CWU support of Jeremy Corbyn

[jetblack]

The question that needs to be answered is would you prefer an electable Blairite type Labour Party or a Corbynista unelectable Labour Party against a Conservative Government.

I know that seems to be the question to you - and I think you summarise the point well that the anti Corbyn brigade on this thread have been making ad nauseam.
It should be said that a lot of us went along with Blair at the time in the vain hope that once he was elected he would come good and do all the things that he couldn't say he would do pre-election. But he didn't. Somewhere down the line, in his quest for power, he had forsaken all that the Labour Party had stood for, he had become everything his office was meant to abhor. He had become the establishment. I think that this phenomena is not so rare as all that - it has occurred also in certain upper ranks of the trade union movement.
I feel somewhat of a fool today that this should only have become apparent to myself with the benefit of hindsight - Blair and his cohorts are, after all, establishment through and through.


No, the real question for us all is :- do we want a choice or do we want no choice at all ?

[dvbuk55]

The question that needs to be answered is would you prefer an electable Blairite type Labour Party or a Corbynista unelectable Labour Party against a Conservative Government.

I know that seems to be the question to you - and I think you summarise the point well that the anti Corbyn brigade on this thread have been making ad nauseam.
It should be said that a lot of us went along with Blair at the time in the vain hope that once he was elected he would come good and do all the things that he couldn't say he would do pre-election. But he didn't. Somewhere down the line, in his quest for power, he had forsaken all that the Labour Party had stood for, he had become everything his office was meant to abhor. He had become the establishment. I think that this phenomena is not so rare as all that - it has occurred also in certain upper ranks of the trade union movement.
I feel somewhat of a fool today that this should only have become apparent to myself with the benefit of hindsight - Blair and his cohorts are, after all, establishment through and through.


No, the real question for us all is :- do we want a choice or do we want no choice at all ?

For me Corbyn IS no choice at all. TBH if Blair didn't do all the things he couldn't SAY he would do it is because he was realistic and didn't promise nirvana knowing it wasn't possible. The biggest beef I have with Corbyn and his political cohorts is that they make promises they cannot possibly fulfill, because most realistic labour voters will not accept the premise that he can prevent homelessness, build enough houses to provide homes for all and most of all he is a pacifist who would defer our nuclear deterrent ad infinitum.

[fishtank]

What is the end game jet?
A Labour party that appeals to a diminishing circle of like minded thinkers?
At no point have you put forward any solutions to Labour's increasing unpopularity with the electorate.
You have instead blamed everything and everyone from Blair to corrupt union leaders and finally the actual voters themselves.

While you and Corbyn dream of this utopia where everybody finally "gets it" the party's voice will not be heard outside your echo chamber and the poor will get poorer, the disenfranchised will look elsewhere for help and you won't give a flying f**k because nothing should be allowed to dilute your brand of socialism. That lack of empathy and outrageous arrogance should see you banned from calling yourself a socialist in the first place. You have absolutely no idea how to actually help those less fortunate than yourself and are only interested in wearing a self righteous badge.

[jetblack]

What is the end game jet?

Its funny you should ask me that - I was going to ask you exactly the same question a few posts back.
The end game for me, the outcome I hope for, is that the public develop the confidence to trust their own experience rather than have their consent manufactured by an establishment complicit media, and that we vote in a Labour government that will represent their interests.
As Baldrick's great posts touched on, the public are indeed aspirational - they aspire to live in neighbourhoods not destroyed by class A drugs and unemployment, they aspire to have their children educated without accumulating 20 years worth of debt in so doing, they aspire to employment, whilst those in employment aspire to something better than zero hours contracts and employment agencies.
What they don't aspire to is wars for oil in countries they couldn't pinpoint on a map, a financial and monetary system that not only renders their total net worth at less than £85 and manages to claw wealth back from generations to come via debt, an old age in poverty so the City can cream some off the top etc etc.
This is as much The Labour Party's legacy as that of the Tories.
The public are not capitalist sympathisers at all - there is no free market in the UK. Everything is wrapped up, and the establishment are astute at keeping things that way.
People know this, but they have been bereft of any voice or viable alternative to the ongoing scam being perpetrated upon them.

And your end game, for these people, is what exactly ? More of the same ?

While you and Corbyn dream of this utopia where everybody finally "gets it" the party's voice will not be heard outside your echo chamber and the poor will get poorer, the disenfranchised will look elsewhere for help

Where will they look exactly Fishtank - you have taken away their hope.

Jeremy Corbyn is not the cause of their current disenfranchisement - he is the result of it.

[fishtank]

...but you have no idea how to achieve any of that and until you and Corbyn come up with one it's just a page of wishful thinking that reads like a Miss World acceptance speech.

I hope.....I hope....and in the meantime the Tories get stronger.

[baldrick]

I don't think the Tories are getting stronger. They only achieved 26% of the vote in the last General Election. They only have a small overall majority in Parliament. They are deeply divided over Brexit. Those divisions will become more evident as the Brexit negotiations and likely outcome become clearer.
May might win a snap General Election, and I think it is likely she might call one in May or June, but it is in no way certain.

[baldrick]

The biggest beef I have with Corbyn and his political cohorts is that they make promises they cannot possibly fulfill, because most realistic labour voters will not accept the premise that he can prevent homelessness, build enough houses to provide homes for all and most of all he is a pacifist who would defer our nuclear deterrent ad infinitum.

It is perfectly possible to build enough homes, which are a basic human necessity, and should be one of any Government's main priorities. Even the Tories have accepted that there has been a failure over the last 35 years to build enough housing.
Building more housing would also create more employment for building workers and training opportunities for young people.
I don't accept that most Labour voters believe that it is necessary for the UK to spend billions on nuclear weapons. We are not a world power anymore, we aren't going to make any difference if there were to be nuclear war. Leave the nuclear build up to the USA if that's what they want. Many European countries much closer to any possible Russian threat don't have nuclear weapons.
Any threats to the UK are not going to be countered with nuclear bombs, why spend billions on them?

[Tman]

Besides from labour voters now being "aspirational" ( WTF? People aren't allowed to hope for a nice house, a car and a holiday now? Does anyone sit in a Peckham tower block reading Marx and Engels and discussing the merits of Stalin's Second Five Year Plan anymore?) there's that great big elephant in the room which no-one ever wants to mention, namely immigration.
Nut-jobs like Corbyn may say "no upper limits" but then all it means to him in Islington is a different car valeter or barista now and again; those in provincial towns and cities see things differently, as the One-Eyed idiotic Jock found out when he was on the campaign trail.
The "traditional Labour voter" is the one who sees the most changes in the (his) community and nothing discernibly for the better despite what the tw*t Cameron said, so unless or until someone in the Labour party eliminates this paradox Labour are tainted and essentially dead in the water.
The older "I vote Labour, always have, always will no matter what" generation in the Midlands and North are gradually passing away, and the younger ones are clearly unhappy to be made to feel like a foreigner in their own country or a stupid racist for thinking that there must be a better way, and for this alone, Labour (whoever is in charge) will struggle for the foreseeable.
At least now immigration can be openly debated; for too long to even mention it meant that someone must be in the Waffen SS at the very least.

[dvbuk55]

The biggest beef I have with Corbyn and his political cohorts is that they make promises they cannot possibly fulfill, because most realistic labour voters will not accept the premise that he can prevent homelessness, build enough houses to provide homes for all and most of all he is a pacifist who would defer our nuclear deterrent ad infinitum.

It is perfectly possible to build enough homes, which are a basic human necessity, and should be one of any Government's main priorities. Even the Tories have accepted that there has been a failure over the last 35 years to build enough housing.
Building more housing would also create more employment for building workers and training opportunities for young people.
I don't accept that most Labour voters believe that it is necessary for the UK to spend billions on nuclear weapons. We are not a world power anymore, we aren't going to make any difference if there were to be nuclear war. Leave the nuclear build up to the USA if that's what they want. Many European countries much closer to any possible Russian threat don't have nuclear weapons.
Any threats to the UK are not going to be countered with nuclear bombs, why spend billions on them?

Wake up Baldrick, there's a shortage of qualified bricklayers, plumbers, electricians and roofers now, they aren't trained in fortnight. Now we come to the question as to who exactly is going to pay for it? House builders aren't interested in building low cost affordable homes to buy or to rent, so is the labour government going to pay for it and if so where is the money coming from? One aspect of the economic policy of the labour party is to borrow, borrow and borrow more and that led to the note left by the last labour chancellor "there's no money left" and a huge deficit which is only now being tackled. So would you like Corbyn to get in power and and you, your children and grandchildren paying for the unrealistic utopia painted by Corbyn and his cronies. I remember the last house building boom when houses were clod up all over the place by unqualified brickies, one particular gable end looked like a blind chimp had built it. How about concrete prefabs put up after the war maybe we could go back to those days put a few bunk beds in and give the homeless somewhere to live, find them a job and get them off benefits, now there's an idea for Corbyn to consider, not exactly realistic but is has more merit the the crazy ideas labour has.

[baldrick]

Building more homes will pay for itself. I keep seeing building workers saying they can't get jobs because of Polish builders. I don't know what it's like in other parts of the UK, but in London there is a shortage of skilled building workers and the London Mayor has said if Brexit means less European building workers then it's going to affect house building targets.
We need to train up young people. It can't be done in a fortnight certainly, but can be done in 6 months. The money saved from taking people off benefits will offset the cost of building new housing.
A tax could be levied on the properties bought by investors, often from abroad, and left empty.
Property developers could be taxed on land bought but not built on, kept empty in anticipation of even higher prices.
Governments borrow money to finance infrastructure investment. The cost of borrowing is at a historic low. Corporate and individual investors are likely to be interested in putting money into something with a guaranteed return (rents).
And the rental return will pay borrowing costs and finance further building.
And of course there's the £350m per week we are going to save from leaving the EU.

[dvbuk55]

Building homes isn't going to pay for itself and you can't train a tradesman in 6 months. It's a long term thing and we should have schools dedicated to trades training from say 14 years old to the end of education. Find those who have a skill and an aptitude for it. Seriously though do you really think there's going to be £350 million a week to spend on anything? The probability is it's going to cost billions to extricate ourselves from Europe and may well take more than two years but if the end result is a total break from interference then the cost is worth it. Polish workers have flooded in as builders, electricians, etc without knowing if they are qualified so where is the incentive to train our home grown tradesmen. Regardless of what anyone says it is not to our advantage to allow free movement of people.

[fishtank]

You can have all the policies in the world but without someone who can capture the imagination of both the people around you and the wider electorate you're not going to be able to implement any of them.

This seems to be a blind spot for baldrick and jet. There's only so many times you can ask the same question, with a leader so unpopular with both the PLP and the wider electorate what's the plan?

Sensible answers only, nobody is getting deselected , the party will never take that risk and the media will not change so those excuses are pointless, it doesn't look like this massive membership has made any positive difference to the party's by election chances so....what is the end game?

[jetblack]

..what is the end game?

You've asked that once already - and because you asked, I answered as well as I could.

Whats your end game ?

Benedict Cumberbatch stands for election - the people think he's charming and handsome, in an awkward kind of way - he gets in by a landslide and we all live happily ever after ?

The floor is yours.

[dvbuk55]

I'm surprised the Corbynistas haven't yet cottoned on that Corbyn is only half the problem. It's the policies that are the biggest turnoff for the majority of labour voters. The labour party needs to take a long hard look at itself and really get to grips with the problems that beset it and prepare itself for the long haul before they have any chance of winning an election.

[Godric]

The only thing that will dominate the political debate in the next three years is Brexit, not schools and hospitals and where does Jeremy stand on that?

With the 52% of the electorate that voted to leave or with the 60+% of Labour voters who voted to remain?

I think he answered that question by issuing the 3 line whip over article 50 didn't he ? What do you want here ?

UKIP are spent. Their job is done - its just a matter of time till they catch up with this fact.

The FPP electoral system wasn't designed for 6 parties - it was designed for two. Its time has come and gone. How long till the British public catch up with this fact ?

UKIP split the vote - as have the Liberal Party/SDP/Lib Dems/SNP before them - and the Tories are laughing all the way to the bank. Because it is always the Labour vote that is being diluted.



I honestly don't know what else to say on this thread - and I'm not really interested in arguing the toss (BTC is breaching all time highs as we speak - and that is way more compelling).
Either you believe in the common ownership of the nations wealth or you don't.
If you don't you are, for want of a better way of putting it, an Uncle Tom.
If you do, then I am with you - and the meek shall inherit the Earth.

Scotland will not vote Labour again ... you stood side by side with the tories during the Referendum and lied and scaremongered out your teeth to win the referendum