Political round up.............

First topic message reminder :

Unions are like cops....Everyone hates them until they need one..

Just watched PMQ's. I get the sense that Corbyn was hoping to slay the rookie PM on her first PMQ's, but May wiped the floor with him. Can't believe Corbyn set himself up with questions about job insecurity. A question that should be asked but maybe not when he is boss of the shambles that is the Labour Party.

Even though he isn't suited to be leader, Corbyn will win the election. Owens and Eagle haven't a hope.

GSC wrote:Probably wariness at Donald's ability to edgy convention. Could see her delivering some pretty sloppy blowjobs to Trump when they start sucking each others toes

Fixed that for you.

Still can't quite believe he's the republican nomination. Says an awful lot about the intellect of a fairly large group of American's who voted for him in the primaries.

If he gets in I reckon we'll be pretty glad we're replacing the old Trident subs with new ones.

Munchkin wrote:Just watched PMQ's. I get the sense that Corbyn was hoping to slay the rookie PM on her first PMQ's, but May wiped the floor with him. Can't believe Corbyn set himself up with questions about job insecurity. A question that should be asked but maybe not when he is boss of the shambles that is the Labour Party.

Even though he isn't suited to be leader, Corbyn will win the election. Owens and Eagle haven't a hope.

But then the Prime Minister has a mountain of assistants and civil servants now behind her and her ideas, and even behind her asides and ad-libs

Corby - well, he's on his own, isn't he. One man against the British establishment, and against the entirety of his own Parliamentary party!, who aren't of a mind to help him out in any preparation for PMQs and are of a mind to enjoy the Conservatives laying into him and making him look bad.

You're right, Munch. The more the Labour members see their own Party MPs pretend the knives weren't out for Corbyn from the very day he was elected, the more those MPs pretend they didn't just down tools on their Leader and actively make 'policy decisions' impossible for him, the more the members then see those MPs for what they are and they will act accordingly.

SecretFly wrote:

Munchkin wrote:Just watched PMQ's. I get the sense that Corbyn was hoping to slay the rookie PM on her first PMQ's, but May wiped the floor with him. Can't believe Corbyn set himself up with questions about job insecurity. A question that should be asked but maybe not when he is boss of the shambles that is the Labour Party.

Even though he isn't suited to be leader, Corbyn will win the election. Owens and Eagle haven't a hope.

But then the Prime Minister has a mountain of assistants and civil servants now behind her and her ideas, and even behind her asides and ad-libs  

Corby - well, he's on his own, isn't he.  One man against the British establishment, and against the entirety of his own Parliamentary party!, who aren't of a mind to help him out in any preparation for PMQs and are of a mind to enjoy the Conservatives laying into him and making him look bad.

You're right, Munch.  The more the Labour members see their own Party MPs pretend the knives weren't out for Corbyn from the very day he was elected, the more those MPs pretend they didn't just down tools on their Leader and actively make 'policy decisions' impossible for him, the more the members then see those MPs for what they are and they will act accordingly.

1) Eagle dropped out leaving Owen on his own.

2) Corbyn. If he can't lead or convince the PLP to follow him - the people who he 'works' with on a day to day basis then what hope can we have that he could lead the country? They may not have wanted him from day one but he's done feck all to change their mindsets.

Over the last few months there have been no end of 'open goals' as the Conservative party tore itself up over the referendum and DC vs bojo's antics. Corbyn has failed to take advantage of any of them.

lostinwales wrote:

SecretFly wrote:

Munchkin wrote:Just watched PMQ's. I get the sense that Corbyn was hoping to slay the rookie PM on her first PMQ's, but May wiped the floor with him. Can't believe Corbyn set himself up with questions about job insecurity. A question that should be asked but maybe not when he is boss of the shambles that is the Labour Party.

Even though he isn't suited to be leader, Corbyn will win the election. Owens and Eagle haven't a hope.

But then the Prime Minister has a mountain of assistants and civil servants now behind her and her ideas, and even behind her asides and ad-libs  

Corby - well, he's on his own, isn't he.  One man against the British establishment, and against the entirety of his own Parliamentary party!, who aren't of a mind to help him out in any preparation for PMQs and are of a mind to enjoy the Conservatives laying into him and making him look bad.

You're right, Munch.  The more the Labour members see their own Party MPs pretend the knives weren't out for Corbyn from the very day he was elected, the more those MPs pretend they didn't just down tools on their Leader and actively make 'policy decisions' impossible for him, the more the members then see those MPs for what they are and they will act accordingly.

1) Eagle dropped out leaving Owen on his own.

2) Corbyn. If he can't lead or convince the PLP to follow him - the people who he 'works' with on a day to day basis then what hope can we have that he could lead the country? They may not have wanted him from day one but he's done feck all to change their mindsets.



Over the last few months there have been no end of 'open goals' as the Conservative party tore itself up over the referendum and DC vs bojo's antics. Corbyn has failed to take advantage of any of them.

1) How was he meant to change their minds?  Let the Led lead the Leader?  "You just sit there Corbyn and leave us to policy because you, your policies and the damn Labour members are idiots, are uneducated, are uncouth, are embarrassing, are badly dressed, are fools for not wanting to engage in the PMQ theatre of 'Hear! Hear!' and rehearsed point scoring and insults...............................
It's an ideological war, lost - nothing less - and no MP can pretend to the media or the public that it is something less.  It is the ideology of Corbyn ( and the majority of members) against the New Labour ideology of the MPs.  They wanted to force him to change his ideology or get off the stage - he didn't get off the stage.  They got angry and righteous and here they are - stalemate.

2) It seems the members (by far the largest section of the party AND those that give most funding) are finding it hard to make the PLP follow the will of the membership.  If the membership can't convince Labour MPs to be Labour MPs then.................................... here they are - stalemate.  Two separate ideologies and parties trying to cling to one trademark Name.

Look whats happening on the other side of the house. I don't think I'll ever like May but she is a leader, and her party have bowed to the inevitable and are standing behind her (even if that is the best place to knife someone from). Corbyn is not a leader.

There is a lot he could have done, both in PMQ attacking the tories and behind the scenes talking to his party. None of that seems to have happened.

SecretFly wrote:

Munchkin wrote:Just watched PMQ's. I get the sense that Corbyn was hoping to slay the rookie PM on her first PMQ's, but May wiped the floor with him. Can't believe Corbyn set himself up with questions about job insecurity. A question that should be asked but maybe not when he is boss of the shambles that is the Labour Party.

Even though he isn't suited to be leader, Corbyn will win the election. Owens and Eagle haven't a hope.

But then the Prime Minister has a mountain of assistants and civil servants now behind her and her ideas, and even behind her asides and ad-libs  

Corby - well, he's on his own, isn't he.  One man against the British establishment, and against the entirety of his own Parliamentary party!, who aren't of a mind to help him out in any preparation for PMQs and are of a mind to enjoy the Conservatives laying into him and making him look bad.

You're right, Munch.  The more the Labour members see their own Party MPs pretend the knives weren't out for Corbyn from the very day he was elected, the more those MPs pretend they didn't just down tools on their Leader and actively make 'policy decisions' impossible for him, the more the members then see those MPs for what they are and they will act accordingly.

True, May has plenty of resources to draw from, but it would be pushing it to suggest that someone else is writing her script. May is, apparently, something of a workaholic, and I would think she is more than capable of preparing for her own PMQ's. Sure she would get some help, but then as a very busy PM she will need that extra help.
Corbyn is only busy in destroying the Labour Party in his Erdoganesque efforts to hold on to power. Even then he fails woefully during PMQT.

The Labour members were bought and payed for. It isn't innocent members voting for a victimised Corbyn, and against those dastardly parliamentarians seeking his downfall. It's an agenda backed by the Unions for the Unions. It's the Unions that are running this election, not the majority of Labour supporters. It's a hard left agenda that will succeed only until the next General Election. Until then we get to watch the Labour Party disintegrate, meaning that there is no credible challenge to the Tory's.

Labours parliamentarians represent the majority, Fly, not the passed their sell by date Corbynista's.

Apparently Eagle was promised Shadow Chancellor by Smith to step aside?

http://order-order.com/2016/07/20/secret-labour-funds-offering-pay-25-vote-corbyn/

Tee-Hee, Corbyn's going to hammer Smith, and Labour will remain unelectable.

Munchkin wrote:

Labours parliamentarians represent the majority, Fly, not the passed their sell by date Corbynista's.

?  Isn't a majority a majority?  

If Corbynistas are past their sell-by date, they have a strange way of showing it, as many of them seem to be very young college types - ie, not old-school anything and not too working class 'dumb' either.

The Post-Blair Respectables are in shock, Munch.  They can't understand how they're not loved by the members - but then again, they can't understand why they did so badly in the last General Election either.  
Methinks, they're glued to a state of shock and delusion.  Whether any of us like it or not, the world is now undergoing some dramatic changes - some of them dangerous and dicey, some of them quite refreshing as many systems were stagnating under their own smugness of tradition.  
The Labour party shenanigans is just another symptom of the dramatic shifts in ideas and philosophies.  Eyes need to be opened and the Parliamentarians have to realise that no, they are not winning the hearts and minds battle against the Conservatives - and that they were losing that battle before Corbyn even turned up.   Officla Party-centric Labour have no majority, either in Westminster or on the streets.

Duty281 wrote:http://order-order.com/2016/07/20/secret-labour-funds-offering-pay-25-vote-corbyn/

Tee-Hee, Corbyn's going to hammer Smith, and Labour will remain unelectable.

And that is a good thing? Look I know where your politics lie, but that is not relevant here.

If there is no effective opposition (and nobody to argue with from Europe) who is going to ever hold the conservative government to account for anything? One party states are a bad idea.

Oh for goodness sake.

For the 50th time, probably, yes there does need to be an opposition party under the FPTP system we currently have, but there is no divine requirement that this has to be either the Labour or Conservative Party.

SecretFly wrote:

Munchkin wrote:

Labours parliamentarians represent the majority, Fly, not the passed their sell by date Corbynista's.

?  Isn't a majority a majority?  

If Corbynistas are past their sell-by date, they have a strange way of showing it, as many of them seem to be very young college types - ie, not old-school anything and not too working class 'dumb' either.

The Post-Blair Respectables are in shock, Munch.  They can't understand how they're not loved by the members - but then again, they can't understand why they did so badly in the last General Election either.  
Methinks, they're glued to a state of shock and delusion.  Whether any of us like it or not, the world is now undergoing some dramatic changes - some of them dangerous and dicey, some of them quite refreshing as many systems were stagnating under their own smugness of tradition.  
The Labour party shenanigans is just another symptom of the dramatic shifts in ideas and philosophies.  Eyes need to be opened and the Parliamentarians have to realise that no, they are not winning the hearts and minds battle against the Conservatives - and that they were losing that battle before Corbyn even turned up.   Officla Party-centric Labour have no majority, either in Westminster or on the streets.

Depends on which majority we are speaking about. The majority of Labour PLP's who overwhelmingly represent the majority of the Labour vote are anti-Corbyn. Corbyn was elected leader via Party membership. A membership that has been boosted by Unions, such as Unite, at a cost of £1.96 per month, and Momentum activists.

Corbynistas are not defined by age/social class, but by political ideology.

There have been no Post-Blair Respectables in the running for election, so no evidence they are not loved. Labour did so badly in the last election for two main reasons; the first being they didn't have a credible leader, the second being that SNP destroyed them in Scotland.

Any delusion belongs to the Corbynistas, MP's and Party members, who actually believe that Labour can win a General Election under Corbyn. It won't happen, and Conservative get a free run at the next election. Corbyn will win his leadership election, and possibly split the Party but, I think, it would be best for Labour to stay together and hope for a snap election sometime next year.

I don't believe political thinking has changed much at all, Fly. It's the same political ideologies. Just that a Labour rebel has managed to get elected, thanks to Support drummed up by Unions and Momentum.

Labour are not winning hearts and minds because Labour have no viable leader. Miliband was pathetic and Corbyn simply isn't a leader suited to running a Government, or acting as an effective opposition. He would be suited to running a Union, perhaps.

The Labour Centre could well win an election if they managed to produce an electable leader. The Corbynistas have no chance.

""I think Jeremy should take a little more responsibility for what is going on in the Labour Party," he told the BBC News Channel.
"After all, we didn't have this kind of abuse, intolerance, misogyny and anti-Semitism in the party before Jeremy Corbyn became leader.
"Angela is right it has effectively been licensed over the last nine months." - Owen Smith.

CorbynSoftOnAbuse

Considering his supposed political appeal, Jeremy does come across as very disingenuous at times.

I don't think his political appeal actually stretches very far. I agree, he doesn't strike me as sincere at all. He's all talk, little action.

I mean his appeal as a different kind of politician to the polished equivalents of Cameron et al.

GSC wrote:I mean his appeal as a different kind of politician to the polished equivalents of Cameron et al.

He is a bit different as a leader, but Labour have always had the gritty radical element. Just that this one has managed to become leader. I do believe his appeal is limited though. He does well in the membership votes, engineered by the Unions and Momentum, but his appeal will not stretch to winning a General Election.

Munchkin wrote:""I think Jeremy should take a little more responsibility for what is going on in the Labour Party," he told the BBC News Channel.
"After all, we didn't have this kind of abuse, intolerance, misogyny and anti-Semitism in the party before Jeremy Corbyn became leader.
"Angela is right it has effectively been licensed over the last nine months." - Owen Smith.

CorbynSoftOnAbuse

In the eyes of Smith though, and most of his MP colleagues, isn't the Labour Party the entirety of the bit that isn't Corbyn?  Isn't the media saying Corbyn is the outsider in terms of the philosophy of the Labour Party  - certainly in the Parliamentary party and then also, according to people like Smith, within the genuine Labour party movement as a whole?

Corbyn is the outsider according to them - the man who has over-stayed his welcome, who doesn't know when he isn't wanted, who doesn't just accept that his power has wilted and that support for him is gone.

Besides, who controls the mood of the party? - Where does Smith's own responsibility begin?  He and his MPs don't even want Corbyn in Westminster, let alone being 'responsible' for what's going on in Labour.  Maybe if he and his MPs stopped mentioning the nastiness they might help diffuse it and get on with talking about the ideological differences, the policy platform difference, etc etc?  


Final point on Smith.  It's quite strange that a man who at present hints strongly that his current Leader supports "abuse, intolerance, misogyny and anti-Semitism" should also have readily suggested that he, Smith, would make Corbyn Labour Party President if he was elected.  That needs some very heavy explaining on moral grounds if Smith is being honest in his view that Corbyn virtually controls and directs the nasty elements.  

Sorry, Munch, but again I believe Smith is using image-assassination spin to undermine an opponent in the Leadership race.  Logic keeps breaking down when these people produce their arguments.  Let Smith explain why a man like Corbyn should be anointed Labour President and let him not use the lazy term 'compromise'.  Too many broad stoke statements from the anti-Corbynites, not enough genuine probing questions asked of them.

It's all political positioning from Smith, he knows Corbyn wouldn't take it but he's desperate to appear as a Unity candidate. Don't particularly rate himself myself, none of the heavy hitters have bothered to risk their necks in this leadership battle.

Labour haven't got any heavy hitters.....

They desperately need an Alistair Campbell type as well....

Still I bet the hundreds of thousands killed in the Iraq war wouldn't mind seeing a little abuse...intolerance if they were still around....

I see Smith all of a sudden wasn't for Iraq.....Does anyone really think he wouldn't have followed the whip ???

Like I said Blair 1997-2001 was a great government......Pro-Business, Pro-entrepreneur and always with a helpful eye on the less fortunate.......

2001-2007 was complete Poopie....

Best not to be too rose tinted..

Corbyn needs to go but the new leader has to remember the left has somewhere other to go than just Labour unlike when Blair was in power......

It can't be taken for granted anymore..

Blair 97-2001 is the ticket..

I like to see Burnham get the job......He can unify......

None of these boys can..

Len McCluskey thinks MI5 agents are posing undercover and threatening MPs to discredit Corbynd supporters.

He probably knows that for certain GSC - I think he or his union conspired with MI5 to blacklist construction workers who flagged legitimate health and safety concerns back in the 70's/80's so he'd know what they're capable of.

Len McCluskey ... actually the most Leaderish chap about in Labour these days.

Maybe he should dump Corbyn and become Leader himself? I know, I know, he ain't elected but......... is a really nice dictatorship fully out of the question? After all, Merkel was doing a damn good job until you all got mad with her and voted OUT!

Got to admire McCluskey in an age where unions aren't fit to go he is certainly a powerful chap...

Fly,

I'm not sure how much Owen Smith can be considered an insider though. He's a left leaning radical, according to some. Certainly not a Blairite type. In fact, I think his ideology is closer to that of Corbyn.

Labour is split into two. It isn't just Corbyn against the rest. It's Corbyn, his Corbynista MP's, Momentum and the Unions, against the rebel PLP's. Not all the rebel PLP's would consider themselves from the Blairite school of thinking. I know a few have stated that they are not Blairites. There are different reasons for opposing Corbyn.

The political philosophy of the Labour movement should work from centre moving left, to greater degrees, and it's right that Labour doesn't lose touch with its roots in the radical left, although something that belongs on the fringes.
I think the philosophy (the degrees Left) should reflect the times though and, while it's hard to fault Corbyns ideology for this time, Corbyn isn't the individual who can inspire a Labour revival, or change needed. Just the opposite. Labour need a soft left leader with the drive and political skills of a Blair type.

Corbyns power hasn't wilted. His power doesn't just come from within the Party, but relies on the likes of Momentum for support.

Why should Smith, Eagle, or the rest, not speak out against Corbyn? Should they just brush all the nasty stuff under the carpet for the sake of a pretended unity? Should they bow to the intimidation of Corbyns henchmen (Momentum), and allow Corbyn to lead their Party into certain failure come election time? Would it be right for any Party?

Smith was being honest about Corbyn being soft on anti-Semitism and intimidation. It's happening, and Corbyn is soft on these abuses. Soft enough for me to strongly suspect he condones them.
I don't really get why Owens would want Corbyn as President, although I think it may well have something to do with the fact that Owens shares the same political philosophy. He would also view himself as a radical. Having Corbyn act as President would also strengthen Owens grip on power within the Labour movement, having the likes of Momentum at his disposal....

Fly, of course Owens would like to undermine Corbyn. He's in a leadership race against him, but that doesn't mean he isn't right. It isn't spin. Under Corbyns leadership the level of anti-Semitism has risen. Under Corbyns leadership, those that are opposed to him have been, and are being, intimidated.

Corbyn is a hypocrite, and totally unsuited to lead Labour.

Owen Smith a Radical?

Yes, I've heard it said of him...and more importantly, I've heard it from his own lips.

Again though - proof. If he's a radical, a genuine one - he's as 'unelectable' as Corbyn. So what would be the point of electing him?

All these concepts have pretty blunt definitions. Radicalism is radicalism. It doesn't have grades - it's ideological different ways of looking at the problems in society and radical ideas then on how to solve those considered problems.

Labour got elected with Blair because in an exercise with the strategic planning of a military campaign, they suppressed the 'radical' to admit a society basically needs quite a lot of Capitalism in order to accommodate trickle-down economics that might better serve the people at the bottom. The difference between Labour and Conservatives, in most things - economy, international relations etc - became incremental and vague and taxing percentage points here and there. In order to coax in voters, radicalism had to be toned down and suppressed.

Now Radicalism is up and at it again. And a strong character like Blair (incidentally, in character, quite a power-tripper and intimidator himself) isn't around to suppress it. And even if a character like Blair was around, the fact that he's already existed and people knows how he governed, they're alive to chancers coming forward now hoping to replicate him and his 'autocratic' style in suppressing the left element of the Party.

But Smith? Where's the Radicalism? You need more than a declaration. I'm not suggesting he should be, but I am suggesting he shouldn't attempt to be declaring that he is something he obviously isn't.
I think old radicals - like Corbyn (and even younger ones) would laugh at Smith's 'radical' credentials up until now. Maybe he has a colourful, confrontational, conviction-politics past but all I see is pretty much conventional MP to date. - with a little lobbying for Pfizer on the side

What is this new radicalism? There is nothing new that I see. There's certainly no shift in radical thinking in the UK. What makes Corbyn a radical? I don't think Corbyn views himself as radical. As a backbencher he has been a Labour rebel, but there's nothing radical in that. Being a rebel is easy. Radical thinking is easy. Making radical ideas a reality is extremely difficult, and not always right.
Donald Trump is a radical. He wants to build a massive wall to keep the Mexicans out. He wants to force his allies to pay for US protection. He wants to force US businesses to set up in the US, rather than on foreign fields. That's radical thinking, but it's also stupid. Being radical can come at a huge cost to the economy, locally and globally.

Corbyn is unelectable for various reasons. Who in the UK wants a Government led by someone who counts himself a friend of terrorists? Who wants to be led by someone who remains silent on anti-Semitism within his own Party, unless forced to take some sort of action. Who wants to be led by a leader that seems powerless to prevent his supporters from intimidating those who oppose him? Who wants to elect a leader that fails to heal the divisions within his own Party? Very few, methinks.

I don't know much about Owens, but he has to be a better prospect than Corbyn. I mean, there couldn't be many worse.

I don't think there is any radical shift in politics. I do believe that some individuals have come to the fore by way of protest vote, but Trump won't be elected President, and Corbyn will last until the next General Election, by which time Labour will be in tatters.

Radical is anything the establishment conventions of an age/era don't like.  

Now they can shift of course and one day you're a radical, next day you've become the norm.  But I think we all can admit that hard Leftist views are always considered more radical as they tend to turn finance 'sanity' on its head and still claim the ensuing 'madness' would work.  
Radical Right can also be considered a problem, but actually less so to the important investor/money men/business types.  This is because radical right can often allow Capitalist market dynamics to run riot whilst making the socially deprived suffer the consequences.  It seems in history that making the wealthy suffer (hard left) is usually most often referred to as radical.

Anyway, it is Smith that has called himself a 'radical' so he should be asked what that means.  What I'm hearing from him and about him doesn't come close so far.

Incidentally, which of those is stupid, Munch?
"Donald Trump .... wants to build a massive wall to keep the Mexicans out. He wants to force his allies to pay for US protection. He wants to force US businesses to set up in the US, rather than on foreign fields. That's radical thinking, but it's also stupid. "

The Wall I'll definitely agree with you on - but he knows it'll take longer than 8 years to get anything off the ground on that one.  So even if he gets two terms, the Wall would still be far far far away from completion, and probably far far far away from even starting  Incidentally, people laugh at such an outlandish scheme by ol' Donald, and fail to realise that there are long stretches of just such a wall already in existence along that border.  So I'm not so certain how dumb the idea is and know for a fact he obviously wasn't the first one to think about it or act on it.

The other two have validity as policy targets in my opinion, if you were an American President.  Achievable fully without compromise? - I doubt it - but these are his preliminary ideas that would need to be fleshed out if he achieved Office.   I also like his attitude to China.  I'm not so against his ideas on Russia either.  
Nobody is going to look out for poor Americans  - and there are millions of them in much more poverty than the worst cases in Europe - other than America itself.  He's damn right to have the idea of putting America and Americans first.  The issue I'd have is about his sincerity.

Why Corbyn so terrifies the Guardian
22 July 2016
Political developments in Britain appear more than a little confusing at the moment.
The parliamentary Labour party is in open revolt against a leader recently elected with the biggest mandate in the party’s history. Most Labour MPs call Jeremy Corbyn “unelectable”, even though they have worked tirelessly to undermine him from the moment he became leader, never giving him a chance to prove whether he could win over the wider British public.
Now they are staging a leadership challenge and trying to rig the election by denying tens of thousands of Labour members who recently joined the party the chance to vote. If the MPs fail in the coming election, as seems almost certain, indications are that they will continue their war of attrition against Corbyn, impervious to whether their actions destroy the party they claim to love.
Meanwhile, the Guardian, the house paper of the British left – long the preferred choice of teachers, social workers and Labour activists – has been savaging Corbyn too, all while it haemorrhages readers and sales revenue. Online, the Guardian’s reports and commentaries about the Labour leader – usually little more than character assassination or the reheating of gossip and innuendo – are ridiculed below the line by its own readers. And yet it ploughs on regardless.
The Labour party ignores its members’ views, just as the Guardian ignores its readers’ views. What is going on?
Strangely, a way to understand these developments may have been provided by a scientific philosopher named Thomas Kuhn. Back in the 1960s he wrote an influential book called the Structure of Scientific Revolutions. His argument was that scientific thought did not evolve in a linear fashion, as scientific knowledge increased. Rather, modern human history had been marked by a series of forceful disruptions in scientific thought that he termed “paradigm shifts”. One minute a paradigm like Newtonian mechanics dominated, the next an entirely different model, like quantum mechanics, took its place – seemingly arriving as if out of nowhere.
Importantly, a shift, or revolution, was not related to the moment when the previous scientific theory was discredited by the mounting evidence against it. There was a lag, usually a long delay, between the evidence showing the new theory was a better “fit” and the old theory being discarded.
The reason, Kuhn concluded, was because of an emotional and intellectual inertia in the scientific community. Too many people – academics, research institutions, funding bodies, pundits – were invested in the established theory. As students, it was what they had grown up “knowing”. Leading professors in the field had made their reputations advancing and “proving” the theory. Vast sums had been expended in trying to confirm the theory. University departments were set up on the basis that the theory was correct. Too many people had too much to lose to admit they were wrong.
A paradigm shift typically ocurred, Kuhn argued, when a new generation of scholars and researchers exposed to the rival theory felt sufficiently frustrated by this inertia and had reached sufficiently senior posts that they could launch an assault on the old theory. At that point, the proponents of the traditional theory faced a crisis. The scientific establishment would resist, often aggressively, but at some point the fortifications protecting the old theory would crumble and collapse. Then suddenly almost everyone would switch to the new theory, treating the old theory as if it were some relic of the dark ages.
Science and politics are, of course, not precisely analogous. Nonetheless, I would suggest this is a useful way of understanding what we see happening to the British left at the moment. A younger generation no longer accepts the assumptions of neoliberalism that have guided and enriched an elite for nearly four decades.
Ideas of endless economic growth, inexhaustible oil, and an infinitely adaptable planet no longer make sense to a generation looking to its future rather than glorying in its past. They see an elite with two heads, creating an illusion of choice but enforcing strict conformity. On the fundamentals of economic and foreign policy, the Red Tories are little different from the Blue Tories.
Or at least that was the case until Corbyn came along.
Corbyn and his supporters threaten a paradigm shift. The old elites, whether in the Labour parliamentary party or the Guardian editorial offices, sense the danger, even if they lack the necessary awareness to appreciate Corbyn’s significance. They will fight tooth and nail to protect what they have. They will do so even if their efforts create so much anger and resentment they risk unleashing darker political forces.
Corbyn’s style of socialism draws on enduring traditions and values – of compassion, community and solidarity – that the young have never really known except in history books. Those values seem very appealing to a generation trapped in the dying days of a deeply atomised, materialist, hyper-competitive world. They want change and Corbyn offers them a path to it.
But whatever his critics claim, Corbyn isn’t just a relic of past politics. Despite his age, he is also a very modern figure. He exudes a Zen-like calm, a self-awareness and a self-effacement that inspires those who have been raised in a world of 24-hour narcissism.
In these increasingly desperate times, Cobyn’s message is reaching well beyond the young, of course. A paradigm shift doesn’t occur just because the young replace the old. It involves the old coming to accept – however reluctantly – that the young may have found an answer to a question they had forgotten needed answering. Many in the older generation know about solidarity and community. They may have been dazzled by promises of an aspirational lifestyle and the baubles of rampant consumption, but it is slowly dawning on them too that this model has a rapidly approaching sell-by date.
Those most wedded to the neoliberal model – the political, economic and media elites – will be the last to be weaned off a system that has so richly rewarded them. They would rather bring the whole house crashing down than give Corbyn and his supporters the chance to repair it.
- See more at: http://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2016-07-22/why-corbyn-so-terrifies-the-guardian/#sthash.hHuYDTE4.dpuf

Secretfly you might enjoy this.

What a load of self justifying utter dog balls. The revolution is apparently coming.... But yes it will be fun to see what SF says.

SecretFly wrote:Radical is anything the establishment conventions of an age/era don't like.  

Now they can shift of course and one day you're a radical, next day you've become the norm.  But I think we all can admit that hard Leftist views are always considered more radical as they tend to turn finance 'sanity' on its head and still claim the ensuing 'madness' would work.  
Radical Right can also be considered a problem, but actually less so to the important investor/money men/business types.  This is because radical right can often allow Capitalist market dynamics to run riot whilst making the socially deprived suffer the consequences.  It seems in history that making the wealthy suffer (hard left) is usually most often referred to as radical.

Anyway, it is Smith that has called himself a 'radical' so he should be asked what that means.  What I'm hearing from him and about him doesn't come close so far.

Incidentally, which of those is stupid, Munch?
"Donald Trump .... wants to build a massive wall to keep the Mexicans out. He wants to force his allies to pay for US protection. He wants to force US businesses to set up in the US, rather than on foreign fields. That's radical thinking, but it's also stupid. "

The Wall I'll definitely agree with you on - but he knows it'll take longer than 8 years to get anything off the ground on that one.  So even if he gets two terms, the Wall would still be far far far away from completion, and probably far far far away from even starting  Incidentally, people laugh at such an outlandish scheme by ol' Donald, and fail to realise that there are long stretches of just such a wall already in existence along that border.  So I'm not so certain how dumb the idea is and know for a fact he obviously wasn't the first one to think about it or act on it.

The other two have validity as policy targets in my opinion, if you were an American President.  Achievable fully without compromise? - I doubt it - but these are his preliminary ideas that would need to be fleshed out if he achieved Office.   I also like his attitude to China.  I'm not so against his ideas on Russia either.  
Nobody is going to look out for poor Americans  - and there are millions of them in much more poverty than the worst cases in Europe - other than America itself.  He's damn right to have the idea of putting America and Americans first.  The issue I'd have is about his sincerity.

'Radical' simply means breaking with tradition. Granted, in this sense it would be radical to have the loony left emerge from the fringes and become Government. A radical lunacy.

I take your point about how 'making the wealthy suffer' can be viewed as radical, but I would say history more often refers to that type of movement as 'Revolutionary'. Revolutions are over rated. For the Russian Revolution see 'Animal Farm'. The German Revolution, the rise of the 'Third Reich', didn't turn out very well either.

I think you're getting too caught up in whether Owens is a radical, or not. He seems to think he is, but does it really matter? Corbyn will win his leadership election, and go on to lose the General Election. It's written in the stars....with maybe a hammer and sickle floating about.

They are all stupid, Fly. The wall makes no sense. Billions of dollars to build a wall that will do sod all to keep out the migrants/drug smugglers. They will just tunnel their way through, as they already do at present.  It would make much more sense to invest those billions to helping Mexico with its crime problem, or adding more border security personnel.

Forcing the allies to pay protection money? What will be the outcome of that? A militarised EU, methinks, and a world that loses its dependency on the US. Not great for a US economy that trades on world standing and reputation. The US could also forget about allied military and diplomatic support when needed, and on which their foreign policy may rely on.

Sure they could prevent US businesses from investing outside the US, but foreign investment usually depends on give and take, 'we will buy from you if you invest in us'. The big issue with that is the likes of China would be delighted with such a move. They would exploit the gap and expand their global market, while the US market would shrink.

Wow, I didn't realise Owen Smith was this rich!

SF says:    

ShahenshahG wrote:

Secretfly you might enjoy this.

I did, Shah

It's a pretty well wrapped up argument that encapsulates an observer's overview of the shenanigans at Labour, especially directed at that side of the coin that have Corbyn down as the Devil Incarnate - but also President Elect, if he wants the job      

Munch might often think that I'm saying Corbyn is 100% right and the plotters are 100% wrong.  I'll try to assure him again that no, that's not why I debate these issues so robustly.  I do love that he irritates the heck out of people like Tom Watson, the man who specialises in uncovering the sex-secrets of the rich and famous  That's really why I love the idea of Corbyn keeping going - he upsets a bunch of overly smug Labourites that want to then cry and stamp their feet that things aren't going their way. "You have a choice but CONFORM instead, f**kers!"    
The longer Corbyn clings, the hotter the Labour MP luvvies collars will become, the more entertaining their reactions will be.   
But what I'm really interested in is the inevitability of it all.  They've all walked and talked themselves into a trap of having nowhere to retreat to now.  They've all said too much and now they have to fight it out.  

I enjoy observing why people do things and say things.  At the moment, the UK is the hotspot for seeing this Dance of Ideology, Ideas and Power up close and Raw. And boy, has it been RAW.  The Conservatives and Labour have both gone at it with scant regard for the fact that it was all mostly done in public - the knives, the poison, the dirty quotes, the bricks through windows, etc etc.  

Conservatives have - for now - restored some order to their ranks, though nobody knows when that might explode again in open warfare.  Labour is still at it.  And Europe is another version.  It must be intriguing to feel the tensions now between EU Commissioners and people like Merkel and Hollande.  But I'm not great with continental languages so you can't detect the subtleties as much.

Duty281 wrote:

Wow, I didn't realise Owen Smith was this rich!

We're not back to EU (or now UK) funded Sculptures?

£200Billion - that's a lot of expensive drug sniffing dens!

ShahenshahG wrote:Why Corbyn so terrifies the Guardian

<Endless BS>....

But whatever his critics claim, Corbyn isn’t just a relic of past politics. Despite his age, he is also a very modern figure. He exudes a Zen-like calm, a self-awareness and a self-effacement that inspires those who have been raised in a world of 24-hour narcissism

...<More endless BS>...

This was the funny line for me. Gonna have to try that at home. 'But darling, the reason I haven't paid the bills/done the washing up/ whatever is because I am exuding a Zen-like calm'

Look, all you people need a dose of Dr. Ray De Angelo Harris. He's got the story down. You folks need a bunch of UMMMMMMM Chakra Attack!

@BBCTalkback
Why are the Royal Family so "white", given that UK society is so ethnically-diverse these days? @GrahamSmith_ & @Frankshivers discuss at 12

The stupidity of the BBC knows no boundaries!

Elba should be the new Prince of Wales.

One does wonder what the reaction would have been if William had got hitched to a Muslim/Black/Other minority woman though, would have been fun to see the Daily Mail readers reaction

Duty281 wrote:@BBCTalkback
Why are the Royal Family so "white", given that UK society is so ethnically-diverse these days? @GrahamSmith_ & @Frankshivers discuss at 12

The stupidity of the BBC knows no boundaries!

Well, they have to cater for all sorts, including the stupid listeners...

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/jul/27/uk-joins-greece-at-bottom-of-wage-growth-league-tuc-oecd

just going to leave this here...

2007 to 2015?

So not 'joins' but had already 'joined' pre-Brexit. So all that bad stuff happened whilst being a fully paid-up member of the Wealth Creation Union? Leaver rats knew they were on a sinking ship?

Or you could read the report that says quite clearly that "the UK, Greece and Portugal were the only three OECD countries that saw real wages fall." Somehow Germany managed an increase of 14%, France of 11%, Poland of 23% for real wages. Bit silly to blame the EU for problems of our own making, but that seems to be a favourite refrain of the Leavers...

Mad for Chelsea wrote:Or you could read the report that says quite clearly that "the UK, Greece and Portugal were the only three OECD countries that saw real wages fall." Somehow Germany managed an increase of 14%, France of 11%, Poland of 23% for real wages. Bit silly to blame the EU for problems of our own making, but that seems to be a favourite refrain of the Leavers...

But again, who do you blame then, Chelsea, for figures that were calculated between 2007 to 2015? The Leave Campaigners?

Of course not, don't be silly. I blame the successive governments and their failed austerity policies (the same policies which were forced on Greece, which oddly enough has seen a similar fall in real wages). I just think it's silly to blame the EU.

Mad for Chelsea wrote:Of course not, don't be silly. I blame the successive governments and their failed austerity policies (the same policies which were forced on Greece, which oddly enough has seen a similar fall in real wages). I just think it's silly to blame the EU.

Failed how? As far as I can tell it worked pretty well. Okay, the Tories didn't get our national debt down as much as they claimed they would, but its still a damn sight lower than it was. We pulled out of recession roughly on schedule and fared better than most EU countries (although that probably also had something to do with not being tied to the Euro).

Also, the UK, unlike Greece and Portugal, didn't need bailing out by the IMF...which may have happened had Labour remained in power.

While the financial crash of 08 was the prime cause, the UK's trade and employment laws are heavily regulated by EU legislation, so it'd be naive to think it had nothing to do with the effective fall in wages.

We have to abide by the freedom of movement legislation, allowing any and all EU citizens in, who wish to come. Net migration is estimated at 300,000 per annum...so its possible that could have had an effect. More people, willing to work for lower wages...

Just putting it out there.

Wage compression?

Yes, I know, Nigel Farage has been talking about it for years.

It has been systematically ignored by the Lib/Lab/Con merchants. Young British people, who have felt this compression the worst, have been ignored by the same merchants and categorically dismissed as 'too lazy' to work anyway.

There are 865,000 NEETs in the UK. Those who do work and are in the 16-24 age bracket are usually one of three things:

a) Working in lower-skilled jobs and facing endless competition from Eastern European workers, for whom the minimum wage here is 8 or so times higher than back home.

b) Working in an over-saturated graduate market thanks largely to Tony Blair and Lib/Lab/Con's profound idiocy.

c) Working in an 'apprenticeship', which usually pays far below the minimum wage.

Not debt Dyre, deficit, in actual debt weve got something like 500 billion more than when labour lost out to the tories.

The Tories failed economically. They promised to eradicate the deficit by 2015 in their 2010 manifesto, but failed, and ended up doubling the national debt which currently looks like:

http://www.nationaldebtclock.co.uk/