Labour Leadership Contest

[Stu Monty]

Lionel Hutz is in the house.

[Strontium]

Which Labour Government left office with the unemployment rate at a lower level than when it took office?

 

The first Ramsay MacDonald ministry that was in power from January to October 1924. Unemployment dropped from 11.9% to 10.9%.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-last-thing-labour-needs-is-a-leader-like-jeremy-corbyn-who-people-want-to-vote-for-10411466.html

 

At last sensible Labour politicians are injecting some maturity into the leadership debate. To start with, Tony Blair’s aide John McTernan called anyone who nominated Jeremy Corbyn a “moron”, which is such a refreshing change from the divisive and childish approach of the Left.

His next statement will be that Jeremy Corbyn smells like a poo-poo and anyone who votes for him has a tiny willy, because John McTernan understands the importance of Labour appearing grown up and united.

Now Blair himself has informed us Corbyn would be a disaster. This could cause a problem, because for giving his views in a speech Blair usually charges at least £200,000, and Labour’s finances are stretched enough as it is. Normally he’s advising the government of Kazakhstan or a Saudi Arabian oil company, or shaking hands with characters like Colonel Gaddafi so it’s surprising he didn’t suggest cancelling the election and putting the army in charge of the party, and sentencing Diane Abbott to 500 lashes. Even so it’s sweet of him to take time out from his busy schedule.

He said that if your heart is telling you to vote for Corbyn, you need a heart transplant. You can see how he thinks this, because the first word anyone thinks of when they see Blair is “heart”. Tony Heart Blair is what his friends President Assad of Syria and ex-military ruler Mubarak of Egypt call him.

When you’re responsible for all the heartfelt warmth and sunshine that resulted from invading Iraq, it’s understandable if you get angry with heartless types such as Jeremy Corbyn who opposed it all along, but not everyone can live up to Blair’s standards.

Blair’s supporters point out that although his current image is tarnished, we should remember he was hugely popular in 1997.

The Blair viewpoint has clearly affected Margaret Beckett, as she’s one of the MPs who nominated Corbyn, and her response to being called a moron was to agree. She regrets helping him to stand for the election, she says, as she never guessed he would win as much support as he has. This is a novel attitude towards democracy, that the worst thing you can do in an election is allow someone to stand if they might win.

Maybe Labour should change its rules for elections again, so that anyone who disagrees with Blair is only allowed to stand if they sign a pledge to get fewer than eight votes.

Luckily, Corbyn’s opponents are making a persuasive case for their own bids. Andy Burnham is especially clear that he’s opposed to the Tory’s Welfare Bill, as it will “Hit working families” and “hit children particularly badly”. Indeed he’s so opposed to it that he was determined not to vote against it. The most effective way to oppose it, he insisted, was to abstain rather than vote against it, because that way he can unite the party against it.

It’s so rare that a politician speaks clearly like that, in a language we can all understand. Presumably he’ll be telling all his supporters not to vote for him in the leadership election, but to abstain as that way he can win by even more.

Burnham is known as an Everton fan, so when he’s at their games he must try and persuade the Everton supporters to sing “Spurs and Everton, Spurs and Everton, we’ll abstain on this one evermore, we’ll abstain on this one ever-more”, rather than fall into the trap of supporting the team he supports by supporting them.

Maybe his plan is to make Labour electable again by supporting all the different policies. If he becomes leader, Labour will support the cuts and oppose them, and oppose fox-hunting but support it as well, and that way the party can win votes from everyone.

It could be that the reason three of the candidates are struggling to make an impact is they don’t seem capable of expressing what they stand for.

Whenever they’re asked what they believe in they make grand replies such as “I want a Britain not of down but of up, for the always and not the never, that reaches out to all of us, not only people on the 133 bus, a Britain not just of the liver but also the kidney, a Britain that can care, can share, be debonair, fair, abstain on the austere, and say a prayer like Tony Blair.” 

Liz Kendall makes some effort to stand for something definite, which is to be like Blair but more so, and next week she’ll probably criticise Blair for only invading Iraq once when he should have done it twice.

There are reports that Kendall has asked Yvette Cooper to drop out, as Liz stands the best chance of beating Corbyn. As every survey shows Kendall is by some distance last, that’s impressive and I might try this myself. I’ll suggest to Mo Farah that he drops out of the 5,000m in next year’s Olympics, as my time of two hours is the only one that stands a chance of beating the Kenyans.

All three are now squabbling, not about ideas or policies or even their favourite type of biscuit, but over which one has the best chance to beat Corbyn. And they must beat him, because by being capable of expressing his ideas clearly and simply, for example by voting against welfare cuts, he makes himself unelectable.

If you look at Corbyn’s record it’s clear he just can’t win elections. In his constituency of Islington North he inherited a majority of 4,456, which is now 21,194. He’s one of the few Labour MPs whose vote increased between 2005 and 2010, when he added 5,685 to his majority. This is typical of the man, defying the official Labour policy of losing votes and getting more of them instead, just to be a rebel.

So let’s hope one of the others triumphs, and at least wins back the votes Labour lost in Scotland, where so many people at the last election said “I canna vote Labour, they don’t abstain enough for me, the wee morons.” 

 

[Section_31]

The issue with Labour leaving higher unemployment avoids a few important issues. The first post war Labour government probably had hundreds of thousands of men returning from military service without jobs to go to. 

The Major governmemt was also responsible for the explosion in incapacity benefit claims (not Labour, would you believe it?) as it parked jobless people there to get them off the dole books. 

Labour's last jobless totals were hampered somewhat no doubt by the near collapse of the global economy. 

[Stickman]

You listen to Corbyn speak and all I think is why wouldn't you want him leader why wouldn't you want him as PM....

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bns3e8_QEA

[Section_31]

Because he's left wing. LEFT WING!!!! 

[VladimirIlyich]

Because he's left wing. LEFT WING!!!!

Yeah,its shocking to believe in policies which actually benefit the weaker in society rather than the strongest,usually financially too.

Some unbelievable bullshit that has now become almost 'factual' nowadays.

[Stickman]

Because he's left wing. LEFT WING!!!! 

 

 

Shit I forgot...and it's easy to do I mean it hasn't been mentioned on the news for a good...what 15 minutes.

[Section_31]

Left wing firebrand Jeremy Corbyn will set the Labour party back approximately 1,000 years. What Labour really needs to do is pursue exactly the same policies as the Tories but do it a bit nicer. 

[Jairzinho]

Left wing firebrand Jeremy Corbyn will set the Labour party back approximately 1,000 years. What Labour really needs to do is pursue exactly the same policies as the Tories but do it a bit nicer. 

 

Adult politics.

[Scooby Dudek]

What is also starting to anger me is the arrogance of the party elite. 

After Red Ed undeservedly won the last leadership election, due to the loony left union block vote. They decided to change the rules, so that the left would no longer have strength. One member one vote would destroy the left vote within the party, it shows how completely out of touch they are with their own party members. We believe in democracy, so long as we get the result we tried to rig.

 

The career politicians are now panicking about the thought of losing their comfortable job and blaming the people they are meant to represent. Quite ironic.  

[Section_31]

What is also starting to anger me is the arrogance of the party elite. 

After Red Ed undeservedly won the last leadership election, due to the loony left union block vote. They decided to change the rules, so that the left would no longer have strength. One member one vote would destroy the left vote within the party, it shows how completely out of touch they are with their own party members. We believe in democracy, so long as we get the result we tried to rig.

 

The career politicians are now panicking about the thought of losing their comfortable job and blaming the people they are meant to represent. Quite ironic.  

 

The problem is that political parties no longer represent anyone except business and the super rich.

 

The Tories don't represent middle england, the judiciery, the police and  the establishment, they represent G4S, Amazon, and the whims of the US State Department. Labour don't represent the working class, public sector workers and union members, they represent pretty much the same as above. 

 

If you got the Tory cabinet and the Labour shadow cabinet around a pub table one night, kept the Hennesy flowing and let them let rip, they'd probably agree on virtually everything. 

[A Red]

Corbyn seems to me as a bloke who believes in what he says. Apologies if this has been covered but where does he stand now on a united Ireland? I know he was in favour of it but cant see anything recent

[Strontium]

The problem is that political parties no longer represent anyone except business and the super rich.

Damn, when do I get my cut.

[Vincent Vega]

Such as their record on job creation? Increasing unemployment during every Labour government.

 

If they can't get that right, who the hell would trust them.

 

Only one party has ever seen over 3 million people on the dole with millions more moved to YTS schemes or on to long term sickness benefit to hide the true unemployment figure.

[dennis tooth]

Which one?

 

They claim to represent the "working class".

I already won this argument, its the labour religion though, labour supporters from working class communities are like christians going to church to pray to a god that likes to watch babies being raped and do nowt.

 

Same way if adolf hitler won the next election for labour, as long as it was labour, regular moral intelligent people like section, monty and numero utero, would appluad, gas the jews just wear a red tie when you do and our intellect is stumped of critical thought processes. Theyre like footy supporters they just want to win and think democracy is about focusing on negatives like keeping the tories out, even though every mainstream party is tory. I can only put it down to cult like or religious influence of poor people waiting for jesus to come out the sky and take us to paradise which seems to have seeped in an infected them to become political zombies, see you in five years.

 

I urge you to keep asking and pestering them as it saves me the bother even if we are diametrically opposed theres a truth about labour we both recognise, this corbyn messiah shit is already tedious, five years to go. His own party dont want him even if he got in between labour,bbc, murdoch, the tories and the likes of ukip he wont get anything passed of any use if he ever even got into power it would just wreck the economy but these people like going round in circles and will keep spinning until screwed into their grave.

[dennis tooth]

They have this narrative about blair when he came in he was innocent, spent money on schools and hospitals, forgetting it was all ppi still being paid back now at 1000% mark up and getting schools and hospitals broke bankrupt closed or indebted forever. I mean rupert murdoch didnt get him into power to have nice hair to ruffle but these people are misty eyed, theyre like political bitters. Ifithadntbinfers.

[Bobby Hundreds]

Employment figures alongside crime statistics aren't worth shit, no matter which side is using the numbers in their favour.

[Anny Road]

As soon as Corbyn gets onto the subject of tax it is game over election lost. It is that simple.

[Jairzinho]

What percentage of the electorate is paid more than £150k p/a?

[Stu Monty]

As soon as Corbyn gets onto the subject of tax it is game over election lost. It is that simple.

As I said after the election I'd love to see the correlation between Labour voting and being PAYE.

 

Loads of self-employed people get a bit twitchy when you start to talk tax.

[Anny Road]

I'm not disagreeing with raising taxes but as you say Stu any wiff of rises and idiots shit the bed.

[Jairzinho]

Clive Lewis has to be in Corbyn's shadow cabinet.

[Bobby Hundreds]

As soon as Corbyn gets onto the subject of tax it is game over election lost. It is that simple.

In corbyns little manifest he says the first thing would be to get people to pay what they are supposed to do first. I'd definitely introduce a speculation tax for the banks. The fucks.

[dennis tooth]

Yeah then labour would vote him down on it.

 

Hes forgeten his role is a token leftie, to bring all his supporters to the labour parties benefit without having to put through a single proposal or promise he makes, he smells of mi 5 to me but it matters not, his own party wont back him on anything.

One of the first thing blair did was employ young party career politickans as his whips, empowered by the dirt they had on everyone, corbyns a dinosaur still walking but theres too few to get anywhere even within his own party among the big fish.

For an idea of the level of childfucking in parliment dont spot anything odd here whatever you do

 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qZ2p8_4pqTI