blandy

@bickster has answered perfectly, above. But I’d add that in some respects it’s sometimes more important to do the right thing than the popular thing and that time has a way of rewarding those who do the right thing and harshly judging those who rush to foolish, if at the time popular, things. Think of those who opposed Blair’s rush to war in Iraq (ironically, including Corbyn).

No, that's not it at all. I'm pushed for time but it would have been more like this. Trigger A50 vote - the opposite of what Corbyn did - whip against (not for) supporting the tories on that. It was obvious at the time and even clearer now that triggering A50 was monumentally stupid, without knowing what we wanted. Explain why. At the time, like now, the tories were frothing with Brexity lust for beasting foreigners and destroying rights and protections. Stand up for principles when it matters, not when it's a nice soundbite. I could go on from there, but probably going back and looking at old posts would do the same trick. gtg.

Us posting on here has no relevance to anything. Like you I desperately want the tories out, I despise what they've done and do. I'm gutted that there isn't a competent opposition, a government in waiting, if you like. Beyond that the relvance is absolutely nil, from my perspective, just a chat and exchange of opinions with a strong Labour supporter.

No, not on my word salad - an internet post on a football message board typed out in a rush is not meant to be something Labour could have "run on". Not that they were "running" on what they did anyway, were they? It's my thought about where I think they went wrong but trying to be constructive at least in saying what they could have done differently.

Ah, there's the confusion - I'm not arguing that "if they'd done differently Labour would have won the election" - because they wouldn't. They won't win any election with Corbyn as leader. What I'm trying to put across is that Labour's position has been both tactically wrong and ultimately damaging for the nation (contributing to, rather than being the primary cause of..). By fudging - as you imply ignoring/taking for granted the remainy strong Labour sets and voters in the South etc. while chasing Leavey voters elsewhere, pretending to be all things to all people, they've ended up being neither fish nor fowl. Remainers see them as a Leave party (they are a declared leave party) and Leavers see them as untrustworthy too. So tactically I think they've failed, I think their support has tailed away as the ignored remainers desert them, and leavers have wandered off to an extent to Tories and UKIP - they've actually managed to diminish the pool of people that will vote for them at a time when the Tory Government is punging new levels of all time record fustercluckery. Some achievement, that. And the Brexit shambles rolls on.

I think that call Corbyn made was not just, as we agree, a huge mistake, it was also indicative of his personal stance, and absolutely nothing since has changed to say that wasn't the case. You say that "there was no alternative to whipping to support triggering A50 in 2017" and that it ended up "neutralising" Brexit in that election. I think both those claims are extremely contentious. Politically, I guess you're saying what Labour did was have the same top level policy (Leave wit ha deal, trigger A50) as the tories on Brexit, and thus make the election all about other stuff, and because Labour lost by less than a lot of people expected, that was "good" from a Labour perspective. It's all sliding doors moments, but I really wonder whether the consequences aren't (even from a Labour supporter perspective) actually dire. We are 2 and a bit years down the road now, from that election, the Tories are the government, nothing Labour wanted to do has been achieved, the timescale on A50 has been extended twice as the country fundamentally wasn't adequately prepared (logistically, legally etc., never mind politically) to leave. It's not gone well. The whipping to support A50 rather than principled opposition has helped facilitate that situation. I think there is and was a powerful case to say, effectively, "The referendum voted to "leave, but only just" and that what should have happened is that the Gov't and opposition should have worked together prior to triggering A50 to come up with a "this is what parliament wants from Brexit - this is how we see the future". I accept it was primarily May that stopped that happeing, but what I don't accept is that Labour couldn't have presented (if it was their desire to Leave, which they say it was) an argument that "no, we should not trigger A50 until we have determined what we want. We should not throw away our (the UK's) only card in the "game" with the EU so recklessly. A kind of "In the national interest of leaving, as voted for in the ref, the Government needs to work with parliament and Labiour to set out what the UK will be asking for and what the future will be like, not recklessly storming off down a path selected by control freak May determined only by her own twisted views on immigration and utter lack of empathy or understanding for anything or anyone". SOmetimes, in other words, the opposition needs to oppose, not just out of performing their role as defined, but because they also know that what the government is doing is wrong and foolhardy. They didn't. They haven't for large parts of the ensuing years. Cooper, Letwin, Grieve, the SNP, and other backbenchers have lead the actual (sane) opposition, and the role of leading the insane opposition has gone to the ERG throbbers. Corbyn's been a liability and remains one. His appeal to a segment of the population is high (though not as much as it was) but his appeal to the much larger rest of the population in somewhere down towards "rattlesnake in a lucky dip" levels.

I could go into greater detail, but basically from whipping to support triggering A50, and even before that, on the day of the ref result, when Corbyn practically burst with keenness to trigger it that day, Labour has been horrendously wrong and error prone time and time again. Better opposition has come from Tory rebels than labour’s leadership.

I dunno, personally. I mean I understand (appreciate) that some leave people see it as a principle about "Freedom and Sovereignty" but I'm buggered if I can actually understand what that actually means in practice. No one has ever explained it to me in a way that they can demonstrate is different in reality. Remain, economical, yes, for sure.that's part of it, and what the politicians, economists, business people etc. go on about, but it doesn't remotely explain the mass rally of folk in London and elsewhere - that was all about emotion and principle for them, I think - emotion regarding rights that will be lost, for people from the EU who live here, and for damage to the NHS and for freedom to travel and live in the EU with no impediments or bureaucracy and loads more. About our image as an open, free, welcoming society and nation. About keeping the Union together, about not having bombs in N.Ireland again. Me personally, I'm not a massive EU enthusiast at all and there are versions of leave I could tolerate relatively happily, given that's what was voted for, but eff me, the Tories and Labour have made an absolute arse of it all.

Thanks , but no, not by a long way. People with all kinds of views have posted loads of "reasonable" stuff in this thread. From @Awol who wants to leave, @snowychap who's been good with the Parliamentary stuff in particular, to pick out just two from many and loads of good points made by various perspectives of people. Again. deliberately not picking a side, @tonyh29, @chrisp65 my buddy @bickster and loads more (sorry, an awards thing is on the radio).

Not intentionally so. A50 requires an agreement to be concluded. No ifs, buts, or maybes. You're right that if one isn't concluded, a breach of what A50 requires, then "No deal" as people call it happens. But that isn't really "no deal" because the very first thing that then has to happen for the world to function is "deal(s)" need to be agreed. It just means that we have less leverage to get better deals.

Like most posts on Brexit, there's a mixture of truth, sound opinion and less sound content in what you've written (mine are no doubt the same). You're dead right that parliament voted to trigger article 50 way back. That was a massive mistake (the timing, not the fact they did) because they did so before anyone had any idea what we (the UK) actually wanted - there were all kinds of views - be like Norway, be like Switzerland, be like Canada, stay in the CU and SM, leave the CU, but stay in the SM and so on. Parliament should have collectively worked out what we wanted, and then triggered A50. Article 50 though, doesn't at all say that "if you can't agree a deal you leave without one". What it says is And indeed they did exactly that. That was May's deal. Parliament then (rightly) said "that's a terrible deal, it's worse than remaining" and that was people like Rees Mogg and Johnson and so on, who were like you, desperate to leave. People who voted remain felt the same. It's why the ERG Brexit extremists voted against it. Since way back, there's been an election. Both Labour and the tories promised in their manifestos to leave with a deal. In the General election (democracy in action) people voted on the promise to leave with a deal (and everything else they all said. This re-inforced the "No deal was not what was promised" to the likes of us lot. We will lose some freedoms (and theoretically gain others) if we leave. Overall the country will by all measures and all assessments be worse off if we leave, however we do it. We're already worse off, though not as much as the remainers said at the time. People might think "it's worth it" or that "it's not worth it" - that's fine. In an ideal world Parliament would have sorted out, collectively, how to enact the narrow vote to leave, and then gone ahead and tried to get that. Instead May decided her personal version of what she wanted, and pursued that, despite all the objections of pretty much everyone else. And so here we are. Fustercluck, isn't it?

Yes, the BBC reporting I heard did say why both were there and didn't spin it into an ambush story at all. But what you heard was obviously different, and so they should have done better going on what you say. Even the tweets.

You're right. Nor is it the job of the BBC to keep pertinent information from us. They have clearly failed as per the QT examples. I feel that not revealing that the man was a politcal campaigner for (in this case) Labour would be wrong, particularly when he himself advertised that fact on his twitter, re the incident. Identifying "politican confronted by political opponent" is not "defending" the politician. The exchange video is available in full on the BBC website. I percieve that many Labour people kicking up a fuss about LK, or the BBC, rather than Johnson lying again, on camera, are helping distract from him lying. The actual news value of "man tells Johnson there are not enough staff on hospital ward" is low. It's possibly lower still when the man is a Labour campaigner. The News value is in Johnson lying again, surely. LK telling the truth in a tweet is seemingly more of a thing, for some. It seems oddly disproportionate to me. The BBC is biased towards the establishment and struggles to differentiate between "balance" and "truth" sometimes - some interviewers granting some politicians an easy ride, or programmes allowing non-experts to appear as experts, or their arguments to be given equal weight without any merit. In this instance, I don't think there's much if anything wrong - fail to report the man was an activist, and it's "bias", report the fact he is and it's "bias" - better to reveal the facts, than hide them I'd suggest. If people then go off on one and make the story about LK or the BBC rather than Johnson, then they help the tories, paradoxically.

I wonder if a background of Eton and all that, the way the path for everything has always been made ready for him, the privelege and so on, together with the ambition, has not just led to asense of such entitlement that in the vent things aren't as he would want them to be, he cannot accept that they are not that way. And that never having anyone say "no" to you doesn't lead to a feeling of "no consequences" for misdeeds and lies. Same with Trump. A life of guilded privelege doesn't lead, generally, to the same behaviours that other people learn and exhibit.

That’s a strange argument. It’s part of her job to communicate about things she’s at and covering. It’s not part of her job to communicate about pre recorded tv shows she’s not present at. And if the problem with QT was that people who were activists were being allowed to speak without us knowing at the time that they were activists, then surely LK reporting that someone is an activist, at the time, is right/better? If it was the other way round, and it was some throbby UKIPer or Tory talking to Corbz, wouldn't you want the BBC to repoprt that "the man haranguing Corbyn is a Tory activist"? - we're smart enough to be able to speperate a complaint from the politics of the person making it, aren't we? You can be both a Labour supporter and have experience of hospital staffing levels, or whatever. Because of the BBC need to demonstrate balance, when the man with the sick child outed himself as a Labour activist, she probably felt obligated to report that. Most sensible folk would be able to understand he was there because his son was ill, not because he votes or campaigns for whichever party. That his points to Johnson were regarding his sons treatment etc. All these angry twitter tramp folk going ape at LK are missing the point completely. PM lies on camera, NHS resourcing complaints - “I know let’s call LK names and get all self righteousness about her”

It’s a miss for me, Dave, I mean where’s the melody? It’s hardly Cliff Richard is it? No I can’t see the kids going down to their local Woolies and spending 3 and 6 on that platter.

That's not bad, actually. I like the motorik/Hawkwindy bits quite a lot.

A few Radio spares and an air conditoning box gubbins, apparently.

Quite. Happily I'm sure they'll have a new variation of a completely mad and non-credible policy to then fail to promote or explain very shortly.

He feels out of his element.

My prediction is that they would not do that. Once bitten, twice shy - they were eaten alive and almsot destroyed last time.. And to be fair to the LDs, they've always, always been pro Europe, pro EU. The tories are not remotely compatible with that stance any more. Labour too is a Leave party (at the moment, and for the moment, despite the efforts of the actual members and so on). Like you I can't see them doing a coalition with anyone, and I'm more sceptical that they'd co-operate formally with either the Toriest or with the Labours until Corbyn's (and any similar clown successors) are out the way.

He’s not that principled at all, IMO. Suicidally pig-headed - probably not quite that either, just so dim that he’s always miles behind where he should be, or 40 years behind.

Have I gone and been wrong again? oh heck! i clearly need to get a grip, otherwise this feeling silly business is going to be the ruin of little ol’ me. [edit] I wasn't wrong - that one Dave posted was shite , everybody else is wrong and they should stop giving it squillions of hits [/edit].

15 years old. Cripes!