PetroDollars
First Class Captain
- Joined
- Feb 29, 2012
- Runs
- 4,578
Chuka is gone, he has even sold off his office in streatham.
Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: this_feature_currently_requires_accessing_site_using_safari
Labour leadership race: Tories back Jeremy Corbyn in bid to damage party
Conservative supporters on Twitter are using the #ToriesForCorbyn hashtag to encourage people to vote for the leftwinger
Conservative party supporters have mounted a Twitter campaign to elect Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader in order to damage the party’s future election chances.
According to new rules, anybody can pay £3 to register as a Labour supporter and vote for the new leader, a change that some speculated would leave the process open to abuse by opponents.
On Monday, Corbyn, the leftwing MP for Islington North, unexpectedly secured – with minutes to spare – the 35 nominations required to stand in the party’s leadership race, which was triggered by the resignation of Ed Miliband after the general election defeat.
The hashtag #ToriesForCorbyn, first used by the associate director of the Anglican Centre in Rome, Marcus Walker, has been adopted to call for people to vote for the leftwinger.
Blair made a speech last week saying those in the Labour party who have their heart with Corbyn should "get a transplant" - probably so Blair can have one.
Well it's good to have free thinkers like [MENTION=107620]s28[/MENTION] keeping us on the straight and narrow.
The Tory parting splitting because of a Corbyn led Labour? In your dreams - in fact history suggests the opposite could happen. The last party to split because their then leader took them far to the left was Labour. And if Cameron could keep his party together when in a coalition with the Lib Dems he will survive and hold them together when it comes to the EU referendum. They may not be as politically astute as the Blair/Campbell (war criminals yes but nonetheless political giants) team but Cameron and Gideon are competent enough to keep the party together over Europe.
Jeremy Corbyn steams ahead in Labour leadership race as another trade union pledges its support
Jeremy Corbyn took another step towards winning the Labour leadership on 30 July by gaining the support of a trade union which hailed him as the man to purge the party of Blairites.
Senior Labour figures admitted the veteran left-wing backbencher, who entered the race as a rank outsider, now has a real chance of pulling off a shock victory over the mainstream candidates Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall.
Labour MPs believe Mr Corbyn is likely to top the poll in the first round of voting –which would be a remarkable achievement. Under Labour’s preferential voting system, the bottom candidate drops out until one runner gets more than 50 per cent of the votes. Opponents believe the best hope of stopping Mr Corbyn lies with either Ms Cooper or Mr Burnham in a final run-off after the second preference votes of people who backed eliminated candidates are reallocated.
Labour donor: Jeremy Corbyn win could cause SDP-style split
John Mills, one of party’s biggest benefactors, says wealthy supporters could withdraw backing if leftwinger wins leadership election
The election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader could trigger an SDP-style split in the party, one of the party’s biggest donors has said.
George Galloway says he will re-join Labour 'pretty damn quick' if Jeremy Corbyn becomes leader
Corbyn has some real momentum behind his campaign
I have signed up as a Registered Supporter myself
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/pol...-star-tour-of-Britain-as-bandwagon-grows.html
Jeremy Corbyn on rock star tour of Britain as shadow chancellor attacks 'Corbynomics'
Surprise left wing front-runner speaks to rapturous crowds across country
Liked one of the readers comments from the guardian:
Chris Leslie: "I'd rather hurt the poor by copying Tory policy than by being left-wing".
What a depressing prospect Labour has become. No vision, no strategy, no alternative to what we have; just the mindless drone that the electorate have gone to the right so the Labour party must follow them there. Apparently the Tories are allowed to influence the national conversation, but Labour aren't, they just have to run around following it.
Why do u think left wing politics or socialism has died in England. When it was so popular in the first half of the 20th century. Now we are a neo-liberal society.Well, that is the real world, I'm afraid. Look at the election results. The Tories have been the natural party of government since 1979. Labour can only get elected in England by moving to the centre.
Well, that is the real world, I'm afraid. Look at the election results. The Tories have been the natural party of government since 1979. Labour can only get elected in England by moving to the centre.
Adil_94;7948044[B said:]Why do u think left wing politics or socialism has died in England. [/B]When it was so popular in the first half of the 20th century. Now we are a neo-liberal society.
and if you have to quote Bliar then you clearly have a bankrupt argument
What lies do you have to tell ? You can only win elections in modern day Britain by appealing to as many mainstream, centrist, apolitical voters as possible.So tell whatever lies you want to get elected and then turn around and do something else
Very New Labour
and if you have to quote Bliar then you clearly have a bankrupt argument
Only Liz Kendall can take on the Tories. Her long term economic plan helps the hard working people of Britain and that is why she represents the greatest threat to the Tories, as a party of government, rather than a party of protest. As Liz said, the country comes, and that is why you should all register to vote for her and her long term economic plan so that the hard working people of this country can benefit from Labour as all the wonderful things Labour did were in government, not in opposition
Vote Liz, vote Labour!
You are right - Liz is the most likely candidate to beat Cameron/Gideon/Boris at the next election but Labour members seem too stupid to see this.
She won't win the leadership contest.
The latest odds....
View attachment 58780
Oh, come on. He won three elections for Labour including two landslides. He did plenty of good for the people of the UK in that time. Far more than Corbyn or any of the current alternatives ever will, because they will not win power.
What lies do you have to tell ? You can only win elections in modern day Britain by appealing to as many mainstream, centrist, apolitical voters as possible.
How did moving to the left work out in May ? People didn't think Ed Miliband wasn't left wing enough in Nuneaton and the other swing seats, they thought he was TOO left wing ! I don't agree with them but that's the electorate Labour has to deal with and appeal to. With Corbyn we'll get wiped out in the Midlands and Southern England. Even if we win back the Scottish voters with a more left-wing agenda, it still won't be enough to get a majority !
One of the things that'll stay with me for the rest of my life was when I saw the exit polls on that night in May, when Cameron was predicted for a majority. My heart sank and I felt deeply sorry for all those people who are now suffering under the Tories - young people, local councils, those being priced out of affordable homes, the disabled, the people who have severe illnesses yet are being deemed "fit for work" and the public sector workers who are having to pay for the banks' mistakes.
I don't want to go through that again. Never again. Labour is of no use to any of the people I've just mentioned if its forever in opposition. What is the good of having beliefs if you are never in a position to change things.
Hitler won elections and did a lot of good for the German people. Didn't stop him being a war criminal.
Tory grandee Ken Clarke reckons Corbyn could win a General Election http://m.huffpost.com/uk/entry/7925964
Clarke is someone who is respected across the political spectrum so quite a statement coming from him.
Ah this nugget again. Why do the hard left think if you want to win elections and be more than just a left-wing pressure group you must be a Tory.if all you are interested in is power join the tories then, you stated you don't care about principles
People already KNOW what Labour stand for, they know we'll do these things but what they didn't see was how we'll manage the economy or whether we could appeal to businesses.
Tory grandee Ken Clarke reckons Corbyn could win a General Election http://m.huffpost.com/uk/entry/7925964
Labour must 'end the madness' over Jeremy Corbyn, says Alan Johnson
The Labour party should “end the madness” of a growing surge in support for Jeremy Corbyn and elect Yvette Cooper, who has “the intellect, the experience and the inner steel” to succeed as leader, Alan Johnson has said.
In a boost to the shadow home secretary’s campaign, Johnson says she can unite the party to win power as he launches a strong attack on Corbyn and his supporters for disloyalty to progressive Labour governments.
Writing for the Guardian, the former home secretary says: “In my view only Yvette Cooper can unite the party to win again. Those members who can’t give her their first preference should give her their second. After over a century of male leaders we have an election where the most qualified candidate to lead our party back to government happens to be a woman. Let’s end the madness and elect her.”
Johnson says supporters of Corbyn who shout betrayal at Cooper and other members of the last government should remember a series of progressive measures, including the minimum wage and greater rights for trade union members, introduced by the Blair and Brown governments.
The support of the former postal union leader, who is respected across the Labour party, will help the shadow home secretary as she seeks to position herself as the candidate best placed to beat Corbyn.
The campaigns by Cooper and the shadow health secretary, Andy Burnham, have been thrown into turmoil by the success of Corbyn, who is speaking to packed meetings across the country. The fourth candidate, the shadow social care minister, Liz Kendall, is struggling to win support.
Johnson is one of the few Labour “big beasts” from the last government who is still left in the House of Commons after the retirement at the general election of Gordon Brown, Jack Straw and Alistair Darling.
In his article, Johnson writes: “Jeremy’s ... been cheerfully disloyal to every Labour leader he’s ever served under. That’s fine so long as members understand that it’s the loyalty and discipline of the rest of us that created the NHS, the Open University.”
Dubbed Tony Blair’s favourite trade union leader, Johnson is associated with the Blairite wing of the party. He might have been expected to back Kendall, who has been echoing much of the former prime minister’s warnings that Labour will only win power again if it reaches out to Middle Britain voters, who have supported the Tories in the last two general elections.
But Johnson’s backing for Cooper suggests that the Blairite wing of the party now believes that she is the candidate with some modernising credentials who is best placed to beat Corbyn.
The former home secretary is scathing about Dave Ward, the general secretary of his old Communication Workers’ Union, who endorsed Corbyn on the grounds that he is the “antidote” to the “virus” of Blairism.
“I can understand why the ‘virus’ drivel should emanate from our political opponents, including those in the various far-left sects who last tried to bring their finger-jabbing intolerance into our party 35 years ago. What I’m puzzled by is why it should come from trade union leaders whose members benefited so much under the last Labour government.”
In his article, Johnson also addressed the recent fiasco of the Labour vote on the government’s welfare reform bill, which has inflicted immense damage to the campaigns of Cooper and Burnham. Critics have accused them of cowardice for expressing opposition to the bill, only to follow instructions from Harriet Harman to abstain in a commons vote.
The two shadow cabinet ministers voiced unease about Harman’s tactics but agreed to follow her lead to preserve party unity. Johnson writes: “The Commons vote on the welfare bill was a mess. Shadow cabinet members felt they had to support collective responsibility. Jeremy had no such constraints ... Are the other three candidates to be condemned for an abstention in opposition but not applauded for being part of the government that helped to increase the income of the working poor in the first place?”
Johnson also addresses what many of Corbyn’s critics claim is one of his main weaknesses: that he has never seen himself as prime ministerial material. Johnson points out that next month marks the centenary of the death of Keir Hardie, the founder of the Labour party, who was “inspired by Methodism more than Marxism” to win power to eradicate poverty and promote greater equality.
He suggests that neither he nor Corbyn could live up to those ideals because neither has the appetite to be prime minister. “So who should lead Labour? I have never had the ambition or the appetite that this job requires. Neither has Jeremy Corbyn as he’s honest enough to admit.”
Johnson says that a Cooper victory would mark a historic breakthrough by the party most committed to women’s rights but which has never been led on a permanent basis by a woman. But he writes that he is not supporting Cooper just on the grounds of gender.
“Of course this decision should not be made on gender alone. I believe that Yvette has the intellect, the experience and the inner-steel to succeed in this most difficult of roles. I’ve been enormously impressed by her poise, command of her brief as shadow home secretary and by her ideas on tackling inequality, child poverty and a radical programme of genuine devolution.”
Johnson, who was recently appointed by Harman, Labour’s interim leader, to serve as head of Labour’s pro-EU campaign group, has faced pressure to run for the leadership himself on numerous occasions in recent years. There was a concerted attempt to persuade him to make himself available last year if Ed Miliband could have been persuaded to stand down. As a party loyalist, Johnson declined the offer.
Johnson, who is a regular as #manontheleft on Andrew Neil’s This Week programme, has a personal charm and a fluency that has made him a popular figure. As deputy to former education secretary Charles Clarke, he said that they formed a double act in a charm offensive to persuade the Labour party to back university tuition fees. Johnson said Clarke did the offensive and he did the charm.
What lurch to the left? They are ***** footing around.
They need a genuine candidate who comes across sincere and is conviction politician......
What blairite wing cannot stand is that Corbyn has struck a cord with grass root workers as well as wider public. If he was a left wing loony, that would not be the case.
Same arguments and charcter assassinations were carried out by the blairite wing against Ken Livingstone for the mayoral race. Not only did he win once but twice and London did not fall to pieces and people like [MENTION=7774]Robert[/MENTION] can soon claim their free bus pass �� thanks to Ken.
It will be a few years before I can claim my free bus pass thank you. And it was not Ken's idea. The freedom pass was introduced in 1973, before he was even leader of the GLC Labour Group.
I like his economic policy but even if I didn't I'd say we should surely subsume economic policy to social policy anyway. Many of his economic policies are no different to those practiced by German/Scandinavian economies. I don't think his Keynesian macro policies are at odds with any required micro Institutional changes to prevent/deter any supposed 'scrounging'.
It is unfortunate that the right-wing press with their dog-whistle scaremongering inflate and conflate many minor issues with the benefits system into macro issues which will threaten the 'middle' classes. But then they do the same with Muslims/Islam so should not be any surprise that people start to inculcate those views into their own Weltanschauung.
im not sure i agree that economic policy should be subsumed to social policy, i think the two are inextricably linked. i dont understand why responsible social policy has to be funded by leverage or penalising people who do work hard, as opposed to targeting corporations and the ultra rich. which are the same come to think of it. either way, until labour address that issue at a point in the economic cycle where aspiration and opportunity are more prominent than entitlement, they wont garner appeal. not that that should be the motivation for drawing up principles. if his economic policies are no different to many scandinavian or german economies, then all the more reason he should revise them. all of those countries are substantially better off than the uk. uk gdp per capita is usd 41.8k, its 100.8k for norway, 60.4k for sweden, and 46.3k for germany. we cant afford it.
At some point those countries would have had a GDP per Capita of 41.8k as well ? So of course we can afford it in the effort to become more like them. You seem to be conflating relative and absolute levels of state involvement and the impact on the economy. Its not a chicken and egg situation. These countries got to their current level of income with these 'socialist' policies so why can't the UK. There are plenty of savings to be made without even expanding the total budget or increasing taxes. Do we really need to spend $100bn on Trident when we think we have moral right to tell Iran / others not to proliferate ?
that doesnt mean to say you let pensioners starve to death. but if you want to feed them, it doesnt mean to say you take from the man that is working, or take from the future in terms of debt. as you noted earlier, we already have seen and are still reeling from labours last bout of socialist economic policy.
not sure what the last bout of socialist economic policy was ? if anything they were liberating and de-regulating the banking system (a right wing mantra) which caused the crisis, it wasn't to do with their fiscal or monetary policy (they didn't run 'Keynesian tax and spend policies) and monetary policy was delegated to Bank of England under Labour
i dont think it is scare mongering on the economy either, as highlighted by your own quote on post bliar/brown financials - at th end of the day none of the parties give specific financial information necessary to be able to compare their fiscal responsibility properly, each relying on soundbites, so most of the arguments are mostly going to be anecdotal. whichever way they point. and in my opinion socialist economics are not only unjust, they are unworkable and unvotable. greece isnt yet in the rear view mirror yet, remember, and the uk does not have a magic well filled with money. (because blair and thatcher before him sold it all off).
One of Corbyns ideas is a 'peoples QE'. Ultimately this when it is suggested by 'the left' is frowned upon as socialist but it was used by the 'right' / Bernanke etc to save the banking system/their mates so why not extend it to a more direct influence on the economy e.g. key areas of the welfare state which require real investment ?
At some point those countries would have had a GDP per Capita of 41.8k as well ? So of course we can afford it in the effort to become more like them. You seem to be conflating relative and absolute levels of state involvement and the impact on the economy. Its not a chicken and egg situation. These countries got to their current level of income with these 'socialist' policies so why can't the UK. There are plenty of savings to be made without even expanding the total budget or increasing taxes. Do we really need to spend $100bn on Trident when we think we have moral right to tell Iran / others not to proliferate ?
at some point they would have, yes, had low gdp/capita. how do you know what fiscal policy they had in place at that time, particularly relative to global and domestic levels of economic inertia and debt? i dont think its useful to make 10,000 foot comparisons of economies, unless its a counter example. the german economy has an outstanding manufacturing base which the uk could not hope to compete with, norway has far more natural resources than the uk, partly because of depletion, and partly because of increased taxation during brown's era, dont know much about sweden. yes it is not a chicken and egg situation, but its not an apples to apples situation either. to address the last point you made, this same argument holds for QE too, and america. these are different economies with different parameters, and more concerning, just because it appears to have worked so far, doesnt mean to say the policy has worked. lets see what happens when they raise rates next month. you are conflating socialist economics and economic results in the absence of context, with gross and rank simplification. for example, in terms of external debt, the uk has $160,000 per capita, germany has $69k, the usa has $58k, sweden has $91k (and is undergoing public concern on its public finances), norway has $131k.
not sure what the last bout of socialist economic policy was ? if anything they were liberating and de-regulating the banking system (a right wing mantra) which caused the crisis, it wasn't to do with their fiscal or monetary policy (they didn't run 'Keynesian tax and spend policies) and monetary policy was delegated to Bank of England under Labour
i agree with you that they employed right wing deregulatory policies, but in my opinion they did that to inflate the economic bubble to claim revenue whilst spending irresponsibly on projected revenue estimates that were fantasy. the issue wasnt the drop in revenue, every country around the globe saw a drop in revenue, the problem was spend and debt - thats the socialist element. i disagree fundamentally and philosophically in spending what you dont have. how is corbyn going to fund his renationalisation aspirations? raise the upper band to 50%? 60%? destroy the middle class and do the same as blair in allowing his ultra wealthy to escape scott free? allow goldman, starbucks, amazon and so on to pay no taxes? monetary policy is always set in place by the BOE, fiscal policy is political.
One of Corbyns ideas is a 'peoples QE'. Ultimately this when it is suggested by 'the left' is frowned upon as socialist but it was used by the 'right' / Bernanke etc to save the banking system/their mates so why not extend it to a more direct influence on the economy e.g. key areas of the welfare state which require real investment ?
whats a 'peoples QE'? more debt? what do you think stops the uk or the us for that matter when theres no more road to kick the can down becoming a greece?
err... Trident ? $100bn on weapons we will never use and will be of no use to anyone
or Education Health Investment in Infrastructure ?
I've signed up as a Supporter so I can vote. It really does just take a minute of your time.
http://www.labour.org.uk/w/labour-party-supporters
There are 24 hours left for people who want to vote in the Labour leadership election to sign up to do so.
It costs £3 to sign up as a supporter, a scheme established by the party to allow a broader section of the electorate to vote.
This is separate from joining the party as a member but allows you to vote for its leader.
Only people who sign up before Wednesday 12 August are elegible to vote.
Anyone who wants to sign up can do so HERE.
Those who sign up must agree that they support the aims and values of the Labour party.
The deadline comes as a YouGov poll released on Monday night showed Jeremy Corbyn with a huge lead over his opponents.
According to a breakdown in the poll, many people from outside the party have been inspired to sign up in order to vote for him - though he also has a large lead with existing members.
Pretty sure he will be anti Trident he is a major part of the StopWar coalition alongside CND etc
http://www.economist.com/news/brita...ill-not-be-enough-oust-him-generation-jeremy?
This aspect of Corbynmania contains a warning for the party's moderates. Commentators are already talking about moves against Mr Corbyn if, or rather when, he becomes leader. It is taken for granted that he will not get a shot at the premiership at the general election in 2020. That may well be the case. It is, after all, hard to imagine him imposing coherence and discipline on a parliamentary party largely opposed to him and his brand of politics. Yet he may have a powerful mandate from Labour's membership. His opponents will topple him from the top of the party if they want. But they will not be able to oust the increasingly left-wing base that put him there.
Read more at http://www.economist.com/news/brita...ust-him-generation-jeremy#6SXL8GVaFDcf77Jw.99
The optimism amongst many in the party about Ed's appointment seems laughable now, I am personally embarrassed by my prediction that he would do well. Public opinion of the Coalition has been so negative that any half-decent politician would have pwned Cameron and be on the road to a Labour win. Even with Ed, the polls are level
Jeremy Corbyn's lead could be even bigger than we thought, says pollster
Jeremy Corbyn’s lead over the other candidates for the Labour leadership could have grown even further after a last-minute influx of voters to the contest, a pollster has said.
YouGov, which carried out a poll earlier this month showing Mr Corbyn with a 32 point lead, said a new surge of electors that caused the Labour website to crash minutes before the deadline to sign up could be good news for the left-winger.
Mr Corbyn was especially popular amongst people who had joined the party since the election and a new analysis of the final size of the electoral – over 600,000 – appears to boost his support, they say.
“The effect is to lift Jeremy Corbyn’s support to 57 per cent, four points higher than we published on Tuesday,” wrote Peter Kellner, the president of YouGov, in The Times newspaper.
“I should stress that this is a purely arithmetical exercise. We don’t know whether the late sign-ups are especially pro-Corbyn — or have joined in large numbers with the aim of preventing the leftwinger from leading the party.”
299,755 people have signed up to vote as full members of the Labour party – an increased of 105,000 on the general election and the highest since Tony Blair’s heyday.
121,295 people have also applied through a separate scheme to support but not join the party, which will allow them to vote.
Unions and socialist societies have produced 189,703 affiliate members, who are also entitled to vote.
The poll is effectively a snapshot of the race as it stood at the time it was carried out earlier this month. Other factors like real shifts in support could have counteracted the effect described by YouGov.
Since the poll was conducted a series of Labour establishment figures have weighed in to condemn Mr Corbyn in an attempt to dent his support.
Tony Blair said the party would be “annihilated” under his leadership, Liz Kendall said it would spend years in the political wilderness, and Yvette Cooper dismissed Mr Corbyn’s programme as neither “radical” nor “credible”.
Voting in the contest starts this weekend with the result set to be announced at a special conference in September.