June 8th General Election

[John Lambies Doos]

JC about to stir things up with a speech today where he is apparently going to link Monday's bombing with British Foreign policy over the last 20 years.

And he would be right.
Blair also a big culprit here

[DublinMagyar]

So despite what everyone seems to be hearing on the ground the polls are looking increasingly positive for Labour. Apparently a lot of this is coming from folk who didn't vote in 2015 (which could explain why we are getting a different message as we are specifically targeting soft Labour voters from the last election). I have my doubts as to whether this will actually result in any electoral success, the problem with non-voters is they tend not to vote, and there was a huge swing of soft Lab to Tory last time round which could be repeated, but I'm starting to think this election may not be as bad of a disaster as I was feeling. Can't see us winning but we have a chance of giving May a bit of a bloody nose over this and make her rash decision to have a snap election look like a mistake.

I know this will likely fall on deaf ears but if you are ever going to vote Labour in an election this is the one to do it.

If you live in England/Wales, I totally agree with you.

[williemillersmoustache]

2 minutes ago, ayrmad said:

Probably because we don't hear it up here, you're too busy fighting for the Unionist vote that you've already lost up here.

Or immediately jumping in to bed with the tories at local level. 

[ayrmad]

The half that I did hear from JC sounded fine to me.

[philyerboots]

Oh! it's on

[renton]

33 minutes ago, jmothecat said:

 

 

I think that's another thing that is making me uncomfortable about this, it feels like he's trying to get political gain out of it. It also smacks of the 'I told you so' smugness that the gesture politics left love so much.

 

http://press.labour.org.uk/post/161089328659/jeremy-corbyn-speech

can you point out the 'I told you so' smugness? How about the unscrupulous clawing for political gain?

[renton]

1 minute ago, philyerboots said:

Oh! it's on

On what?

[mjw]

Oh! it's on

[eez-eh]

1 hour ago, jmothecat said:

the problem with non-voters is they tend not to vote

1 hour ago, jmothecat said:

That will anger a lot of Labour people, not really sure what he would gain from making a speech like that. Whilst we've made mistakes with wars like Iraq there are a lot of interventions that have been very positive. I'm also not entirely sure the 'well we don't want to get bombed so we will never intervene' is a particularly moral view. Being opposed
to foreign intervention for pacifist reasons or the belief that we will make things worse are perfectly valid reasons that I would have sympathy for, but to decide we shouldn't intervene because we might get hurt seems selfish and un-socialist. I'm not sure what other situations blaming the victims is something that the left would be happy doing. A child murderer massacred 22 people in a cruel and inhumane way, that is not the fault of our foreign policy, that is the fault of the murderer and his accomplices.

 

He is not blaming the victims or saying that our foreign policy excuses terrorism - he's pointing out the pretty undeniable fact that bombing the Middle East usually doesn't help the situation. 

If that upsets the New Labour, Blair apologists like yourself, then good.

[John Lambies Doos]

 

That will anger a lot of Labour people, not really sure what he would gain from making a speech like that. Whilst we've made mistakes with wars like Iraq there are a lot of interventions that have been very positive. I'm also not entirely sure the 'well we don't want to get bombed so we will never intervene' is a particularly moral view. Being opposed

to foreign intervention for pacifist reasons or the belief that we will make things worse are perfectly valid reasons that I would have sympathy for, but to decide we shouldn't intervene because we might get hurt seems selfish and un-socialist. I'm not sure what other situations blaming the victims is something that the left would be happy doing. A child murderer massacred 22 people in a cruel and inhumane way, that is not the fault of our foreign policy, that is the fault of the murderer and his accomplices.

 

Not sure it will Jmo, outside the plp that is. Corbyn has always had that stance and so do vast swathes of general public. It's undeniable that the UK foreign policy has contributed to these horrific attacks. JC is merely pointing out what a lot of people are thinking. I fully expect the seething dribbling right wing mess of the media to go to town on him tho

 

[Fide]

2 hours ago, jmothecat said:

 

 

Almost everything we are saying boils down to asking people whether they want a Tory government or a Labour one for the very reason that we know a lot of Tory policies are toxic. We are attacking the Tories regularly and consistently, not really sure why you think we aren't.

 

Probably because, at Westminster, Labour have sat on their hands and abstained through Tory Bill after Tory Bill, and in Holyrood, Labour are more interested in their bitter hatred of the SNP than attacking the Tories.

1 hour ago, philyerboots said:

Oh! it's on

Are you 4 years old?

[ayrmad]

2 minutes ago, Fide said:

Probably because, at Westminster, Labour have sat on their hands and abstained through Tory Bill after Tory Bill, and in Holyrood, Labour are more interested in their bitter hatred of the SNP than attacking the Tories.

Are you 4 years old?

If he's 4 years old the SNP need to up the spend on nursery education, as that's quite clearly not his handy work.

[Fullerene]

I think some people really like the idea of original sin and like to apply it to politics as well.
We brought these attacks on ourselves by meddling in the affairs of other countries, or maybe because of the state of Israel or more recently the Iraq war.
Maybe - but I suspect that if we had done none of these things - these people would still hate us.

They despise our way of life - they hate music, art, sport, drinking alcohol, men and women socialising together, women dressing the way they do - I suspect they kind of hate women full stop.
All these attacks represent their disapproval of us.  In their view, We are not living life correctly.

[Joey Jo Jo Junior Shabadoo]

4 minutes ago, Fide said:

Probably because, at Westminster, Labour have sat on their hands and abstained through Tory Bill after Tory Bill, and in Holyrood, Labour are more interested in their bitter hatred of the SNP than attacking the Tories.

Are you 4 years old?

4 year olds are more articulate.

[ayrmad]

1 minute ago, Fullerene said:

I think some people really like the idea of original sin and like to apply it to politics as well.
We brought these attacks on ourselves by meddling in the affairs of other countries, or maybe because of the state of Israel or more recently the Iraq war.
Maybe - but I suspect that if we had done none of these things - these people would still hate us.

They despise our way of life - they hate music, art, sport, drinking alcohol, men and women socialising together, women dressing the way they do - I suspect they kind of hate women full stop.
All these attacks represent their disapproval of us.  In their view, We are not living life correctly.

It must just be coincidence that they tend to pick countries that have stuck the boot into "muslim" countries.

[welshbairn]

2 minutes ago, ayrmad said:

It must just be coincidence that they tend to pick countries that have stuck the boot into "muslim" countries.

Like Belgium?

[ayrmad]

6 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

Like Belgium?

YES.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/14/world/europe/belgiums-anti-isis-airstrikes-expand-from-iraq-into-syria.html?_r=0

[WILLIEA]

52 minutes ago, Fullerene said:

Maybe - but I suspect that if we had done none of these things - these people would still hate us.

They despise our way of life - they hate music, art, sport, drinking alcohol, men and women socialising together, women dressing the way they do - I suspect they kind of hate women full stop.
All these attacks represent their disapproval of us.  In their view, We are not living life correctly.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of JC's approach the statement above is certainly true !

[welshbairn]

53 minutes ago, ayrmad said:

YES.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/14/world/europe/belgiums-anti-isis-airstrikes-expand-from-iraq-into-syria.html?_r=0

Tbh I thought their airforce consisted of balloons.

[John Lambies Doos]

They despise our way of life - they hate music, art, sport, drinking alcohol, men and women socialising together, women dressing the way they do - I suspect they kind of hate women full stop.
All these attacks represent their disapproval of us.  In their view, We are not living life correctly.

Well I wouldn't necessary be a fan of their way of life; but I'm certainly not going to blow myself up nor am I going to horrifically murder their citizens.