Oh dear

[Copps is Magic]

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/theresa-may-pmqs-lewis-jeremy-corbyn-twitter_uk_57d01961e4b0d45ff8708bd6

So Corbyn chose to ask 5 perfectly reasonable questions about the housing crisis in this country and the Tory hero leader to some on here replied with a scripted attack on Corbyn which involved quoting the guy above and not answering one question.

I know we are taught to respect the status quo as a fact of life, and to play the game, and to not complain about the media-politics machine, and to elect a 'leader', but really it's kind of vulgar was passes for democracy in this country is it not? We should expect better.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Well that's game set and match then.

Where do I sign up for the Church of JC?

[Copps is Magic]

I think the fact that you seem to think there is 'a game' to be played is the worrying part, and the point.

[Dagenham Rover]

Does the PM ever actually answer a question at pmqt  errrmmm

[BillyStubbsTears]

Copps
Ouch!

Did you think that in May 2010 or May 2015 when I was out canvassing trying to save us from a Tory Govt and you were indulging your conscience?

Playing games? Don't get me f**king started...

[Donnywolf]

May shown her true colours again and again since that "glorious" speech promising the same as Thatcher all those years ago

I cant see a Labour Govt coming any time soon to depose the smart a*** either and of course there will be no chance of PR any time soon so we are stuck with them.

[Copps is Magic]

Copps
Ouch!

Did you think that in May 2010 or May 2015 when I was out canvassing trying to save us from a Tory Govt and you were indulging your conscience?

Playing games? Don't get me f**king started...

You have no idea what I was doing in 2010 and 2015 so don't cast personal aspersions.

I know what you were doing in 2016 and it was posting Stuff like this

Sorry to damage your ego old lad, but we're talking here about one of the supposed pinnacles of democracy in this country not your personal endeavors on the doorstep. You seem to have missed the point completely.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Well, you've told us already that you didn't support Labour, pre-Corbyn.

Regarding egos, you really don't get it do you? Political parties work by people swallowing their own certainties and signing up to the collective consensus.

The kernel of the Corbyn catastrophe is the 300,000 acolytes who have flocked to his side in the party and simply refuse to countenance what is bleeding obvious to the rest of the country. That he will never be remotely electable out there. Outside the self-congratulatory bubble.

THAT is egotism writ large. It is the very definition of egotism. A stonewall refusal to accept that it might be YOU that is wrong and the rest of the world who have got it right.

[Copps is Magic]

Well, you've told us already that you didn't support Labour, pre-Corbyn.

Nope, No. Show me where I have?

Is this some kind of dissonance rearing it's head? I started a thread about PMQs, in which I sais Corbyn asked some reasonable questions that didn't get answered. I questioned whether this is good for democracy in this country and you've chosen to continue your polemicals on Corbyn.

Do you want to talk about the subject of the thread or are you incapable?

[Sprotyrover]

It is a sad fact that we will have to put up with seeing Mays minging cleavage all over the telly for another decade or so.....Unless Dan Jarvis steps up to the mark!

[idler]

Corbyn has little credibility in the media and amongst a lot of former Labour supporters. This allows Tories and the press to get away with murder. It reminds me of the comment about being worried by a dead sheep. That seems to be the perception of Jeremy Corbyn.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Copps

If I've misinterpreted your stated ambivalence towards the Labour Party pre-Corbyn then I apologise unreservedly.

You might care to reflect on your own, numerous misinterpretations of what I've said over the past few weeks.

[The Red Baron]

The content of Corbyn's questions is perfectly reasonable but he's such a poor performer that May is able to get away with offering a few stale jokes in response.

[idler]

Surely it doesn't take too much intelligence to question why the PM would rather discuss in perceived failing in Corbyn than answer a pertinent question about a very emotive subject.
I would also point out that any serious answers would be of interest to voters of all parties.
He reminds me of IDS and Willian Hague inasmuch as he now has an image that is unlikely to change and even good points will not be treated with the respect or coverage deserved.

[Copps is Magic]

What made me laugh was when May said he had an ideological objection to private landlordism when over 1/3 of Tories are private landlords themselves. I don't think many people really go as far as to say abolish private renting altogether but we have to accept sooner or later that the private renting/housing sector simply hasn't addressed the housing crisis in this country.

Corbyn is going to keep chugging away asking simple pertinent questions. The SNP did exactly the same to be fair and none got answered. To me eyes, the tipping point for when the British public get fed up with the churlish games being played is coming sooner than later. I don't want Corbyn to reply in kind to May because he looks like a blithering idiot when he tries to make jokes. I want him to persevere with asking questions that people want to hear answer to, plainly and very simply.

[BillyStubbsTears]

To me eyes, the tipping point for when the British public get fed up with the churlish games being played is coming sooner than later.

You mean you HOPE it is. I'm guessing you don't have any evidence to support that.

And I'm not playing games here. I too wish that we lived in a society where people engaged with facts rather than fronts. But I don't see any evidence that the great day is coming.

[BobG]

I was having a discussion, this morning, with a pretty intelligent bloke who was insisting that England and the US at least, are now deeply embedded in the politics of emotion. He made a good case. Think of 'We're sick of experts' for example.  Think of the emotional reaction right across the nation to 'immigrants - despite overhelming evidence that they increase the wealth, vitality and dynamism of the nation. Think of anything at all that that idiot in the US says. Think of Corbyn and his useless publicity team thinking that emotional appeals about trains is a good thing. Why would they think that - do you think? It's a scary thought about the nature of the electorate that they thought it worth doing.

We ended up wondering where this could eventually lead. One of two places was where we ended up: either with an institutionalised ruling class that pull whatever levers they need to keep themselves ensconced in power and comfort, or, with a revolution driven by emotion, passion and unthinking. Neither is a place I'd like to visit.

Bob

[BillyStubbsTears]

On the topic of emotion rather than rationality, this article by a young Corbyn tub-thumper unwittingly captures the essence.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jeremy-corbyn-radical-policies-labour-left-wing-leadership-young-people-not-radicalised-nick-clegg-a7231861.html

Distilled to its core message, it says "At 14 I was in thrall to Cleggmania. Now I'm 20, I'm a lot sharper and I'm signed up to the Corbyn Cult."

Absolutely no acknowledgement of the bleeding obvious irony.

It's articles like this and the lack of thinking that drives them that make me despair. I was saying a few days ago that the axioms that underpin the pro-Corbyn argument are utterly flawed. This one repeats them as fact without stopping to consider them.

Pre-Corbyn, Labour was "completely unable to stand up against the Austerity agenda."

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

As the IFS said in 2015, the difference between Labour's manifesto spending plans and the Tories' amounted to £90bn! That alone would pay for about 500 new hospitals, before you factor in the huge multiplier effect.
https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/7726

And there's no comment whatsoever on the fact that McDonnell's first major public statement as Shadow Chancellor was that he'd follow Balls's fiscal plans exactly. Balance the books on current spending (welfare, pensions, public sector wages) and borrow for capital spending (roads, schools, hospitals etc). But Miliband and Balls were spineless whereas Corbyn and McDonnell are defending their class.
http://labourlist.org/2016/03/mcdonnell-promises-to-balance-the-books-with-fiscal-credibility-rule/

It's hopeless. We're in a post-truth society, where, if you believe something strongly enough, there's no need to think and question.

[BobG]

ITS JUST LIKE PEOPLE WHO TYPE IN CAPITALS....

You just have to shout loud enough and you think people will listen, or even more frighteningly, believe. We're in a megaphone world. A world that is scarily starting to resemble Airstrip One.

BobG

[Sammy Chung was King]

Corbyn won the night's debate, but the loser was labour, neither man is the next prime minister. Until that person comes along the conservatives will continue riding roughshod over the poor and labour will carry on being the opposition.
The need of labour to get back in power should be the point, not two candidates doing the best for themselves. They work on behalf of the people it shouldn't be about 'levering' yourself into a position you cannot fill with success.
Clint Eastwood had a good saying in the dirty harry films ''A man's gotta know his limitations''. This match-up is a 'phoney war', before the real battle to begins and the real leader comes along.
 Both are mere pretenders!.

[BobG]

Agreed Sammy. There is one slight snag though. There isn't a 'real leader' anywhere within a thousand miles of the Labour Party. I believe I said a while back that this country very clearly now has a de facto one party government. I can't see anything coming along to challenge that for a generation or more - unless the Tories do themselves in. Even a Messianic new leader of the Labour Party is going to really struggle badly trying to overcome the challenges of boundary re-organisation, Scottish seats and the changing socio economic face of this country.

Even worse, the current situation could, easily, become institutionalised. What capable politician is going to join the Labour Party only to condemn himself to a lifetime of powerlessness? We are going to see the rise of a lot more conviction politicians in the Labour party - worthy losers all of them. We are going to see the rise of a whole string of leaders who can only appeal to those who already support them. There will be little vision, little broadening of the appeal and little intelligent intellectual analysis. Anybody with brains will join either business or the Tory party. We may, possibly, see, over a couple of decades, a slight softening in the rightward slant of the Tories as a result of more left centre individuals choosing to join them rather than the perennial losers - the Labour Party.

BobG

[The Red Baron]

I agree Bob. At the moment it is very difficult to see how Labour could win a General Election outright, even against an unpopular Tory Government.

In the circumstances it makes their unwillingness to make support for PR party policy all the more baffling. Maybe that will change once the navel gazing involved with the leadership contest is over, but I wouldn't bank on it.

[BillyStubbsTears]

I posted the other day that a Corbyn insider had said they could win over the PLP if they showed competence.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37332287

Sweet f**king Jesus. A prospective Foreign Secretary who doesn't know the name of her opposite number in France. Who thinks that the situation in the Korean Peninsular is really serious, but doesn't even know the gender, never mind the name of one of the key players. And then says  its "sexist" to have this ignorance pointed out.

Like a f**king 6th form debating society. Shoddy, unprofessional lack of basic knowledge, covered up by the "you can't quiz me on that! It's sexist!" get out.

And Corbyn's going to win by a landslide...

[swintonrover]

Corbyn has irredeemably f**ked up the Labour Party. I desperately want the man to succeed, but he keeps shooting himself in the foot, with or without the media laying into him. I'm a student; being a lefty is the natural position. In fact I wrote to Corbyn and he asked my question at PMQs and Cameron just refused to give an actual answer. The thing is, if Corbyn stays, Labour will tear itself in two. If he goes, Labour will tear itself in two. The lefties and the centralists cannot form a cohesive party against the right wing. Scotland's navel gazing at the General election means there is no hope of anyone removing the Tories as Labour relies on Scotland and the North to gain seats and the south is too self interested to vote for anyone other than the Tories. The fact that Jeremy Hunt was kept in cabinet when he should be swinging in the Tower says all you need to know about this country.

[The Red Baron]

I posted the other day that a Corbyn insider had said they could win over the PLP if they showed competence.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37332287

Sweet f**king Jesus. A prospective Foreign Secretary who doesn't know the name of her opposite number in France. Who thinks that the situation in the Korean Peninsular is really serious, but doesn't even know the gender, never mind the name of one of the key players. And then says  its "sexist" to have this ignorance pointed out.

Like a f**king 6th form debating society. Shoddy, unprofessional lack of basic knowledge, covered up by the "you can't quiz me on that! It's sexist!" get out.

And Corbyn's going to win by a landslide...

She would naturally accuse me of sexism, but I'm struggling to think of a minister or shadow minister who is as consistently useless as Emily Thornberry.

[wilts rover]

Blimey we all might as well go and shoot ourselves right now - or move to Antartica - reading this stuff from you lot. Where would Keir Hardie have been if he thought like you? Or Blair (or like her or loath her, Thatcher)? Did they all say, 'this is s**t there is nothing I can do about it' or did they say 'this is s**t I am going to do something about it?'

In case there is something happend I have missed and Ms May now has a massive majority, in which case Billy will surely correct the websites I am using, the electorate at the last election was 46m. 11m of them voted Tory. That's less than a quarter of the country who voted for them, three quarters who didn't. What is happening now to make you suddenly think that vote will increase? From what I can see there is as much risk of them splitting apart than there is Labour.

With social media now playing as big as, if not larger, way of disseminating information than tradition media, there is no reason that what happened in 1997 couldn't happen in 2020. In that people voted tactically to get the Tories out. In '97 it ended in a Labour landslide, in 2020 it would probably end in a hung parliament.

[wilts rover]

ITS JUST LIKE PEOPLE WHO TYPE IN CAPITALS....

You just have to shout loud enough and you think people will listen, or even more frighteningly, believe. We're in a megaphone world. A world that is scarily starting to resemble Airstrip One.

BobG

That's what Lloyd George did when he went to Limehouse. Was he wrong too?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Wilts.

You reckon that Labour won a landslide in 97 because a significant number of people voted tactically?

[Sprotyrover]

I think we are all accepted Corbyn is a numpty, let's. All settle down and prepare for another Tory government.or failing that UKIP government.

[Glyn_Wigley]

Why would any floating voter want to vote UKIP now they've got the Brexit result? UKIP's got nothing to retain the people who voted for them last time with, let alone attract any new support...