Off Topic The New Labour Leader

Well at least they could see in the dark.
I think Rog done a bit of graft up that way when he was in the Para's.

 

The thing is with Faslane. If they pull the nukes out (something that the snp want) what becomes to places like Helensburgh etc?

Surely this will cause mass unemployment in these areas.

 

Haven't read the whole thread so apologies if this has been mentioned... Hasn't he just sacked the only pro-Israel member of his party?

I think he's about to lose Labour even more votes.

 

The same thing that happened to Clydebank when they shut the yards & Easington when the pit closed.
It will become a ghost town.

 

We were armed with a table full of bevvie in the Gladyerr Inn..... Oh happy days !!!

 

Can't believe what I'm reading on here. I was quite pleased he won after reading this article and these 24 points of interest:

Jeremy Corbyn is the new leader of the Labour party. What are his beliefs?
1. The deficit should be tackled - but not through spending cuts and not to an "arbitrary" deadline. Instead Corbyn would fund its reduction via higher taxes for the rich and a crackdown on tax avoidance and evasion while tackling "corporate welfare" and tax breaks for companies.
2. Britain's railways should be renationalised. He is also opposed to the HS2 rail scheme, saying it would turn northern cities into "dormitories for London businesses".
3. Far more allotments would be good for the UK. He has a plot near his constituency in north London and told the Commons in 2008 that councils and builders "should be doing their best to ensure that every new development includes some allotment space".
4. Talking to militant groups is necessary to win peace in the Middle East. Corbyn faced heavy criticism for using the word "friends" to describe Hamas and Hezbollah. He has responded by saying he had used the term in a "collective way" adding that while he does not agree with either organisation, a peace process means "you have to talk to people with whom you may profoundly disagree".
5. "Quantitative easing for people" could be used to invest in housing, energy, transport and digital projects. Unlike the £375bn issued electronically by the Bank of England between 2009 and 2012 to buy bonds, gilts and other debts, this would be "QE for people instead of banks", Corbyn says. Tax campaigner Richard Murphy argues these plans would stimulate the economy and boost employment. But Shadow Chancellor Chris Leslie attacked the proposal, saying it would lead to higher inflation and interest rates, hurting the poor most.
6. Replacing Trident would be a costly mistake. Corbyn, a long-term CND member, says plans to replace the nuclear missile system should be ditched. He believes the project's £100bn price tag could be better spent "on our national well-being".
7. A National Education Service modelled on the NHS should be established. Under Corbyn, state-funded academies and free schools would be forced to return to local authority control while university tuition fees would be scrapped and replaced with grants. Corbyn would look at ending the charitable status of public schools, although he accepts this would be complicated and might not happen immediately. He reportedly split up with one of his former wives following a disagreement over whether to send their son to a grammar school or a comprehensive. Asked recently if the break-up was over an "an issue of principle", Corbyn told the Guardian newspaper: "I feel very strongly about comprehensive education, yes."
8. Labour should not support air strikes against Islamic State in Syria. Corbyn, who is national chair of the Stop the War Coalition, believes innocent Syrians would suffer and the supply of arms and funds to the Islamic State group should be cut off instead. He opposed military action against the Assad regime in 2013 and was a prominent critic of the invasion of Iraq. His website says he wants to see "illegal wars" replaced with a "foreign policy that prioritises justice and assistance". Asked during a Sky News hustings whether there were any circumstances in which he would deploy UK military forces, Corbyn said: "I'm sure there are some but I can't think of them at the moment."
9. Rent controls should be re-introduced, linking private rents to local earnings, and more council houses should be built. He also believes that council tenants' right to buy their homes should be extended to private sector renters.
10. The Chagos islanders evicted from Diego Garcia should be allowed to return. Some 2,000 people were displaced from the British Indian Ocean territory between 1967 and 1971 to make way for a US air base. Corbyn has been a long-standing supporter of their campaign to go back.
11. The immigration debate has been "quite unpleasant". In an interview with Channel 4 News, Corbyn said the current discourse around the issue "fails to recognise the huge contribution migrants have made to this country". He added: "We should let people into this country who are desperate to get somewhere safe to live".
12. The dispute between the UK and Argentina over the Falkland Islands could be resolved with "some degree of joint administration". In an interview with the BBC in 2013 he said other territorial disputes had been settled in this way, and under such an arrangement the islanders' British nationality could be maintained. He added that during the 1982 Falklands conflict it had been in Margaret Thatcher's interests to "divert attention from her catastrophic economic issues". During the leadership campaign, a Corbyn spokesman said he supported "a long-term negotiated settlement" that took the islanders' views into account.

 

13. High property prices are leading to the closure of London pubs. In 2013, hesaid in the Commons that pub companies "make a great deal of money out of selling them" to developers.
14. An arms embargo should be imposed on Israel. Corbyn, who is a patron of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said in August that Palestinian refugees should be given a "right of return". He supported a boycott of goods produced in Israeli settlements and of Israeli universities that engage in arms research.
15. Corbyn is a committed republican, but he would not seek to end the monarchy. He told the New Statesman: "It's not the fight I'm going to fight - it's not the fight I'm interested in."
16. Remaining in the European Union but with changes. Corbyn says he is not content with the EU as it stands, but wants to stay to fight for a "better Europe". He had previously refused to rule out campaigning to leave. He also opposes the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal.
17. Corbyn backs cycling. He does not own a car and declined to share one with the BBC's Chris Mason for an interview, saying: "I cycle all the time. Actually I've got a confession to make, a rather naughty secret - I've got two bikes." He is also a member of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Cycling.
18. Energy companies should be under public ownership. He says he would be "much happier" with a "regulated, publicly run service delivering energy supplies". He is "totally opposed" to fracking. However, he says deep-mine coal pits in the north of England could be reopened.
19. Ireland should be united. Corbyn has long supported British withdrawal from Northern Ireland and invited Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams to the House of Commons as far back as 1984. He was criticised for observing a minute's silence for eight IRA members killed by the SAS in 1987 and once employed Irish Republican Ronan Bennett as a member of staff at Westminster.
20. A national maximum wage should be introduced to cap the salaries of high earners. He would also introduce a windfall tax on former state assets such as the Royal Bank of Scotland, which he says were privatised too cheaply.
21. Every child should have the chance to learn a musical instrument or act on stage. Corbyn's arts policy also includes directing a greater proportion of funding to local projects, widening access and protecting the BBC.
22. Private Finance Initiative deals with the NHS should be ended by using government funds to buy them out. Writing in the Guardian, Corbyn said they were a "mess" that were costing the health service billions.
23. A "serious debate about the powers of Nato" is needed, but Corbyn has saidthere is not "an appetite as a whole for people to leave". Corbyn has previously supported withdrawal and believes it should have been wound up in 1990 at the same time as the Warsaw Pact. He also said open eastward expansion of Nato would lead the Russian military to conclude that it had "to expand to counteract Nato".
24. The arms trade should be restricted. Corbyn would like to see the "brilliance and skill of those in the arms industry be converted for peaceful purposes".

Can't say I agree with everything. Don't care about cycling or allotments, didn't know about Chagos and would rather he opposed the monarchy (probably too detrimental to his image) but everything else makes a lot of sense to me especially his opposition to corporate greed and elitism.
Also his stances on renationalisation of infrastructure and Britain's foreign policy RE: the wars we're fighting, funding and the massive waste of money that is Trident - if we do ever have to use our nuclear weapon (not 'deterrent') the world will not be worth living in anyway.

 

Sounds like a fruitcake to me.

 

He's a ****ing idiot mate, simple as that. He wants the world to live in peace, lar de dar.

He can get ****ed with his views on Israel, Trident, the EU, not supporting strikes in Syria and whatever else he's mumbling his gums about.

 

ISIS, Boko Haram, El-Shebaab and all the other gangs of murdering maniacs. Does he really think he can talk to them? They`re insane.

As for Israel. I neither like nor dislike them but I admire the way they take no ****.

 

Waging war against them isn't exactly working well either. Everytime we seem to end up killing civillians and creating more extremists.



Personally I like Corbin but I think he's a bad choice. He's going to be a very easy target as has already started to show. I'm glad he's going to offer us a real difference in the choice we have at the next election but it's just as important for democracy to have a strong opposition and I'm not so sure he's going to bring that, he's too naive. Hope I'm wrong.

 

Corbyn is heaven sent for the tories as he has all the appeal of Michael Foot.

 

No' spin' says Dennis at the interview end and -well said too

 

Some of those 24 points are really quite scary.

 

A national maximum wage? How the ****s that gonna work like?

His Falklands policy. The man is a ****ing loon. Lord Sutch probably had better policies than this ****wit.

 

The Real Reason The Permanent Political Class Is Freaking Out Over Jeremy Corbyn

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LONDON, ENGLAND – JULY 16: Jeremy Corbyn poses for a portrait on July 16, 2015 in London, England. Jeremy Bernard Corbyn is a British Labour Party politician and has been a member of Parliament for Islington North since 1983. He is currently a contender for the position as leader of the Labour Party. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

A quick scan of social media and mainstream news sources today should alert you to the fact that the war against Jeremy Corbyn and his hew front bench has already begun. This is because the permanent political class are freaking out over Corbyn’s win and how it imperils their grip on power. Here is how.

Over with the Labour establishment, their reaction was best captured by the purge, scaremongering and refusal to work with a Corbyn front bench.

The reason Labour had a new leadership election process this time round, was the result of the parliamentary Labour Party and the NEC long term efforts to diminish the power of Trade Unions. By widening the vote to Labour voters, and quieting the voice of Trade Unions, the Blairite factions of the party gambled on those new voters being to the right of the Unions.

But they got a shock. It turned out that many were actually well to the left, and ready to take a chance on a social democrat like Corbyn. So, the Party responded to those new supporters as ‘infiltrators’.

This was a bizarre move, because if Labour don’t win back these voters, they are sunk in 2020. Labour need to win an extra 106 seats next election to gain a majority, an almost impossible task. But that almost impossible task becomestotally impossible without a mass, popular movement to reengage the public. Just 24% of people voted Conservative in the last election, 76% didn’t. The largest gains went to socially democratic populists the SNP, who killed Labour in Scotland. The biggest losers were the Liberal Democrats, the only ‘centrist’ party in town.

So why would the Parliamentary Labour Party NOT want to harness the power of a populist, social democratic movement? Especially when it is the only chance they have of regaining office in 2020.

It is becoming ever more clear that the Labour Party in Westminster has become a part of a permanent political class alongside their Tory and Liberal Democrat counterparts. Disengagement and voter apathy means a fairly stable job, a few seats lost and won either way each election and no big surprises. The chance to earn a great wage and pass policies which guarantee lucrative consultancy/director roles after politics. All done with the passive acceptance of a disaffected electorate, half of whom don’t even bother to vote anymore. To this permanent political class, a popular movement based on social democratic values is about as welcome as a fart in an elevator.

This is why Harriet Harman planned to cull over100,000 so-called ‘infiltrators’ from the vote. This is why self-appointed voice-of-the-left Polly Toynbee, the Guardian editorial team, and most of the press (right and liberal) were busily character assassinating Corbyn and anyone who would give him their vote.

But despite all efforts, Corbyn won with a greater landslide in 2015, than Blair did in 1994. The ‘unelectable’ Corbyn galvanized a thumping majority against a hostile media, commentariat and even parliamentary party.

How did the conservative permanent political class respond? They freaked out. This freak out is best summed up by this near-hysterical tweet by Prime Minister David Cameron.

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How did the public respond to the Corbyn win?

Over 15,000 people joined the Labour Party within 24 hours, and they’re still joining. This is significant. Back in 2011, political party membership in the UK was at an all time low; just0.8% of eligible adults in the UK were members of political parties, versus 3.8% in 1983. But while general membership was in decline, membership of ‘other’ parties was on a steep rise. This was a signpost that perhaps the problem was not the apathy of the public to politics, but the apathy of the political class to the aspirations and values of the public.

But since the No Vote in Scotland, the rise of the SNP and Greens north of the border, and the victory of Corbyn – large sections of the public are reengaging with the political system again in ways not witnessed for decades.

Between 2002 and 2013, the SNP membership grew to just over 20,000. In the two year since, it rocketed to well over 100,000.

With it’s freshly-arrived members, the Labour Party now has around 290,000 members – more than the Conservatives (134,000), Liberal Democrats (61,000) and Green’s (60,000)combined.

Furthermore, it appears that Jeremy Corbyn and his front bench plan to galvanize the power of this membership to bring democracy into policy making. In short, it looks like Labour members will be supporting policy development in a way unheard of by mainstream parties before now. This would remove the power of the front bench and parliamentary party to act against the will of the membership – this should empower Corbyn’s team to drive through the radical social democratic policies he has in mind.

In short, there is now a distinct possibility not only that a truly progressive, social democrat Labour Party could win in 2020, but worse, that they could topple an unpopular Tory government even before then. An unconstrained Labour Party with Corbyn at its head, and John McDonnell as shadow Chancellor could deliver the sort of coordinated opposition, uniting with workers and their unions, disenfranchised groups and their campaign groups – to start landing big punches now. The sorts of actions that Blue Labour would never take, could now be back on the table. There could be general strikes, there could be mass rallies utilising the full power of these groups, there could be the kind of concerted, unrelenting uproar that tore the Tory Party apart in the early 1990’s.

The permanent political class is freaking out because the only thing that can beat out Project Fear, is Project Hope. A Tory-lite Labour opposition was never going to win in 2020, but an energetic and awakened Labour movement can. Even worse, if they do win, there is a very real chance that the domestic and foreign policy of Britain could change in a truly radical way. We could be a few years away from the most progressive government since Clement Attlee’s post-WWII government delivered the NHS, a national education system, nationalised transport and energy, and rolled out the biggest social housing programme in our history. This is an electoral choice that the UK hasn’t had the opportunity to make in decades.

The permanent political class is facing the most real and present threat to their power since 1979. They are going to throw every weapon in their armory at ensuring that doesn’t happen. But none of those weapons is more powerful than a tight-knit, grass roots movement with its eye on shared vision of an inspiring future.

 

Excuse me Mr Rooney, in line with our new policies your weekly wage will be cut from £250,000 per week to our national maximum of £2,000 per week

 

Aye. You got what i was thinking.

 

None of his policies stand up, I don't know why he isn't getting assessed at a mental health clinic. Let's be friends with Hamas and Hezbollah, ffs.

Oh your private renting, I'll allow you a rent-to-buy scheme. Sure landlords up and down the country are looking forward to their investments being sold off