Corbyn: set the controls for the heart of the sun

None of that is factually true apart from the IRA being a terrorist organisation.

 

Does that matter?

 

Lest we forget there are also terrorists factions within the Loyalists.

 

That's one way of looking at it I suppose. Much depends on your reading/viewing material.



From what I can gather, Jeremy Corbyn and others on the left of the Labour party back then offered engagement, debate and discussion. They wanted things resolved peacefully, by getting folk round a table, rather than continuing to kill each other or bomb Britain. It seems they helped to convince many in Sinn Fein to go down the political route, rather than the 'long war' aims of the militarists in that organisation. Corbyn was joined by Nelson Mandela in this stance. In supporting those who wanted an Irish republic. Not terrorism.

A few statistics on the deaths during that conflict....

55% of the victims killed by the British Army and state security forces were non-combatants.

36% of the victims killed by militant republican groups were non-combatants.

Of the many victims killed by loyalist paramilitary groups, 87% were non-combatants.


Lots of innocent folk died. Jeremy Corbyn helped to create a dialogue for political resolution. That's how it appears to me at least. I recall Thatcher stating publicly "I do not negotiate with terrorists". Yet as has become clear over the years (especially since the 2007 internal army document was released via the freedom of information act) the government back then were in discussions with the IRA. And further to that, it was the British government who reached out to Sinn Fein.

Yet folk label Corbyn a 'terrorist sympathiser' for trying to help resolve the issues earlier than they did... for creating dialogue that eventually saw a settlement, a military impasse, peace basically.

Aye. Worra lovely person.





To be fair, it all comes down to your reading/viewing material. I don't read the Mail, Sun, Express, Telegraph or Spectator. I read lefty stuff instead.

 

I find this so sad. Are we really so disillusioned as a society that we won't vote for someone because they're claiming things can be much better? We won't vote for them because they're saying we don't have to accept all this inequality, we can have a fair, honest and decent society where the gap between rich and poor isn't such a gulf, where the wealth is distributed far more equally and good education, well paid jobs and first class health care is available for all? The fact that Jeremy Corbyn wants to create a utopia is exactly the reason why he'll get my vote and I don't believe a fair and just society is beyond our capabilities, we just need the vision to take us there.

 

Good post jay and very poignant.
It is the same utopia that after the war whilst still in massive debt and turmoil the labour party with similar visions created the NHS , built 100s of 1000s of social housing , rescued the mining and rail industries which were dying on their arses because profits weren't being reinvested.etc etc etc.
I think they were called Looney lefties and dreamers and it wouldn't work and that austerity as the way to go.
But the soldiers returning from another catastrophic war and their hard pressed families bought into it and told Churchill and the rest of the Tory bourgeois to go.

Oops sorry ark it was a response to jays post .
Fat finger syndrome or summat I think.
Yours is a top post as well by the way.

 

I don't think that the following 10 pledges are that left wing, but sensible alternatives to what the Tories are offering

Corbyn’s 10 pledges
Full employment and an economy that works for all: based around a £500bn public investment via the planned national investment bank.
A secure homes guarantee: building 1m new homes in five years, at least half of them council homes. Also rent controls and secure tenancies.
Security at work: includes stronger employment rights, an end to zero hours contracts and mandatory collective bargaining for companies with 250 or more employees.
Secure our NHS and social care: end health service privatisation and bring services into a “secure, publicly-provided NHS”.
A national education service: includes universal public childcare, the “progressive restoration” of free education, and quality apprenticeships.
Action to secure our environment: includes keeping to Paris climate agreement, and moving to a “low-carbon economy” and green industries, in part via national investment bank.
Put the public back into our economy and services: includes renationalising railways and bringing private bus, leisure and sports facilities back into local government control.
Cut income and wealth inequality: make a progressive tax system so highest earners are “fairly taxed”, shrink the gap between the highest and lowest paid.
Action to secure an equal society: includes action to combat violence against women, as well as discrimination based on race, sexuality or disability, and defend the Human Rights Act.
Peace and justice at the heart of foreign policy: aims to put conflict resolution and human rights “at the heart of foreign policy”.

 

Very third way.

 

Jay, you can vote for whoever you want. That is your right and I am not trying to influence you in any way.

Personally, I want to know how many of the promises are likely to be kept, or at least how many of the promises are likely to be kept. Personally, I do not believe that many of those promises can ever be kept, and furthermore I believe that Mr Corbyn will return to the issue of our nuclear deterrent at a later date. He is an idealist, and I am a realist and we realists think that idealism is impossible. We realists think capitalism, with all its faults, is here to stay and you merely legislate in order to avoid some of its worst excesses.

But by all means, you vote for Mr Corbyn. I have been throwing my vote away for years and years. That is what democracy is for.

 

Does anyone have fully costed proposals at this stage in an electoral cycle? Labour's role now has to be harnessing the talent it has behind translating the vision in to workable policy.

Interestingly many of the Labour voices that are (rightly) stressing the need to be seen as competent on the economy are the ones who damaged public trust in Labour by sacrificing the debate to the Tory lie that they overspent in power. The real question is whether Labour will ever recover from that rewriting of history. It continues to leave the Tories fireproof despite the utter failure of their own economic policy of austerity.

 

Capitalism does not exist. It ceased to have any meaning at all when the governments across the world bailed out the banks. That is not part of any definition of capitalism. If capitalism was to continue then the failing banks should have been allowed to go under, but they weren't, they took a hand out, they looked to the benefits of socialism. Capitalism is a tried and failed system. It didn't work. I don't know what you would call what we have now, but it's not capitalism.

 

To be honest, I'd rather try and fail with Corbyn's idealistic set of 10, even if it includes potential nuclear disarmament and spending it on stuff like schools and hospitals for all instead, than Theresa's 'all foreign staff to be published on lists' and 'grammar schools were a great system that definitely can't be manipulated by the rich and won't lead to a two-tier education system' realism.

What's the worst that could happen? The arse falls out of the pound and everyone's savings disappear? We lose trading capability because we're no longer part of a bloc? Or are we genuinely going to be blown to smithereens as soon as we disarm?

 

It's call Smash, Grab & Leggitism...

 

with reference to May's Grammar School proposals.

What exactly is planned for those who don't get into a Grammar School?

 

They were banned under New Labour. As I understand, May will remove the ban, meaning new schools can be 'selective' in who can come to the school, by way of testing.

There's been no real proposal for other kids and what happens, it looks like you just go to the local non-grammar. Hence the problem of people have with grammars, being that richer people will be able to afford study/training/preparation for kids for the new 11+, and the number of richer kids going there will be disproportionate. So those school's funds will increase, they'll end up with more/better teachers, and a vicious circle begins, where if you don't have free time and money, your kid is at a disadvantage.

All in all, it probably won't make that much of a difference, smart kids will get in, dim kids won't. But there will be skewing, and ways to get round it, and it will be easier if you have more money.

 

Many, many, many years ago, I went to school. In my final year, I studied economics. Now in the intervening year most of it went down a plug hole labelled aging. Few things remain in my befuddled memory, but one was, the Bank of England is the lender of last resort and no government can allow a banking system to collapse. You might just like it because if the banks go to the wall, then anarchy follows.

 

Full employment? Hahahaha, you're having a laugh!

 

Yes - I remember studying Economics at A-Level in the late 70's. I remember being taught about 'reserve asset ratios', which I think the banks were required to hold as a kind of guarantee that they would remain solvent. Not sure if it was Thatcher who watered that down - along with abolishing exchange controls. It may be that the Blair/Brown governments further loosened the restrictions on banks - with costs for us all. It seems that sub-prime lending in America, together with secondary trading in those types of securities really whipped up the storm.

 

Meanwhile, back to the bankers, senior ones.

Royal Bank of Scotland secretly tried to profit from struggling businesses, leaked documents show.

The bank bought up assets cheaply from failing businesses it claimed to be helping, the confidential files reveal.

Staff could boost their bonuses by finding firms which could be squeezed in what it called a "dash for cash".

BBC News.

 

Meanwhile, in today's Guardian:

1h ago 11:52
Guardian/ICM poll gives Tories 17-point post-conference lead

Political parties normally expect a modest post-conference bounce in the polls (because, if they are half-competent at PR, they can generally create a large quantity of mostly favourable media coverage) but the Conservatives will be delighted with the latest findings from the regular Guardian/ICM poll. It gives them a 17-point lead.

Here are the new figures, and how they compare to the previous Guardian/ICM polling figures from early September, before the conference season started.

Conservatives: 43% (up 2)

Labour: 26% (down 2)

Ukip: 11% (down 2)

Lib Dems: 8% (down 1)

Greens: 6% (up 2)

The fieldwork was carried out from Friday to Sunday.