You count how many times per year you say words?
Jeremy Corbyn - Not Not Labour Party(?), not a Communist (BBC)
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You count how many times per year you say words?
Well according to your posts here it's:
a)Check everything everybody he might meet said. Ever!
b)Have perfect workable solutions for unsolvable problems the current government created in the last 12 months
c)Crawl up Murdochs & Dacres arse just far enough to be visible through their smiling teeth.
It took you 108 posts in this thread to come up with:
d)The opposition should always be prepared in such a way to win an election at any given time a snap election may be called. If he doesn't win he somehow failed at... being the opposition?
ooookay
Whilst simultaneously taking on his own MPs. And making sure nobody leaks that (and how) they're preparing for an election so that May still triggers the snap election, because of how badly Labour were polling. But doing it publicly enough that it gets the Murdoch and Dacre press on side. But secretly enough that Corbyn supporters don't abandon him after seeing yet another party leader grabbing his ankles for them. But publicly enough for ditching Leveson 2 to feature in the manifesto. But secretly enough so that only Murdoch, Dacre and their employees would notice it.
Dealing with such widespread disunity quite obviously detracts from a leader's ability to prepare for any sort of election.
Did this election not show the waning influence of the print media?
The point of the opposition isn't to 'win at opposition', and hopefully unless Charlie Sheen takes an interest in British politics that'll continue to be the case.
Yeah, as I've said Corbyn/Labour's approach to Brexit has been to basically pretend it's not a problem, and while I admire their desire to shift focus onto healthcare/housing etc, there does need to be a recognition that these are issues which may all be irreversibly affected by Brexit itself.
But at the same time I think there's a danger that a Labour party which pursues a soft Brexit is one which risks basically coming across as if there's no problem whatsoever, and as if Brexit should basically be swept aside. Owen Smith's candidacy in 2016 exemplified this - granted, he was shite anyway, but his claims that he'd reverse Brexit or hold another vote (or something similar to that) resulted in him coming across as being frighteningly out of touch. He was taking the single best issue the country was facing, and telling a significant portion of the country (including Labour leave voters) that what they thought was wrong, and that he knew best. And while that may have been the case, it essentially destroyed any leadership hopes he might have had. It reminds me a bit of Scottish Labour in 2015 - from their perspective they'd done the right thing in arguing for the union, but pretending a significant portion of the country didn't still find it to be a pertinent and relevant issues, and patronising them as a result of that, proved to be their downfall.
You'd think so, wouldn't you? Turns out it was the exact opposite.
And of course the likes of Jess Phillips running to any blog, newspaper or TV studio that would have them, to talk about how unelectable the leader and members of his shadow cabinet were, definitely had no affect at all when it came to the polls. Or the Brexit referendum. Having spent the months between his leadership victory and the remain campaign stating how Corbyn was only interested in protest and had nothing to offer from a political stand point, had absolutely no bearing on the way his speeches were covered or indeed received by the wider public.
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To an extent, yes, and that trend will continue, but a lot of arguments suggest that there continuing influence probably prevented an outright Corbyn win. Certainly press coverage was more hostile to Corbyn than May, and while social media may be more prevalent now important news stories still get a lot of coverage.
There was a middle ground group (I shall henceforth call them CORBYN CENTRISTS) that said he might not win but he'd do better than the other candidates from 2015 and gain back ground. So it proved, and fair play where it's due. I like to be guided by the evidence where possible and I can't see anything beyond supposition that anyone else would've had better results. He had a fantastic campaign (pity it was absent for the EUref but there we go) and got a lot of people energised with an unashamedly leftwing manifesto, which also didn't alienate moderate voters. I have no idea if he can improve next time out to become PM and lead a Labour government, but I think downplaying his achievements is self-defeating.
I don't get your Charlie Sheen reference but never mind... The tories going from full control to a coalition with the DUP to prop them up is surely a win for the opposition? Labour increased their seats and votes...
If Mourinho finishes second this season will it have been a better season than Moyes season here? Or doesn't it matter because neither won it?
He's not managerial, or something.
It was perhaps the most inept and pathetic General Election campaign in history from the Tories and May, and they still only just missed out on achieving a majority. The fact Labour couldn't capitalise more is somewhat concerning. You'd think the next GE campaign will see a much stronger campaign from the Conservatives and Theresa May (If she is still leader by then).
Good point. They have mistakes to learn from. By all accounts Labour were absolutely thrilled by the loss.
Nah the government had the "Us against the world" narrative going strong after brexit and the entire media (even guardian) was full of 'reasons' why Corbyn was unelectable. The tories had such a strong hand that they called the snap election to more or less eliminate labour (with SNP getting many former labour seats). May wanted to win enough seats to be able to have the extremists in her party to vote against her and still be able to govern.
I don't see any possible path in the next couple of years that lead to starting conditions for a campaign that would be more lopsided. Will May campaign better next time? Would Boris/Mogg capaign better? I don't see it happening.
It was the probably worst campaign any government - or more to the point: winning party - has ever run. Their flagship policy idea was 'let's make all our traditional voters fear we'll make them sell their houses to pay for their care in old age' ffs.
Boris and Mogg are both awful. The best person the Tories could get after May would be Davidson IMO. Whether she will move from Scotland remains to be seen, mind. There's not a lot to choose from though if not her.
Boris
Mogg
Hammond
Davis
Rudd
Hunt
Leadsom
Gove
Pretty uninspiring list. The same goes for Labour aswell if and when Corbyn steps down as leader.
Yeah but that's not the only blunder the government that gets propped up by a northern Irish party but forgets to ask said party when making a deal on northern Ireland has in it... they won't be any better next time around. Not with these people in charge.
Jewdas Statement:
Enough really is enough.
Although we enjoy the anonymity, it is a fairly open secret that nearly all of us in Jewdas are synagogue-going Jews, most with either paid or voluntary positions within our communities. With members across the country, for the last thirteen years we have been the only place many people could come to be both left-wing and religiously Jewish.
That is not because nowhere else was interested. That is because, across the Jewish community, synagogues had made the decision to actively push out everyone on the far left. Philanthropists tried to assimilate radical Jews into their structures, and, in the cases where they failed, declared that the people who refused to conform were beyond the pale. Critics of Israel were shunned by their friends and families. A narrow Conservative clique took over our major communal bodies, newspapers and schools. (If you think they don’t all know each other, check the guest list for the President’s Club event where women were sexually harassed and assaulted.)
Most of the remaining left-wing Jews either disappeared into nothingness or found each other in niche Trotskyist factions or single-issue campaigns. Groups like Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Free Speech on Israel and Jewish Voice for Labour are, whatever you think of them, the remnant of radical Jews who have been forced out of their own communities.
In 2005, a small group made the decision that, this generation, we would not be forced out. Despite our deeply held beliefs in opposing capitalism and nationalism, we wanted to remain loyal to our own community. We wanted to stay members of synagogues and be part of our communities, full of all the complications and contradictions that would involve. We wanted to be able to persuade people of our opinions and, where we couldn’t, we would accept the joy of being in diverse spaces. Most of all, we wanted to be able to laugh at ourselves, each other and the Anglo-Jewish establishment. We wanted to have fun. And we tried.
But now enough is enough.
Over the last decade, because of our position straddling the left and the Jewish community, Jewdas has been the only radical faction that took antisemitism seriously. When we joined pro-Palestine marches (which we did, proudly), we brought with us leaflets explaining how to criticise Israel without being antisemitic. We called out offensive placards and engaged in constructive conversations with people who held them.
When the entirety of the left engaged in circle-jerks about free speech after the Hyperkasher killings in Paris, we were the only group on the left to denounce those acts of terrorism as attacks on Jews.
When neo-Nazis marched through Stamford Hill, we were the only group to go out and protest them. When the same group marched on Parliament, we managed to convince the Campaign Against Antisemitism (though not the Board of Deputies) to join us.
We lost plenty of friends when we were the one of the only left factions to call for Ken Livingstone’s expulsion.
Time and time and time again, we have denounced antisemitism, left and right. We have always stood up for our community.
But now enough is enough.
What has happened over the last week is anything but an attempt to address antisemitism. It is the work of cynical manipulations by people whose express loyalty is to the Conservative Party and the right wing of the Labour Party. It is a malicious ploy to remove the leader of the Opposition and put a stop to the possibility of a socialist government. The Board of Deputies, the (disgraced for corruption) Jewish Leadership Council and the (unelected, undemocratic) Jewish Labour Movement are playing a dangerous game with people’s lives.
What triggered this was an antisemitic mural. There is no question that the mural was antisemitic. Michael Segalov can give you the rundown of why it was. Six years ago, that mural got taken down. At the time, Jeremy Corbyn consoled the artist who drew it. Inconsiderate? Definitely. Dodgy? Yeah. Racist? Maybe.
But is it a communal crisis that the leader of the Labour Party posted an unthinking comment on a Facebook post six years ago? Only if you’re a hired troll whose job it is to dig up dirt on left-wing politicians to force them out of office. Only if you’re an outgoing president of the Board of Deputies with a special place in your heart for Trump, Bibi and May. Only if you’re a disgraced wannabe-politician that is being investigated for financial corruption and you need a distraction. Only if, ultimately, your goals have nothing to do with combatting antisemitism and everything to do with ousting the first successful socialist in a lifetime.
Certainly, there are some useful idiots who are willing to go along with this charade. Centrist dads who’ve been complaining that nobody represents whiny middle-aged small business owners anymore probably sincerely believe that Monday’s amateur dramatics were akin to storming the Bastille. There are no doubt some people who have joined in with these protests out of a wildly misplaced loyalty to the Jewish community, despite knowing that they are being treated as pawns. But the engine behind this bout of faux-outrage is greased with hypocrisy and opportunism.
Enough is enough.
This is not about dealing with antisemitism. Jonty Liebowitz has rightly complained in the Times of Israel that the Jewish communal leadership and the leader of the Labour Party are now in open opposition to each other for the first time in history. That is true. But it is a result of conscious decisions that the Jewish communal leadership have made.
When David Cameron decided to withdraw from Merkel’s centrist grouping in the European Union to team up withHolocaust deniers, white supremacists and unreconstructed fascists, our communal leadership decided that they could work with him. Whatever his faults, they’d influence him. This was not a communal crisis.
When Donald Trump declared to a room full of Jews that they wouldn’t like him because they couldn’t buy him, and hired Steve Bannon as his Chief Strategist, Jonathan Arkush tweeted his warm congratulations. He nearly fell out of his seat celebrating when the same President risked World War Three by declaring Jerusalem the eternal capital of Israel. This was not a problem for the Jews.
But decades ago our communal leadership decided that any criticism of Israel was beyond the pale. People could flirt with Nazis and threaten our communal life all they wanted, as long as they stood up for Israel. Far right evangelical Christians were our friends, while Jewish public figures like Gerald Kauffman, Hugo Gryn and Avi Shlaim were denounced as antisemites. As far as they were concerned, Corbyn was already beyond the pale before he started. They would not have needed any evidence to attack him. The evidence was already there in the fact that he championed the cause of the Palestinians.
But they did find evidence. He has met with people who are anti-Semites. He used ill-advised language. Somebody close to his dog-walker once said something problematic. They reached through every last bit of his history and uncovered what they could. Some of it was compelling. Some of it less so. All of it was treated as if it was a new edition of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Now, in the build-up to local elections where Labour were expected to make significant gains, they have turned rumours and half-truths into a narrative that pretends that another Holocaust is round the corner in Britain. Unfortunately, some fools even believe them.
Enough is enough.
This is not even just about Israel.
This is about people of a certain age, class and political persuasion who have no idea how to function in a system where every political party isn’t pandering to their views exactly. It is about the threat that the possibility of nationalisation, rent caps and redistribution of wealth poses to the people whose ‘philanthropy’ funds our community. We have allowed our community to be dominated by middle- and upper- class people who are actively opposed to our material interests for way too long.
Enough is more than fecking enough.
The next steps from here are usually predictable. A non-Jew like Wes Streeting, Luke Akehurst or Stephen Pollard will appear on TV and claim to be the sole representative of the Jewish community, who they will say will settle for nothing less than the sacking of the entire shadow cabinet to be replaced by their friends. They will be contested. A cranky Jew will sit on the other side of the news table assuring everybody that there is no such thing as antisemitism and that the Holodomor Famine never happened.
Then our communal leaders will rally together and tell all the Jews who disagree to shut up. And denounce all the Jews who continue to disagree as traitors. And proclaim all the Jews who still disagree are not really Jews. That only the Jews who agree with them are Jews. And, because only the Jews who agree with them are really Jews, the whole community is unanimously united behind the vomit-inducing ‘progressive Zionist consensus.’ Already now, the Jewish Chronicle is flipping its lid that a politician has acknowledged the existence of a Jewish group that isn’t on their list of ‘correctly Jewish’ organisations.
The Labour leadership will recover from this mess, but this fiasco may well leave scars that cannot be healed within the Jewish community. We refuse to follow the script that has been prepared for us. Enough is enough. We are not going anywhere. We are not going to accept this second-rate leadership. We are not going to be treated as idiot pawns in politicians’ turf wars.
We are not going to shut up. Not this time.
Enough is enough. feck you all. Chag Pesach sameach.
Enough really is enough.
Although we enjoy the anonymity, it is a fairly open secret that nearly all of us in Jewdas are synagogue-going Jews, most with either paid or voluntary positions within our communities. With members across the country, for the last thirteen years we have been the only place many people could come to be both left-wing and religiously Jewish.
That is not because nowhere else was interested. That is because, across the Jewish community, synagogues had made the decision to actively push out everyone on the far left. Philanthropists tried to assimilate radical Jews into their structures, and, in the cases where they failed, declared that the people who refused to conform were beyond the pale. Critics of Israel were shunned by their friends and families. A narrow Conservative clique took over our major communal bodies, newspapers and schools. (If you think they don’t all know each other, check the guest list for the President’s Club event where women were sexually harassed and assaulted.)
Most of the remaining left-wing Jews either disappeared into nothingness or found each other in niche Trotskyist factions or single-issue campaigns. Groups like Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Free Speech on Israel and Jewish Voice for Labour are, whatever you think of them, the remnant of radical Jews who have been forced out of their own communities.
In 2005, a small group made the decision that, this generation, we would not be forced out. Despite our deeply held beliefs in opposing capitalism and nationalism, we wanted to remain loyal to our own community. We wanted to stay members of synagogues and be part of our communities, full of all the complications and contradictions that would involve. We wanted to be able to persuade people of our opinions and, where we couldn’t, we would accept the joy of being in diverse spaces. Most of all, we wanted to be able to laugh at ourselves, each other and the Anglo-Jewish establishment. We wanted to have fun. And we tried.
But now enough is enough.
Over the last decade, because of our position straddling the left and the Jewish community, Jewdas has been the only radical faction that took antisemitism seriously. When we joined pro-Palestine marches (which we did, proudly), we brought with us leaflets explaining how to criticise Israel without being antisemitic. We called out offensive placards and engaged in constructive conversations with people who held them.
When the entirety of the left engaged in circle-jerks about free speech after the Hyperkasher killings in Paris, we were the only group on the left to denounce those acts of terrorism as attacks on Jews.
When neo-Nazis marched through Stamford Hill, we were the only group to go out and protest them. When the same group marched on Parliament, we managed to convince the Campaign Against Antisemitism (though not the Board of Deputies) to join us.
We lost plenty of friends when we were the one of the only left factions to call for Ken Livingstone’s expulsion.
Time and time and time again, we have denounced antisemitism, left and right. We have always stood up for our community.
But now enough is enough.
What has happened over the last week is anything but an attempt to address antisemitism. It is the work of cynical manipulations by people whose express loyalty is to the Conservative Party and the right wing of the Labour Party. It is a malicious ploy to remove the leader of the Opposition and put a stop to the possibility of a socialist government. The Board of Deputies, the (disgraced for corruption) Jewish Leadership Council and the (unelected, undemocratic) Jewish Labour Movement are playing a dangerous game with people’s lives.
What triggered this was an antisemitic mural. There is no question that the mural was antisemitic. Michael Segalov can give you the rundown of why it was. Six years ago, that mural got taken down. At the time, Jeremy Corbyn consoled the artist who drew it. Inconsiderate? Definitely. Dodgy? Yeah. Racist? Maybe.
But is it a communal crisis that the leader of the Labour Party posted an unthinking comment on a Facebook post six years ago? Only if you’re a hired troll whose job it is to dig up dirt on left-wing politicians to force them out of office. Only if you’re an outgoing president of the Board of Deputies with a special place in your heart for Trump, Bibi and May. Only if you’re a disgraced wannabe-politician that is being investigated for financial corruption and you need a distraction. Only if, ultimately, your goals have nothing to do with combatting antisemitism and everything to do with ousting the first successful socialist in a lifetime.
Certainly, there are some useful idiots who are willing to go along with this charade. Centrist dads who’ve been complaining that nobody represents whiny middle-aged small business owners anymore probably sincerely believe that Monday’s amateur dramatics were akin to storming the Bastille. There are no doubt some people who have joined in with these protests out of a wildly misplaced loyalty to the Jewish community, despite knowing that they are being treated as pawns. But the engine behind this bout of faux-outrage is greased with hypocrisy and opportunism.
Enough is enough.
This is not about dealing with antisemitism. Jonty Liebowitz has rightly complained in the Times of Israel that the Jewish communal leadership and the leader of the Labour Party are now in open opposition to each other for the first time in history. That is true. But it is a result of conscious decisions that the Jewish communal leadership have made.
When David Cameron decided to withdraw from Merkel’s centrist grouping in the European Union to team up withHolocaust deniers, white supremacists and unreconstructed fascists, our communal leadership decided that they could work with him. Whatever his faults, they’d influence him. This was not a communal crisis.
When Donald Trump declared to a room full of Jews that they wouldn’t like him because they couldn’t buy him, and hired Steve Bannon as his Chief Strategist, Jonathan Arkush tweeted his warm congratulations. He nearly fell out of his seat celebrating when the same President risked World War Three by declaring Jerusalem the eternal capital of Israel. This was not a problem for the Jews.
But decades ago our communal leadership decided that any criticism of Israel was beyond the pale. People could flirt with Nazis and threaten our communal life all they wanted, as long as they stood up for Israel. Far right evangelical Christians were our friends, while Jewish public figures like Gerald Kauffman, Hugo Gryn and Avi Shlaim were denounced as antisemites. As far as they were concerned, Corbyn was already beyond the pale before he started. They would not have needed any evidence to attack him. The evidence was already there in the fact that he championed the cause of the Palestinians.
But they did find evidence. He has met with people who are anti-Semites. He used ill-advised language. Somebody close to his dog-walker once said something problematic. They reached through every last bit of his history and uncovered what they could. Some of it was compelling. Some of it less so. All of it was treated as if it was a new edition of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Now, in the build-up to local elections where Labour were expected to make significant gains, they have turned rumours and half-truths into a narrative that pretends that another Holocaust is round the corner in Britain. Unfortunately, some fools even believe them.
Enough is enough.
This is not even just about Israel.
This is about people of a certain age, class and political persuasion who have no idea how to function in a system where every political party isn’t pandering to their views exactly. It is about the threat that the possibility of nationalisation, rent caps and redistribution of wealth poses to the people whose ‘philanthropy’ funds our community. We have allowed our community to be dominated by middle- and upper- class people who are actively opposed to our material interests for way too long.
Enough is more than fecking enough.
The next steps from here are usually predictable. A non-Jew like Wes Streeting, Luke Akehurst or Stephen Pollard will appear on TV and claim to be the sole representative of the Jewish community, who they will say will settle for nothing less than the sacking of the entire shadow cabinet to be replaced by their friends. They will be contested. A cranky Jew will sit on the other side of the news table assuring everybody that there is no such thing as antisemitism and that the Holodomor Famine never happened.
Then our communal leaders will rally together and tell all the Jews who disagree to shut up. And denounce all the Jews who continue to disagree as traitors. And proclaim all the Jews who still disagree are not really Jews. That only the Jews who agree with them are Jews. And, because only the Jews who agree with them are really Jews, the whole community is unanimously united behind the vomit-inducing ‘progressive Zionist consensus.’ Already now, the Jewish Chronicle is flipping its lid that a politician has acknowledged the existence of a Jewish group that isn’t on their list of ‘correctly Jewish’ organisations.
The Labour leadership will recover from this mess, but this fiasco may well leave scars that cannot be healed within the Jewish community. We refuse to follow the script that has been prepared for us. Enough is enough. We are not going anywhere. We are not going to accept this second-rate leadership. We are not going to be treated as idiot pawns in politicians’ turf wars.
We are not going to shut up. Not this time.
Enough is enough. feck you all. Chag Pesach sameach.
So their response to people being dicks about picking out "good jews and bad jews"...is to call some people "non-jews".
This is all going well.
This is all going well.
Uh, I'm pretty sure they meant in the literal sense. Like saying that Jezza isn't black.
The editor of the Jewish Chronicle isn't jewish?
maybe it was just bad phrasing then, Wes is a Christian I think, no idea who Luke is.
Israel hating Communist Jews trying to convince Pro Palestinians how not to be anti-Semitic because destroying capitalism is more important than absolutely everything else.
It wasn't even particularly bad phrasing, you can easily read to mean only Wes is not Jewish
so, they shouldn't teach people not to be anti-semitic?
Phrasing there definitely looks like they're referring to all three, even if that wasn't their intention.
I think they were definitely referring to all three, just that maybe they weren't expecting to be taken seriously in the case of Pollard. The Stephen Pollard "non-jew" link in the article leads to poorly written satirical piece that seems to me to mockingly question whether or not he's been circumcised - something the author thinks Pollard's paper takes a little too seriously, this taken as evidence to accuse Pollard of perhaps protesting too much. (The original article no longer exists, the above is a link to the cache'd version)
Below is their "avoiding anti-semitism" guide (spoilered as fairly big images):
Again this is cached as the original jewdas link is unavailable.
Below is their "avoiding anti-semitism" guide (spoilered as fairly big images):
Again this is cached as the original jewdas link is unavailable.
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The real question here - was it beetroot or horseradish that he brought? Demand clarification.
Horseradish for the many, not for the few.
Both. This was covered in the reddit thread.
Still not acceptable, beetroot is the devil's own root vegetable.
The Board of deputies has taken the Israel approach to negotiations, a raft of preconditions before they'll talk
In terms of popularity, I imagine the summer of '17 will be the high watermark for JC.
But Labour really should win the next election, considering the length of time that the Tories have been in power and how unpopular their current leadership is. Whether that's Corbyn or his successor, they'll likely win the most seats in that election if they continue to go down a populist approach.
It's ludicrously difficult for a 12 years old government to have a convincing counter argument to an organised opposition in that case. You're stuck between a silly position of needing to offer something new while giving a defence of everything that's upset people over the last decade, while also not providing the opposition with an obvious pushback of 'why have you not done this already' to all of your flagship policies.
I want to argue that these cycles are more significant than what specific policies the opposition party actually proposes, but I've nothing to really back that up. Mostly a hunch based on how tired the current Tories, 2010 Labour Government and 90's Conservatives all looked.
The Torries were 13 years in 1991 and Labour was winning in polling. I still remember the advert "Labour's spending will see your tax increase. What will you give up when you have less money in your pocket?". Then it shows a couple deciding whether they'd give up their holiday or car or etc etc. I think that add swung the election. This was the days of 4 channels where you couldn't miss it.