Current Affairs The Labour Party

[tsubaki]

For months people, myself included it must be said, thought Corbyn was playing a clever game.

Sitting on the sidelines doing nowt whilst the Tories tore themselves to pieces.

But it seems he wasn’t.

His inaction was due to fact he had not got a clue what to do.

For some bizarre reason he thought enough Tories would vote to bring their own government down with three and a half years of this parliament to run.....and calling fir an election was the only tactic in his playbook.

Thank you Ed Milliband, for changing the rules and allowing the Eejit wing of the Labour Party to foist this fellow upon us.

After the week the Government has had, how the heck can the leader of the Opposition conspire to make his own inadequacies the main talking point as it draws to a close?

It’s because he doesn’t control what people talk about, the media comes closest to that and they all can’t stand him.

I mean, for example there was an article in the Mail today that claimed Corbyn wanted a no deal Brexit because the disaster it would cause would drive everyone into the arms of Labour. The fact that the Mail have been asking for a no deal Brexit at times, that more than a hundred Tory MPs have backed it, that Labours policy isn’t that at all or the fact that the government are the ones in charge of the process was not mentioned. They ended up comparing him to Lenin, because obviously they both have beards.

 

[Number_25]

The sheer amount of contempt Fiona Bruce demonstrated against Diane Abbott last night is symptomatic of a media that's not fit for purpose.

A no deal Brexit would be utterly horrendous for this country, and Labour is right to do everything in its power to guarantee that it'll never happen.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

Well maybe, maybe not. Point is, his advisor has little, or close to nil, interest in anything else other than getting Corbyn into No 10.

Who's his advisor mate?

 

[roydo]

Who's his advisor mate?

Seamous Milne.

Spelling might be wrong though.

 

[peteblue]

The sheer amount of contempt Fiona Bruce demonstrated against Diane Abbott last night is symptomatic of a media that's not fit for purpose.

A no deal Brexit would be utterly horrendous for this country, and Labour is right to do everything in its power to guarantee that it'll never happen.

Why would it be horrendous. Exactly what would happen that would make it so.....

 

[tsubaki]

Why would it be horrendous. Exactly what would happen that would make it so.....

Pete if you left this Government in charge of paper clips you’d be lucky to escape bankruptcy in account of them ordering staplers, and that’s assuming they didn’t burn your house down.

I mean, I see in today’s news that they are trying to deport someone’s great grandparents to Iran now, despite them living here since 1978?

 

[Number_25]

 

[dholliday]

Diane Abbott is claiming BBC are being racist and sexist against here. I didn't see the debate, is this accurate?

Report here:

Diane Abbott accuses BBC Question Time of legitimising racism

 

[tsubaki]

Diane Abbott is claiming BBC are being racist and sexist against here. I didn't see the debate, is this accurate?

Report here:

Diane Abbott accuses BBC Question Time of legitimising racism

The way the BBC statement makes a denial in general terms whilst also doesn't address any of the specific issues raised would suggest that, yes, her office may have a point. They are right to complain about some of the chair interventions (in one of which Fiona Bruce was demonstrably wrong, Labour are not "behind in the polls"*) and especially the warm up act (assuming that the other panellists werent exposed to the same kind of jokes).

I am not saying the BBC are to blame for the way Abbott is now perceived - and its important to note that the complaint wasnt that the BBC were sexist or racist, but rather that they didn't challenge it and seem to have gone along with some of it at times. This is something that has become a bit of a trend over there, from the coverage of the first leadership campaign, to the post-Paris Corbyn interview that was edited so that an answer to one question ended up as being an answer to another question, via that Newsnight where they portrayed him as a folk-Lenin and now this. In this case it is a bit of a new low though because, as we saw with Jo Cox, there are loons out there, they will have a go at "traitors" unless they are stopped and there is noone who gets more abuse from that lot than Diane Abbott.

* they were currently behind in one companies' poll, level in another and ahead in three others. The company that got consistently closest to the GE result in 2017 (Survation) has them ahead, and the company that was one of the furthest away from the 2017 result (Yougov) has them behind. (edit: by "the result" I mean the polling during the election campaign, not the last result before polling day)

 

[summerisle]

Diane Abbott is claiming BBC are being racist and sexist against here. I didn't see the debate, is this accurate?

Report here:

Diane Abbott accuses BBC Question Time of legitimising racism

Here's a clip (poll ratings).

 

[dholliday]

The way the BBC statement makes a denial in general terms whilst also doesn't address any of the specific issues raised would suggest that, yes, her office may have a point. They are right to complain about some of the chair interventions (in one of which Fiona Bruce was demonstrably wrong, Labour are not "behind in the polls"*) and especially the warm up act (assuming that the other panellists werent exposed to the same kind of jokes).

I am not saying the BBC are to blame for the way Abbott is now perceived - and its important to note that the complaint wasnt that the BBC were sexist or racist, but rather that they didn't challenge it and seem to have gone along with some of it at times. This is something that has become a bit of a trend over there, from the coverage of the first leadership campaign, to the post-Paris Corbyn interview that was edited so that an answer to one question ended up as being an answer to another question, via that Newsnight where they portrayed him as a folk-Lenin and now this. In this case it is a bit of a new low though because, as we saw with Jo Cox, there are loons out there, they will have a go at "traitors" unless they are stopped and there is noone who gets more abuse from that lot than Diane Abbott.

* they were currently behind in one companies' poll, level in another and ahead in three others. The company that got consistently closest to the GE result in 2017 (Survation) has them ahead, and the company that was one of the furthest away from the 2017 result (Yougov) has them behind. (edit: by "the result" I mean the polling during the election campaign, not the last result before polling day)

Here's a clip (poll ratings).

aye, going by that clip i don't see what's racist but they're deffo being very unfair towards her. My guess is Abbott's reputation for fudging her numbers has become a kind of national laughing stock, so that even when she's right (as in this clip) she's ridiculed anyway.

Unfair and even unkind, deffo. But her previous fudging of numbers has done Labour's chances no favours.

Most despised politician in UK? There's a lot of hate for Boris, Corbyn, Farage and even the Prime Minister too. Hating politicians is a bit of a sport.

Momentum didn't need to play the race card here, imo...it's enough to call them out for being unfair. Abbott may have won some over out of sympathy but race cards are poison for winning new voters.

 

[catcherintherye]

aye, going by that clip i don't see what's racist but they're deffo being very unfair towards her. My guess is Abbott's reputation for fudging her numbers has become a kind of national laughing stock, so that even when she's right (as in this clip) she's ridiculed anyway.

Unfair and even unkind, deffo. But her previous fudging of numbers has done Labour's chances no favours.

Most despised politician in UK? There's a lot of hate for Boris, Corbyn, Farage and even the Prime Minister too. Hating politicians is a bit of a sport.

Momentum didn't need to play the race card here, imo...it's enough to call them out for being unfair. Abbott may have won some over out of sympathy but race cards are poison for winning new voters.

I'm broadly in agreement with this. I do think there is a double standard between male politician and female politicians who make mistakes but thats slightly by the by. But I am not sure it was sexist or racist though.

However what it is is factually wrong. They are actually all wrong in that clip, but of the 3 Dianne Abbot is the one that is least wrong.

Labour are not behind in "every poll" nor are they "broadly level" in most polls. One polling company (who were out by around 8% at the previous election) have the Conservatives in front. Every other polling company have Labour either level or ahead. These include polling companies such as Survation who have called the last 2 elections correctly.

This information is widely available. Look at Survation, Kantar, Populous etc. I can almost forgive Isobel Oakshot getting it wrong (though it's pretty poor on her part). Fiona Bruce though, not correcting Oakshot and then repeating the misinformation on QT is very poor for someone who is meant to chair QT. It's a key part of the job. The BBC really need to do better than that.

 

[tsubaki]

This information is widely available. Look at Survation, Kantar, Populous etc. I can almost forgive Isobel Oakshot getting it wrong (though it's pretty poor on her part). Fiona Bruce though, not correcting Oakshot and then repeating the misinformation on QT is very poor for someone who is meant to chair QT. It's a key part of the job. The BBC really need to do better than that.

The thing with Oakeshott is they know what she is like and know her history in journalism. She should not have been anywhere near that panel, and I would be amazed if she didn't know exactly what she was saying.

 

[catcherintherye]

The thing with Oakeshott is they know what she is like and know her history in journalism. She should not have been anywhere near that panel, and I would be amazed if she didn't know exactly what she was saying.

I can't prove or disprove it. There's a legitimate question as to whether someone with such poor political understanding should be on a politics show. Thats a debate though. Whats not in doubt is the chair should be aware of these things.

 

[summerisle]

The thing with Oakeshott is they know what she is like and know her history in journalism. She should not have been anywhere near that panel, and I would be amazed if she didn't know exactly what she was saying.