blandy

I don't think that's a question of any value at all, really. Because the Gov't couldn't have presented a stronger case. Their lawyers did the best they could with thin gruel. edit - hadn't seen the posts just above when I typed this.

I'm not demanding they have an argument in public. I've noticed they already do that, anyway! I'm advocating that Jeremy Corbyn's position is confused and confusing. I could hazard a guess that it's because his and his close advisors are at odds with the vast majority of Labour supporters, members MPs and voters. I could further point out 3 options therefore exist. 1. Swallow their own views, because Labour is a broad church and clear that it wants members to determine policy. 2. Hold true to their personal, minority view and demand that the majority accept the Leader's position as policy 3. Fudge it. They chose 3. That's their right and sort of tenable-ish, as an attempt to hold together disparate views and their party. But having seen them do that, I feel justified to comment that it is indeed a fudge, a ropy compromise that satisfies no-one and when exposed to the electorate more widely will fall very flat indeed (IMO). Further, I think that it won't work longer term in achieving this "unity" that they want, because it's such a strong issue, and they are very much in the minority. I'm demanding nothing, only commenting that they've a difficult choice, sure, but made an unprincipled choice and once more failed to show good judgement. I don't envy his choice, but I think he's made the worst one of the three possibilities. Enjoy your evening anyway, HV.

My vote, in my safe Tory seat has zero value. I cast it every single time for the person who I percieve has the least worst chance of beating the incumbent tory, or if none, the party who most deserves the few pence my vote gets them in funding. Labour has effectively turned itself into another unvotable party for me. They're basically dead to me now, under Corbyn.

No. Jeremy says he will negotiate a Labour Deal with the EU. He says it will be good for jobs and the environement and etc. - that's him saying that, promising that. That's his policy, to do that. Ask him will he recommend the outcome of his own negotiations, conducted on his terms, to the public and it's er, ....."hello, hello, is there anyone there? Jeremy. Jeremy.....the light's on, but ...."

Thanks. I don't need them to, no, you're right. I'll tell you what though, they're making a fine job of signalling who I should not vote for.

Well, I think (and maybe it's just me) that the Prime Minister, the Government of the Day, the Opposition and Leader of the Opposition - all those types of people - people either in power, or who hope to be in power are able, capable of making an assessment of what they believe the best path for the country, the best option on an issue is. Brexit and the consequences is the biggest, most significant issue of all, and a political leader who is unable, unwilling or incapable of both forming a judgement and then putting forward that judgement, explaining why is not fit to lead."I don't know" or "I do know, but I'm not going to say" are just ludicrous positions for a Prime Minister to hold. Further, as Chrisp pointed out last week, trying to negotiate whilst failing to say whether whatever (hypothetical) deal he might get would be something he'd actually go on to support in a referendum is the worst negotiating position you can hold. TL;DR Why does it matter if a politican is capable of making a decision? that's what they're for.

You haven't finished the second one HV. There's the whole business about not stating or deciding which of the two hypothetical options they will prefer or recommend. LDs: Right now, as an oppo party - support ref, campaing to remain. LDs if Gov't: Revoke. Lab: Right now, as an oppo party, support a Labour Brexit or a Referendum, maybe, or an election, but not right this moment, but they do want an election, then win the election, then spend 6 months negotiating with Brussels, then hold a referendum on whatever that results in - the Labour Brexit, we assume - then refuse to say whether they are in favour of their own deal or remain, then see what happens. Yeah, both the same level of complexity, for sure.

What do they manufacture? Not much is it? - Firesticks and those book reader thingies? The sort of item that is made by Google and Apple and Huwawei...abroad. Sure they're a seller of online goods, a provider of online TV, like Netflix and a maker of gadgets, to an extent - I don't think the wage thing is a factor in terms of competition in the UK. I see other factors as being the issue in the UK. Their practices in dealing with people who sell on there as independent retailers and their lower costs from dominant market position. I'm not a big fan of Amazon, but I see min wage as (in their case) kind of irrelevant to their practices or dominance.

Yes, this I think. All of the things that have affected VIlal this season - not getting a pen at Spurs for McGinn being chopped down, the Bournemouth player and his repeated fouls, the Palace no goal, the Arsenal no pen, the Arsenal player in the wall - all of those, every last howler would still have had exactly the same adverse impact if there were no VAR. It isn't righting wrongs - referee mistakes - it's pretty much just cancelling out the odd goal here and there. That's not the fault of VAR technology or the people operating it, that's the fault of the way the Prem League has chosen to use it. and not use it. It's much much worse than is the case at the World Cup etc.

Isn't that even worse (if you're a Labour Momentum type)? Eton and those ones are funded by poshos and whatnot paying wedges for their offspring to get taught how to wreck the Country. Corbz's one gets/got money from the taxpayer to do the same. Priveleged kids getting a leg up from the state. None of them pay any/many taxes. Better surely to take away their charitable status and stop giving them dosh than abolish them, if that's your (not you Xann, but anyone) political bent

I don't get that point. Before the Min wage, they could set their wages to what they wanted. Now they have to set them to a legal level which is the same as the legal level for Waterstones or HMV or whoever. It's not the min wage that gives them their advantage, it's lack of high street rental, economy of scale, the internet generally, range of stock, door to door delivery etc. surely.

Like Jeremy on Brexit Objection? I'm not sure I'm making an objection. More a (slightly satirical, albeit oblique) comment that people who went to Private schools include almost the entire Tory cabinet, a place filled with liars, incompetents and hypocrits and that on the other side Corbyn, Seamus Milne and Lansman etc are also ex-public school pupils. And the absolute lot of them are a shower of words removed. Utterly unfit, for multiple reasons to hold any kind of office. Not a good advert for posho, paid for, education. i.e. if Corbz "the absolute (public school) boy" is really against public schools, because they gave us Johnson and Rees Mogg and Cummins and "look what those frightful chaps are doing to our Country, we can't have public schools producing all our Political leaders" - then he, as an ex-public schoolboy (a dim one, true) ought to make himself redundant. But anyway, here they all are, all the public schoolboys, telling us what we can and can't do, with their sense of superiority and entitlement and a "the rules don't apply to us" outlook.

No, the masses generally. Tory poshos and Labour poshos telling us we've got to have fracking or can't have windfarms, or must have no deal brexit or etc.

Well, to be fair, given that Corbz, Seamus and a host of his advsors are ex-public school and also that most of the Tory leadership lot are too, you could see why he'd want to abolish it, as the whole lot of them are grossly incompetent. Or it might be a guilt thing. Priveleged poshos telling the masses what's good for them.

Yeah, possibly. I’d say they shouldn’t be “favourable” to anyone. It’s when they are that the problems start. Their news is sort of lost, they’ve lost their compass, they’ve lost their assurance really.

Peace loving Switzerland, Ireland and others use referenda for major changes. It’s not referenda themselves that are necessarily the flaw, more the way ours was subject to so much dishonesty, cheating and so on was a major factor as well as a lack of information about what we were actually, in reality, voting for.

Only if Burnley fill their allocation, or they only take the downstairs part, fill that and the upper part is offered to home fans and sells out.

@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.