Our Lord, J.C.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Well, he got over 59% of the vote, and the only people who don't like him are his fellow MP's. This raises the question of who has been selecting these MP's - my understanding is that Labour constituency parties still have the ability to select their own candidates.

So if Corbyn is so awesome how come there aren't more of him in Parliament already?

[InsaneApache]

His shadow cabinet is a wonder to behold!

*gets popcorn*

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

For the first time in a lifetime of political analysis, I find myself lost for words. Nothing I write can do justice to the calamity that Britain's Labour Party has just inflicted on itself. The best I can do, to give you a sense of the man newly elected as Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition, is to summarize some of his opinions.

Jeremy Corbyn is happy to talk to Irish Republican Army men, avowed anti-Semites and Hezbollah militants; but he refuses "out of principle" to talk to the Sun newspaper, a right-wing tabloid.

He campaigns for the national rights of Venezuelans and Palestinians; but he opposes self-determination in Northern Ireland and the Falkland Islands.

He'd like to admit as many Syrian refugees as possible, but is curiously ambivalent about why they became refugees in the first place, telling RT that Assad's chemical attacks may have been a Western hoax.

He is relaxed about Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon, but he can't stand the idea of Britain having one.

He says taxpayers should be able to opt out of funding the military, but not out of funding trade unions.

He wants to re-open coal mines that have been uneconomical since the 1960s; yet, oddly, he wants to wean us off fossil fuels.

He can't even unequivocally condemn the Islamic State without adding a "but…" to the effect that America shouldn't have been in Iraq.

He is, in short, happy to ally with any cause, however vile, provided it is sufficiently anti-British and anti-American.

Jeremy Corbyn, whose steady and surprising march to victory runs parallel to Sen. Bernie Sanders' unexpected success in the Democratic presidential race, is a shambling, self-righteous repository of every second-rate, lazy, 1960s Marxist nostrum. And Labour's activists can't get enough of him. They haven't just picked the lowest card in the deck; they have slammed it belligerently on the table, giving Corbyn 59.5 percent of the votes in a four-candidate race. Fifty-nine point five percent for a man who has never held any office, who has spent 30 years rebelling against his party, and whose speaking style makes Ron Paul look like a mesmerising demagogue.

Corbyn's victory speech was a precursor of what is to come. He might have tried to reach out, to be emollient, to reassure voters that not everything they read about him was true. Instead, he ran through some Leftist boilerplate about inequality punctuated by repeated attacks on the media.

His supporters lapped it up, but Labour moderates are in despair. Many of the party's senior figures have already declared that they won't serve under Corbyn, and there is a real chance that they will break away, forming a rival Center-Left party and thus, under Britain's first-past-the-post system, giving the Conservative Party a decade of easy election wins.

The Conservatives, for their part, are understandably jubilant. Too jubilant, indeed. All governing parties need a credible opposition. Without one, they become cocky, complacent and often corrupt.

This may seem a strange thing to say, coming from a Conservative politician, but I feel a real pang of sorrow at the passing of Labour, which has been our chief rival for office these past 90 years.

In truth, we were luckier than many countries in the temper of our leftist party. Across most of Europe, the radical tradition was bloodthirsty and destructive. Leftist parties wanted a revolution which would be complete, as one slogan had it, "only when the last king has been strangled with the entrails of the last priest."

Labour, by contrast, was more concerned with building up the poor than with tearing down the rich. As one of its senior figures put it, the party "owes more to Methodism than to Marxism." It was an astute observation. The Labour Party came out of a broader movement concerned with encouraging self-help among the poor. It had its roots in colliery brass bands, in the temperance movement, in working men's libraries. At its best, it constituted a genuine national movement, and was able, with justice, to refer to itself as "the People's Party."

That story is over now. The People's Party has given up on the People. It lost the last election because most voters, at least outside Scotland, saw it as way too far to the left. Instead of trying to accommodate the concerns of the electorate, it has doubled down, veering completely away from the mainstream and, in effect, inviting voters to like it or lump it.

Here's a sobering statistic. There have been seven Labour leaders since 1976. Six of the seven failed to win a single general election. As for the seventh, Tony Blair, he is now so loathed in his own party that his advice not to back Corbyn contributed, as even Blair admits, to Corbyn's landslide.

Don't worry about Corbyn. The honest, narrow-minded, pious old duffer won't be around long. But spare a thought for the party of Keir Hardie and Clement Attlee. What a wretched way to end.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/u....rticle/2571919

[Beskar]

Apparently an old one-time university friend and one of the local MPs was one of the MPs who backed JC and is jubilant in his success. They didn't get in the cabinet though... Related article pre-result

[rory_20_uk]

Well, he got over 59% of the vote, and the only people who don't like him are his fellow MP's. This raises the question of who has been selecting these MP's - my understanding is that Labour constituency parties still have the ability to select their own candidates.

So if Corbyn is so awesome how come there aren't more of him in Parliament already?

They didn't get chosen by the existing Labour party - the lovely party list system helps throttle democracy.

[Beskar]

As for more of Corbyn in Parliament, there is a number like Diane Abbott, Cat Smith (stealing from conversative incumbent), new shadow chancellor...there is a fair few.
Then there is the left wing SNP just dominating Scotland.

I think as a whole, Media Moguls are definitely gnashing their teeth to paint an alternative picture to reality, and this has contributed in the rise of UKIP, SNP, Corbyn and others not within the circle jerk. Culiminating in different spheres of Politics,"Real Politics "and Street Politics.

[InsaneApache]

Tom and Jerry have been caught stealing war veterans butties. Very council house I'm sure.

That's all folks!

[Idaho]

Corbyn regularly has the lowest expense claims of any MP. He votes with his conscience and is not a careerist Blairite. He never sought high office, but it was thrust upon him. He doesn't go in for easy soundbites.

In his first PMQs he raised issues about sky high rents and the desperate state of our mental health services - two issues that politicians of the careerist, one-eye-on-the-focus-groups couldn't give a toss about.

He's up against an incredibly hostile, perhaps even shrill and desperate, press. They are combing over every detail, looking at everything he's ever done and said (the current Tory front bench wouldn't survive 5% of that scrutiny before the coke, whores and tax havens came out). They are extrapolating policy from nothing. Demonising policies like the renationalisation of the railways and getting rid of PPIs in the NHS - both of which are broadly popular among the public.

The usual tricks are at play. Trying to paint him as some pro-Hamas anti-semite, which is nonsense as even cursory research beyond the Murdoch headlines would show. He did indeed publicly champion a negotiated settlement with the IRA about 5 years before the Tory party did just that (in secret of course). Hilariously the Telegraph had a front page story calling him a hypocrite for having no women in the top shadow jobs - while the Telegraph has no women at all on it's 15 strong boardroom.

Good luck to him. He's going to need it. The knives aren't just out, they are being repeated plunged in.

[InsaneApache]

Why should a private company have a quota for women in the boardroom?

That's probably the most misogynist statement I've heard in some time.

[Idaho]

Why should a private company have a quota for women in the boardroom?

That's probably the most misogynist statement I've heard in some time.

They shouldn't have a quota. They also shouldn't have a headline calling Corbyn a hypocrite when they are being monumentally hypocritical.

I won't try and understand how my statement can be misogynist. I suspect you don't know what the word means.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

They shouldn't have a quota. They also shouldn't have a headline calling Corbyn a hypocrite when they are being monumentally hypocritical.

I won't try and understand how my statement can be misogynist. I suspect you don't know what the word means.

Let me explain - a quote for the number of women in a given role implies that:

A: Women can't get there on merit.

B: Women are discriminated against and therefore can't get there on merit.

C: Both of the above (surprising what some believe).

Corbyn shouldn't even have defended his pics, he should have just told the media to bog off.

BTW, I don't think the media are being any harsher on him than any other new leader - the Torygraph is obviously trying to knife him but other than that I think he's getting fairly generous coverage.

You point to his expenses, where he has nothing to hide, as rightly being a badge of merit but I can equally point to his links to the IRA or Hamas, or his support for contemporary Russia, and those do raise questions, and possibly more serious ones than billing the taxpayer to have your moat cleaned.

[Pannonian]

Let me explain - a quote for the number of women in a given role implies that:

A: Women can't get there on merit.

B: Women are discriminated against and therefore can't get there on merit.

C: Both of the above (surprising what some believe).

Corbyn shouldn't even have defended his pics, he should have just told the media to bog off.

BTW, I don't think the media are being any harsher on him than any other new leader - the Torygraph is obviously trying to knife him but other than that I think he's getting fairly generous coverage.

You point to his expenses, where he has nothing to hide, as rightly being a badge of merit but I can equally point to his links to the IRA or Hamas, or his support for contemporary Russia, and those do raise questions, and possibly more serious ones than billing the taxpayer to have your moat cleaned.

Doesn't it just say that he's an MP for a constituency close to Westminster? Depending on personal wealth, the further away you are from London, the higher the expenses.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Doesn't it just say that he's an MP for a constituency close to Westminster? Depending on personal wealth, the further away you are from London, the higher the expenses.

He does appear to live a genuinely frugal life, with an allotment and everything.

Mind you, I recall that the Ayatollah was a pious man - who subsequently suppressed democracy in Iran.

One can be simultaneously pious and a monster.

[Idaho]

Nonsense. The press have been screaming from the front pages about him.

Links to the IRA and Hamas? That's nonsense. He has met with numerous groups over decades. He believes in engagement and discussion. According to loony zionist, rabid unionists and right wing media that might count as a "link", but to anyone with a brain it just shows that he's had a long political career.

Like the claim that he said Bin Laden's death was a tragedy. If you actually watch the programme in question, he is talking about the extra judicial killing which he thinks is wrong, that he should have stood trial, saying that the whole situation was tragedy after tragedy. Again, propaganda and smear.

[Brenus]

"BTW, I don't think the media are being any harsher on him than any other new leader - the Torygraph is obviously trying to knife him but other than that I think he's getting fairly generous coverage." Really: Less than 24 hours after elections:

and is a Hamas friend as you now twice notice (ignoring btw his explanations), a menace to the state security, IRA sympathiser (?), and ate two sandwiches reserved to the veterans.

[rory_20_uk]

I think that we really need to give him some space to settle in and sort out what it is that he's doing. The muck raking is pathetic - yes he probably should have sun the National Anthem as he must realise he is a figurehead as well as an individual and sometimes that does mean one's own personal views have to come second.

I personally disagree with most of what he believes in but that is no reason to not give him the same fair hearing he allows others - politicians who serve the Polis as opposed to a group of braying children who serve themselves is not the worst thing in the world.

[Brenus]

Agree. I personally agree with most of what he say, but I want a real possibility to heard him, to know what he want to lead Labour Party. I don't want a new Alexis Tsipras

[Greyblades]

No one's going to answer my previous post?

Ok then.

He campaigns for the national rights of Venezuelans and Palestinians; but he opposes self-determination in Northern Ireland and the Falkland Islands

can we get a confirmation on this one?

[Pannonian]

I think that we really need to give him some space to settle in and sort out what it is that he's doing. The muck raking is pathetic - yes he probably should have sun the National Anthem as he must realise he is a figurehead as well as an individual and sometimes that does mean one's own personal views have to come second.

I personally disagree with most of what he believes in but that is no reason to not give him the same fair hearing he allows others - politicians who serve the Polis as opposed to a group of braying children who serve themselves is not the worst thing in the world.

Politicians who serve the Polis is exactly what a lot of the country dislike.

[Greyblades]

Polis means body of citizens... so some of the people don't like politicians that serve the people?

[Husar]

Polis means body of citizens... so some of the people don't like politicians that serve the people?

Doesn't private TV serve the people? Just look at the results...

[Greyblades]

You're gonna have to explain that one; I don't watch enough TV to know the difference between public and private.

For that matter Britain doesn't technically have public any more. We stopped broadcasting analogue 5 years ago; everything's digital now. Even then some of the best stuff was on the 5 main channels.

[Idaho]

No one's going to answer my previous post?

Ok then.
can we get a confirmation on this one?

I don't imagine I agree with with Corbyn on many topics, however he at least talks like an adult. That all situations are complex and that compromise and dialogue are important. That you can't just have a single soundbite that then applies to every situation.

I think, fundamentally, he is in favour of peace, engagement, dialogue and compromise. He is not strident, he is not dogmatic. That doesn't really fit with the politics by soundbite/headline approach of our age. I am supportive of him just for that alone. It's time politics grew up. That it wasn't defined by the vested interests of media barons, who's desires are then badly implemented and expressed by tabloid headline writers.

[Idaho]

Tom and Jerry have been caught stealing war veterans butties. Very council house I'm sure.

That's all folks!

Jeez - a Guido Fawkes link from Sky News? Like fascism sponsored by Coca Cola.

[Greyblades]

I don't imagine I agree with with Corbyn on many topics, however he at least talks like an adult. That all situations are complex and that compromise and dialogue are important. That you can't just have a single soundbite that then applies to every situation.

I think, fundamentally, he is in favour of peace, engagement, dialogue and compromise. He is not strident, he is not dogmatic. That doesn't really fit with the politics by soundbite/headline approach of our age. I am supportive of him just for that alone. It's time politics grew up. That it wasn't defined by the vested interests of media barons, who's desires are then badly implemented and expressed by tabloid headline writers.

Given the choice I would rather have a duplicitous, lying media slave politician who might do what I think is the right thing over an independent straight talking and honest one that definitely wont.

I'm hoping he'll be a good opposition leader and try to keep the Tories worse proclivities in check, however if he's really such an idiot as to want to impose foreign rule over British citizens out of some delusion of fair compromise, let alone give up the ultimate defense of the realm over some hippy ideal, then I don't want him anywhere near a majority government.

But of course I am not so eager to take a biased source at face value, so I'll wait on that confirmation.

[Pannonian]

Polis means body of citizens... so some of the people don't like politicians that serve the people?

Mea culpa, I thought it meant city.

[Pannonian]

In the grand scheme of things I would rather have a duplicitous, lying media slave politician who might do what I think is the right thing over an independent straight talking and honest one that definitely wont.

In the mean time I'll wait on that confirmation.

If I had to choose between a principled government and a clever government, and the two were mutually exclusive, I'd choose the clever government every time. Politicians aren't there to be good and noble. They're there to (attempt to) govern the country well.

[Greyblades]

Mea culpa, I thought it meant city.

You are also correct.

Polis (/ˈpɒlɨs/; Greek: πόλις [pólis]), plural poleis (/ˈpɒleɪz/, πόλεις [póleːs]) literally means city in Greek. It can also mean citizenship and body of citizens.

My understanding of polis came from it's use in "policeman" which as the late Terry Pratchett often emphasized had an intended meaning of "man of the people"

[Husar]

You're gonna have to explain that one; I don't watch enough TV to know the difference between public and private.

For that matter Britain doesn't technically have public any more. We stopped broadcasting analogue 5 years ago; everything's digital now. Even then some of the best stuff was on the 5 main channels.

Isn't the BBC public? I thought they locked me out of their app based on the argument that only British taxpayers pay for the program.
As for the content, at least in Germany the public ones show mostly reality tv shows during the day, which apparently represent the best relation between low production costs and what the public wants to see. I would personally not classify that as quality entertainment for enlightened individuals, but maybe I'm elitist. I do however wish that our school system would produce only enlightened individuals.

[Gilrandir]

Isn't the BBC public?

AFAIK, it is headed by the board of trustees appointed by the British government.

[Husar]

AFAIK, it is headed by the board of trustees appointed by the British government.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC

It says the owner is the British public, so there we go.