The BBC 1 'Prime Minister' debate

[teamsaint]

The political "centre" has shifted rightwards to an alarming degree in the last 30 years, unfortunately, IMHO. The idea that the most disadvantaged in society should have to stump up for austerity policies & the failure of the financial classes, who laud the virtues of free-market capitalism, is pure anathema to me.

Well quite.
And that is the sad thing abut the anti Corbyn campaigns in almost all parts of the media, including those who ought to know better. The last Labour manifesto didn't really promise anything that wouldn't have been orthodoxy in the centre 30 years ago.

[Serial_Apologist]

An assertion. Older Remainers might remember that Keynesian economics once salvaged the country in a time of savage recession, and that the ascendancy of "New Right" monetarists which has held sway for the last 30 years is now overdue for consignment to the recycle bin.

It might have worked had consumerism not been invoked in the 1950s by that sector of the ruling classes that put short termism first and sustainability last, from whichever vantage point you define sustainability, because persuading the "lower orders" that a Faustian pact with the illusory "power" of individualistic choice would compensate the loss of once thriving working class communities, careers with some prospect of advancement on skill and experience counting over paper qualification, leaving people in the sh*t when the unsustainability of the system eventually came home to roost, viz. banking collapses, negative equity, and insufficient funds for state education, NHS, even police and armed forces. Then finally - having had the argument about greed, overpowerful trade unions and people "pricing themselves out of jobs" at last exposed for all to see as the lies they always had been - calling up that final resort to the achilles heel of ideology, patriotism (or nationalism) as a way of blaming anyone but themselves.

Consumerism became part of the alternative script to continuing to just exploit working class people by keeping them on low wages - before trade unions became "too powerful" to fuel that unsustainable consumer market rush, or revolution ensued - by subcontracting the burdens of capitalism's worst contradictions to e.g. SE Asia - where the cheaply made products to be sold here could be (and are being) made in sweatshops operating under political dictatorships. That the latter are now, btw, with Trump's thumbs up, giving the go ahead to the ecodestruction of the rainforests, illustrates how the "plot" is multifaceted and needs a multifactorially-based analysis to be understood, before comprehensively being acted on.

[Serial_Apologist]

Essential listening. Only 15 mins, but............
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006djw

I wonder if "Yes Minister" Sedwell knows the identity of the civilo servants who briefed the press over Corbyn's suitability for PM, along with the allegations of a mini-stroke - which I thought McCluskey dealt with rather well, along with other things, on the Marr show this morning.

[Richard Barrett]

Y I so despair of those on the so-called "left" of politics who have enabled this situation as much as the likes of Farage.

If a tree falls in a forest and nobody's there to hear it, is it still Jeremy Corbyn's fault?

[Bryn]

If a tree falls in a forest and nobody's there to hear it, is it still Jeremy Corbyn's fault?

Of course it is. How could you even doubt it?

[Bella Kemp]

Well quite.
And that is the sad thing abut the anti Corbyn campaigns in almost all parts of the media, including those who ought to know better. The last Labour manifesto didn't really promise anything that wouldn't have been orthodoxy in the centre 30 years ago.

That's the problem, alas, with Mr Corbyn and his blokeish chums: they want to drag us back thirty years or more. Those of us of a certain age remember high unemployment, strikes, civil unrest and general calamity. That centre orthodoxy of decades ago, and which seems so sweet and calm now, meant misery and ruin for so many. Real change is desperately needed in our country and it is incredibly tragic that we have dug up a socialist corpse and attempted to give it life.

[teamsaint]

That's the problem, alas, with Mr Corbyn and his blokeish chums: they want to drag us back thirty years or more. Those of us of a certain age remember high unemployment, strikes, civil unrest and general calamity. That centre orthodoxy of decades ago, and which seems so sweet and calm now, meant misery and ruin for so many. Real change is desperately needed in our country and it is incredibly tragic that we have dug up a socialist corpse and attempted to give it life.

I've thought about this post, and the problem seems to be that nothing that you mention has any connection to actual facts, or real events..

EG civil unrest and unemployment are always at their worst under tory governments. True they stopped strikes by more or less banning them, but the current rail strikes are a direct result of Tory government policy.

( I clearly remember high unemployment 30/40 years ago. I graduated in the year of peak thatcher unemployment.)

What change is it that you would like to see, exactly ?

[Joseph K]

That's the problem, alas, with Mr Corbyn and his blokeish chums: they want to drag us back thirty years or more. Those of us of a certain age remember high unemployment, strikes, civil unrest and general calamity. That centre orthodoxy of decades ago, and which seems so sweet and calm now, meant misery and ruin for so many. Real change is desperately needed in our country and it is incredibly tragic that we have dug up a socialist corpse and attempted to give it life.

This is a peculiar post. Is Diane Abbott 'blokeish'? Also: I think they surely meant 40 years ago, although at that point Thatcher was about to take power, so, we'd better go back 50 years. The post-WWII orthodoxy lead at first by a socialist Labour government under Attlee raised the living standards of millions of people. And um, what precisely do you mean by 'real change' other than socialism?? Because it's either no deal disaster capitalism turbo-neoliberalism ultra-nationalism of the Tories or soft-Brexit with possible re-entry into the EU quasi-socialism under Corbyn.

[MrGongGong]

If a tree falls in a forest and nobody's there to hear it, is it still Jeremy Corbyn's fault?

I didn't have you down as such an adherent to the script

No, not everything is his fault BUT he has failed

[LMcD]

If a tree falls in a forest and nobody's there to hear it, is it still Jeremy Corbyn's fault?

I expect he'll also be blamed for planting it, or encouraging somebody else to plant it, in the first place. I'm by no means an admirer of the man, but some of the anti-Corbyn material that's been produced of late seems to me to be bordering on the obsessive. Even if he has had a stroke, I'm sure there are numerous examples of this happening to leading public figures who've recovered and carried on. And I actually found myself agreeing with the leader of Unite when he attacked the journalists who came up with the 'frailty' story.

[Jazzrook]

I expect he'll also be blamed for planting it, or encouraging somebody else to plant it, in the first place. I'm by no means an admirer of the man, but some of the anti-Corbyn material that's been produced of late seems to me to be bordering on the obsessive. Even if he has had a stroke, I'm sure there are numerous examples of this happening to leading public figures who've recovered and carried on. And I actually found myself agreeing with the leader of Unite when he attacked the journalists who came up with the 'frailty' story.

Any other leader would have crumbled with the unrelenting hostility and smears that Corbyn has endured from the media, a terrified Establishment and a persistent group of MPs in his own party.

JR

[Serial_Apologist]

Any other leader would have crumbled with the unrelenting hostility and smears that Corbyn has endured from the media, a terrified Establishment and a persistent group of MPs in his own party.

JR

I have a theory that one important reason among many why those persistent Labour MPs are attacking Corbyn every time there appears to be some prospect of the Tories finally putting their foot in it for all time, is because, were they to be asked about their alternatives, they would be exposed as having nothing to offer other than some revamped version of Blairism, which helped get us into the situation we're now in. They are thus pre-empting the inevitable questions which would follow, since they'd rather Labour never won a general election than see themselves and their rôle in securing capitalism for the rich and powerful negatively inscribed in the annals of history.

[MrGongGong]

I think there is a problem when any criticism (granted that there has been much ridiculous nonsense in the media) of Corbyn gets one branded as a "Tory" or even worse a "centrist". The narrative appears to say that 1. he has been doing a great job and playing some kind of "long game" and 2. He is going to be able to somehow pull a mythical rabbit out of a hat once he gets elected....
Neither of which seem close to the truth
Binary thinking is everywhere it would seem

Any other leader would have crumbled with the unrelenting hostility and smears that Corbyn has endured from the media, a terrified Establishment and a persistent group of MPs in his own party.

JR

But he has FAILED ?
He failed to oppose Brexit
He went along with the whole thing
He was lukewarm about it
He joined in with the endless stuff about it all being only about trade
He is happy to make collaboration and co-operation with the rest of Europe more difficult
He is happy to remove our rights to travel and work

YES, it would be great for us to own our own railways and so on BUT the task in hand isn't that

[Serial_Apologist]

I think there is a problem when any criticism (granted that there has been much ridiculous nonsense in the media) of Corbyn gets one branded as a "Tory" or even worse a "centrist". The narrative appears to say that 1. he has been doing a great job and playing some kind of "long game" and 2. He is going to be able to somehow pull a mythical rabbit out of a hat once he gets elected....
Neither of which seem close to the truth
Binary thinking is everywhere it would seem

You could well be right, GG, but that would be down to forces that have done OK for themselves right through, from the Keynes-influenced era (1945-79) to the 2008 banking crisis and beyond - none of which are down to Corbyn but the persuasiveness of "free choice", whether that be in the market or at the ballot box, as long as you knew which side your bread was buttered on.

What any radical government, of the right or left needs to have to succeed in its mission, is a social "base" from which it draws objective support when push comes to shove. The Tories' base is big business, farming communities, money launderers (speculators) and the "little man"; Labour's the skilled working class, trade union bureaucracy, educational, voluntary and charitable sectors. Then there are those disempowered by the meritocracy's demise in favour of people with the right connections - the disenfranchised, whose prospects strongly indicate levels of radicalisation in any direction that makes the strongest most immediately plausible appeal. In such situations the support or otherwise in terms of activism and voting choices of intermediary layers who make up the majority of the population is always critical.

My ear-to-the-ground assessment is that the left has at last outgrown your binary thinking. If Corbyn were elected to head a government, and were Chris Mullin's A Very British Coup to be enacted for serious, I doubt very much if you would turn around and say, "Nothing to do with me, mate, I never supported Corbyn anyway". Where one finds oneself in today's squireocracy should define to what extent one can "afford" to be choosy.

[teamsaint]

I think there is a problem when any criticism (granted that there has been much ridiculous nonsense in the media) of Corbyn gets one branded as a "Tory" or even worse a "centrist". The narrative appears to say that 1. he has been doing a great job and playing some kind of "long game" and 2. He is going to be able to somehow pull a mythical rabbit out of a hat once he gets elected....
Neither of which seem close to the truth
Binary thinking is everywhere it would seem



But he has FAILED ?
He failed to oppose Brexit
He went along with the whole thing
He was lukewarm about it
He joined in with the endless stuff about it all being only about trade
He is happy to make collaboration and co-operation with the rest of Europe more difficult
He is happy to remove our rights to travel and work

YES, it would be great for us to own our own railways and so on BUT the task in hand isn't that

Isn't what you are saying an example of Binary thinking ?
I'd say Labour have attempted to move away from that. in fact they have specifically tried to frame current politics as something other than "Remain vs Leave" , and their tactics , though they may be open to debate, have reinforced that.

I think one can only really say that Corbyn has " failed" by reference to his election results ( and the big one in 2017 was generally seen as a qualified success) or if you want Labour policy to be something other than it is.

He may yet fail , ( and I think, primarily because of the endless media hostility he may be becoming a liability) but I don't think he can be said to have failed.