I think the speech was right to aim at "shoring up the base" - which is sneered at by idiot commentators as "red meat for the faithful" and other such teeth-pullingly shit cliches. McDonnell's speech was a reach-out into unfamiliar places, Corbyn's needed to pep his actual supporters up. Assailed by a potentially mutinous PLP and a political media that is either lazily ignorant or dementedly hostile, you need to rally the forces that are already enthusiastically at your side. Which are considerably greater in active number than his immediate predecessors.
I hate talking conference-speech-tactics in this horrible Choppy Waters way, but I think he played it right.
The Evening Standard had a fairly positive report and editorial on his speech yesterday. Maybe catching a sense of the way the wind is blowing, as we saw with Blair for a time?
(Some friends suggest that my politics have undergone a shift in emphasis since I became a homeowner myself recently, but I don't really see it. Although if I see them kids playing ball games on the grass outside the flats again I swear I'll do time)
It happens, Nesta. I'm currently planning my campaign to smear the parents of every three-to-four-year-old in the local area – and their children themselves – in a bid to improve our school-place chances next year. Like in that Jam sketch.
It's all very well having principles but doing anything about them is fantasy la-la politics.
The Evening Standard had a fairly positive report and editorial on his speech yesterday. Maybe catching a sense of the way the wind is blowing, as we saw with Blair for a time?
Headline: Corbyn: I'll Give Power to the People.
"Just had legal on the phone, they say there's no way we can run with Corbyn Is Paedo North Korean Spy"
"Bollocks, we go to press in two minutes... what are we going to do?"
"He made a speech, right... whatabout Corbyn Says Thing In Speech?"
"Not great, but it'll do for the early edition. Stick Rita Ora on the front for the later ones"
The broadsheet coverage has been inept and lazy. Not the opinion pieces so much - you expect a broad range and we've had it – but just the snarky, drip-drip perspective-of-the-establishment Choppy Waters-ness of it all. The sense that they've got a massive sulk on because Corbyn's win has made their job change, and become more difficult. A good journalist would find that it's made the job more interesting, but alas, not many of them about.
E10 Rifle wrote: To Lucy and others, what should Corbyn have said on immigration, by way of policy pledges?
Something that enough people will buy.
I think Tubby's idea is a good one - going further, I think announcing a longterm nonideological review of the subject might be a good initial step towards building credibility.
I know that Britain's nuclear deterrents isn't a non-issue but it is really. We would be protected by Nato in the same way all the other NATO countries without nuclear weapons are.
indysleaze wrote: Did Rachel Reeves really say Labour party members should doorstep with the message that Corbyn doesn't represent the party? Amazing!
If pushed into a discussion, I try to find some way to sympathise. That often involves "yeah, the leadership's shit, but what can you do?" Had that conversation re: Blair, Brown and Miliband.
Did Rachel Reeves really say Labour party members should doorstep with the message that Corbyn doesn't represent the party? Amazing!
If pushed into a discussion, I try to find some way to sympathise. That often involves "yeah, the leadership's shit, but what can you do?" Had that conversation re: Blair, Brown and Miliband.
So basically every Labour leader, past, present or future was, is and will be shit, from the neo-con Blair to the socialist Corbyn. Are you sure you're in the right party?
Eh? I didn't say I meant it. But as a thought experiment, yeah, every leader of a political party could be shit and it still be worth being a member of, in theory.
"Neo-con Blair"? Meaningless. Hawk, maybe. War criminal, if you like. But "neo-con" is a witless thing to say. You fucking Trot.
(That last comment is I would hope an obvious joke, but as this thread is read by the far left I should probably flag it as such.)
I love the idea that only the Left have the nirvana fallacy, when this Government seems to think that all 2.5m unemployed people are able to fill 600,000 jobs and the only thing stopping them is their own laziness.
We don't need Trident. I can see the jobs argument, but I can't see the deterrent argument at all.
Regular readers will know how much I hate to split hairs, but this notion of a "nirvana fallacy" is idiotic. Nirvana is more or less a state outside of being, not an ideal outcome or situation.
Trident is useless, and wtf do people think they mean by "pushing the button"? Bang bang, you're dead, no returns?
Asking the US if we could please please please press the button, please? In the 80s the US speculated about containing nuclear conflict to the European "theatre"; how independent would our "deterrent" be?
Whatever - it only theoretically worked as a deterrent when there was a single huge enemy bloc of faceless people we didn't do business with.
Even threatening a nuclear strike today would trigger a load of domestic and international terrorism. It would make suicide bombers of us all, whether or no we agreed to it, on the Government's say-so.
The environmental effects would bite us all in the arse, too.
The New Statesman have been churning out an anti-Corbyn article every five minutes for the last fortnight.
Nirvana fallacies is it? Britain decided to create the NHS and a comprehensive welfare state when completely broke, this was called progress in them days.
It's better to cherish a nirvana fallacy than a focus group led dilution of your party's raison d'etre.
Lucia Lanigan wrote: Regular readers will know how much I hate to split hairs, but this notion of a "nirvana fallacy" is idiotic. Nirvana is more or less a state outside of being, not an ideal outcome or situation.
They just mean "utopia".
Utopian fallacy even sounds better, doesn't it? American academics, cuh.
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