Jeremy Corbyn - Not Not Labour Party(?), not a Communist (BBC)
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If the context was somehow that Corbyn was some kind of disinterested philosopher king who has to be prodded to being PM, well, not sure I'm with you on that. He's as vain as the rest of them. But if I'm misinterpreting, then apologies.
I'm saying what actually happened. I'm not talking some hypothetical.
Policies are always difficult for Centrists to articulate.
No wasn’t commenting on Corbyn, I like Corbyn but he’s a career Politician, no doubt about that
On Venezuela...not getting into the left/right debate but pretty sure oil prices dropping by 2/3rds had a huge impact on the countries economic performance given it makes up about 70/80% of their exports.
I have no idea what the answer is, but do you really believe their futures will get better under Corbyn?
It might be because she says stuff like ‘mao did more good than harm’ on live tv.
But yeah, I’m sure if a Tory MP made a similar claim about Hitler, it would be brushed under the carpet.
Ah yes, that must explain why Abbot received almost half of the abuse directed at MPs then.
Because, as far as I'm aware, no Tory MP has ever said anything outrageous on live TV.
She consistently says that shit. Another poster already offered up another horrendous example of her opinions.
To go with that she can’t do junior school maths so it’s hardly a huge surprise she gets shit.
Obviously she gets more directed at her because of her background, but people saying ‘imagine her as home secretary’ or not considering her as fit for that role is fair game.
Also, when did a Tory MP last go on live television and try and argue in favour of a murderous dictator? Pretty sure if one did their career wouldn’t survive long.
No it's not. It's because she's a black lady.
It's equally not a surprise to see you unable to accept that might be a factor given the recent car crash that have been your posts in this forum.
It is a bit of a surprise that you think examples of Tory MPs doing stuff like that might be hard to find. I mean, feck, it was less than a year ago the PM rolled the red carpet out for fecking Mohamed Bin Salman and you're acting like the Tories would never sink so far as to cosy up to dictators. It's utterly laughable.
Dianne Abbot is atrocious, and would be awful as a Home Secretary. She also receives a lot of racist abuse. You don't have to pick a side.
It’s not purely because she’s a black lady though, is it? It’s also because she says outrageously horrible and dumb shit. Obviously she gets added abuse for the colour of her skin, but it’s not the sole reason.
I didn’t say it wasn’t a factor, but the main reason she is getting abuse isn’t because she’s a black lady, it’s because she is a high profile MP who comes out with regularly daft shite. Portraying her as some innocent victim is laughable.
The post in question acted like her competency/character was only getting questioned due to her gender and race. But the reality is that she constantly makes eye raising statements and embarrasses herself, and then obviously that’s under even more scrutiny from certain cnutish types who take it too far.
The abuse she gets is vile and unjustifiable. But she is also more incompetent and clueless than nearly anybody in parliament.
Is that really the same as an MP looking back at the most murderous dictator in human history and saying ‘well he actually did more good than bad’ ??? I don’t think it is, at all. It’s pretty clear from that statement she admires some of what Mao did, which frankly is fecking terrifying.
Yeah I'm sure if a white male colleague had said the problem is black people then that would have been totally brushed over ... It's just a right wing media conspiracy to make her seem feking incompetent
Thanks for proving my point by posting a meme that attributes an entirely fabricated quote to Abbott. Utterly ridiculous and you should be ashamed for sharing such shite.
Totally agree with this.
In many ways its similar to the Sterling media coverage but has not been called into check. Sensationalist and negative with undertones of agenda driven coverage. Put a magnifying glass over any negative aspects of their life and ignore reasonable comparison.
Ah good, I'm glad you crunched the numbers on that one. There was me thinking that your perception may have been altered by the disproportionate focus on Diane Abbott by racist feckwits in the press and on social media. I mean, come on, the voting public will struggle to name the members of the shadow cabinet. The fact Abbot even registers on people's radars is itself a pretty good sign she's singled out.
Diane Abbott may well be exceptionally incompetent, but given the absolutely staggering levels of incompetence exhibited on a daily basis by almost everyone in Parliament, it's hard to argue the incessant need to call out every stupid gaffe she makes (like, that Mao quote is from 2008!) is entirely motivated by a genuinely held belief that she is exceptionally incompetent.
And let's be clear about what this focus on Abbott comes against. Because it comes against a backdrop of Tory incompetence managing to split the country into two whilst deporting British citizens because of incompetence, Tory MPs assaulting people, Tory MPs using the n word in parliament and the Tories literally fecking killing people through whichever one of maliciousness/incompetence you want to believe that it is. All of those were apparently not as bad as Abbott drinking a mojito on the tube though.
Yeh, no need to make up quotes for Abbott, there's loads of real ones.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16423278
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16423278
Yeah, another "example" which is literally made up. I wondered how long it would be before someone brought up the maths thing. Because apparently getting numbers wrong once means that you're going to receive far more criticism than other politicians who consciously engineer a policy designed to target black British citizens for deportation.
When did a Tory MP last go on live television and try and defend a murderous dictator? I mean, take your pick of anytime one of them has defended the government's relationship with Saudi Arabia recently. Oh, and the Tory MP who a few years back proudly declared how much he admired Pinochet and remains a member of Parliament today.
And not to mention that the actual fecking chancellor got his numbers wrong shortly after that and nobody cared.
Oh, or the fact that our PM is a man who literally makes up bollocks as he goes along and people clap along like fecking seals because he's got a floppy hair cut and a posh accent.
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A comment which sums it up perfectly. You obviously form your political opinions from social media snapshots and media soundbites. You have no clue as to the grassroots work she has long done in politics, and her record would put a lot of MPs to shame. But she got her numbers wrong once and has made a few careless comments, as every other politician has done, and now she is more incompetent than everyone else apparently. How many MPs can you name that qualifies you to make such a sweeping statement?
Abbott is a pretty high profile member of the shadow cabinet. She's regularly talking in the press, it's not a case of her merely being singled out. How many other top labour mps are regularly going on talk shows, radio etc? Labour have used her as a mouthpiece on a number of occasions and it's backfired.
I mean, the Mao quote was just the worst thing she's said that I can think of. And it's pretty terrible. As far as I'm aware she never apologised for the comment either, so there's the issue of that as well.
The mojito shit was obviously stupid, and she's obviously become more and more of a target as she's become a bit of a caricature. But she played a large part in forming that caricature by saying despicable/incredibly stupid shit related to race baiting or excusing dictators. Do Tory MP's escape the same criticism? Possibly, but most of the major newspapers are pro-tory so it's something you'd expect, especially during election time the gutter press are far more likely to focus on a labour MP slipping up than a Tory MP.
I just have very little sympathy for somebody who has expressed the kind of views Abbott has. I don't think she deserves any of the abuse and anybody racially abusing or threatening people should be facing the consequences of that, but as an individual if you attempt to argue in favour of arguably the worst human being ever, responsible for the deaths of tens of millions, or race bait to the level Abbott has ... do I really feel that sorry for you?
The thing with Diane Abbott is that she is often bad in TV interviews... and this is 99% of the reason she is referred to as incompetent etc. and the idea of her as Home Secretary is seen as laughable.
Personally, I wouldn’t be remotely bothered by her as Home Secretary because the job is not a TV interview with Jeremy Paxman. More importantly, her past voting record on the sort of issues she would be dealing with would actually show she usually finds herself on the right side of history.
The fact that she fluffs numbers in a TV interview is seen as irrefutable evidence that she would be a bad Home Secretary... despite it being hardly at all relevant to doing the actual job. On the other side, the fact that she defied the whip to vote against the 2014 Immigration Act, citing concerns at the time that British nationals could end up being treated as immigrants... that’s far better evidence of how she might fair as a Home Secretary in my opinion.
Personally, I wouldn’t be remotely bothered by her as Home Secretary because the job is not a TV interview with Jeremy Paxman. More importantly, her past voting record on the sort of issues she would be dealing with would actually show she usually finds herself on the right side of history.
The fact that she fluffs numbers in a TV interview is seen as irrefutable evidence that she would be a bad Home Secretary... despite it being hardly at all relevant to doing the actual job. On the other side, the fact that she defied the whip to vote against the 2014 Immigration Act, citing concerns at the time that British nationals could end up being treated as immigrants... that’s far better evidence of how she might fair as a Home Secretary in my opinion.
Err, literally all of them virtually every single day. It's their fecking job!
I think you've proven my point with that one sentence actually, so we'll leave this discussion here.
My god the level of assumption in this post is unreal.
No, I don't get my news from social media soundbites. I'm well aware Abbott is a competent local MP. That isn't the same as being a competent politician or somebody who is correct on wider issues, and in this respect Abbott has been a complete and utter fecking disaster, no matter how you try to justify what she's said and done.
She's incompetent because she race baited. She's incompetent because she went on live tv and thought that 'well the most murderous dude ever wasn't really THAAATT bad!' was a fair statement to make next to people who were actual historians. And she's had multiple numbers blunders, not just the one, and they're hardly minor blunders ever. She went on radio and said 10 thousand police officers would cost around 300 thousand pounds, and then had no idea how to correct herself.
I can name a shit ton of MP's. A lot of them are total idiots, but many keep their head out of the firing line which Abbott hasn't done because she went ahead and made a bunch of media appearances. And her views are some of the most extreme in parliament which she's demonstrated on a number of occasions, but because it's far left instead of far right everybody is cool with waving it off and pretending it's harmless.
No it isn't. Abbott made more high profile media gaffes than other high profile politicians, thus she got criticism for it. It's as simple as that.
She made a bunch of appearances on news/tv and then recently that's been cut down a lot, probably because the party realise she's shit at it.
Yeah this is bang on. No one is arguing that people are not entitled to feel Dianne Abbott is incompetent. Of course they are. However, the troubling reality is that she is viewed so negatively be so many people, and it is really not commensurate with her history when compared to the countless other MPs whose sins range from outright gaffes to genuinely abhorrent and indefensible policies and ideas.
Yeah, definitely similar to the treatment against Sterling, and again we had to deal with people spouting shite like 'well Sterling doesn't help himself, he only has himself to blame for any criticism'.
She didn't only do it once. And she didn't just get her numbers wrong, she made a completely bizarre claim and then wasn't even able to properly correct herself because she had no idea what she's talking about. Everybody would be pissing their sides on here if Boris did it. And since when did the windrush policies not get criticised?
Rosindell will never be as much of a key player for the Tories as Abbott is. We're talking the shadow home secretary here, not a backbencher. Obviously defences have been made about relationships with current dictatorships because of the economic benefits, but if a high profile tory MP (say gove, or even Johnson) came out and defended Mussolini or Franco, do you think they'd be let off the hook or allowed to remain in a serious position of power?
Just to remind anyone who is interested about why people might have a problem with Abbott running the home office.
Diane Abbott has indefensible ideas. You just don't care as much about her indefensible ideas because they're far left as opposed to far right.
Expressing Maoist sympathies and race-baiting in the past is part of her history. She's claimed in the past that 'blue eyed, blonde finnish girls' are unsuitable as nurses because they haven't met black people before, has claimed white people love playing divide and rule, and has previously claimed that any defeat for the British state is a victory for us all. So yeah, let's not just pretend she's just been a bit silly with numbers before when she's said some fecking outrageous, horrendous things in her past, as bad as any Tory MP.
The press obviously focus on the sins of a high profile Labour MP more than those of a high profile Tory MP, because again the tabloids are pro-Conservative. But that doesn't make Abbott in any way innocent.
feck it i'm going to quote this question again because I genuinely can't believe how stupid it is.
The fact you think Abbott's somehow unique in her TV appearances amongst the front bench is absolutely baffling; and let's not pretend that Thornberry, McDonnell, Starmer or Corbyn don't say stupid stuff on the regular. The fact you've managed to be oblivious to that, let alone the many, many Tory incompetencies that actually matter (like how the feck has Chris Grayling's name not been mentioned yet?) but can reel off Abbott's failings says it all.
I bet you think Meghan Markle is terrible too, don't you?
Oh right so you can defend murderous dictators so long as you emphasise the economic benefits of your relationship with them. Got you. You can't defend the ones who are six feet under, but the ones who give you some money for the bombs they use to commit atrocities are fair game.
You're continuing to spectacularly miss the point and prove me right in doing so by having to defend the right to criticise Abbott. That's not the argument anyone is making. The argument is that she attracts an unmerited level of criticism and negativity. Your ridiculous comments about her number of media appearances only further prove the point.
The Windrush comment again illuminates the point that I am making. Windrush gets some criticism in the media, but its architects have received far less attention for their role than Abbott has for getting her numbers wrong in a live interview. It sums up everything that is wrong with our media and its coverage of politics.
She's unique in how fecking stupid she sounded when she made TV appearances. I can't think of anyone else so high profile who made as many errors, or said as many outright ludicrous shit while live on tv. Corbyn consistently gets criticism for shit he says as well, didn't he also get a bunch of criticism for failing to do maths? Again, Tory MP's (like grayling) DO get a level of shielding from the media because they're pro-Tory. I've said this on several occasions.
And yeah, it's me that's bowing out now if this is the level that you're stooping to. Yeah I just fecking hate anybody black who is in the media. Piss off.
And hey, let's not forget the time the PM said she was unhappy that the courts ruled that it was against the law for her to sell arms to the Saudis so they could blow up Yemeni people.
Hey, I didn't accuse you of anything. I just asked what you thought of someone the right wing press also constantly drags through the mud because of the colour of their skin. I'm glad that you can recognise that there's some similarities between the two people though. Perhaps there's some hope yet that you might recognise the pattern and begin to apply some critical thinking to what you're told to think about Abbott after all.
Is your life that sheltered that you have no clue who our Prime Minister is?
When did I say you could do that? When did I say it was ok? It's obviously incredibly wrong, but it's treated differently by the press as a whole. Working with an existing regime isn't considered the same as looking back to the past at regimes now roundly considered evil and wrong and saying 'yeah, they didn't do too badly, did they?'. This would apply to people on either sides, working/trading with Saudi Arabia now is considered low but necessary to many, but if a Tory MP were to praise a far right loon of the past, then he'd get the shit ripped out of him.
Your original post wasn't just 'Abbott is incompetent/horrible, but she gets way worse shit than others', otherwise I wouldn't have had any issue with it. You almost portrayed her as a totally innocent victim and referred to her incompetence as 'alleged' and made posts like 'god forbid we have a black woman as home secretary', as if the only thing anybody could criticise about Abbott is her skin colour. You've basically gone ridiculously far in the other direction and tried to portray her as completely the victim of the press, rather than somebody who has said some pretty vile/stupid things, but then unfairly picked out for extra abuse for that. Which would be fair.
And yes, the media often does have its priorities wrong and far too much focus is placed on 'Gottem!' moments rather than genuine issues or policies. You'll see no argument from me about that.
Sure, but does Boris Johnson not get criticised for being a buffoon? It's hardly like he's treated as a competent individual by most.
Sure, some of the press recently have tried to back him up, but only because the tabloids are pro-brexit and have an agenda on that basis. He's mostly treated like a complete and utter fecking tit.
Markle's an easy target. She's American, a divorcee and a B tier actress who doesn't fit with what their idea of a Princess should be. And yeah she's black, and the gutter press obviously aren't a fan of that. I didn't deny that there were any racist agendas in the press, I merely don't think that the 'abbott is incompetent' line is something which has hugely exaggerated. I think she's deserved a lot of the stick she's received as somebody who is so high profile in politics, and we should expect better from somebody who is shadow home secretary.
Should the same criticism be levelled at others? Yes, but we don't have a fair or equal press. If The Sun or the Daily Mail were pro-remain, I have no doubt they'd currently be tearing the shit out of past Boris Johnson comments.
Read my posts. I've made it quite clear that I have no problem with criticism of Abbott that is actually explained. And she is an innocent victim to the extent of the crap she has to deal with, in the same way Sterling was a victim to similar mistreatment in the media even if there were things he could have been fairly criticised for. And of course her incompetence is 'alleged', because it is subjective. Why are you treating it as if it is a fact?
No, that's not the point you made. You said 'I can't think of anyone else so high profile who made as many errors, or said as many outright ludicrous shit while live on tv'. Now, are you seriously going to argue that Abbott's balance sheet of 'errors/ludicrous shit' outweighs that of Johnson? Because I think you're being disingenuous if you claim otherwise.