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The Chairman Mao resembling, Monarchy hating, threat to Britain, Labour Party thread


Demitri_C

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8 minutes ago, Jareth said:

But all I want to see is a fair trial of the guy - there is an EHRC conclusion laying no blame at Corbyn's feet - yet the lead investigator contradicts his own reports findings by laying blame on Corbyn. Which is it? Corbyn says everything right in his lengthy statement other than he doesn't accept some of the findings and says AS in Labour has been overstated - is that entirely wrong given Labour chose not to submit any evidence outlining how we got to the point when the LOTO office was taking over a complaints process from party saboteurs? And the fact that AS was quite simply used as a weapon against Labour under him? Whatever anyone's fondness of Corbyn is, he is neither lying or misstating what happened. In a united party then yes of course he should take one for the team - only trouble is the team took him down - why on earth should he stay silent when folks are trying to censor recent history? 

Thats quite obvious. Corbyn (the person) isn't responsible for the individual failings but Corbyn (the leader) is ultimately responsible for what goes on in his office so must accept the blame as the buck stops with him

"Corbyn says everything right in his lengthy statement other than he doesn't accept some of the findings" That sentence is written much like the report, "We must follow this but ultimately its bollocks"

Yes. It is entirely wrong

The rest is just the usual spin, that got them into this pickle in the first place, so no lessons learned there

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6 minutes ago, bickster said:

Thats quite obvious. Corbyn (the person) isn't responsible for the individual failings but Corbyn (the leader) is ultimately responsible for what goes on in his office so must accept the blame as the buck stops with him

"Corbyn says everything right in his lengthy statement other than he doesn't accept some of the findings" That sentence is written much like the report, "We must follow this but ultimately its bollocks"

Yes. It is entirely wrong

The rest is just the usual spin, that got them into this pickle in the first place, so no lessons learned there

Fair enough - there are formal ways of saying things - with a little extra on the end which says where folks really stand. And that's why I think this must go to court and be tested against law - not in an Ofcom level arena. If wrong has been done, punishment must ensue - free of opinions, likes or dislikes. My own position is that Corbyn's been done over wrong - and that event cannot be forgotten - but if it is, then que sara. 

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7 hours ago, darrenm said:

It's a good job Peter Oborne isn't Labour member otherwise he would be suspended for questioning some of the EHRC findings.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/ehrc-labour-antisemitism-starmer-corbyn-soul

I feel like I'm living in the upside down world where white is black and black is white. The failings were quite obviously by political opponents hostile to the left, McNicol and Matthews, and once Corbyn could get Formby in, things dramatically improved.

Yet no-one's mentioning this. The whole media narrative is about Corbyn. McNicol took out an advert in the Guardian criticising Corbyn for failing to get a grip on antisemitism while McNicol was GS, and Matthews was given a 3 figure pay off while the EHRC report said the email inbox for complaints he was supposed to be monitoring wasn't checked (yet gave no context to it, making it seem like a leadership failing again).

Well done to Peter Oborne for having the balls to speak out. No doubt someone will be along in a minute to discredit him as a crank.

Deserves more than a like.

It's one of the lowest moments in recent political history. Infuriating.

I can only hope that that which was sewn will forever be reaped and some there's some karma on the way. It won't of course, but you can hope. Something so wrong shouldn't go unpunished.

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5 minutes ago, Chindie said:

Deserves more than a like.

It's one of the lowest moments in recent political history. Infuriating.

I can only hope that that which was sewn will forever be reaped and some there's some karma on the way. It won't of course, but you can hope. Something so wrong shouldn't go unpunished.

There's a shit load of young folks who associate with the ideals of JC - there is no mainstream party to entertain them. There is a void in the political sphere for them and for once the Lib Dems have also forgotten them. God knows who picks them up but Starmer won't.  

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11 minutes ago, Jareth said:

There's a shit load of young folks who associate with the ideals of JC - there is no mainstream party to entertain them. There is a void in the political sphere for them and for once the Lib Dems have also forgotten them. God knows who picks them up but Starmer won't.  

Are there any particular policies that those young people are desperate for that Starmer has suggested they won't get, or anything they are against that Starmer is in favour of?

What was Corbyn-Labour offering them that Starmer-Labour is not?

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22 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

Are there any particular policies that those young people are desperate for that Starmer has suggested they won't get, or anything they are against that Starmer is in favour of?

What was Corbyn-Labour offering them that Starmer-Labour is not?

Free internet?

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28 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

Are there any particular policies that those young people are desperate for that Starmer has suggested they won't get, or anything they are against that Starmer is in favour of?

What was Corbyn-Labour offering them that Starmer-Labour is not?

I suspect people are picking up on 'the direction of travel' rather than specific, itemised policies. It would be hard not to notice that the message of the last few months is 'the old guard are back in charge'.

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8 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

I suspect people are picking up on 'the direction of travel' rather than specific, itemised policies. It would be hard not to notice that the message of the last few months is 'the old guard are back in charge'.

Could have sworn it was under new managemenet

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8 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

I suspect people are picking up on 'the direction of travel' rather than specific, itemised policies. It would be hard not to notice that the message of the last few months is 'the old guard are back in charge'.

I've not noticed anything about that. I'm not sure how true it would be even if that were the message, given the four main shadow cabinet roles were only elected as MPs in 2010, 2015, 2015 and 2017.

That strikes me as the precise opposite of "the old guard".

And it still doesn't give any evidence as to what the "Corbyn ideals" are that so appeal to young people that have now been ditched that means "young folks" are now politically homeless. 

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1 hour ago, ml1dch said:

I've not noticed anything about that. I'm not sure how true it would be even if that were the message, given the four main shadow cabinet roles were only elected as MPs in 2010, 2015, 2015 and 2017.

That strikes me as the precise opposite of "the old guard".

And it still doesn't give any evidence as to what the "Corbyn ideals" are that so appeal to young people that have now been ditched that means "young folks" are now politically homeless. 

I am not saying whether 'young folks' are 'politically homeless' or not. I do not *know*, and frankly neither does anyone else, in what numbers or proportions young people will vote for anybody in four years' time. However, @Jareth wrote about 'young folk who associate with the ideals of JC', so he was not talking about any and all young people. What we saw in 2017 and to a lesser extent 2019 was an increased level of youth turnout, while the vote went more disproportionately to Labour amongst the youngest age groups than it had done before. So there are clearly some young people who became politically active during the Corbyn years - at least to the extent of voting - who presumably were attracted either by the man himself and what he represented or how he presented himself, or by the policies his Labour party proposed.

Neither are going to be the same. The man himself has been suspended; presumably people who were to some extent inspired by Corbyn himself are not going to be thrilled about him being suspended, and indeed if you look online you can see copious evidence of this feeling. Some of the appeal of Corbyn, especially in 2017, appears to have been that he was not 'a typical politician'; this may have helped secure votes from voters who otherwise may not have voted (of course, this will also have been at the expense of repelling others). This is inevitably a value judgement, but Starmer presents as 'just another politician'; to my mind, he comes across as a grey man in a suit with a posh accent who looks most comfortable in the Commons.

Nor are we going to see a radical, left-wing manifesto in four years. There are no policies yet, but when there are, they will be more moderate. If you want, we can do a round of indignant 'you don't know that yet!'s, but the Starmer theory of the case is appealing to Conservative voters, not mobilising young people. It is possible that conference will force some more radical policies on the leadership, but then Starmer will downplay them wherever possible. This has nothing to do with when people were elected; if you are someone who associates with the politics of the Labour left, you are not going to have failed to notice that there is no-one from the left of the party in a meaningful shadow cabinet position, and that the one person who was was sacked on the flimsiest of pretexts at the very first opportunity. The people below the shadow cabinet are mostly on the right of the party; this was covered extensively in the press at the time of the announcement, eg:

The shadow treasury team, for instance, who are inevitably going to be heavily involved in creating Labour's offer at the next election, are nearly all drawn from the right of the PLP. The manifesto is not going to be, and is not going to be seen by voters, or portrayed by the media, as a document as radical as Labour's last two manifestos.

I make no argument here about whether trading off young voters for marginal Conservative voters is a good tactic or not. There's not much point guessing now, when the proof will be felt in 2024. Nor am I saying that Labour are *planning* to be less appealing to younger voters, but all politics involves trade-offs, and emphasising moderate policies on the one hand while suspending (and perhaps expelling) the politician left-leaning younger voters were attracted by on the other seems like an unlikely recipe for success with that group of voters. The experience of youth turnout in 2015 was that an even larger proportion simply stayed home; while I can only guess, and cannot know, my guess is that will be repeated in 2024.

3 hours ago, bickster said:

Could have sworn it was under new managemenet

I said 'message', not 'slogan'.

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17 hours ago, Jareth said:

@bickster @blandy - the guy winds you up, I don't deny there are personality traits he possesses which rub people up the wrong way. But all I want to see is a fair trial of the guy - there is an EHRC conclusion laying no blame at Corbyn's feet - yet the lead investigator contradicts his own reports findings by laying blame on Corbyn. Which is it? Corbyn says everything right in his lengthy statement other than he doesn't accept some of the findings and says AS in Labour has been overstated - is that entirely wrong given Labour chose not to submit any evidence outlining how we got to the point when the LOTO office was taking over a complaints process from party saboteurs? And the fact that AS was quite simply used as a weapon against Labour under him? Whatever anyone's fondness of Corbyn is, he is neither lying or misstating what happened. In a united party then yes of course he should take one for the team - only trouble is the team took him down - why on earth should he stay silent when folks are trying to censor recent history? 

It's interesting. If Corbyn had stayed as a normal constituency MP I'd have little problem with him. I mean as long as he did his constituency job well, which he seems to have done over the years, then I'd be unbothered by him and his various takes on things.

My objection has been around his suitability and performance as a leader. His strengths are not matched to the needs of leadership, in the main, and his weaknesses are pretty much in the last areas you'd want a leader to be weak - he's massively conflict averse, he's inflexible, he's very prickly to any kind of even mild criticism, he's terrible with the media, he is not a quick thinker, but someone who just holds. rigid, inflexible view...and so on and so forth. 

You say you want a "fair trial" for him - that term suggest you think he might be guilty of something, or at least that there are grounds for "a trial" (not an actual legal trial, but some sort of open hearing, I guess?).

Anyway, back to AS and the furore around it. Labour (under Corbyn, in 2015 and 16) did that Chakraborti investigation and report (pdf). So, to be absolutely clear, Corbyn knew, in 2016 that

Quote

...there is too much clear evidence (going back some years) of minority hateful or ignorant attitudes and behaviours festering within a sometimes bitter incivility of discourse...

... too many Jewish voices express concern that antisemitism has not been taken seriously enough in the Labour Party and broader Left for some years.

An occasionally toxic atmosphere is in danger of shutting down free speech within the Party rather than facilitating it, and is understandably utilised by its opponents. It is completely counterproductive to the Labour cause, let alone to the interests of frightened and dispossessed people, whether at home or abroad. Whilst the Party seeks to represent wider society, it must also lead by example, setting higher standards for itself than may be achievable, or even aspired to, elsewhere. It is not sufficient, narrowly to scrape across some thin magic line of non-antisemitic or non-racist motivation, speech or behaviour, if some of your fellow members, voters or potential members or voters feel personally vulnerable, threatened or excluded as the result of your conduct or remarks. The Labour Party has always been a broad coalition for the good of society. We must set the gold standard for disagreeing well. I set out clear guidance so as to help achieve this.

... complaints and disciplinary procedures are wanting.

 And so on.

So with that in mind, a Leader was fully aware that action was necessary. More than 4 years on from that report which was written by someone personally picked by Corbyn to do that, we hear again the same situation remained. This time from the EHRC - another body set up by Labour, and independent of any political party (though pretty loathed by the Tories as "too lefty"). That's not good enough and the buck stops with the Leader.

It's not acceptable for him to repeat the assertion that the people doing the hurting were the media and political opponents, by exaggerating. The people doing the hurting were the weapons in the Labour Party. His Labour Party.

In his defence, it appears that to an extent Jenny Formby improved things to a less bad level in 2018, or at least that's what is being claimed. I tend to believe that. But still not enough was done.

Before 2106 people, Jewish people particularly were reporting a surge in abuse and hate directed against them following Corbyn's election as leader. He and others immediately blamed the media. Then compelled to investigate, Chakraborti's report confirmed the complaints were right and there was a problem, and it was not just forcing people out of the Labour Party, forcing in some cases people to have to pay for security and so on, it was also damaging the party.

So as the EHRC man said, Corbyn as Leader of the Party, was ultimately responsible for the mess. But the "blind spot" is still there. Some, but far from all, of his doughty band of followers - McDonnell, McLuskey leap to his defence, still. But the game's up. Labour was in a worse position when he left, than when he took over, in so many ways. Fewer MPs, more divided, on the end of a critical verdict on AS and unable to dent the Tories and more than that their complete shambles of a party enabled the tories to wreak havoc. It's a crying shame, and pretty much it was all too predictable. Electing Corbyn as leader was never going to end well. And worst of all, it's let down all the people who really really wanted the more left wing, "different kind of politics". Some of these people still cling to the comfort of the personality, but I think they need to let go, or at least acknowledge the flaws he has and the consequences of his leadership for their (our) hopes for a government that resets the country back towards the apple pie things of equality, tolerance, decency and all the rest, and away from the trough feeding tory baby eaters.

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1 hour ago, blandy said:

away from the trough feeding tory baby eaters.

Well we can all agree on one thing - f*ck the tories!

Also thanks for the lengthy response - all taken onboard. 

Edited by Jareth
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1 hour ago, blandy said:

It's not acceptable for him to repeat the assertion that the people doing the hurting were the media and political opponents, by exaggerating. The people doing the hurting were the weapons in the Labour Party. His Labour Party.

In his defence, it appears that to an extent Jenny Formby improved things to a less bad level in 2018, or at least that's what is being claimed. I tend to believe that. But still not enough was done.

Before 2106 people, Jewish people particularly were reporting a surge in abuse and hate directed against them following Corbyn's election as leader. He and others immediately blamed the media. Then compelled to investigate, Chakraborti's report confirmed the complaints were right and there was a problem, and it was not just forcing people out of the Labour Party, forcing in some cases people to have to pay for security and so on, it was also damaging the party.

Almost everything you've written here seems to be contradicted by the APPG on Antisemitism in October 2016 with their statement that:

Quote

Despite significant press and public attention on the Labour Party, and a number of revelations regarding inappropriate social media content, there exists no reliable, empirical evidence to support the notion that there is a higher prevalence of antisemitic attitudes within the Labour Party than any other political party. We are unaware whether efforts to identify antisemitic social media content within the Labour Party were applied equally to members and activists from other political parties, and we are not aware of any polls exploring antisemitic attitudes among political party members, either within or outside the Labour Party. The current impression of a heightened prevalence of antisemitism within in the Labour Party is clearly a serious problem, but we would wish to emphasise that this is also a challenge for other parties.

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmhaff/136/13609.htm

I wonder who was on that committee signing off on that statement?

Quote

Keir Starmer MP (Labour, Holborn and St Pancras)

Oh.

Who's right, you or Keir?

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40 minutes ago, bickster said:

Yes but your "message" isn't correct as has already been pointed out by others.

 

Well, I disagree. And as pointed out before, the conversation was about the thinking of 'young folks who associate with the ideals of JC', so whether you think it is 'correct' or not is really neither here nor there.

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49 minutes ago, darrenm said:

Almost everything you've written here seems to be contradicted by the APPG on Antisemitism in October 2016 with their statement that:

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmhaff/136/13609.htm

I wonder who was on that committee signing off on that statement?

Oh.

Who's right, you or Keir?

As you can see from my link I was quoting from Labour's report by Shami Chakrabarti, written for Corbyn, about what needed to be done. Labour's own internal investigation.

He said this about it, at the launch of it

Quote

I asked Shami Chakrabarti to carry out her inquiry after some disturbing and damaging incidents earlier this year, I believe that its findings and recommendations are of even more importance for our party, country and wider world today.

So, from Corbyn's own mouth (or blog) - he knew the importance, as I said, of sorting it out.

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45 minutes ago, Chindie said:

It matters that Corbyn is wrong. Always wrong.

He's not always wrong - if your comment is aimed at, or a response to what I posted.

I dunno how many times I've said that his manifesto (well Labour's, but y'know, he was leader) was pretty good - no one's going to agree with everything in a manifesto, but I reckon 50% is a good one.

He was right on Iraq & Syria.... (or at least "right" in terms of I held and hold the same opinions, as far as I understand his).

The tragedy is that as an individual he is/was not suited to do anything to achieve the good things. Although to be open about it he also holds some less appealing (to me) views and attitudes.

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1 hour ago, darrenm said:

Almost everything you've written here seems to be contradicted by the APPG on Antisemitism in October 2016 with their statement that:

 

Quote

there exists no reliable, empirical evidence .....We are unaware whether efforts to identify antisemitic social media content ... were applied equally to members and activists from other political parties....we are not aware of any polls exploring antisemitic attitudes among political party members....outside the Labour Party....

 

I wonder who was on that committee signing off on that statement?

Oh.

Who's right, you or Keir?

So looking at what you APPG say - there's no evidence, because no one's looked at other parties in a such way to gather evidence, they say

I want to compare what's on sale at Lidl with what's on sale at Aldi.

Here's the list for LIDL,

there's no list for Aldi - no-one's looked at what they offer.

There's no reliable empirical evidence to say Lidl's inventory is any different to Aldi's.

I am certain that other parties also have a problem with discrimination - it might be less bad, it might be worse. What we do know is Labour has a problem.

"Labour stole a book - that's theft"

"But the other party stole books"

That's not a defence.

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