The lead somewhat masks a fall in Labour support though. Support for both parties has been falling steadily since the start of last year, when they'd both been averaging over 40% for 6 months. The twists and turns of Brexit means that each day's headlines can hurt one party more than the other, so they take it in turns to take the hits. At the moment its the Tories, given the extension to A50. But I think increasingly we see that Remainers and Leavers are each unhappy with both parties' positions, and its hard to see that changing. Wouldn't surprise me if both parties kept falling a few more points in coming months.
Jeremy Corbyn - Not Not Labour Party(?), not a Communist (BBC)
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The lead somewhat masks a fall in Labour support though. Support for both parties has been falling steadily since the start of last year, when they'd both been averaging over 40% for 6 months. The twists and turns of Brexit means that each day's headlines can hurt one party more than the other, so they take it in turns to take the hits. At the moment its the Tories, given the extension to A50. But I think increasingly we see that Remainers and Leavers are each unhappy with both parties' positions, and its hard to see that changing. Wouldn't surprise me if both parties kept falling a few more points in coming months.
He's not really nobility in the sense of being aristocracy though, he's a lord because was made one during his lifetime. In a way I think it makes his political stances worse as they come through wilful ignorance rather than a lack of experience. His views on class politics and social mobility are entirely rooted in vanity; he wants to believe that his achievements are entirely and wholly down to his own skill and hard-work and therefore unilaterally denies that peoples' lives can be influenced by factors outside of their own control. From that point his logic is easy to follow; "I've become so rich on the back of my own work and nothing else. Therefore everyone should be able to achieve the same and if they haven't they're lazy and if they're complain they're lazy and jealous"
Unfortunately, facts get in the way. His working-class childhood experience sounds positively utopian today. His parents rented a council property in London for the equivalent of £100-200 quid a week in today's money and were able to raise 4 kids on a single, modest income. A family of 6 attempting to do similar in any part of the country today, never mind in London, would be in severe poverty. The time when you could leave school at 16 and walk into a Civil Service job is long gone, as are the days when an average income would leave you enough money to start a business after living costs. The days of a relatively small company being able to carve out a significant slice of an emerging market by undercutting their competition with low quality products are long gone and if he'd come through in the marketplace of the 1990s or 2000s he'd be no-one now. He's a dinosaur with no understanding of normal life, and who isn't willing to try and learn because it would bruise his ego.
"My parents are paying for my college but I don't want to pay for others by paying any extra taxes."
Shouldn't it be located in Germany then?
Most buses, outside of peak hours, are virtually empty. London's roads are clogged up with, mostly, empty buses chugging out diesel fumes.
Transport cuts have mostly taken place in rural areas and small towns. Londons roads are mostly clogged up with black taxis and ubers taking coke fiends to poncey cocktail bars and coke dealers speeding off every time they see a cop
A lot of local buses are or have been converted to electric or gas.
Also, most cars are empty (save the driver).
I would be happy to take a bus or train to work but there are not any in my area, which do not involve first driving five miles to the station. Add to that the extortionate cost and it is clear why most people do not consider using public transport.
For once, I am fully behind Corbyn.
Couldn't agree more, add into the mix a load of empty buses lumbering about and you have the London traffic problem.
Exactly, you cannot get a bus if you live out side of a city virtually.
If you want to work in anything other than a 9-5 in a major town or city, then you arent using public transport.
Where i live if i had to resort to jobs i could do by using public transport, i would be looking at a minimum £15k loss of earnings, PLUS the extortionate cost of public transport.
The declining quality and increased cost of
bus services is also a huge factor in the death of the high street in small towns. It's cheaper to drive past town and park for free at a retail park than it is to get a return bus to town.
Investing in quality bus services is an absolute no-brainer. Unfortunately, the departmentalised nature of government and the drive to run the civil service like a business creates a situation where there's no incentive for people to look at the big picture when making decisions. Each department has to compete for resources and the success of a publically-run service is measured by whether it makes money in and of itself (this rule is thrown out the window when it comes to subsidising private service providers obviously). So when they look at investing in buses they look at the cost and immediate return through fares, completely ignoring indirect benefits which bring in additional tax revenue or save money in welfare spending. Increased footfall in town centres, associated job creation, the ability of people without a car to seek work further afield, less social isolation, people more able to access preventative/early stage healthcare instead of being rushed to hospital when things are really bad and requiring expensive care. The list of secondary benefits goes on.
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Will people still defend this man?
I have, not sure what that has to do with anything though?
I'm not one to defend him on this broader issue, but Imperialism is a standard text which most students of empire will have encountered during undergraduate studies, it was highly influential in its own time and is important for understanding how empire has been understood in history. Of course, as a product of its time there are elements which reflect the antisemitic sentiments which prevailed in polite society at that time, and nobody would deny that Hobson was an antisemite. But that would apply to a whole lot of authors from that period. So I'd be interested to read what Corbyn actually wrote in this forward. There's nothing necessarily wrong with writing a forward for such a work, but it's important to acknowledge the less savory elements. Though given Corbyn's blindness on this topic, I suspect he didn't.
Well yes, that and a lot of other stuff is pretty much why he's not gonna get (and probably doesn't deserve) the benefit of the doubt from most people on this.
Nor should he get the benefit of the doubt. The man is a racist and is the reason I cancelled my Labour Party membership.
Surely the problem here though is the wider context which surrounds Corbyn's previous statements and actions concerning anti-semitism?
Ceausescu was successful for a while at milking the idea that he was independent. Didn’t the Queen give him a gong on a state visit? Although holding those views in 2019 is fairly alarming.
He was mildly independent compared to the rest of the Warsaw Pact shills but that independence isn't exactly a quality to celebrate or revere when he used it to essentially crush and oppress the Romanian people to a greater degree than even the Soviet leaders of the time. Western leaders for a while fawned over him due to him not being under the Soviet sphere of influence to quite the same extent but then we've always been willing to turn a blind eye to the actions of brutal and abhorrent leaders when it suits us. Anyway, a bizarre response either way.
Also this
It would be far easier for the people who are morally outraged about this(Such a bizarre standard they are setting for Corbyn), to openly say they don't like Corbyn or todays Labour Party(Which is perfectly fine), rather than constantly trying to bring up ''gotcha'' moments and looking like tits in doing so. They should get off social media and join the Lib Dems because to put in the kindest way possible their fixation on Corbyn is clearly not helping them.
I accept the book might be a classic, and I accept that the author's racism might both be a product of its time and isn't necessarily a reason to dismiss his whole analysis. BUT if you are writing an 8 page endorsement in 2011 and are a noted anti racist campaigner (apparently) then you have to ask why he didn't call out all the troublesome racist bits where the Jews were running the world, pulling the levers of imperial conflict etc - you know, the antisemitic classics. As ever with Corbyn, this noted anti racism campaigner either didn't see the racism, or he doesn't see antisemitism as racism, or he didn't think antisemitism matters, or he's just not very bright.
It is manufactured outrage but I’d take Solomon Hughes (“writer”) more seriously if he knew when to use “it’s” and “its”.
He is a bit racist though. I know you lot don't like to be reminded of it because you don't want to think it might be true.
Twitter word limit
He used “it’s history” instead of “its history”, so more characters. I see he’s from Private Eye so probably keyboard autosuggestion (or liquid lunch).
Honestly I read through Imperialism not all that long ago (maybe four years) and I don’t recall noticing the antisemitic elements to it at the time. Obviously reading the relevant excerpts today it seems I must have just missed them for whatever reason, but it does suggest to me that the antisemitic elements weren’t absolutely central to Hobson’s thesis. On the other hand they’re obviously relevant in terms of understanding both the world in which Hobson operated and how a section of the left tends to understand the nature of imperialism and capitalism.
I dunno, I spend most days reading stuff from that late 19th/early 20th century era, so maybe I’ve a high tolerance for the sensibilities of the time. I was reading Churchill’s account of the war in Sudan this morning - I find him an admirable figure in some ways, full of insight and a great writer. But it’s full of stuff like this:
“The qualities of mongrels are rarely admirable, and the mixture of the Arab and negro types has produced a debased and cruel breed, more shocking because they are more intelligent than the primitive savages. The stronger race soon began to prey on the aboriginals.”
If I was writing a forward for that book, I would of course have to discuss Churchill’s blatant racism, as it’s absolutely fundamental to his understanding of the British Empire and its approach to its various subject peoples, including those in the Sudan. On the other hand, a forward written for Churchill’s writings on WW2 could perhaps get away without discussing that side of the man. So I guess the question is, to what extent is antisemitism absolutely fundamental to Hobson’s understanding of imperialism?
Daniel Finkelstein's view, on twitter, is that it is central: "He establishes early on that finance houses are controlled by Jews. After that he explains in the entire book that finance houses control the world. It’s his central thrust. It isn’t negligible....What you could more easily argue is that he could have made the argument without antisemitism. I think that would be a fair point and he came to realise it himself. But here he didn’t."
This is also interesting: "I teach Hobson's "Imperialism" for an undergraduate course. Hobson was *both* a profoundly important thinker *and* viciously anti-Semitic. That Corbyn wrote a Foreword does not make him an anti-Semite but it does say something about his blind spots.... 3. But Hobson's analysis of both capitalism & imperialism seethed with hatred of the Jew - especially "the foreign Jew", as "the leading type" of "the class of financial capitalists". He raged against "Jewish control of the press" & "economic monopolies organised by Jewish rings" ..." In the quotes above, try replacing "Jew" with the N-word. No one on the left would let that pass.".
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Good for you Elvis.
"The title of the book is “Imperialism: A Study”. It’s level of antisemitic content is neglibile, amounting to just a few sentences in 310 pages. The book focuses on the negative financial, economic, and moral aspects of imperialism as a nationalistic business enterprise."
Typical media.
Typical media.
Confirms for me that he's not that bright. Definitely more of an activist than a thinker (nothing wrong with that btw).