General Election 2017 | Cabinet reshuffle: Hunt re-appointed Health Secretary for record third time
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I expected harsh questions, but downright attacks is just ridiculous. I'm about 5 mins from the end now, and its purely a hit piece. Far worse than May recieved.
Interesting thing to look at, watch the interview with Neill and May and watch their reactions after the music starts playing and the mics are cut. Then watch the same segment with Neill and Corbyn. Polar opposites.
Ha good. They'll be hoping the damage has been done now (it may have). Especially with Neils IRA question
Anyway, as the election heats up, Scottish Labour are pursuing some rather...eh, unconventional approaches.
Whoever was responsible for the Ed Stone clearly fled north.
Whoever was responsible for the Ed Stone clearly fled north.
Doesn't lessen the ridiculousness of the pointed assertion disguised as a question. I really dont think thats expected behaviour of the BBC either
Oddly the Guardian and political journalists on Twitter think he did well especially compared to May.
From the Beeb
What. A. Cnut.
What. A. Cnut.
Hulk gloves into ice sculpture is genuinely immense.
In respect of the attacks on Corbyn and labour. BBC are under pressure from Tories to change the editorial decision making.
It's the look at bafflement on the faces of Dugdale and Sarwar as to why in the flying feck they are doing this that makes it.
I didn't say it does, I was commenting on Corbyn's responses. As you bring it up, the only way the BBC can be returned to it's pre-Cameron more neutral days is for Labour to win an election and introduce a fair BBC constitution, but I'm afraid it will take someone a bit cleverer than Corbyn to do that.
I didn't see O'Neill/May to compare, but I have to say that O'Neill has been a good interviewer for the BBC over the years, despite being Conservative by nature. Watch him on This Week and he has genuine respect for the such as Alan Johnson, so he's not all bad. He despises Diane Abbott of course, no idea why.
Thanks, I could do with a laugh
Not sure Corbyn came off worse than May did in hers but he really struggled with the NATO question in particular. Didn't think Neil nailed him on the 'foreign policy link to terrorism' thing as I expected him to. Corbyn had clearly rehearsed a grilling on that and it showed.
Rudd, The Appeaser, BoJo The Clown and Fallon have basically spent the day calling each other, themselves, other MPs and their own members terrorist sympathisers. It's wonderful.
Horrible interview for Corbyn. Lost every point.
I really don't get it either. From the outside it seems like such an easy issue for Corbyn to deal with, especially given the relative lack of fecks England tends to give about Ireland anyway.
Mcdonnell put a ton of work in to get Corbyn on the ballot for the first leadership race but essentially Mcdonnell is about one of two people(The other being Diane Abbott)in the Labour Party who actually like Corbyn as leader, so even if Corbyn wanted to get rid of Mcdonnell he can't because of Labour in fighting.
I think your pretty much spot on with the part in bold sadly, there was talk about Northern Ireland in this Corbyn than at anything during the eu referendum.
I don't get that the Tory response of ''nothing to do with UK foreign policy'' is in any way sustainable. It's a completely ludicrous statement.
As for involving the Manchester attacks in politics - the first few questions anyone thinks of have a political dimension to them. Who was it? Why that target? What is the motivation?
Tory answer - it's nothing to do with 'us' (UK the nation). Anyone with half a brain cell can see through this surely?
At the risk of being totally fatuous & possibly in quite poor taste
It's like the question being ''why can't my friends / family go to a concert without getting bombed?'' and their answer is ''we don't know'' - because the Tory response doesn't amount to anything else atm.
I think (hope) most people will see straight through that.
There's a considerable distance for this to play out mind - got all weekend to be thinking of how to do better next week haven't they?
As for involving the Manchester attacks in politics - the first few questions anyone thinks of have a political dimension to them. Who was it? Why that target? What is the motivation?
Tory answer - it's nothing to do with 'us' (UK the nation). Anyone with half a brain cell can see through this surely?
At the risk of being totally fatuous & possibly in quite poor taste
It's like the question being ''why can't my friends / family go to a concert without getting bombed?'' and their answer is ''we don't know'' - because the Tory response doesn't amount to anything else atm.
I think (hope) most people will see straight through that.
There's a considerable distance for this to play out mind - got all weekend to be thinking of how to do better next week haven't they?
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And as for Corbyn, he couldn't do much more than raise the issue without seeming insensitive & premature. Might have been better to wait until after the weekend, but might have been bounced / committed into doing the Neil interview. He hasn't misjudged the mood too badly though, I don't think. Although where all the people who'd like to see a harsh strike back are is a bit of a mystery (but that's media instructions for you isn't it?) <---- I do like a bit of conspiracy theory, 
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If your enemy, by killing children in Manchester, manages to change your foreign policy, doesn't that equate to appeasement? It is one thing to say our foreign policy is wrong it is another to say it's wrong because someone killed people because of it.
It's not wrong because someone killed people because of it though. It's just wrong.
No, it's not appeasement because we're not expecting ISIS to suddenly stop targeting us if foreign policy is hypothetically changed.
The argument isn't solely that the Manchester attacks happened because of our foreign policy; there are other major factors, the main ones of course being the person himself, who was clearly radicalised, and the fact that ISIS are a death cult who will continue to target us no matter what happens.
The general point is that foreign policy over the past decade or so has often created power vacuums which extremist groups have sought to occupy as they increase their power, and that our approach to tackling terrorism in the Middle East clearly hasn't worked because Islamic extremism continues to be prevalent after a decade and a half of the War on Terror.
The funny thing I find about this argument (not picking on you here, just making a general point off it), is that it basically leads to the old (widely lambasted) policy of propping up brutal strongmen to ensure stability in the region.
Oh yeah, for what it's worth I'm not necessarily anti-interventionism in all cases, and I recognise the inherent moral hypocrisy/difficulty in propping up brutal regimes like that of Assad and Hussein etc in the past. I was more just responding to the general question @Don't Kill Bill was asking in regards to appeasement.
Overall though I'm not really sure there is an ideal strategy to completely defeat Islamic extremism. As you say, brutal regimes will remain in place if we do successfully wipe out ISIS, and it's likely in time new extremist groups will pop up. Boots on the ground is unlikely to work, as shown by Iraq, and yet a complete stance of non-interventionism wouldn't do much good either. The problem is, of course, that any UK leader admitting this would be perceived as incredibly weak.
I think it's even beyond that, I think a lot of foreign policy decisions around it are basically a choice between two bad outcomes and it's been further exacerbated by the Arab spring.
Everything in the end comes back to Iraq of course which undoubtedly contributed to radicalisation and was a clusterfeck of a wrong decision that had nothing going for it. At the same time, Daesh kill more muslims than anyone else and in Europe have hit France most often, a country that took heat for not getting involved in 2003.
That's true, which is why I'd agree it's naive to try and solely blame the actions of ISIS on Western foreign policy; similar can be said for attacks in places like Germany and other European countries who haven't really been too interventionist in recent years.
"9/11 predates any foreign invasion in the middle east"
Disappointed to know that Andy is a Mail reader
Labour majority now in to between 22/1 and 14/1.
Most seats now in to 8/1 - 6/1.
In the search for power & influence (and oil), the West** will basically back anyone at any time - and then possibly change sides 15-20 years later - or pull out because the intervention cannot be sustained.
**with the UK saying it always has to be at the forefront (still historical reasons influencing thinking on this)
We're always fecking it up aren't we? (But the arms sales are good,)
**with the UK saying it always has to be at the forefront (still historical reasons influencing thinking on this)
We're always fecking it up aren't we? (But the arms sales are good,
)Just watched the Corbyn interview, it was definitely designed to be a hit piece but I think Corbyn whilst not being disastrous, could have handled it better in terms of being more clear in the positions he was taking.
When explaining the 'ungoverned spaces' issue in Libya, he didn't clearly state that by intervening and removing governments like Saddam, Gadaffi, we left behind vacant holes in which Islamic extremism has been allowed to flourish and when Niell mentioned Sweden/Yazidi.. he should have reiterated the fact that had it not been for western intervention, goverments would have existed which would not allowed atrocities to occur such as what happen with the Yazidi women.
After that point, he did well but I wish he was more stronger in the nuclear section and say look, I don't and never will suport Trident renewal, but it is out of my hands as my party is in favour of it and therefore I will follow the party manifesto.
When explaining the 'ungoverned spaces' issue in Libya, he didn't clearly state that by intervening and removing governments like Saddam, Gadaffi, we left behind vacant holes in which Islamic extremism has been allowed to flourish and when Niell mentioned Sweden/Yazidi.. he should have reiterated the fact that had it not been for western intervention, goverments would have existed which would not allowed atrocities to occur such as what happen with the Yazidi women.
After that point, he did well but I wish he was more stronger in the nuclear section and say look, I don't and never will suport Trident renewal, but it is out of my hands as my party is in favour of it and therefore I will follow the party manifesto.
Amazing facial contortions at the end of the journo's question here...
On the Trident thing, both knew Corbyn's position. It was a scam line of questioning. Had Corbyn responded as you suggest, Neil would have predicted it and probably gone on the old familiar line questioning his leadership credentials. It was a no-win situation from the start for Corbyn and they both knew it.
Yep, America was just minding its own business and Bin Laden, famed for his wealth, was merely looking for a project to occupy his time.
"I excluded more hate preachers..."
Shouldn't have been difficult, not when the haunted dinner lady was excluding everybody anyway e.g. family members of UK citizens.