blandy

It pretty much is off the table, but let’s assume/ pretend you’re right and that May loses the vote on Jan 14th. Now there will also be votes on 6 amendments, as yet to be chosen, but likely to include a Norway type option and a people’s vote option. At that point, at that moment of voting Labour needs to have a position. It needs one now. At the time of the vote a GE remains a remote possibility. So what does Labour and Corbyn do? His position is exposed as as bonkers as that of May. The flakey dreaming idiot cannot handle the real world. Pipe dreams are his thing. Anyway back to the timing, say you’re right and May loses, and thanks to Corbyn’s extreme ambivalence no option, no amendments get accepted. Say there’s shortly afterwards a VONC. Say the DUP. reverse their detestation of Corbyn and his chum’s united Ireland outlook (they won’t, there’s more chance of JRM becoming a remainer), but say your point overcomes that delusion and May loses a VOC. it’s now mid Jan. there has to be at least 6 weeks election run up, realistically it’ll be closer to 7 or 8 weeks. Corbyn isn’t PM yet, May is. so an election happens in early is March. What’s he campaigning on? It’s clearly not remain, it can’t credibly be a People’s vote, because as you’ve said, that comes behind his dream of Labour doing a jobs first (Pah!) Brexit. How he’s going to get that with maybe a week till we crash out? By cancelling article 50 is the only way to even start that. Once/ if he cancels it, then he either has to U turn on his Yes to Brexit, or he has to re-invoke A50 to stay true to his beliefs (mad as they are on Europe). He’s as dead as May, if not more so, either way. His deluded claimed plan cannot work, even if we ignore the humongous unlikelihood of the DUP voting for Corbyn. Edit. Apparently if the govt loses a VOC there is only a GE if it then loses another one within 14 days, so the timetable is even worse. Corbyn’s alleged “plan” is even less credible than I thought .

The other avenues have been exhausted. Corbyn recognises he can’t win a vote of no confidence, and therefore a general election is off the table. There’s an almost shut window for anything else to be done. And you’re talking again about people who are wanting to put their party, or it’s leader, or both behind in the priority list as though they are the problem. They’re not. It’s the rigid followers of the whip, the acolytes of Corbyn, of May that are the problems. Two appalling leaders, sure, but the numpties who enable them are culpable too.

You're right. They're not united behind anything. Nor are the tories. It's got to stop being party based.It's beyond that. Someone somewhere needs to show non-partisan leadership, or at least independent of party whip leadership. It's unlikely to be a party leader, as they're so utterly dreadful. But someone needs to break cover.

I'm not sure she "intends" him to. I think, if I read it right she's of the view that Parliament (i.e. not this party or that party, but Parliament collectively) can (and needs to) wrestle "control" from the lunacy of May and the lunacy of the hard Brexit lot. She personally is a remainer, from a leave voting constituency and she believes (as do millions) that a referendum is needed as the least bad way out of the mess. She sees that as May isn dead set against a referendum, but Labour's conference recently specifically included it as a possibility and further than Labour members etc. are in favour, that Parliament in the shape of the MPs from various parties could rally behind the idea (the Labour conference idea) of adopting a referendum. Jeremy Corbyn can either go with that, with many of his party, or stick to his pro Brexit stance, despite all the evidence of the harm it will do. SHe's to an extent grasping for straws to prevent catastrophe, and I personally have little to no faith that Corbyn is remotely capable of changing from his current "let them tories eff it up and we can then miraculously gain power for the glorious revolution" (a sort of Boris Johnson approach - duck and dive spout bollox and wait till power lands in your lap). I don't much like her, tbh. But she's one of the ones with actual principles about putting the good of the country first, so there's that she's got going for her.

I’m not sure what the point of quoting that tweet is, HV. She’s a Tory, sure, but she’s echoing what you have said. Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas, or as you put it “why would you have a vote of confidence you're sure you're going to lose”. In the face of that, and recognising where there is both Labour Party membership and national support as well as a number of Tory, SNP and others supplying parliament as well as much of Labour, why not do what she says? She’s, as a Tory, saying she’d support Labour if they did. It’s extraordinary times, isn’t it?

They sorted out India today

I wonder who did make it public? Well I don’t really. It’s not hard to guess. It was dumb move, perhaps driven by complete frustration with the player’s “lifestyle”.

It absolutely isn't, though Mark. look at Corbyn's own words, as HV posted Corbyn said he do this meaningless thing if May didn't announce the date for the vote. She announced the date for the vote and then he did the meaningless thing anyway (perhaps because the date isn't prompt enough for him? though imprecise language is hard to judge "by the end of next week" or something is clear, prompt (given the 2 week break is not)). It's typical Corbyn, playing to his fanbase on twitter or youtube or wherever they dwell whilst doing eff all of any useful stripe whatsoever. The pair of May and Corbyn are like schoolchildren squabbling. One refusing to let anyone else play and the other one forever saying they're going to "get" the first one, but never actually following up on it. Pair of the most useless apologies for leaders we've ever had the misfortune to come across.

Waayyy too much projection there. But whatever....

And perhaps nails look round the world and see only hammers? This when everything is actually screwed up

if you change the words you change the meaning. Like I said before, it’s fine to have an instinct that something is bad, but I commented on the actual text written, not some different, imagined text. Same point applies. Once you start mentioning imaginary leather clothing, authoritarianism, and such like, you’re simply projecting preconceived prejudices onto this. (We all do it, I’m not having a dig). The minbus trip to Norway. A good leader would do the things he espouses, delegating the sorting out of ferry tickets, the hiring of the minibus, the collection of money etc. trusting capable colleagues to do their roles. Looking at say Theresa May you’d have to wonder if she could bring herself to delegate, to let someone else sort out the route or the timing or the ferry. And Jeremy? he’d get Dianne, John and Seamus on board and head off for Nicaragua in fine spirits. What could possibly go wrong? ( see, I’m doing it now).

Where's the down-vote button when you need it?

No, No, let me be very clear. What Labour has said is that May's proposed deal, which involves an initial bag o'shite, followed by a transition period, will be voted down and then Labour will use the transition period, which will have been voted down and thus not exist, to re-negotiate so that the bag o' shite which is such because the EU won't allow their rules to be exempted for a third state (the UK), by asking the EU to exempt their rules for a third state, (the UK). It will be a jobs first Brexit, in which the same contradictions the tories have will miraculously not count anymore, because Jeremy's got a potting shed and isn't an immigration obsessed Maidstone numpty, but is instead an Islington numpty with a penchant for 1970s bedsit revolutionaries. What could possibly go wrong?

I saw a film on a plane recently, and all the swears, every one had not been blanked, or beeped, but instead had been overdubbed. It was so bad it was funny. "catch that mustard fudger", and such like. I mean who are they afraid of upsetting? and are there more of them than people who are annoyed that a film is rendered comical by dubious overdubbing of what the murcans call cussing? I really wanted to enjoy telly tubbies the movie but it was ruined by kowtowing to the, er, Po-faced.

I haven't seen any BBC news for about a month, and I would have once missed it. Not these days. I still love the beeb, The music radio, sport, nature doco's, TMS and some of the entertainment telly is way better than anything else I've seen or heard elsewhere in the world. News has just lost its way. I think some of the social media outrage is OTT, but it's got a lot wrong by previous standards, It started a while back with an obsession with "balance" over things like Climate Change and it's been going downhill ever since.

That's a wise thing to say. Whoever is the next Government in the Uk is going to get a massive amount of flak for whatever the end result of Brexit is.

The dishonest effwits. Talk about hard of thinking.

Oh and the BBC has changed because it's been filled at the top with Tory cronies.

This is a different subject to the "charity" and the paper you linked. I would suggest that even then, while there's some truth in what you say (only some) it's actually been Government which has done what you say, or directed it, not the likes of this "charity" - Whether it was the Blair Government and WMD bollox, the Andrew Gilligan thing, or more recently the Cameron Government and Wikileaks stuff the Guardian got hold of. As for "vetting" BBC staff to ensure their views were suitable", I don't know of that happening - who are you claiming does/did this, and to who, exactly? On "challenging Fox and the Mail", that was a point I made about what this charity man has written - I think if we look at what he's written and take it as a deep state conspiracy, like I said to Scott, that's missing the point. If his proposals were applied then Fox and the Mail would be challenged. What he says about "Leadership understands that in a period of tumultuous change you cannot control," - I mean if this was in the Tory baby eating thread, you/we'd be saying - "Yeah, he's spot on and Theresa may needs to have a read." for example. In other words I think his paper about the need for better, different leadership, about the threats from Big Corps, Russia, Isis, China etc. is well written, wise and well put. It's nothing Iike "warmongering" and I find it hard to disagree with anything in it. The leaders of Labour, Tories and Lib Dems are utterly of the wrong sort for these times. This paper puts reasons for that (my) view starkly.

They don't make that point, though. They specifically say that “Name and shame” the media sites and influencers being caught promoting “fakenews” (reputations damages). It's all about going after the disseminators of lies. The likes of Fox news, the Daily Mail and many others as well as internet ones - we need that to happen.

I like it. It's good. Commendable. If only it had been done earlier with Facebook etc. All the Russian funded Aaron Banks, Tim Wetherspoon, Nigel Farage etc. fake news needed challenging and rebutting. It wasn't.

this from your link is good, by him

I don't see warmongering there. To an extent I come across some of this type of person from time to time. It's important to separate, for example, in this instance, his espousing of "wartime" type of leadership, with warmongering. One is a set of characteristics which are suited to times of (as he says) change, and one is wanting and promoting warfare. Personally, in a way I'm surprised you don't see the truth in what he's saying. For example as Scott has alluded to (sort of) certain tories and US companies are effectively waging a kind of war to get hold of the NHS. Banks are and have been doing similar with governments, big corporations with the tx man worldwide, and so on. Then you've got the propaganda warfare undertaken by Russia (there's a big difference between what you call Russophobia and recognising malign actions by Russia), there's the industrial and other espionage by China, which is staggering in scale. It's one are Trump is spot on. These "developments" are not well dealt with by the "peacetime" type of leaderships - slow, unresponsive, more concerned with party needs than national needs, more concerned with retaining cushy positions than addressing issues (from homelessness to health to tax dodging to...). He's not talking about War (as in explosions and guns) he's talking about the conflicts that are rife and the absence of decision making prowess or critical judgement by slow, paralysed 'Follow the protocol' leaders like May and so on (though he doesn't mention names). How many people yearn in the UK for a leader and a party with the desire to put the country's needs first, rather than party interests? This is exactly what Wartime type leadership does. Now I accept that solely a wartime type set of leaders would be a mistake, but there's no enough of that style around, for sure. ours are essentially timid followers, either of public opinion, or party membership, or long held outdated convictions utterly out of place in the modern world. For example Corbyn's desire to have a publicly owned set of Water and gas and Electricity and Phone etc.companies trumps any wider pragmatic consideration about EU membership. May's the same with immigration. A wartime leadership style would be focused around "make stuff work, get it working so it does its job" not "ooh, it'd be dreamy if the people owned power companies, rather than shareholders". I should also point out that for all these types of people can be impressive in their focus and drive and ability to cut through the crap, they are often berks as well in some areas. Having them propose or float ideas and views is good, Giving them limited control of particular aspects that need sorting is good. Giving them carte blanche on a wider scale is less wise. But my message is that just because the style of language is one sort, doesn't mean that for example suggesting "wartime style leadership" is needed is at all equivalent to "warmongering". I'm totally with you on the Charity thing, mind.

I can’t see anything that suggests that, at all. If you could point me at something I’d obviously read it. I can’t speak for your outlook, but I will say 2 things about mine (which may turn into more). Firstly I’m, by nature, literal - ie I go by what I can verify, by what’s written on this. If you go by underlying instinct or something, then we’re talking about different things, really. Secondly, the things you mentioned such as public sector, democracy, public services and the Labour Party (excluding Catweazle and his band of angry tramps) - I absolutely believe in them, too. I accept they are not accountable in the same way that judges, soldiers, nurses and most other people aren’t accountable to the general public. They are accountable to the government. i think it’s perfectly fine to believe in the things you cited and yet also to look at the evidence of the threats posed to the UK by Russia, Chinese actions, terrorist groups and so on and feel that the UK government should absolutely be working to counter those threats. I want the UK to be doing this stuff. I see it as almost the primary duty of the government to be doing that. now on instinct, sure, I can see why people would be sceptical or concerned about a notion of “shadowy bodies” doing stuff in cyberspace etc. But also, to be frank, the idea or complacency that Russia, China, Daesh aren’t out there promoting their interests and we should stand by and ignore that is one that worries me. The world is messy and sometimes we have to get messy too.

Completely disagree in this instance. Players can have dips in form due to all kinds of reasons, played out of position, or out of natural role, problems at home, not getting on with the manager or coaches, recovery from injury, or like I say with Pogba being in the wrong place at the wrong time.