The Politics Thread 3.0

[satriales]

How many answers did he get?

[Dual]

Eight.

[Moggy]

Have we ever had such a weak opposition in modern history?

Even in the days of Kinnock, there was a bit of fight about Labour. After Blair washed the Tories away, Hague at least tried to provide opposition.

I guess IDS was pretty shite but I am not sure even he was as bad as Corbyn.

It’s frightening just how poor Corbyn is, at exactly the time that we need the Government to be held to account.

[Denster]

It's frightening how popular he still is.

[Meep]

Scotland needs to get away from the travesty that is Westminster as soon as they can. Being chained to May and Corbyn is like being chained to a lead weight. Of course, being forever controlled by the SNP is not much better but I am sure natural opposition to them would emerge after independence as nationalists voters would no longer feel obliged to support them no matter what.

England outside London the and South East will be subjected to probably another twenty years of Conservative (mis)rule as a result but hey, the Scottish cannot be expected to save the English from themselves.

[Moggy]

It's frightening how popular he still is.

I was going to laugh and say that his popularity ratings are really low and then I realised that any support at all is too high for the waste of space known as Jeremy.

[Errkal]

His popularity amongst the electorate sucks, but the labour and moment lot fall over themselves for some strawberry float knows why reason.

[Meep]

His popularity amongst the electorate sucks, but the labour and moment lot fall over themselves for some strawberry float knows why reason.

Yeah, I have had arguments with friends I am usually on point with most of the time. It seems like they don't want to believe what a massive mistake he is and would rather live in a fantasy where Labour are going to have a massive resurgence any day now. Their conviction more based on faith that any actual reasoning.

I was hesitantly supportive of him to begin with, you have to respect such an overwhelming leadership victory and not just assume you know better, but it was become painfully obvious that he was not worth the benefit of the doubt.

[satriales]

His popularity amongst the electorate sucks, but the labour and moment lot fall over themselves for some strawberry float knows why reason.

Yeah, I have had arguments with friends I am usually on point with most of the time. It seems like they don't want to believe what a massive mistake he is and would rather live in a fantasy where Labour are going to have a massive resurgence any day now. Their conviction more based on faith that any actual reasoning.

I was hesitantly supportive of him to begin with, you have to respect such an overwhelming leadership victory and not just assume you know better, but it was become painfully obvious that he was not worth the benefit of the doubt.

I blame the rest of the party more than him as they caused a lot of unnesseccary infighting when Corbyn's support was actually really high, and now people are fed up and looking at other parties.
I still think that given the chance Corbyn would make a decent PM, sure he doesn't offer any catchy soundbites but in general his policies match up to my way of thinking and I believe this country would be a much better place.
However, people are believing the "he's unelectable" quote that is often thrown around, and so I suspect many potential Labour voters are now going to support another party as a tactical vote because they don't believe Labour will win.

[Moggy]

It's not so much that he's unelectable but more that he's completely ineffective.

My local Labour MP is pretty decent and may well get my vote, but I'll be voting for her and not Corbyn or the Labour Party.

[satriales]

It's not so much that he's unelectable but more that he's completely ineffective.

My local Labour MP is pretty decent and may well get my vote, but I'll be voting for her and not Corbyn or the Labour Party.

I dunno, there must've been a record number of U-turns by the Conservatives in the last couple of years. Of course nobody gives any credit to Corbyn for that, but he's first to be blamed when conservatives announce these awful policies.

[Errkal]

At his point the conservatives are using the papers as their opposition. They announce something see what the papers do then withdraw it. Corbin may as well not be there.

[Moggy]

It's not so much that he's unelectable but more that he's completely ineffective.

My local Labour MP is pretty decent and may well get my vote, but I'll be voting for her and not Corbyn or the Labour Party.

I dunno, there must've been a record number of U-turns by the Conservatives in the last couple of years. Of course nobody gives any credit to Corbyn for that, but he's first to be blamed when conservatives announce these awful policies.

He's not blamed for the policies, he's blamed for his weak opposition to the policies.

As Errkal says, the Tory u-turns are due to newspaper pressure, not Corbyn.

[Meep]

It doesn't seem to occur to people that politics is not just about policy. You actually have to be able to lead effectively and debate with your opponents successfully. Corbyn simply lacks those personal qualities so it really doesn't matter whether you support his policies or not. All policy is worthless unless you can turn it into a platform and fight from that platform.

[Rex Kramer]

This is the bit I don't understand. Does Corbyn have some sort of copyright on his policies? Is there some kind of rule that says a competent politician couldn't run on the same platform?

[captain red dog]

I'm a Corbyn fan generally but his tactics in parliament in the last month have been utterly haphazard. No opposition to article 50 on the EU migrant issue but wants to secure their right to stay somehow. Opposes the Scotland referendum, wants Scottish Labour to oppose it, but would not block it at Westminster and would support the remain campaign.

He doesn't really seem an astute politician at all. For me he generally has the right policies but is just a bit inept.

[Snowcannon]

Looks like Geert has performed much worse than expected

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-39285803

[DML]

Corbyn is weak. May is weak.

The difference is Corbyn provides no opposition and is unelectable. Blair or even Brown would eat May for breakfast. Corbyn makes May look competent when in reality it's strawberry float up after strawberry float up.

Imagine thinking THERESA MAY is going to get you a good deal. Oh lordy. Might as well ask a bull to go buy you some china.

[Rex Kramer]

Shows they're willing to listen, I guess. It's not like there's any opposition or an upcoming general election (that we know of) - opinion polls have them way out in front. He could have gotten away with it.

All they care about what The Mail and The Sun think. So much government policy seems to be set against a backdrop of running it through the shitty filters of Dacre and Murdoch.

This. Listening to people would be good, but this was clearly a U-turn based on the Tory party shitting itself over the reaction of the Sun and Mail. Which is silly, there is no way the Sun or the Mail are going to support Corbyn when the next election rolls around.

I don't necessarily want a chancellor who listens to people (particularly after the fact). I want a chancellor who has a clear, economic plan with enough foresight to determine what effect his proposed changes will have. This U-turn just smacks of a group of people desperately digging down the side of the sofa to scrape up enough loose change to get a 4 pack of stella. There is now an obvious hole in the nations finances and they've now got 6 months to find another method of indirect taxation to fill it.

My main concern was the Hammond (prior to the budget) seemed the only senior member of the cabinet with some actual common sense and pragmatism. That's shot to pieces now.

[Moggy]

I guess to be fair to Hammond, he has been somewhat hamstrung by Cameron/Osborne and their ridiculous pledges.

But he should have been intelligent enough to have realised that the storm of protest from the right wing newspapers was going to happen.