing - other than "his face doesn't fit"

Not good enough chaps.

[baldrick]

Re-nationalise RM - ridiculous,
the railways - ridiculous,
building schools, hospitals and houses - ridiculous

The public don't think these are ridiculous. Opinion polls have shown 60-70% support these views.
RM could be renationalised for £2bn as jetblack says. That is peanuts in Government finance terms.
Re-nationalising the railways, which is extremely popular after all the problems and price increases, would cost virtually nothing. We are subsidising the railways more now than when they were owned by us. All that would have to be done is to not renew contracts as franchises finish.
Building schools, hospitals and houses will pay for themselves in the jobs created (1m jobs), rents, and the money saved by not using expensive PFI funding and leasing.
The higher rate of income tax can be increased, even Owen Smith proposes this. Tax loopholes for the rich and corporations can be closed. We could tax multinationals like Amazon, Starbucks, Google and others who are avoiding tax now.
And of course we would have the £350m a week we will save from leaving the EU - wouldnt we?

[fishtank]

I think the RM question sums it up quite well.
Very few employees (mostly working class people) wanted it privatised.
How many employees (mostly working class people) refused the free shares?
How many employees (mostly working class people) would support re-nationalisation if it meant giving up their shares?

Most people are inherently protectionist by nature jet, that doesn't necessarily make them Tory scumbags or selfish right wing nutbags but it does mean they'll instinctively protect what they have, working class people especially since having nothing for a long time makes having something even a little worth holding on to, this is what socialism has to understand, if any policy right or left threatens that people will reject it.

As for the specifics of royal mail for the last 15 years under public ownership the company was run with a private sector ethos, our terms and conditions were eroded and the service had already been under attack so what kind of "'re-nationalisation" is he promising, a return to that, does he have another model of public ownership in mind or as I suspect is he just looking around for something to stick a public ownership label on without any idea of how to actually make it work?

[Tman]

So the hypothetical £2billion figure that was plucked out of the air has now become set in stone? jet may say it's that figure but how does he know it would be that?
( Don't forget this is the poster who said GCHQ were monitoring this site..etc etc)
Whatever the "that's peanuts" figure anyone cares to come up with, would the intention to renationalise RM be a vote-winner with the public? I very much doubt it, as many now go out of their way to use anything but RM.
So it's a desire by some RM staff in the (almost certainly) vain hope that the "Golden Days" will return, but of course they wouldn't whatever happens.
Regarding the Rail network, all those commuters stuffed like sardines in the South East don't call for renationalisation either; all they want is more investment in rolling stock to give themselves an easier time.
In fact, are there ANY privatised industries which have an overwhelming public clamour to be taken back under state control?
So Corbyn's ideal of (re) nationalising UK institutions and organisations doesn't really chime with the mood of the country, therefore he's stating it as future policy merely as a nod to either his 1970s phase or in a vain attempt to gain support from the nut-jobs who also still believe the 1970s model of a socialist Utopia is viable today.

[dvbuk55]

I'm getting bored with this. There is no way RM would be bought back at 2 billion, there would be a business study carried out to value its true worth which at its time of sale was undervalued as was well publicised. What would re-nationalising achieve? I think these people are under the impression we would go back to full time staff, over manned, 2 deliveries a day and bikes. The problem is of course, unlike the Corbynistas and their leader, the business has moved on and the competition has moved on too, so that RM is not necessarily the first choice for delivery. If customers thought we would be going back to the "old" RM they would certainly be looking to new markets for their needs. In the old days RM wasn't judged and now it is.

[dvbuk55]

Is there no end to this mans arrogance, now his deputy leaders views, opinions and evidence of extreme left wing infiltrators has been dismissed by Corbyn as wrong. Has nobody else got a valid argument but him? It won't be long before he has a coterie of same coloured shirt followers shouting Heil Corbyn and smashing windows and burning books that aren't left wing orientated. Fortunately his current following isn't big enough to make any impact on the UK political scene and he's too old to wait for it to become dangerous.

[baldrick]

dvbuk55 you really should stop believing everything you read in the Daily Mail - which supported the fascist Blackshirts in the 1930s.

[baldrick]

Whatever the "that's peanuts" figure anyone cares to come up with, would the intention to renationalise RM be a vote-winner with the public?

This 're-nationalisation of Royal Mail' policy is actually a myth which you, dvbuk55 and fishtank are pushing. Corbyn has not said that is his policy. He warned hedge funds last year that if they bought the remaining 15% of RM shares held by the Government, that they might be taken back by a future Labour Government. He has not said it is his policy to take back shares given to employees.
Personally I would like to see the re-nationalisation of RM, but understand this is not going to happen.

It would be peanuts, whether it cost £2bn or £3bn (the amount it was sold for), compared with the £850bn spent on the banks bailout, the £34bn spent on wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, the 2012 Olympics which cost £9bn, Trident which will cost £167bn, and ongoing tax fraud and avoidance which costs at least £34bn per year according to HMRC and possibly a lot more.

As far as I am aware the only re-nationalisation Corbyn is proposing is of the railways. That is popular with the public. Opinion polls show around two-thirds of the public support that, and it would cost very little. Network Rail (the infrastructure) has already been taken back under public control. We are subsidising the private rail companies at a higher amount than when Britis Rail was owned by the public. All it would need was for franchises to be ended when they come up for renewal.

[dvbuk55]

dvbuk55 you really should stop believing everything you read in the Daily Mail - which supported the fascist Blackshirts in the 1930s.

Corbyn took it seriously, enough to deny it, so he must have believed some of it.

[dvbuk55]

This 're-nationalisation of Royal Mail' policy is actually a myth which you, dvbuk55 and fishtank are pushing. Corbyn has not said that is his policy. He warned hedge funds last year that if they bought the remaining 15% of RM shares held by the Government, that they might be taken back by a future Labour Government. He has not said it is his policy to take back shares given to employees.
Personally I would like to see the re-nationalisation of RM, but understand this is not going to happen.

It would be peanuts, whether it cost £2bn or £3bn (the amount it was sold for), compared with the £850bn spent on the banks bailout, the £34bn spent on wars on Afghanistan and Iraq, the 2012 Olympics which cost £9bn, Trident which will cost £167bn, and ongoing tax fraud and avoidance which costs at least £34bn per year according to HMRC and possibly a lot more.

As far as I am aware the only re-nationalisation Corbyn is proposing is of the railways. That is popular with the public. Opinion polls show around two-thirds of the public support that, and it would cost very little. Network Rail (the infrastructure) has already been taken back under public control. We are subsidising the private rail companies at a higher amount than when Britis Rail was owned by the public. All it would need was for franchises to be ended when they come up for renewal.

Yes I've read the blurb from "Bring back British Rail" and it's sister organisation "Power to the People" which says it all really doesn't it. I have visions of Citizen Smith as Corbyn's right hand man, including the Ché beret and the clenched fist salute. Most political pundits forecast a disaster if Ché Jezza remains the leader of a fragmented labour movement but of course I shouldn't believe everything that REALLY knowledgeable politicos put forward . By the same token you shouldn't believe all the bull crap Citizen Jezza comes out with.

[fishtank]

Corbyn stated in the guardian/ observer at the weekend that "The Royal Mail" was a target for renationalisation.
It's not my myth. take it up with him.

It does show how good he is at getting his policies across to the voters though when even his supporters don't seem to know what he's up to.

[Tman]

[

This 're-nationalisation of Royal Mail' policy is actually a myth which you, dvbuk55 and fishtank are pushing. .

Really? here's one of many-

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/12 ... 03896.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Time to revise your opinion of the old fraud?