Jeremy Corbyn - Not Not Labour Party(?), not a Communist (BBC)

Phurry said:
Which is my point a couple of posts back, the type of submarine was defined by the choice of nuclear deterrent. If we were using cruise missiles instead of ICBM then this concept could work because the Astute class would have been built as fast attack boats, not nucs. However, our choice of deterrent means we are locked into building ICBM platforms for them, hence this suggestion from Corbyn is utter twaddle; a nuc is a blue water vessel, designed specifically to drift silently and not to be noticed. They are considerably larger, a lot less manouverable, slower and not designed to perform the multi role purpose of a fast attack boat.
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Yeah I'm all in agreement there. And as sun_tzu posted above, using conventional weapons from such a platform would also be impossible.

Hopefully as shamwow posted above this is just Corbyn going off-piste again and won't be mentioned again. The public would rightfully see it as buying off the unions with public money.
 
Ubik said:
Yeah I'm all in agreement there. And as sun_tzu posted above, using conventional weapons from such a platform would also be impossible.

Hopefully as shamwow posted above this is just Corbyn going off-piste again and won't be mentioned again. The public would rightfully see it as buying off the unions with public money.
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I can only assume it's something he's said without actually asking someone who knows anything about the subject to give him some guidance first, that probably precludes him asking his new shadow defence minister ;)
 
Mozza said:
Didn't the Tories order an aircraft carrier without aircraft?
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No... They changed the spec of the aircraft and as such the delivery schedule of the planes would be later than the delivery of the carrier... Not quite the same thing, if however they had proposed not fitting the carrier with planes but reconfiguration to allow for a big megaphone instead which we could use to talk sternly at people if needed that would be pretty similar
 
Harrisamo said:
Of course it's crazy, but it's also very intentional. Rather than have people talk about the insane housing crisis, 5 year long public sector pay freezes, the dismantling of our once revered NHS, the growing child poverty levels, the scrapping of maintenance grants for less well-off students, the fact that MPs just voted against enforcing landlords to ensure their properties are habitable for humans, the fact that Davey Hameron is a ham faced tw@ who makes over half a mill through privately renting his luxury apartment in Notting hill, they want to try portray JC as unprime ministerial because he questions the legitimacy of spending billions of pounds on something we cant even use!!!
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So you're saying you want to use Trident rather than it be a deterrent?
 
Of all Corbyn's beliefs/views, I just can't grasp his inclination for a "dialogue" over the Falklands. There is none to be had, since they unanimously want to be British, and are in no way Argentinian.
 
Cheesy said:
Of all Corbyn's beliefs/views, I just can't grasp his inclination for a "dialogue" over the Falklands. There is none to be had, since they unanimously want to be British, and are in no way Argentinian.
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In some circles it's politically correct though, don't let the wishes of the people of the Falklands get in the way of a good dialogue.
 
Cheesy said:
Of all Corbyn's beliefs/views, I just can't grasp his inclination for a "dialogue" over the Falklands. There is none to be had, since they unanimously want to be British, and are in no way Argentinian.
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It's one good example of why he's a worse leader than Foot. The Tories will actually be able to paint a picture that Labour's leader doesn't like Britain. It's a nightmare.
 
Chorley1974 said:
In some circles it's politically correct though, don't let the wishes of the people of the Falklands get in the way of a good dialogue.
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Ubik said:
It's one good example of why he's a worse leader than Foot. The Tories will actually be able to paint a picture that Labour's leader doesn't like Britain. It's a nightmare.
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It's just completely bizarre. I think he's a well-meaning guy who just wants to shy away from any sign of confrontation or conflict, but there is no mandate whatsoever for having any sort of dialogue with Argentina over the Falklands other than telling them to feck off. I'd be all for the islands going independent if they wanted to, but they overwhelmingly would rather stay with Britain, which is understandable with the threat of Argentina always there. Any sort of "dialogue" with Argentina is just completely unfounded and has no basis.
 
Cheesy said:
Of all Corbyn's beliefs/views, I just can't grasp his inclination for a "dialogue" over the Falklands. There is none to be had, since they unanimously want to be British, and are in no way Argentinian.
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I am yet to watch the interview itself but i have seen some quotes, and Corbyn comes across as very dismissive and arrogant.



ETA: I have just given it a quick look - why can't the man give a straight answer to questions? For all the protestations to the contrary, he is no different to Cameron in that respect.
 
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Cheesy said:
It's just completely bizarre. I think he's a well-meaning guy who just wants to shy away from any sign of confrontation or conflict, but there is no mandate whatsoever for having any sort of dialogue with Argentina over the Falklands other than telling them to feck off. I'd be all for the islands going independent if they wanted to, but they overwhelmingly would rather stay with Britain, which is understandable with the threat of Argentina always there. Any sort of "dialogue" with Argentina is just completely unfounded and has no basis.
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It's not bizarre when you consider Corbyn's overall political philosophy. He sees the Falklands as an imperialist remnant that shames us. To him, that's more important than the wishes of those who live there. And he considers the Falklands War to have been fought basically to keep Thatcher in power. His side of the party have let this theory fester among themselves over the decades as the reason Foot lost in '83, rather than his platform not being what the public wanted.
 
Cheesy said:
It's just completely bizarre. I think he's a well-meaning guy who just wants to shy away from any sign of confrontation or conflict, but there is no mandate whatsoever for having any sort of dialogue with Argentina over the Falklands other than telling them to feck off. I'd be all for the islands going independent if they wanted to, but they overwhelmingly would rather stay with Britain, which is understandable with the threat of Argentina always there. Any sort of "dialogue" with Argentina is just completely unfounded and has no basis.
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Exactly, why would you even consider it. It's exactly what Argentina keep taking to the international community, they want a dialogue, so far we've just played a straight bat and told them there's nothing to talk about, and rightly so.
 
Ubik said:
It's not bizarre when you consider Corbyn's overall political philosophy. He sees the Falklands as an imperialist remnant that shames us. To him, that's more important than the wishes of those who live there. And he considers the Falklands War to have been fought basically to keep Thatcher in power. His side of the party have let this theory fester among themselves over the decades as the reason Foot lost in '83, rather than his platform not being what the public wanted.
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Which makes it all the more bizarre that he'd open a "dialogue" with Argentina, when you consider that giving them the Falklands would be like supporting Argentinian imperialism, since they have no claim to the islands whatsoever.
 
Cheesy said:
Which makes it all the more bizarre that he'd open a "dialogue" with Argentina, when you consider that giving them the Falklands would be like supporting Argentinian imperialism, since they have no claim to the islands whatsoever.
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Doubt he cares much about that, as long as we don't have them. Bear in mind how he also deals with the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah. It's western imperialism that gets his goat.
 
Ubik said:
Yeah I'm all in agreement there. And as sun_tzu posted above, using conventional weapons from such a platform would also be impossible.

Hopefully as shamwow posted above this is just Corbyn going off-piste again and won't be mentioned again. The public would rightfully see it as buying off the unions with public money.
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What's the mad urgency around renewing Trident by 2016? Are they going go past their sell by date? Is this not another policy can that be kicked down the road?
 
Jippy said:
What's the mad urgency around renewing Trident by 2016? Are they going go past their sell by date? Is this not another policy can that be kicked down the road?
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It's more the subs, they take a long time to build and get operational and the current fleet will be retired by 2028. If the system's getting replaced, the funding for the replacement needs to kick in this year.
 
We should keep Trident. We don't need it right now as murica will protect us but who knows what the future will hold. In 40 years time it could be a completely different world.
 
Harrisamo said:
Of course it's crazy, but it's also very intentional. Rather than have people talk about the insane housing crisis, 5 year long public sector pay freezes, the dismantling of our once revered NHS, the growing child poverty levels, the scrapping of maintenance grants for less well-off students, the fact that MPs just voted against enforcing landlords to ensure their properties are habitable for humans, the fact that Davey Hameron is a ham faced tw@ who makes over half a mill through privately renting his luxury apartment in Notting hill, they want to try portray JC as unprime ministerial because he questions the legitimacy of spending billions of pounds on something we cant even use!!!
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Hear! hear!
 
Jippy said:
What's the mad urgency around renewing Trident by 2016? Are they going go past their sell by date? Is this not another policy can that be kicked down the road?
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In truth it has been kicked down the road so many times its probably going to need extra money to patch up one or two of the existing fleet to extend their life as large budget cutting edge military procurement projects rarely come in on time
 
Ubik said:
Doubt he cares much about that, as long as we don't have them. Bear in mind how he also deals with the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah. It's western imperialism that gets his goat.
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Does he have any policy on Gibraltar? (Bermuda, cayman, etc)
How about Northern Ireland as it could be argued that's not entirely different to the Falklands.
 
The whole 'not having nukes in the subs is like not having bullets in the gun' bit is a great soundbite, but it's also tried-and-tested nuclear policy for some nations. Japan doesn't have any nuclear warheads, but retains the raw materials, knowledge, technology and manufacturing power to quickly produce them.

In any case, I don't really understand why we can't just sack in our own weapons and enter a (US-funded) sharing agreement like Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and many other nations have. It seems to me that the idea of having our own, uniquely British deterrent is something of a cock-measuring competition for the born-to-rule lot who still get misty-eyed about Britain's former primacy in the world rather than something we actually need to be spending a fair whack of our budget on.
 
jeff_goldblum said:
The whole 'not having nukes in the subs is like not having bullets in the gun' bit is a great soundbite, but it's also tried-and-tested nuclear policy for some nations. .
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When you look at most nuclear powers the tried and tested model is to have multiple delivery systems (though sea based is considered the best to have)

Nuclear powers (Official) with delivery methods
USA (land, Air, Sea)
Russia (Land, Air, Sea)
UK (Sea)
France (Air, Sea)
China (Land, Air, Sea)
India (Land, Air, (Sea - under development / last stages of testing))
Pakistan (Land, Air)
North Korea (Land )

Nuclear Powers (Unofficial)
Israel - (Land, Air, Sea - presumed)

If the choice is to get rid of nukes (which I think polling shows is a pretty unpopular move amongst the majority of the population - rather than the soundbite friendly born to rule lot) then thats one thing - but if we maintain nukes then sea based seems the most logical as we already operate in this way and if we will only operate one delivery methodology then sea based seems by far the most logical as it removes the obvious dangers of keeping nukes scattered around the country.

As for the cost - the replacement system is supposed to have an operational life of circa 50 years and the total cost of the project (subs, infrastructure and missile upgrades is reported circa £16 billion - or circa £320 million a year or to put it another way £5 per person per year (assuming no population growth) - or 1.37 pence per person per day - there will probably be some upgrade costs later in the project life but in the grand scheme of things it is honestly not a big cost when amortised over the life of the project
 
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He needs some PR lessons as his interview was basically ammunition to fire at him for the next few weeks till he messes something else up
 
What a f*cking crap 'newspaper'.
 
@sun_tzu - I think there's a few things that bother me about Trident, leaving aside the whole issue of whether we need nukes in the post-cold war world.

Firstly, the true cost of renewal is likely to be far higher than £16 billion, which is the low end of the government estimate. Pointing out it's only 1.24235252 pence per person per day doesn't change the fact that it's a lot of money that could be going elsewhere. Whilst obviously it's a fraction of the government budget, £320m a year isn't a piffling sum and there's a lot of concrete good you could be doing with that money.

Also there's the estimated running costs - £1.5bn a year, which, whilst only being 6.4218 pence per person per day, is still a lot of money.

Secondly, there's the value for money argument. The justification from the jingoists is that with Trident Britain has an independent nuclear deterrent that we can fire whenever we want without needing the green light from anyone else, which is patent bollocks. Anyone with any sense whatsoever of international relations knows that we'd look for a nod from the USA or NATO before we even thought about firing one of these things (and since the subs we'll be using take 3 days to prepare to fire we'd all be long dead before the retaliation hit home anyway). With that in mind, I can't see any reason whatsoever why we shouldn't just follow the line that Germany and others have taken and opt into a sharing agreement. It'd cost a fraction of what we're spending and serve the exact same function. At the end of the day, we're paying billions for something we could be getting for far less if we took a step back from the macho isolationist posturing.

edit - and come now, you're better than posting the front page of the Sun to back up your arguments.
 
jeff_goldblum said:
The whole 'not having nukes in the subs is like not having bullets in the gun' bit is a great soundbite, but it's also tried-and-tested nuclear policy for some nations. Japan doesn't have any nuclear warheads, but retains the raw materials, knowledge, technology and manufacturing power to quickly produce them.

In any case, I don't really understand why we can't just sack in our own weapons and enter a (US-funded) sharing agreement like Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy and many other nations have. It seems to me that the idea of having our own, uniquely British deterrent is something of a cock-measuring competition for the born-to-rule lot who still get misty-eyed about Britain's former primacy in the world rather than something we actually need to be spending a fair whack of our budget on.
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This is why one of the arguments used is because it maintains "Britain's place in the world". Like its a fecking popularity contest and if we don't have the shiny nuclear weapons then Suzie is going to leave the party with Denmark and shag him in the back of his camper van.
 
sun_tzu said:
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He needs some PR lessons as his interview was basically ammunition to fire at him for the next few weeks till he messes something else up
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Ignoring the fact that The Sun is awful and anything JC says will be spun negatively no matter what by the Tory press...

Why the feck is this man the leader of my party? Sakes..... We'd be better off with a cardboard cutout of a dead cat. At least that wouldn't come out with a load of shite every time it was asked a question.

It's almost as if some saw Miliband and said "he's the most unelectable leader Labour have ever had" and someone else said "oh yeah, let's make a bet..."
 
There's some fairly obvious reasons why Japan has the arrangement it does. Their system is also land-based, so doesn't have impotent submarines hobbling about the pacific.

sun_tzu said:
Does he have any policy on Gibraltar? (Bermuda, cayman, etc)
How about Northern Ireland as it could be argued that's not entirely different to the Falklands.
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McDonnell has said recently he wants a united Ireland (and we know how he feels about the IRA), Corbyn is probably the same though a tad more open minded.
 
jeff_goldblum said:
@sun_tzu -

edit - and come now, you're better than posting the front page of the Sun to back up your arguments.
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Im just trying to point out that if he wants to engage with the public on the need or otherwise for a permanent at sea nuclear capability or indeed any form of nuclear capability he has to frame his argument a bit better - and he needs no to go off his message and talk about the falklands / isis.

As much as his supporters hate us blairite scum (more than they hate the tories I think) they have to admit that some of that media management and staying on message would help him a hell of a lot in trying to engage with a broader church
 
sun_tzu said:
Im just trying to point out that if he wants to engage with the public on the need or otherwise for a permanent at sea nuclear capability or indeed any form of nuclear capability he has to frame his argument a bit better - and he needs no to go off his message and talk about the falklands / isis.

As much as his supporters hate us blairite scum (more than they hate the tories I think) they have to admit that some of that media management and staying on message would help him a hell of a lot in trying to engage with a broader church
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To be fair he was asked about these things specifically, if he'd ducked the questions the Sun would simply run a headline to the effect of 'Dithering Corbyn has NO answers to ISIS crisis, REFUSES to rule out handing over Falklands'. He stayed 'on message' for most of the interview, talked about his agenda and made a lot of points that the public could have got behind, all of which the Sun ignored in order to run another attack piece.
 
As satisfying as it is to trash the Sun, its readership is the largest in Britain and includes a lot of working class Labour voters (who could be persuaded to vote UKIP or Tory) and ex-Labour voters (who need to be won back). You can't just ignore that they put out headlines like that or say it doesn't matter. The Tory posters of "a threat to national security" weren't a one-off wheeze, it's a long term strategy which is going to win big for them.
 
You have to wonder why the BBC thought these to be the pertinent questions of the day, trident aside.
 
That is certainly the type of front page story that would secure the tories a victory a week before the election. The country decides based upon such idiotic scare tactics branded by the trash.

Trident for me is an unwinnable issue, the party needs to move on to things it can win on and Corbyn needs to stop offering his personal opinions on the matter.
 
Although the matter of Trident has the potential for splits within the party in the near term, i would consider his views on the Falklands and IS to be a greater threat to Labour's electoral hopes. Corbyn will be given a scenario in hwich he must stand up to Argentina either diplomatically or militarily, and the man is going to refuse to do so. Forget about lame ducks, he'll be a dead duck.

Switching to domestic policy issues for a moment:

Why has the Beckett Report been suppressed for all of these months by the leadership?

Secondly, what is the extent of Corbyn's housing policy for those people who wish to buy their own home? In what way does it differ from the Government's, which he has criticised?
 
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Nick 0208 Ldn said:
Although the matter of Trident has the potential for splits within the party in the near term, i would consider his views on the Falklands and IS to be a greater threat to Labour's electoral hopes. Corbyn will be given a scenario in hwich he must stand up to Argentina either diplomatically or militarily, and the man is going to refuse to do so. Forget about lame ducks, he'll be a dead duck.

Onto domestic policy issues for a moment:

Why has the Beckett Report been suppressed for all of these months by the leadership?

Secondly, what is the extent of Corbyn's housing policy for those people who wish to buy their own home? In what way does it differ from the Government's, which he has criticised?
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capitalist / blairite scum
I imagine his policy is to chuck them in the gulag for re-education
 
Nick 0208 Ldn said:
Although the matter of Trident has the potential for splits within the party in the near term, i would consider his views on the Falklands and IS to be a greater threat to Labour's electoral hopes. Corbyn will be given a scenario in hwich he must stand up to Argentina either diplomatically or militarily, and the man is going to refuse to do so. Forget about lame ducks, he'll be a dead duck.

Switching to domestic policy issues for a moment:

Why has the Beckett Report been suppressed for all of these months by the leadership?

Secondly, what is the extent of Corbyn's housing policy for those people who wish to buy their own home? In what way does it differ from the Government's, which he has criticised?
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On housing, Corbyn's policy seems to be to build more affordable housing than the Tories are. And then of course there's the idea of a rent cap, which would have the dual effect of making it easier for tenants to save money for a deposit whilst renting, and also deincentivizing the hoarding of property by landlords which reduces the supply of affordable housing on the market and makes prices so high in the first place.

Where I live in Durham, landlords can get away with charging students 2-3 times the going rate so local renters can't find value-for-money accommodation in the city centre. Being able to charge students ~£400pm for a room in a terrace also incentivizes landlords to hoover up all the properties that would normally be ideal 'starter homes', driving up prices and pushing potential buyers (especially younger ones) miles out of town. I'm sure there are similar situations everywhere, not least in London. For all their spin, at the moment it's Tory housing policy and it's extreme deference to private landlords that is holding people back from owning their own homes.
 
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