Author Topic: Jeremy Corbyn for PM!!  (Read 240608 times)

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Offline Miss Taken Identity

Re: Jeremy Corbyn for PM!!
« Reply #1455 on: August 06, 2020, 05:40:37 PM »
What a lovely update.

Hello everyone,

How amazing are we!

I want to share with you my thoughts on what this fund represents to me, and also to update you on developments.

I have always felt that Jeremy spoke from his heart, and we listened with ours and heard the call. I firmly believe there are really only two roads to choose in this life, one is of love, the other of fear. Through this fund we have not only made our voices heard but we have also declared our united hope and belief that a better world is possible.

I wanted to find a way that we could maintain our connection to one another moving forward into the future. To that aim, I have been in touch with the organisers of an initiative called Truth Defence which started around the same time as the crowdfund, and clearly shares our aims and hopes for a better world: https://www.truthdefence.org. It is dedicated to promoting a culture of honesty and integrity in politics and public life, which is exactly the principles that Jeremy stands for. Please join as a registered supporter under this link https://www.truthdefence.org/join or send an email to truth.defence2020@gmail.com if you want to sign up to be part of our network for free.

In the meantime, all funds raised by us to support Jeremy in a potential legal defence will be held in trust for that purpose, and details of that will be announced soon.

We really have created something truly amazing and we can go forward knowing that what we stand for is a force to be reckoned with.

With love to you all,

Carole


And almost £330 000 raised.

Who is Carole? someone important? 

I have always believed Corbyn was more anti Israel- which doesn't quite equate to jew hating IMO.

Othera have been border line anti semitic.

Poor Jezza, never does this guy get a break:
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1318473/jeremy-corbyn-news-labour-party-peerages-house-of-lords-pension-tax-spt

But if he needs financial assistance his bezzy mate 'die hard commie' of the people for the people red len can afford to help out. ^*&&

 https://www.express.co.uk/comment/columnists/leo-mckinstry/1218925/Len-McCluskey-labour-party-general-election-defeat
'Never underestimate the power of stupid people'... George Carlin

Offline Venturi Swirl

Re: Jeremy Corbyn for PM!!
« Reply #1456 on: August 10, 2020, 10:11:33 PM »
Oh so true, from The Independent

Jeremy Corbyn’s complaint of ‘sabotage’ confirms he was unfit for office
John Rentoul2 days ago
The Independent employs reporters around the world to bring you truly independent journalism. To support us, please consider a contribution.

Jeremy Corbyn and his close associates, having lost two elections, are determined to prove that the British people made the right decision on both occasions. The former Labour leader has put his name to a document that accuses “senior paid employees of the party” of “sabotage” during the 2017 election.

Like most conspiracy theories, it is self-refuting. Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that it is true. Why does Corbyn suppose that Labour staff didn’t want him to be prime minister? Was it simply cosmic malice, or was it for the same reason that Labour MPs tried to get rid of him, namely that they didn’t agree with him? And might the reasons for disagreeing with him not be closely related to the reasons the British people didn’t vote for him?

It is the same with all attempts by Corbyn to blame someone else for his own failure. Yes, a lot of the mainstream media were against him. That is almost the whole point of the Corbyn movement: it was hostile to the establishment, including to the established media, and expected hostility in return, because it saw itself as a challenge to the media’s power. So what was the plan?

It turns out that the plan was to revel in the opposition of the “right-wing media”, and to use it to rouse the radical instincts of the British people. And when that failed, to blame the media for that failure. Which is, in effect, to blame the voters for being dupes.

Same plan for taking on the “Blairites” in the party: call them Tories, and use their opposition to Corbyn as a rallying call for hundreds of thousands of new members to join the party to fight for something that must be “socialism” because the Blairites/Tories/neoliberals were against it; and when that finally failed, blame them for sabotage.

What is surprising, in fact, is how little resistance Labour staff put up to the Corbynite reign of error. The document that Corbyn and his eight top people have signed fails to provide a single example of obstruction. That is because the 2017 campaign was an unusual one. The central fact of that election is that hardly anyone expected Labour to win. Corbyn himself, and Seumas Milne, his chief adviser and a co-signatory of the “sabotage” document, expected to lose.

That made it easier for those Labour Party staff who were uneasy at the prospect of Corbyn as prime minister – and they did exist, Corbyn is right about that – to resolve their dilemma. They were willing to work to try to save as much of the party as possible, the better to rebuild in future. Many Labour MPs made the same calculation.

Thus the 2017 Labour campaign was one of the most united and effective ever fought by the party. Unexpectedly, it came within inches of putting Corbyn in Downing Street. The document complaining of sabotage repeats the absurd statistic that “Labour was less than 2,500 votes in key seats away from forming a government”. That ignores the hundreds of thousands of votes in other seats that would have been needed to make those few votes in the closest seats possible.

Priti Patel accuses Jeremy Corbyn of ‘racist’ policies
But I always go out of my way to be fair to Corbyn, and it is true that if the Conservatives had lost 10 more seats, he would have been prime minister. Once Theresa May had run out of DUP MPs, and perhaps three Labour MPs who would have balked (Ian Austin, John Mann and John Woodcock are now in the House of Lords, having urged people to vote against Corbyn in 2019), a rainbow majority of Labour, SNP, Lib Dems, Plaid Cymru and the Greens would have put Corbyn in as prime minister.

So, yes, Corbyn could have won in 2017, but it wasn’t sabotage from his own side that stopped it. The giveaway, as Nick Cohen points out, is that Corbyn complains about 2017, when a lot of Labour staff were “Blairites” and he did better than expected, and not about 2019, when he had total control of the party machine and did worse than at any time since 1935.

The problem with Corbyn was never that he was unelectable, but that he would have been a disaster if he had been elected. With this pitiful whine of the sore loser, he has proved it. He has no judgement, and prefers the warm bath of myth to the harsh reality of responsibility.
"Surely the fact that their accounts were different reinforces their veracity rather than diminishes it? If they had colluded in protecting ........ surely all of their accounts would be the same?" - Faithlilly

Offline Venturi Swirl

Re: Jeremy Corbyn for PM!!
« Reply #1457 on: August 23, 2020, 08:38:46 AM »
This new book looks a fascinating read.  Here’s an excerpt, with another to follow:

Aides feared Jeremy Corbyn was sabotaging his own campaign in Labour’s chaotic ride to disaster
August 15 2020, 1.10am

ILLUSTRATION BY TONY BELL
Team Corbyn learnt that Labour would lose the 2019 general election three months before a voter had gone to the polls. On September 22, the Sunday morning of the party’s annual conference in Brighton, John McDonnell walked with his wife, Cynthia, to a meeting room in the bowels of the Metropole hotel. What the shadow chancellor was about to find out would prove difficult to stomach.

In the last days of August, Niall Sookoo, Labour’s director of elections, and Tim Waters, its head of data, had commissioned a poll from YouGov that turned the optimism of Jeremy Corbyn’s inner circle on its head. According to a poll of 20,000 voters, it would end the campaign with just 138 MPs — its worst result since 1918.

Sookoo invited those who would run Labour’s campaign to this private meeting to warn them of the calamity ahead. With McDonnell and his wife sat Ian Lavery and Andrew Gwynne, the national campaign co-ordinators, and Carl Shoben, director of strategy from the leader of the opposition’s office. Nursing hangovers from the first night’s festivities, they convened at 9am and gathered round a television with Danish pastries to watch the Labour leader sit down for his traditional conference interview on The Andrew Marr Show on the BBC. McDonnell fidgeted with the remote control but could not get the TV to work. By the time room service arrived to provide technical support, Corbyn’s interview was over.

Lavery was in no mood to listen, even though the poll suggested he would lose his own seat of Wansbeck, in the heart of the Northumberland coalfield, to the Conservatives. “People in the north just won’t vote Tory,” he boomed. “It just won’t happen!” Waters suggested that he had misunderstood the nature of the problem: remainers were abandoning Labour. The Liberal Democrats would almost quadruple their 2017 result and win 44 seats, overturning majorities of more than 20,000. They would also deprive Labour of enough votes in “leave” seats to let the Tories in through the middle. The Conservatives were even projected to win Vauxhall, where 78% voted Remain, thanks to a Lib Dem surge at Labour’s expense.

McDonnell listened in silence. His worst fears had been realised: despite his best efforts to cajole Corbyn into supporting a second referendum, Labour was repelling pro-EU voters. As Waters sat down, the shadow chancellor delegated the inquisition to his wife. Cynthia, like Lavery, struggled at first to believe what she had been told. She had spent much of her career at market-research companies and queried whether the research was watertight. An angry Lavery went further. YouGov, attendees recall him fuming, had been founded by card-carrying Conservatives, a charge he raised with Waters and Sookoo repeatedly. He insisted that they could not and should not trust a “Tory firm”.

But McDonnell had already made up his mind: Labour must do everything in its power to win back pro-EU voters. It would refrain from discussing the detail of Brexit and extol the virtues of giving voters the final say via a second referendum. It was a strategy Seumas Milne, Corbyn’s chief strategist, had long argued against, warning that the working class could desert Labour en masse. But he was not present that day. He was also increasingly outmuscled by Corbyn’s oldest comrade, who was by then plotting Milne’s demotion. “From that point out, our strategy was to hug the remainers,” says an official present that morning.

Many in the room still believed. The election of 2017 had shattered the old certainties, and Corbyn was determined to do so again. Even the doubters felt there might be a path to victory, if only, as Milne had told colleagues in August, they could move the argument beyond Brexit.

It would also require Corbyn to summon every drop of the energy that the preceding months of Westminster drama and internal scandal had drained from him. Those closest to him suspected he was in no state to do so.

As Marcus Roberts, a YouGov pollster, told the Today programme of Corbyn’s chances just before the campaign began: “The soufflé never rises twice.” Not only were Corbyn and his team deeply divided; Corbyn was no longer the politician he had once been: Brexit and the [ censored word]emitism row had sapped his confidence and made him the most unpopular Labour leader of the past 45 years. Paul Hilder, a data consultant to the campaign, warned — just as Labour MPs did after their weekly surgeries — that the leader had become a liability. He recommended that the party deploy a broader team of spokespeople to neutralise the damage a campaign that relied on Corbyn alone would do. Most striking of all, he proposed that Labour avoid putting its politicians centre stage at all. “Brexit meant that everyone just f***ing hated politicians,” recalled one aide. Those around Corbyn understood this argument, but had little option but to ignore it, for by then he was the only thing holding “the Project” together.
"Surely the fact that their accounts were different reinforces their veracity rather than diminishes it? If they had colluded in protecting ........ surely all of their accounts would be the same?" - Faithlilly

Offline Venturi Swirl

Re: Jeremy Corbyn for PM!!
« Reply #1458 on: August 23, 2020, 08:50:23 AM »
This extract actually had me feeling sorry for the man:

I can’t take any more bullets
With parliament dissolved, Corbyn’s time on the road could begin in earnest. He went with McDonnell to the shadow chancellor’s home city of Liverpool to unveil Labour’s battle bus. Clambering aboard, he waved for the cameras. He flashed a thumbs-up as he fired the starting gun on his month on the campaign trail: “This message will go across the whole country!”

The day before, Corbyn had what one aide described as a “tantrum” when he learnt that — unlike the bus propelling Jo Swinson and the Liberal Democrats — his campaign wheels were powered not by an electric battery but a diesel engine of the sort that his own manifesto would promise to outlaw by 2030. In his exasperation, he wrote to close aides including Murphy, who was leading the campaign, from his personal Gmail account: “I see the [diesel] bus appears which I hope does not get too many negatives. As soon as rest of grid and operation notes are available can I get them so I can know a week ahead what is being planned and other requests that may appear can be factored in.” The response, from Marsha-Jane Thompson, an aide in his office, would do little to soothe him: “Once we win we can mandate investment in electric buses!” She then turned to the senior management team WhatsApp group: “JC unhappy that lib dems have an electric bus.” Aides quickly agreed it would not be feasible to change tack. Murphy responded: “Can someone let JC know this?” Thompson refused: “Can’t take any more bullets.”

Corbyn’s seemingly trivial objections underlined a deeper dysfunction. His detractors at Westminster often contended that he had no idea what he was doing. For once, the jibe was accurate — though not for want of trying on Corbyn’s part. Strategy for the campaign he was supposed to be leading had largely been decided — or, more accurately, disagreed on — in his absence.

Before arriving in Liverpool, Corbyn had demanded to know why he had even been asked to spend the morning in the drizzle at all, especially as the NEC was meeting at Southside, Labour HQ in London. “Hi JC,” came Thompson’s reply. “It was noticed but as Amy [Jackson, Corbyn’s political secretary], Andrew [Fisher, his policy adviser] and Seumas said in the meeting yesterday the advice was to have a speech to launch campaign as not appropriate for you to be at the NEC.” Corbyn shot back: “Yes that may have been the advice but it was never given to me at any time. I am therefore stuck between not being at the NEC or upsetting the events that have been organised when I was not consulted on any of it. Can we please make sure I am fully consulted in future and have the grid at least a week ahead. I realise everyone is working very hard to deliver but I am fully entitled to be consulted before these decisions are made.”

Corbyn could barely trust his closest lieutenants even when he was in the same room. Now he would be marooned more than 200 miles away as they met without him, with only two twentysomething junior aides for company. The following day, he repeated his plea. “I need to see the whole grid not just parts of it. Can you send it now?” Each day of the campaign began with a 7am conference call. McDonnell, the self-appointed chairman of the campaign, led the conversation. Murphy, Milne, Fisher, Gwynne, Lavery and Sookoo would also dial in. By the end of the first week of the campaign, Corbyn was insisting on participating as well.

The idea that their leader would interrupt his packed schedule to join this routine discussion would ordinarily be preposterous. He had not dialled in once in 2017. But for Corbyn, who had grown distressed while being denied access to information, it became an imperative. He began to dial in every day, regardless of his location. An aide recalled: “He came onto the call every morning asking for his diary.” It would often take hours of back and forth between Corbyn and Murphy, egged on by Corbyn’s impatient wife, Laura Alvarez, before he was satisfied that he had been given a sufficiently detailed agenda.

His refusal to use the diesel bus, meanwhile, meant he was travelling the country on trains. It made communication near impossible. Corbyn frequently cut in and out of reception and was forced to borrow the phones of those around him. He made one Sunday morning call as he tended to the marrows on his allotment, buffeted by wind which rendered his voice inaudible. The man on whose shoulders the hopes of the left rested had been reduced to spending vital hours of the campaign bickering over his right to see his own schedule. “It was like he’d had a breakdown,” said one aide. “He just wouldn’t drop the stuff about the diary and dialling onto the calls. It was his way of trying to regain control.”

More worrying perhaps was the nature of the calls he insisted on joining. McDonnell nominally led the discussions. Murphy would often step in. But she was wary of being made the fall guy by McDonnell and would remind participants that she was not in charge. (“It’s not my thing. Never made one strategic decision, all this, you know, this election guru — what a load of f***ing bollocks,” she says now.) Whereas in 2017, Milne had signed off all strategic decisions, now he was merely one of many voices in the room. Fisher, meanwhile, had refused to share the draft manifesto with him — or anyone he regarded as being in the Milne/Murphy Brexit axis — while Murphy responded by closely guarding the grid. Sookoo, who despised Milne, in turn refused to share his list of key seats with Milne, Murphy or Jackson. The three were forced to go behind his back during the early days of the campaign and get a copy from Lavery instead. Said one aide: “Nine-tenths of my bloody day was spent communicating on behalf of people who wouldn’t communicate directly with each other.”

Corbyn with Karie Murphy, who would remind participants that she was not in charge
Corbyn with Karie Murphy, who would remind participants that she was not in charge
DOMINIC LIPINSKI
As it turned out, that first fortnight of the campaign did not unfold in the way that either party had hoped or expected. Large parts of Yorkshire and the Midlands — and with them dozens of Labour-held Conservative targets — were submerged by floods. Johnson’s visits to comfort the afflicted went about as well as might have been expected. “I’m not very happy about talking to you, so, if you don’t mind, I’ll just motor on with what I’m doing,” came the reply from one middle-aged woman glad-handed by Johnson in flood-hit South Yorkshire.

McDonnell attempted to recapture the agenda. Corbyn, he proposed, would upstage Johnson by making a second visit to areas affected by the floods to highlight cuts to flood defences overseen by the coalition. There was one problem: Corbyn himself. He refused to go, yet again citing his diary and the fact he had not been kept in the loop. Thompson wrote: “JC currently doesn’t want to go with John’s suggestion of a visit today. So would need convincing by someone.” Anjula Singh, the director of communications, shot back: “What’s his objection?” No reply was forthcoming. The office was left to debate the best way of shaking Corbyn out of his sulk about the diary commitments. “He could have them WhatsApp in advance if possible? Stops any suggestion he isn’t getting them,” said Murphy. Thompson replied: “He has them given to him in his hand and his personal email . . . as he requested.”

With less than three weeks to go and Labour 10 points behind in most polls, some aides had arrived at the extraordinary conclusion that Corbyn was sabotaging his own campaign. He was often late and appeared to overstay at events to minimise his day’s commitments. During a visit to Stoke-on-Trent, Thompson relayed the assessment of another colleague: “JC was deliberately adding extra things and talking to people to delay and then spoke for 30 mins plus at the campaign stop once they had arrived 40 mins late.” Others feared that Alvarez was encouraging her husband’s worst instincts in order to protect him from the pressures of campaigning. Such was the disintegration of trust within Corbyn’s office that aides nicknamed her “Yoko”.

On the morning of his visit to Stoke, he had begun the day at a canal boat serving home-made Staffordshire oatcakes. According to one source, Alvarez was “in one of her moods where she decided Jeremy needed to be on TV with his wife”. As an ITV crew filmed Corbyn preparing an oatcake with the local parliamentary candidate, Alvarez defied protocol and marched up to Corbyn: “Make me one.” She then sat down and said to him in Spanish: “Make me one with honey. I want one with honey.” Two junior aides frantically intervened and attempted to remove Alvarez, who was obscuring the shot. She refused, giving the staff an upbraiding in full view of the rolling camera. “I’m trying to make him happy and you’re stopping it,” she snapped. “I’m his wife, you need to let me do this, you don’t understand what’s good for him.” Corbyn declined to intervene.

A cameraman whispered to one aide: “What the f*** is going on?” Another aide said: “This is really awkward, what do we do? There are like 10 cameras here, this is f***ing mental.” In the end, it took a nervous call to ITV that afternoon to prevent them from using the footage. The incident underscored one of the unhappiest conclusions of Corbyn’s office: in his poor state and during the long days, Corbyn had come to rely on Alvarez as an emotional shield.
"Surely the fact that their accounts were different reinforces their veracity rather than diminishes it? If they had colluded in protecting ........ surely all of their accounts would be the same?" - Faithlilly

Offline faithlilly

Re: Jeremy Corbyn for PM!!
« Reply #1459 on: August 31, 2020, 03:08:50 PM »
Matt Chorley@timesradio

Best Prime Minister we  never had poll.

Jeremy Corbyn by a country mile.
Brietta posted on 10/04/2022 “But whether or not that is the reason behind the delay I am certain that Brueckner's trial is going to take place.”

Let’s count the months, shall we?

Offline Venturi Swirl

Re: Jeremy Corbyn for PM!!
« Reply #1460 on: September 01, 2020, 06:46:20 PM »
Bless his greying, threadbare, sandal encased cottons...

“Jeremy Corbyn’s position as Britain’s leading out-of-touch, hopeless cult leader* was secured today after he took victory in a Twitter poll world cup of ‘Greatest PMs we never had’ so seriously he recorded a victory speech, claiming the win – which only came after a considerable push from Corbynite Twitter accounts to hijack the fun poll – didn’t “give the response that a lot of our media pundits really expected – or possibly the one that they wanted”. It’s truly staggering that after 5 years of leadership, Corbyn still takes social media support on a platform primarily used by young people – and had #KickBorisOut and #VoteTheToriesOut trending on election day – seriously…”
"Surely the fact that their accounts were different reinforces their veracity rather than diminishes it? If they had colluded in protecting ........ surely all of their accounts would be the same?" - Faithlilly

Offline Erngath

Re: Jeremy Corbyn for PM!!
« Reply #1461 on: September 01, 2020, 11:45:24 PM »
Matt Chorley@timesradio

Best Prime Minister we  never had poll.

Jeremy Corbyn by a country mile.

Certainly not for me.
John Smith was the best Prime Minister we never had.
Not in a million years was it dear old Jeremy.

He probably did more to lose the Scottish Labour vote than any other influence here.
Deal with the failings of others as gently as with your own.

Offline Venturi Swirl

Re: Jeremy Corbyn for PM!!
« Reply #1462 on: September 02, 2020, 07:24:22 AM »
Certainly not for me.
John Smith was the best Prime Minister we never had.
Not in a million years was it dear old Jeremy.

He probably did more to lose the Scottish Labour vote than any other influence here.
Daniel Finkelstein agrees with you (almost)

My vote for the best PM we never had
Daniel Finkelstein
Butler was bitterly disappointed. It had been widely expected, following the resignation of Anthony Eden, that he would be chosen. The decision floored him. He was regarded at the time as a “good loser” but this is only because the lobby correspondent to whom he expressed his real opinion thought it so intemperate that, as an act of friendship, he didn’t publish it.

Butler did, however, earn another title. Because of how close he came and the way he was thwarted, because he had repeatedly stood in as acting prime minister, and most of all because he was seen as a modern, more liberal Conservative, Butler was dubbed by many “the best prime minister we never had”.

Over the weekend my colleague Matt Chorley incautiously organised a Twitter poll in advance of discussing on Times Radio who should actually be considered, in the modern era, the best prime minister we never had (BPMWNH). Butler or any number of rivals?

Thousands of supporters of Jeremy Corbyn piled in, voting their man the winner. Rather sweetly, they were so jubilant about their triumph — the victorious Mr Corbyn (I promise I’m not making this up) broadcast an acceptance speech — that Matt was forced to remind his followers that it had only been a bit of fun.

But of course it’s only fun because there is a serious edge. It’s about considering the characteristics of a successful prime minister and reviewing the reputations of historical figures.

Let’s consider the basics. In order to be a successful prime minister, you’ve got to be able to win elections. Macmillan, for instance, would not be as highly regarded if he had been defeated at his first general election in 1959. So we shouldn’t consider any party leader who had the chance to be prime minister but was rejected by the voters. Either they weren’t right for the job and couldn’t take people with them, or they weren’t running at the right time. I would certainly argue that timeliness — suiting the moment — is an important part of being a leader.

Sponsored

This obviously eliminates Mr Corbyn, which I am content to do as I regard him as the prime minister it is best we never had. But in case you think I have established this criteria just to exclude people I disagree with, it also eliminates William Hague. Given the hours I put in to make it happen, I naturally think he would have been a very good prime minister. That is not, however, the point. To be a party leader you have to animate a faction that thinks you are terrific. Enough to win more than a Twitter poll. To be prime minister, certainly a good one, you have to win over the large part of a nation.

This narrows the field to those who came close, were taken seriously as possible leaders, but were never actually rejected by voters.

It is important to note just how narrow this is. It excludes many people who might have been excellent. Almost everybody commonly discussed as BPMWNHs is a man. Statistically it is highly likely that the actual BPMWNH is a woman who was never even elected to parliament.

Now to Butler. It wasn’t an accidental oversight or a gross injustice that led him to be denied the top prize. It was because his support base in the party was too narrow and he lacked the killer instinct.

Repeatedly — in 1953 when Churchill was incapacitated, in 1957 and in 1963 — Butler failed to press his case at the crucial moment. In 1963, in particular, the job might have been his if he had made clear he wouldn’t serve under Home. But it’s not just that he wasn’t ruthless enough; it’s that, for all his subtle humour, he couldn’t fill the stage.

In 1963 Lord Hailsham was considered too vulgar to prevail but Butler was not vulgar enough. He had a big conference speech to make as Macmillan’s stand-in, with the leadership vacant, yet he couldn’t make his address personal enough or exciting enough to make his claim irresistible.

This failing suggests he might have struggled in office too. Successful prime ministers need to be just vulgar enough and just enough of an actor. That’s true of Macmillan, but also of Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. Boris Johnson is finding it a challenge to locate the sweet spot. Gordon Brown certainly struggled. Butler would have been nowhere near.

Lacking the killer instinct also puts paid to the BPMWNH ambitions, supposing they have any, of David Miliband and Alan Johnson. As it did of Shirley Williams before them.

Yet there are others who have too much killer instinct. Denis Healey for example, Barbara Castle, Nye Bevan and certainly Ken Clarke. Too combative, too many enemies. I once asked a wise Tory observer who would win the leadership in 2001. Iain Duncan Smith he said. Really? I replied. Yes, he said. His rivals Michael Portillo and Mr Clarke want the leadership, but only on their own terms. You can’t win the leadership like that.

So principle is important, but a certain flexibility and opacity is essential not just for gaining the office, but being successful in it. As Clement Attlee showed, for example, and Stanley Baldwin.

It is also important to have those principles at the right moment. Ask Mr Johnson. Michael Heseltine might have been a brilliant prime minister before Mrs Thatcher (when he wasn’t viable) but couldn’t have built a governing coalition after her. George Osborne’s moment went with Brexit. And there was never quite the moment when Roy Jenkins could have united Labour behind him, which he would have needed, however capable he was.

Which leaves me just with John Smith and Hugh Gaitskell. I believe both these Labour leaders would have become prime minister if they had not died so young. Both were just thespian enough, just principled enough. You could pick either. But Gaitskell was the braver, the more reformist and the superior as a minister. He also would, I think, have made a better prime minister than Harold Wilson who succeeded him as opposition leader. So he gets my vote.
"Surely the fact that their accounts were different reinforces their veracity rather than diminishes it? If they had colluded in protecting ........ surely all of their accounts would be the same?" - Faithlilly

Offline faithlilly

Re: Jeremy Corbyn for PM!!
« Reply #1463 on: September 02, 2020, 06:15:43 PM »
Certainly not for me.
John Smith was the best Prime Minister we never had.
Not in a million years was it dear old Jeremy.

He probably did more to lose the Scottish Labour vote than any other influence here.

I think we’ve had this conversation before. Labour were losing the Scottish vote long before Corbyn was leader. In fact there was a ‘ Corbyn bounce’ in Scotland in 2017.

http://www.campaignforsocialism.org.uk/articles/2017/7/19/helicopter-view-of-the-2017-ge-resultsa-tale-oftwo-parties

After 15 months of a hostile PLP and media, the turning point of the campaign was the leaked draft manifesto and Jeremy Corbyn talking directly to voters, Jeremy’s campaign cut through the Scottish Labour message.  This saw a surge of people opting to vote  Labour for a better future. Unfortunately, by the time the momentum gathered the majority of the postal votes were cast. Yet, this ‘Corbyn bounce’ in a last few weeks of the campaign coupled with the collapse of SNP majorities saw an additional six Scottish Labour MPs returned to Westminster and many new marginals.




Brietta posted on 10/04/2022 “But whether or not that is the reason behind the delay I am certain that Brueckner's trial is going to take place.”

Let’s count the months, shall we?

Offline Venturi Swirl

Re: Jeremy Corbyn for PM!!
« Reply #1464 on: September 02, 2020, 06:44:08 PM »
LOL, a dead cat bounce followed by a disaster of epic proportions in 2019.
"Surely the fact that their accounts were different reinforces their veracity rather than diminishes it? If they had colluded in protecting ........ surely all of their accounts would be the same?" - Faithlilly

Offline Miss Taken Identity

Re: Jeremy Corbyn for PM!!
« Reply #1465 on: September 07, 2020, 09:59:05 PM »
Bless his greying, threadbare, sandal encased cottons...

“Jeremy Corbyn’s position as Britain’s leading out-of-touch, hopeless cult leader* was secured today after he took victory in a Twitter poll world cup of ‘Greatest PMs we never had’ so seriously he recorded a victory speech, claiming the win – which only came after a considerable push from Corbynite Twitter accounts to hijack the fun poll – didn’t “give the response that a lot of our media pundits really expected – or possibly the one that they wanted”. It’s truly staggering that after 5 years of leadership, Corbyn still takes social media support on a platform primarily used by young people – and had #KickBorisOut and #VoteTheToriesOut trending on election day – seriously…”

I laughed so loud when I read about the enbolden text above at work.
'Never underestimate the power of stupid people'... George Carlin

Offline Venturi Swirl

Re: Jeremy Corbyn for PM!!
« Reply #1466 on: September 11, 2020, 07:29:09 PM »
Oh dear!

Covid-19 is a “psychological operation to close down the economy in the interest of mega corporations.” That is according to the conspiracist, climate change denier and anti-vaccine activist, Piers Corbyn, and it’s a view he put recently in an interview when he appeared on the Good Morning Britain show. Dr Hilary Jones, who was also taking part in the interview, was appalled. “All of the statements you have made there are dangerous,” said Jones, “and I don’t know where you get your rubbish fake news from. You are dangerous and you shouldn’t be on air.” Corbyn wrapped up his interview with the remark that his brother, Jeremy Corbyn, shared many of his views.
"Surely the fact that their accounts were different reinforces their veracity rather than diminishes it? If they had colluded in protecting ........ surely all of their accounts would be the same?" - Faithlilly

Offline faithlilly

Re: Jeremy Corbyn for PM!!
« Reply #1467 on: September 12, 2020, 05:49:26 PM »

Another Angry Voice
@Angry_Voice
Remember when Jeremy Corbyn said Johnson's deal was lamentable nonsense that needed to be renegotiated before being signed, and then all the hacks did performative stupidity to pretend they didn't understand his point?

Johnson's now disowning his own deal as the nonsense it is.
Brietta posted on 10/04/2022 “But whether or not that is the reason behind the delay I am certain that Brueckner's trial is going to take place.”

Let’s count the months, shall we?

Offline Miss Taken Identity

Re: Jeremy Corbyn for PM!!
« Reply #1468 on: September 24, 2020, 05:39:29 PM »
Another Angry Voice
@Angry_Voice
Remember when Jeremy Corbyn said Johnson's deal was lamentable nonsense that needed to be renegotiated before being signed, and then all the hacks did performative stupidity to pretend they didn't understand his point?

Johnson's now disowning his own deal as the nonsense it is.

They are merely checking and clarifying the small print before signing anything. the details were not set in stone- just as well.
'Never underestimate the power of stupid people'... George Carlin

Offline faithlilly

Re: Jeremy Corbyn for PM!!
« Reply #1469 on: September 27, 2020, 06:22:04 PM »
They are merely checking and clarifying the small print before signing anything. the details were not set in stone- just as well.

Yes they were.
Brietta posted on 10/04/2022 “But whether or not that is the reason behind the delay I am certain that Brueckner's trial is going to take place.”

Let’s count the months, shall we?