Hilarious. At least the Corbynistas have moved their conspiracy theories on from the BBC and The Guardian being out to get them!
Jeremy Corbyn - Not Not Labour Party(?), not a Communist (BBC)
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Hilarious. At least the Corbynistas have moved their conspiracy theories on from the BBC and The Guardian being out to get them!
Annecdotal, of course, but... People in the pubs I frequent rarely used to talk about politics much but do now. It's sometimes about BoJo and his gaffes but most often it's outrage at the way the NEC has tried to rig the election to make it harder for Corbyn to be re-elected. There is also dismay that so many that would like to vote in the leadership contest aren't able to because they weren't members before Jan and feel the hike to £25 is too steep. Also that our local Labour MP has turned on JC. Never once have I heard a bad word about Corbyn. Not once. That is amongst people around my age. I have two daughters in their early twenties (with large student loan debts). Also anecdotally, I hear from them that conversations among their age-group peers exactly matches my own experience. There has to be something in this. Just based on my own "grassroots" experience, and that of my daughters, I would have to say that he is not only favourite to win the leadership contest but that he could well go on to lead the party to victory in 2020.
Because you were asking for your voice to be heard not just for freedom to complain. If you want a say in the business side of united then you'd hear exactly that response.
You cant draw parrallels between sport and a political body though. A vote for Labour isnt joining the party its a declaration of preference, the party will have to try and win your vote next time around but it doesnt follow that they then provide you with a voice on its internal decisions. The only thing you get when you vote is a local representative, thats how our system works.
You want a say on how Labour is run then you join the party.
He is a nutter that one, think he's far too interested in getting his name in the papers.Interesting about the MI5 plant in the strikes though (if true). You usually hear that with the FBI in America rather than over here.
To be fair they do have a point on this - https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/07/jeremy-corbyn-media-coup-bbc-labour/
Hilarious. At least the Corbynistas have moved their conspiracy theories on from the BBC and The Guardian being out to get them!
Haven't read the article as it sounds bat shit crazy but this I've heard of this before -
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/may/10/g20-policing-agent-provacateurs
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-12232936
Why would MI5 want to take Corbyn down? Do you think that MI5 have a centre left agenda or something? Corbyn's movement only allows the establishment to tighten their grip on the country.
If Corbyn's movement was significant then the real forces that you need to worry about e.g. Murdoch etc would be taking you down.
That is why I find the BBC and Guardian conspiracy theory so cute.
The infiltration of undercover policemen into leftwing groups (even usually nonviolent ones) to then incite violence is not Corbyn-specific, it's a decades-old tactic. That Guardian article is from 2009, when Labour was in power. The confirmation from Scotland Yard is from 2011.
Edit: and conspiracy theory means the bias is hidden.
When did I ask for a voice on Labour's internal decisions? If that is what I wanted, I would join the party. I am complaining about the Labour leadership as a Labour supporter. Do you have to be a party member to do that these days?
I have voted Labour because I identified with their core values and my expectation in voting for them was that they would, in the main, formulate policy consistent with those values. If it turns out, as seems the case now, that they start acting in a manner that indicates they do not really care about representing a wide set of values beyond a priority core nor they do they seem flexible enough to let in those whose values are diluter than the core so that they may win an election, then I think I am entitled to be concerned about the party I have supported.
My worry is that while Corbyn and momentum are having an orgy of idealogical puritanism, the people who need Labour representation are wallowing in decay and hopelessness; they will have no choice but walk away. And, for sure, Labour will perish.
Why wouldn't you have plain clothed officers in a potential riot zone, especially an officer with vast experience of left wing extremists?
Is there any real evidence that the officers were trying to incite a riot?
Surely you can see the deep deep irony in posting 'exposures' of these practices from sources the hard left now claim to be compliant in the conspiracy?
What would be the motivation for M15 to take down Corbyn's movement?
Well, I voted for a Labour candidate, and all the other ones before him. That none won is besides the point. Guess, a better parallel is supporting a shite team, without a chance of winning. But anyhow, based on your post, given that I have for many years cast my precious vote for Labour, I should feel even more free to complain about Labour than I do United.
You were complaining about Labour members to be fair. That's why people had a go at you.
I take issue with the word conspiracy. Journalists all have their inbuilt biases, and all the instances in the Jacobin article, starting from coordinating resignations live on air just before PMQs to repeatedly spreading what turned out to be false rumours can be attributed to unprofessionalism and their desire to believe negative stories about someone they dislike. The same Guardian journalist may think Corbyn is a useless leader and have knowledge and interest in the history of police infiltration, for example. Or, shock horror, there might be different journalists involved.
About why they would infiltrate Corbyn - he is exactly the strand of leftist (anti-establishment as a whole) they have been inflitrating for decades:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...undercover-police-unit-because-it-broke-rules
The past is irrelevant. If you don't take part now then you can't complain about the present state of the party. I voted Lib Dem in 2010 yet because I'm no longer involved in the party I don't complain about the direction they're going in.
The past is relevant here only in so much as it indicates my longstanding association with Labour, which I guess means I feel more let down than if, say, I had only voted for them that one time.
There's a hole in my foot, dear Liza, a hole.
Smith's campaign is going rather badly so far.
I enjoyed this from one of the jacobinmag sources
'After all, in the first five days of 2016, Twitter had been subject to thirty speculative, often opinionated tweets from Kuenssberg about Labour’s reshuffle. Doesn’t seem so bad, right? Perhaps not. But this is in comparison to zero tweets on rail fares, zero tweets on the Housing & Planning Bill, one tweet on the floods which have ravaged the country andeight on the cataclysmic divide in the Conservative Party over their membership of the European Union.'
When recently the real reason that rail fares got no coverage became clear
Lillian Greenwood - former shadow transport secretary under Corbyn.
Last Thursday I met with Nottingham South Labour Party members to explain my recent decision to resign from Jeremy Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet.
Most members weren't able to attend that meeting and many constituents have also been in touch to ask me to explain why I felt it necessary to resign.
With this in mind I thought it would be helpful to reproduce my speech here:
Thank you Chair and thank you all for coming to this evening’s meeting.
I want to talk tonight about the Referendum, and what followed.
Some of you have joined the Party in the last year, specifically because of Jeremy Corbyn: inspired by his values and principles and because he cares about fighting poverty and inequality, about offering hope for the future.
I share those values and principles. I always have, and I hope you have always felt welcome in Labour.
We're here in the brand new Hopecentre. I supported Hope Church when this centre was just an idea. And I've seen this community turn an idea into a reality.
If you know Clifton, you'll know how it has been transformed over the past 8 years. The A453, the tram and the solid wall insulation. Fuel poverty in Clifton South has more than halved as a result of Labour action. Down from from 20.2% in 2010 to 9.4% last year.
We did that by working together and campaigning together, working with the people in this community. We offered hope that things could be better and they are.
There's a long way to go.
There are still huge problems and challenges to address in Clifton, in Nottingham South and across the country. But Labour in power makes a real difference to people facing inequality and poverty - and we could do so much more if we weren't just in power locally but nationally too.
Now let me turn specifically to recent events.
It’s hard to imagine a more turbulent or disturbing 4 weeks in politics.
Just 4 weeks ago, in the midst of a divisive and frankly xenophobic Referendum campaign, my friend and colleague Jo Cox was brutally murdered in the street on the way to her advice surgery. Murdered for standing up for her beliefs and speaking up for what is right.
3 weeks ago, although Nottingham South voted to remain, people in our city, and especially in this community, voted to leave the EU. To turn their backs on our friends and neighbours in Europe.
20 days ago, David Cameron announced that he would be stepping down as Prime Minister and we faced the prospect of a General Election, against a Party led by some of the most right wing Tories ever, and with UKIP buoyed by huge Leave votes in our Labour heartlands, including in places like Clifton.
And 18 days ago, after 9 months serving in Jeremy’s Shadow Cabinet, I resigned.
You all know that last summer I didn't nominate Jeremy, and I didn't vote for him.
I know that Nottingham South did nominate him and that overwhelmingly members across the country did vote for him.
So when he asked me to serve I said yes.
I wanted to make it work and I promise you, I tried to make it work.
In the 9 months I spent in the Shadow Cabinet I never briefed against Jeremy.
I never tweeted what was happening in Shadow Cabinet meetings or spoke to journalists about our private discussions
Whenever challenged, I defended our Party Leader.
I hope you all know that I work hard for my constituents in Nottingham South
I worked just as diligently in the Shadow Cabinet.
Leading the Labour Transport team
Co-Chairing Labour’sTransport Policy Commission.
Holding the Government to account at the dispatch box.
Going on national and local media to speak for Labour, even when it was difficult.
Being a part of the collective decision making in Shadow Cabinet, setting a direction for the PLP in Parliament on challenging issues.
Many of you will know that I'm passionate about transport.
I've been in the Labour Transport Team for almost 5 years.
Becoming Shadow Transport Secretary was my dream job, a huge privilege and I'm extremely proud of the work our team did.
It was fantastic to address our Party Conference last September and be able to pledge that a Labour Government would bring the railways back into public ownership.
That was a policy that would make a real difference to passengers, and I believe in it wholeheartedly.
It was brilliant when we forced the Government to u-turn on their plans to cancel the electrification of the Midland Main Line
And I was looking forward to speaking in the Bus Services Bill, in favour of re-regulating bus services and standing up for outstanding Municipal bus companies like NCT.
So I'd like you to imagine how I felt when, even though I was trying my hardest, it became impossible for me to do my job in the Shadow Cabinet.
Some people have asked me for examples of why that was the case, and I wanted to explain tonight what’s happened over the last nine months as fully as I can.
Rail fares go up once a year on 2 January.
It's the perfect opportunity to show that this Tory Government aren't on the side of working people.
Commuters who've seen their season tickets go up by more than 26% since 2010. Some of whom are paying more for their rail fares than their mortgage. Four, five even six thousand pounds a year.
People who live in Essex and on the Kent coast, in suburbs and small towns, in marginal seats. Many of them are not Labour voters, but they are the people we need to win over.
It is a huge date in the political calendar every year.
We had the opportunity not just to criticise the Government, but to show we had a real Labour alternative. Our flagship policy. One that unites our party.
My staff spent weeks preparing briefing materials for MPs and constituency parties across the country. Trawling through mountains of rail fare information to provide examples of the season tickets that had risen the most and that cost the most. Examples for every MP and CLP.
Like Nottingham to Derby – where the cost of an annual season ticket has risen by almost 30% since 2010.
And over the Christmas period we were listening in to Network Rail conference calls, monitoring the engineering works. Several calls every day including Christmas Day and Boxing Day, even New Years Eve.
On 4 January – a cold dark Monday morning – I was at Kings Cross at 7am doing Radio 5 and BBC TV.
Standing with Jeremy and the Rail Union General Secretaries for the media photocall. It was a crucial day in the Party’s media grid.
And all across the country local party activists were outside railway stations in the cold and the dark, leafleting commuters with the materials we’d prepared. Armed with the briefings and statistics.
Incredibly, Jeremy launched a Shadow Cabinet reshuffle on the same day.
This was the reshuffle that had been talked about since the Syria vote a month earlier. A vote where I supported Jeremy’s position.
The reshuffle that meant all our staff spent Christmas not knowing whether they'd have a job by the New Year.
By mid-afternoon the press were camped outside the Leader's office. They were there for the next 3 days.
It knocked all the coverage of the rail fare rise and our public ownership policy off every news channel and every front page.
I respect completely Jeremy’s right to reshuffle his top team. But why then?
It was unnecessary and it was incompetent.
It let me down, it let my staff down but most of all it let down the Labour campaigners and trade union members, people like you, who had given up their time to go out campaigning for us that morning.
Now I’d ask you to imagine how you would you feel if you agreed something with your boss but he then did something completely different.
Something that undermined you.
Something they hadn't even had the courtesy to tell you about.
Last Thursday I met with Nottingham South Labour Party members to explain my recent decision to resign from Jeremy Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet.
Most members weren't able to attend that meeting and many constituents have also been in touch to ask me to explain why I felt it necessary to resign.
With this in mind I thought it would be helpful to reproduce my speech here:
Thank you Chair and thank you all for coming to this evening’s meeting.
I want to talk tonight about the Referendum, and what followed.
Some of you have joined the Party in the last year, specifically because of Jeremy Corbyn: inspired by his values and principles and because he cares about fighting poverty and inequality, about offering hope for the future.
I share those values and principles. I always have, and I hope you have always felt welcome in Labour.
We're here in the brand new Hopecentre. I supported Hope Church when this centre was just an idea. And I've seen this community turn an idea into a reality.
If you know Clifton, you'll know how it has been transformed over the past 8 years. The A453, the tram and the solid wall insulation. Fuel poverty in Clifton South has more than halved as a result of Labour action. Down from from 20.2% in 2010 to 9.4% last year.
We did that by working together and campaigning together, working with the people in this community. We offered hope that things could be better and they are.
There's a long way to go.
There are still huge problems and challenges to address in Clifton, in Nottingham South and across the country. But Labour in power makes a real difference to people facing inequality and poverty - and we could do so much more if we weren't just in power locally but nationally too.
Now let me turn specifically to recent events.
It’s hard to imagine a more turbulent or disturbing 4 weeks in politics.
Just 4 weeks ago, in the midst of a divisive and frankly xenophobic Referendum campaign, my friend and colleague Jo Cox was brutally murdered in the street on the way to her advice surgery. Murdered for standing up for her beliefs and speaking up for what is right.
3 weeks ago, although Nottingham South voted to remain, people in our city, and especially in this community, voted to leave the EU. To turn their backs on our friends and neighbours in Europe.
20 days ago, David Cameron announced that he would be stepping down as Prime Minister and we faced the prospect of a General Election, against a Party led by some of the most right wing Tories ever, and with UKIP buoyed by huge Leave votes in our Labour heartlands, including in places like Clifton.
And 18 days ago, after 9 months serving in Jeremy’s Shadow Cabinet, I resigned.
You all know that last summer I didn't nominate Jeremy, and I didn't vote for him.
I know that Nottingham South did nominate him and that overwhelmingly members across the country did vote for him.
So when he asked me to serve I said yes.
I wanted to make it work and I promise you, I tried to make it work.
In the 9 months I spent in the Shadow Cabinet I never briefed against Jeremy.
I never tweeted what was happening in Shadow Cabinet meetings or spoke to journalists about our private discussions
Whenever challenged, I defended our Party Leader.
I hope you all know that I work hard for my constituents in Nottingham South
I worked just as diligently in the Shadow Cabinet.
Leading the Labour Transport team
Co-Chairing Labour’sTransport Policy Commission.
Holding the Government to account at the dispatch box.
Going on national and local media to speak for Labour, even when it was difficult.
Being a part of the collective decision making in Shadow Cabinet, setting a direction for the PLP in Parliament on challenging issues.
Many of you will know that I'm passionate about transport.
I've been in the Labour Transport Team for almost 5 years.
Becoming Shadow Transport Secretary was my dream job, a huge privilege and I'm extremely proud of the work our team did.
It was fantastic to address our Party Conference last September and be able to pledge that a Labour Government would bring the railways back into public ownership.
That was a policy that would make a real difference to passengers, and I believe in it wholeheartedly.
It was brilliant when we forced the Government to u-turn on their plans to cancel the electrification of the Midland Main Line
And I was looking forward to speaking in the Bus Services Bill, in favour of re-regulating bus services and standing up for outstanding Municipal bus companies like NCT.
So I'd like you to imagine how I felt when, even though I was trying my hardest, it became impossible for me to do my job in the Shadow Cabinet.
Some people have asked me for examples of why that was the case, and I wanted to explain tonight what’s happened over the last nine months as fully as I can.
Rail fares go up once a year on 2 January.
It's the perfect opportunity to show that this Tory Government aren't on the side of working people.
Commuters who've seen their season tickets go up by more than 26% since 2010. Some of whom are paying more for their rail fares than their mortgage. Four, five even six thousand pounds a year.
People who live in Essex and on the Kent coast, in suburbs and small towns, in marginal seats. Many of them are not Labour voters, but they are the people we need to win over.
It is a huge date in the political calendar every year.
We had the opportunity not just to criticise the Government, but to show we had a real Labour alternative. Our flagship policy. One that unites our party.
My staff spent weeks preparing briefing materials for MPs and constituency parties across the country. Trawling through mountains of rail fare information to provide examples of the season tickets that had risen the most and that cost the most. Examples for every MP and CLP.
Like Nottingham to Derby – where the cost of an annual season ticket has risen by almost 30% since 2010.
And over the Christmas period we were listening in to Network Rail conference calls, monitoring the engineering works. Several calls every day including Christmas Day and Boxing Day, even New Years Eve.
On 4 January – a cold dark Monday morning – I was at Kings Cross at 7am doing Radio 5 and BBC TV.
Standing with Jeremy and the Rail Union General Secretaries for the media photocall. It was a crucial day in the Party’s media grid.
And all across the country local party activists were outside railway stations in the cold and the dark, leafleting commuters with the materials we’d prepared. Armed with the briefings and statistics.
Incredibly, Jeremy launched a Shadow Cabinet reshuffle on the same day.
This was the reshuffle that had been talked about since the Syria vote a month earlier. A vote where I supported Jeremy’s position.
The reshuffle that meant all our staff spent Christmas not knowing whether they'd have a job by the New Year.
By mid-afternoon the press were camped outside the Leader's office. They were there for the next 3 days.
It knocked all the coverage of the rail fare rise and our public ownership policy off every news channel and every front page.
I respect completely Jeremy’s right to reshuffle his top team. But why then?
It was unnecessary and it was incompetent.
It let me down, it let my staff down but most of all it let down the Labour campaigners and trade union members, people like you, who had given up their time to go out campaigning for us that morning.
Now I’d ask you to imagine how you would you feel if you agreed something with your boss but he then did something completely different.
Something that undermined you.
Something they hadn't even had the courtesy to tell you about.
The unions used to have the power to literally turn the countries power off. It is unsurprising that the establishment saw them as a threat and infiltrated left wing movements. I am curious to hear if you really think that Corbyn's movement is seen as a threat by the establishment?
I don't. The links I posted about undercover police where to be about a separate conversation and nothing to do with Corbyn(I've already said Mcluskey comments where a bit mad).
Although I agree with @berbatrick that the type of politics Corbyn follows are the sort of politics that would be targeted.
"What do you mean I can't abstain?!"
Extra relevant because the "national coordinator" and frequent public spokesman for Momentum - which thrives on accusations of disloyalty to their Dear Leader - voted Green in 2015, was involved in his university Lib Dem society and didn't join Labour until a few days after the 2015 election. Given he's only 28, I'm genuinely not sure he's even voted for Labour in a general. Add in the recent case of the Brighton and Hove AGM, where someone was elected chair of the local party who had a documented history of activism for the Alliance for Workers Liberty, a hard-left group that frequently ran candidates against Labour. He was, of course, the Momentum backed candidate.
Why would the establishment want to take Corbyn down? He is good for them.
I think it is possible that the PLP might have used activist groups to disrupt Corbyn's rallies or there might have been some acting indpenedently. Some hecklers sounded totally unconvincing. The establishment will love Corbyn, however.
Yeah I'm sure Corbyn as PM would be great for MI5. I don't believe for a minute that MI5 have been faking abuse from Corbyn supporters (they wouldn't need to) but come on!
The question is, do you think the establishment looks at the Corbyn movement and thinks 'damn, these have a real chance of getting in power and fecking our shite up' or 'this is great, they are destroying any credible opposition to the Tories'?
I'd imagine they think that, but it's hardly unique to Corbyn. I suspect they thought it for much of the time with Miliband, especially in the latter stages of the campaign, and I suspect Cameron was pleased to be up against Brown instead of Blair in 2010. Figures like Owen Smith aren't going to have them quaking in their boots. All it'll do is prompt a change of attack, from 'incompetent and dangerous' to a 'backstabber and liar'.
The discussion here was about undercover cops, and many of their list of targets have hardly been potential Lenins (in either violence or influence)
I'm not sure I agree with that. Polls on the night of the last general election indicated that the Tories wouldn't even win a majority government!
The discussion was about perceived conspiracy theories from Corbyn's supporters in general.
The final exit poll had the Tories comfortably in front...and that was the final result in the end. Either way, Ed was portrayed as ineffectual, incompetent and not the sort of person you'd want leading your nation. It was said on a regular basis that they'd chosen the wrong Miliband - in other words, that Miliband, the leader, was the one holding Labour back whilst in opposition. The Tories were much more worried about him than they were Corbyn, yeah, but the Tories still won comfortably. Ed at least had the benefit of a party that, ya know, kinda backed him, too. I'd imagine a significant part of Labour's current slump in the polls is due to this division, along with the boost the Tories have had with a new leader.
That Jacobin article itself is a good example of the mistruths and paranoia of his backers.
The leader of the opposition will always have a chance when you're 4 years from a GE.
I don't really want to get into discussing this because I think it's all a bit irrelevant though. I think he has a chance, I'm not sure what there is to gain in guessing the beliefs of hypothetical people in the establishment think especially as there is probably a range of views on the matter anyway. Some people clearly care enough about him that they are actively trying to stop him succeed, we have seen that publicly.
And to be fair to Len some of the stuff I've read the secret services have done that come out from the past is pretty crazy so I'm not sure we can rule much out completely even when we can say it's probably not true. If you've run in with them like he has I am can understand why he might have some unlikely theories about what is going on now.
My own theory is that social media is full of wankers from all walks of life.
There's mistruths and paranoia from everyone, you yourself have posted things that turned out to be completely false and I don't recall you ever acknowledging it.
The one I posted ? If so what's wrong with it ?
It has an overall narrative and frequently misrepresents evidence to suit that narrative. Here's a few:
"Concerns about sexual assaults on public transport were construed as campaigning for women-only trains. Advocacy for Keynesian fiscal and monetary policies was presented as a plan to “turn Britain into Zimbabwe.” An appeal to reconsider the foreign policy approach of the last decade was presented as an association with Putin’s Russia." - Women-only train carriages was an actual suggestion he made, it wasn't made up. He advocated "people's QE" in order to fund spending commitments, which was highlighted as likely to increase inflation. He had frequent appearances on Russia Today as a reliable West-basher.
The complaints about Laura Kuenssberg being able to get stories is bizarre. The complaints about the anti-semitism ordeal completely miss the point, citing "only" one sitting MP (and ignoring the continued and repeated anti-semitic actions in the aftermath of one of Corbyn's longest-standing political friends), who has since admitted that she was being anti-semitic and strongly apologised for it, criticising the many who had defended what she said.
Citing the resignations of the shadow cabinet as evidence of BBC bias - it's news. They cover that.
Citing the Thomas Piketty resignation - it's correct to say it was initially reported as a response to the EU vote and later turned out to have been done earlier. But it also implies that him having cited Corbyn's "weak leadership" was an invention - it wasn't, he did complain about it.
Apparently complaining about a tweet from a Guardian journalist that accurately reports what McDonnell said on free movement.
I could go on. It wants there to be a big conspiracy to bring down a faultless leader, whereas in reality the media just likes conflict and are going to report on it - see how giddy with excitement they were when Gove moved against Boris. Or when Angela Leadsom pulled out of the Tory leadership race, and they abandoned Angela Eagle's leadership launch to go and cover it. Do the media get things wrong and have to correct stuff when new info comes to light? Of course, and again this happens on the right. It's not a conspiracy.
Apologies for the length of the response there, wasn't intending to go on that much
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Interesting article... http://www.heraldscotland.com/opini...na__Why_the_powers_that_be_fear_Jeremy_Corbyn
Edit: Strange that mainstream media isn't covering his launch and it's having to be screened live via facebook.
Edit: Strange that mainstream media isn't covering his launch and it's having to be screened live via facebook.
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It has an overall narrative and frequently misrepresents evidence to suit that narrative. Here's a few:
"Concerns about sexual assaults on public transport were construed as campaigning for women-only trains. Advocacy for Keynesian fiscal and monetary policies was presented as a plan to “turn Britain into Zimbabwe.” An appeal to reconsider the foreign policy approach of the last decade was presented as an association with Putin’s Russia." - Women-only train carriages was an actual suggestion he made, it wasn't made up. He advocated "people's QE" in order to fund spending commitments, which was highlighted as likely to increase inflation. He had frequent appearances on Russia Today as a reliable West-basher.
The complaints about Laura Kuenssberg being able to get stories is bizarre. The complaints about the anti-semitism ordeal completely miss the point, citing "only" one sitting MP (and ignoring the continued and repeated anti-semitic actions in the aftermath of one of Corbyn's longest-standing political friends), who has since admitted that she was being anti-semitic and strongly apologised for it, criticising the many who had defended what she said.
Citing the resignations of the shadow cabinet as evidence of BBC bias - it's news. They cover that.
Citing the Thomas Piketty resignation - it's correct to say it was initially reported as a response to the EU vote and later turned out to have been done earlier. But it also implies that him having cited Corbyn's "weak leadership" was an invention - it wasn't, he did complain about it.
Apparently complaining about a tweet from a Guardian journalist that accurately reports what McDonnell said on free movement.
I could go on. It wants there to be a big conspiracy to bring down a faultless leader, whereas in reality the media just likes conflict and are going to report on it - see how giddy with excitement they were when Gove moved against Boris. Or when Angela Leadsom pulled out of the Tory leadership race, and they abandoned Angela Eagle's leadership launch to go and cover it. Do the media get things wrong and have to correct stuff when new info comes to light? Of course, and again this happens on the right. It's not a conspiracy.
Apologies for the length of the response there, wasn't intending to go on that much
That first line is pretty ironic
He didn't campaign for women only train carriages. Your own evidence makes that clear. There are arguments to be had about people's QE without Zimbabwe comparisons. All of those examples are from a Private Eye section anyway:
Kuenssberg — We've been here before. The on-air resignation was hugely problematic. Probably an abuse of her position. More widely, the BBC's political coverage is often problematic because there is little separation between comment and correspondence. The criticism of the BBC's coverage from both Nick Robinson and Michael Lyons is telling.
The resignations were not cited as evidence of bias, the Kuenssberg article alleging that Corbyn sabotaged the remain campaign in advance of them was. I didn't read that article at the time but Christ it is an awful, awful article. (It takes around three quotes out of context from a handful of emails selectively leaked to her by a biased source out of god knows how many emails sent during the campaign which she manages to construct a 700 word article alleging a deliberate sabotage attempt from). Kuenssberg might not be a bad political commentator. She is an awful journalist.
Piketty resigned in advance of Brexit due to time constraints. Post Brexit he said he was concerned about it and thought that Labour's campaign had been weak. Somehow that becomes "Piketty resign's due to Corbyn's weak leadership". I mean wasn't Alan Johnson the head of Labour's campaign?
The Israel ISIS speech was a new nadir for reporting. When even The Guardian is literally deliberately misquoting Corbyn to attack him it should be obvious how agenda driven the media is.
And look. This isn't to say Corbyn is a faultless leader who is only struggling to connect to people because of the press he gets. But the press he gets is a problem. Not just for Labour's electoral chances but for our democracy.
It is also bizarre that people on the centre-left/Corbyn's opponents are so happy to dismiss and ignore this sort of agenda. This kind of agenda is precisely why Miliband couldn't win. It's not the only reason, but it will happen again to the soft-left if you succeed in removing Corbyn. (You will at least have The Guardian back on side as if that will make a difference)
The media continually and deliberately get things wrong with corrections never given equivalent prominence. We can have a debate about the causation. Is the British media shitty and racist and right-wing and war-mongering because that's what the British people want to read, or are the British people shitty and racist and right-wing and war-mongering because that's what their media tell them to be? Probably a bit of column A and a bit of column B. But we undoubtedly have an awful media and that shouldn't be brushed aside simply because they are undermining someone you do not like.
Concerns about sexual assaults on public transport were construed as campaigning for women-only trains
Corbyn said: “Some women have raised with me that a solution to the rise in assault and harassment on public transport could be to introduce women only carriages. My intention would be to make public transport safer for everyone from the train platform, to the bus stop to on the mode of transport itself. However, I would consult with women and open it up to hear their views on whether women-only carriages would be welcome - and also if piloting this at times and modes of transport where harassment is reported most frequently would be of interest.
Suggest a consultation on an idea = Campaigning.
Make multiple speeches and appearances explicitly campaigning for the UK to remain in the EU = Sabotaging the Remain case. Not campaigning
Yes. It is the Jacobin article that is twisted.
2+2=5
That first line is pretty ironic
He didn't campaign for women only train carriages. Your own evidence makes that clear. There are arguments to be had about people's QE without Zimbabwe comparisons. All of those examples are from a Private Eye section anyway:
Kuenssberg — We've been here before. The on-air resignation was hugely problematic. Probably an abuse of her position. More widely, the BBC's political coverage is often problematic because there is little separation between comment and correspondence. The criticism of the BBC's coverage from both Nick Robinson and Michael Lyons is telling.
The resignations were not cited as evidence of bias, the Kuenssberg article alleging that Corbyn sabotaged the remain campaign in advance of them was. I didn't read that article at the time but Christ it is an awful, awful article. (It takes around three quotes out of context from a handful of emails selectively leaked to her by a biased source out of god knows how many emails sent during the campaign which she manages to construct a 700 word article alleging a deliberate sabotage attempt from). Kuenssberg might not be a bad political commentator. She is an awful journalist.
Piketty resigned in advance of Brexit due to time constraints. Post Brexit he said he was concerned about it and thought that Labour's campaign had been weak. Somehow that becomes "Piketty resign's due to Corbyn's weak leadership". I mean wasn't Alan Johnson the head of Labour's campaign?
The Israel ISIS speech was a new nadir for reporting. When even The Guardian is literally deliberately misquoting Corbyn to attack him it should be obvious how agenda driven the media is.
And look. This isn't to say Corbyn is a faultless leader who is only struggling to connect to people because of the press he gets. But the press he gets is a problem. Not just for Labour's electoral chances but for our democracy.
It is also bizarre that people on the centre-left/Corbyn's opponents are so happy to dismiss and ignore this sort of agenda. This kind of agenda is precisely why Miliband couldn't win. It's not the only reason, but it will happen again to the soft-left if you succeed in removing Corbyn. (You will at least have The Guardian back on side as if that will make a difference)
The media continually and deliberately get things wrong with corrections never given equivalent prominence. We can have a debate about the causation. Is the British media shitty and racist and right-wing and war-mongering because that's what the British people want to read, or are the British people shitty and racist and right-wing and war-mongering because that's what their media tell them to be? Probably a bit of column A and a bit of column B. But we undoubtedly have an awful media and that shouldn't be brushed aside simply because they are undermining someone you do not like.
Concerns about sexual assaults on public transport were construed as campaigning for women-only trains
Corbyn said: “Some women have raised with me that a solution to the rise in assault and harassment on public transport could be to introduce women only carriages. My intention would be to make public transport safer for everyone from the train platform, to the bus stop to on the mode of transport itself. However, I would consult with women and open it up to hear their views on whether women-only carriages would be welcome - and also if piloting this at times and modes of transport where harassment is reported most frequently would be of interest.
Suggest a consultation on an idea = Campaigning.
Make multiple speeches and appearances explicitly campaigning for the UK to remain in the EU = Sabotaging the Remain case. Not campaigning
Yes. It is the Jacobin article that is twisted.
2+2=5
Where did I say he was campaigning for women's only carriages? That's taken from the Jacobin article. I said he brought the issue up, which he did.
What's the dreaded Guardian's headline? "Corbyn raises possibility of women-only carriages" - http://www.theguardian.com/politics...n-carriages-a-possibility-under-jeremy-corbyn
Murdoch's Sky News? "Corbyn considers women-only carriages" - http://news.sky.com/story/corbyn-considers-women-only-train-carriages-10348297
The Torygraph? "Corbyn considers women-only carriages" - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/pol...byn-considers-women-only-train-carriages.html
Which of those isn't accurate? So judging from that Private Eye clipping, the worst headline on that was from the widely known opinion setter the Daily Star. And that one doesn't even have the word "campaign" either. But maybe they started going over the top after that, I don't remember anymore, and train carriages is pretty innocuous in the scheme of things. Still don't think they've got much of a point with what they've written.
And I think it's a tad harsh to criticise me for "ignoring" and "dismissing" the difficulty the left has at winning over the press. Literally one of the first things I said in the Labour leadership thread last year was along the lines of "we really need to pick someone they're going to find tough to attack". People decided to choose Jeremy Corbyn instead, presumably they didn't think it would be an issue. The one that it was completely blatant had a shitload of bad stuff in their past that would not only damage his leadership, but the party (which he goes and makes worse by bringing in McDonnell). And honestly, the rightwing press haven't even really started yet. The IRA stuff is going to be brought out the second a general election is called.
The problem I really have is that these guys think the fecking GUARDIAN have joined a conspiracy. I didn't even get to the part of the article where they state the Daily Mirror and Guardian are flouting the wishes of their readership, citing polling, then provide as evidence a tweet talking about a self-selecting, unscientific survey of Guardian readers that are Labour members. He's just shit, that's why the Guardian and Mirror, and most Labour voters incidentally, don't like him. They actually like Labour being in power. So yeah, sorry, I'm not accepting this is "an unprecedented campaign" against him. The rightwing are doing what they do to every Labour leader. The left are openly talking about how bad he is.
Alan Johnson has publicly accepted his responsibility for the campaign. The first things that Jeremy Corbyn did the day after was say that article 50 should be triggered "now", with his office briefing that "he'd shown he was the leader closest to the public on the issue" (the absolute cretin, still makes me angry). He was "7/10" interested. If you're now thinking this was acceptable and not something he bears direct responsibility for, then I don't know what to say.
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Seems to me you're getting inordinately irate over something that matters not a jot. You can read that as me "thinking this was acceptable and not something he bears direct responsibility for" if you like - and I wont mind at all if you don't know what to say.
That's great. But I was talking to Untied.
The fact that women's only carriages is a fairly innocuous example is the perfect illustration of the problem. A political leader says we should ask women whether they feel that would help with abuse/harassment. This quickly becomes a lead story. The follow up refers to it as his idea/plan. And for those people who are not sad enough to follow the intricacies of these stories the impression they will get (and were intended to get) is of a barmy idea from a loony Labour leader.
Are women carriages a good solution to the problem? Maybe not. Probably not. Is it a problem that our media did not permit a grown up democratic conversation about them? Definitely.
The Guardian isn't immune from editorial bias. They have been opposed to Corbyn from the start and there have been a number of stories undermining him of spurious factual basis. I mean they are currently running a story about a Corbyn aide illegally breaking into MP's office. I'm not entirely clear on the protocol in Parliament, so it might be a big mistake, but if you correct the spin the story is something like "Office manager enters office of MP who resigned from post one month ago to see whether office is vacated yet"
They had a similarly shit article about Corbyn denying access to parliament to aides of those who had recently publicly resigned. Yes. According to The Guardian it is petty to stop access by those who no longer warrant it.
The hypocrisy they end up tangling themselves in is hilarious. They are criticising Corbyn for an aide possibly breaching privacy by entering an office but also calling him petty emailing the sergeant at arms to inform them of people no longer employed by the Labour Party who subsequently had their passes blocked to prevent such breaches in privacy.
I do think the word conspiracy is incredibly unhelpful. I think agenda is a more accurate term. And The Guardian's journalism wrt Corbyn certainly has had an agenda beyond reporting the facts. And it's fine to disagree but I think deliberately misquoting the recorded words of a political figure suggests an unprecedented agenda to me. And we can argue about the choice of phrasing and I would agree that it was poor. But that doesn't excuse The Guardian and other media outlets from running stories based upon something Corbyn never said.
Corbyn's response to the EU result was absolutely infuriating. I'm still angry about that as well. But we were discussing the context of the Piketty resignation and it is a reach to take the quotes and the timeline and attribute the resignation to Corbyn's personally weak campaign, as the media was all to happy to do.
Corbyn and the EU campaign is a topic I could go much longer on. But very briefly. As shit as he was the focus on him is itself agenda driven. Labour carried 63% of voters as Remain. Turnout was the main problem. Yet the discussion has focused on his inability to convince the white working classes to Remain. If you want to blame Labour for the Leave vote you should: 1. Talk about the turnout in their pro-remain areas 2. Talk about the voters they have lost to UKIP under previous leaders. This was not about Corbyn's inability to talk to the north (Well sort of. He couldn't convert those who had voted UKIP in '15, having previously voted Labour, to vote Remain. That's not solely his fault)
But the SNP only carried 64% and they are using that as justification for leaving the UK. Lib Dems 70%ish and yet Farron amusingly eviscerated Corbyn on TV on the 24th over his poor campaign. (These percentages are from memory, apologies if they are off but hopefully not wildly so).
And not a single story on say... Rob Marris deleting important files to the party when he resigned.