syria [Merged]

[winseer]

Had France24 on this morning, and heard some ■■■■■■■■ about “Assad has Isopropyl Alchohol, a Pre-cursor to nerve agents.”.

Is it f—!!!

Isopropyl Alcohol is perhaps THE safest of the non-drinkable alchohols. Rubbing Alcohol, “Hand-Wipe” alcohol etc.

I have to suspect that we are now being “Price conditioned” to expect the announcement in the next few days that "There is no evidence of Chlroine being used (which Assad has, of course) but extensive evidence that Sarin has been used, albeit somewhere else in Syria, rather than Douma. Assad has already been inspected for Sarin, both possession (doesn’t have) and ability to manufacture (doesn’t have) or supplied from abroad (doesn’t have)

That leaves the question WHO used actual Sarin, WHO supplied it, and WHERE was it used to create that footage of dead kids, blackened, and foaming at the mouth, orginally supposed to be “Kids gassed by Chlorine in Douma” as put out by those ISIS propaganda scumbags - “The White Helmets”…

Trying to pretend that you can make Sarin out of “any old medical supplies” - might re-fog the investigation, of course, hence the “price conditioning” which I suggest is to stop us making “awkward” conclusions, such as

Sarin was invented in Germany. Novochoc apparently can only be made in Russia by the Russians, so does that mean that “Sarin Used” MUST be the fault of Germany by the same logic?
German supplies are frequently sent to Turkey. Ricep Erdogan makes no secret of being a rather “Dictator”-style leader at this time. We also know that Turkish troops are attacking the Kurds in the North East of Syria, as an invading force, plus the “Special Forces” better known as just “Turkmen” who are aiding both the Rebel faction in Syria, alongside ISIS as well.

No one is investigating Turkey, because they are “Beloved of NATO” when in fact in reality, they are both trading oil with ISIS (proof already submitted to the UN, but disregarded) and allied with ISIS militarily. It’s not enough to merely “Ban Turkey from joining fully the EU”. There needs to be at very least a move to boot Turkey out of NATO at this time. Turkey is acting like a mainstream national front for ISIS, and I don’t believe for a minute the West have no clue to this. It is being ignored, because it’s unthinkable to weaken a NATO member at this time.

Erdogan is guilty of ALL those things that Assad is accused of. Chemical Attacks, Attacks on foreign nationals, murder of journalists, death penalty on his own people by the thousand, illegal combatants, illegal invading force, attacking the “wrong forces” on purpose, whilst defending enemies of the west, - and of course “Not bothered about shooting down superpower aircraft”.

Russia isn’t the problem. Iran isn’t the problem. Syria, is the LEAST of all “Problems”. Erdogan’s Turkey needs to be stopped, with their aggressive expansion into Iraq and Syria, before it acquires all the oil fields, and then finds itself being “Left alone, like Saudi Arabia on the world’s stage, too big to wage war against.”

[rjan]

Winseer:
Isopropyl Alcohol is perhaps THE safest of the non-drinkable alchohols.

I couldn’t help bursting out laughing as I parsed this sentence. It left me wondering whether the correct interpretation was analogous to “sewage water is perhaps THE safest of the non-potable waters” (comically juxtaposing the amount of emphasis on its safety despite the punchline being that the thing is totally unsafe in its most usual capacity as a beverage), or whether it meant “isopropyl alcohol is perhaps THE safest of the alcohols, but distasteful as a beverage” (evoking the image of someone who knows far too much about swigging aftershave when he runs out of gin).

Then again, it’s been said I have a unique sense of humour…

I have to suspect that we are now being “Price conditioned” to expect the announcement in the next few days that "There is no evidence of Chlroine being used (which Assad has, of course) but extensive evidence that Sarin has been used, albeit somewhere else in Syria, rather than Douma. Assad has already been inspected for Sarin, both possession (doesn’t have) and ability to manufacture (doesn’t have) or supplied from abroad (doesn’t have)

I think the narrative is already shifting. There were references tonight on Question Time to the fact that Assad had used chemical attacks on previous occasions (despite the fact that Assad has previously complied with the steps that the UN took in response).

I think as well there is often an assumption that dictators like Assad are similar to Hitler controlling all aspects of the war from his bunker, and that they have a well-ordered war machine (as is typical when a state conducts a foreign campaign).

For a regime like Assad’s that is fighting an internal war, and has remained in power by the skin of its teeth and has come back from the brink in such a bitter and messy civil war, I’d be surprised if there is such a degree of military control at the very top, and that there isn’t a risk of colonels or even much lower levels making autonomous decisions to use chemicals that have come into their possession, without their being any central direction or permission to do so.

Obviously, in such circumstances, it’s not even reasonable to blame Assad personally for his lack of control (either control and discipline over his own forces, or control over the weapons and caches that he had at the outset of the war) - because it is the disorder and general lack of control that is precisely his problem in Syria.

[winseer]

The big problem that Assad represents for the rest of the world, is that he gets no sympathy as a leader struggling to put down the revolution in his own country…
Imagine if in the UK we had a situation where the Hard Left go on the rampage, because Labour win the most seats in an election, but the other parties manage to put together some “Coalition of the Losers” - and deny Labour any place whatsoever in the next government?

That scenario was averted in Holland (Geert Wilder’s Party failed to win the most seats) and Germany (AfD failed to win the most seats) - which made it far easier to deny the two parties there in question, any place in government despite their respective poll surges.

So… A rampaging Left, marches up Downing street, and demands the new “Weak Coalition” step down, and Labour will form the new government instead, but a minority one…

The new government sends in the riot squad, a riot duly starts, people start to die, and the army come in with orders to “Shoot anyone not of the government”…
Bloodbath ensues, and country descendes into civil war.

The rest of the world? Do they send in Troops to take one side or the other?
Do they offer mere platitudes, when both sides are already irreconcilible?

…Or do they stay out of it, and just pull as much money and support out of the entire region in all haste…

Divisions cause Civil War. To avert division, you need to lead those who don’t like you - NOT those that do, first and foremost.
Forget about “Uniting the Party” - Unite the POPULATION first and foremost.

Is that what May is doing, pandering to the large Remainer faction in Labour? Pumping ever more money into the NHS, to no thanks whatsoever (Leftists still hate May after all…) whilst the two main cashcows that could really unite the country - The Brussels payments (10 figures per year) and Foreign Aid Budget (10 figures per year) - are left untouched, with that money going to all sorts of daft, wrong, and sometimes outright evil causes abroad?

Corbyn cannot but pick up on all this, because we’re well past the point of “Can we afford it”. It’s all about “We can afford it IF…” from now on.
If Corbyn’s Labour can poll 40% last year without even making a committment to scrapping or completing Brexit, and reforming the overseas charity structures, to make more “Charity begin at Home” - then at any moment, he is still free in theory to pull a rabbit out of the hat, and turn over his entire front bench, thus appeasing the Blairites, and Non-Labour-Voting Public at the same time… Surely enough to surge that little bit more needed to win an outright majority government?

We cannot stay in the center any more. Not just in this county, but anywhere.
We might have wanted the politics of the Right previously, but faced too much by way of head winds.
All these factors usher in a Government of the Left, pushing back with all the force of the Right. That, all-in-all sounds rather more like “More Blair” and closer to what Russia/China/Saudi Arabia/Israel/Turkey/Iran are already up for. “Get with the programme, or be destoyed by it”.

Imagine the speed at which the population will flee the center, not wanting to be associated any longer with the “losing side”… !

[rjan]

Winseer:
Divisions cause Civil War. To avert division, you need to lead those who don’t like you - NOT those that do, first and foremost.
Forget about “Uniting the Party” - Unite the POPULATION first and foremost.

This sounds like Blairite nonsense, excusing their betrayal of the people they are supposed to represent.
How many great leaders were truly disliked - how do you command public trust, loyalty, and so on from people who hate you? To pander to those who don’t like you whilst sacrificing the interests of those that do, will just leave you reviled by both sides. Great leaders have unifying agendas, compelling arguments, new ways of doing things, not just crude splitting of differences with those who have completely irreconcilable narratives and worldviews. Sometimes opponents have to be steamrollered - like when Charles I’s head was cut off, to give the example when this country last had civil war.

Is that what May is doing, pandering to the large Remainer faction in Labour? Pumping ever more money into the NHS, to no thanks whatsoever (Leftists still hate May after all…) whilst the two main cashcows that could really unite the country - The Brussels payments (10 figures per year) and Foreign Aid Budget (10 figures per year) - are left untouched, with that money going to all sorts of daft, wrong, and sometimes outright evil causes abroad?

What are you on about? May is not pandering to any Remainers - she is leading a government whose agenda is driven by right-wing loons, barely able to keep her own Tory Remainers on side.

And as for pumping more money into the NHS, you absolutely must be joking. NHS hospitals are falling apart at the seams - have you seen an A&E ward at any time in the past couple of years? The side of every corridor lined with half-dead patients, and if you call an ambulance you’re lucky if you get one by Thursday.

Almost every month the government seem to be claiming to pumping in another ten billions, but the reality is that these are always outweighed by cuts coming in the guise of “efficiency savings” - or like the Blair government, mortgaging the future with scandalously expensive private-sector arrangements.

And that’s on top of the costs of reorganising the NHS so that they can marketise and privatise everything - steps which, believe it or not, cost money rather than save it. And then there is all the ■■■■■■■■ administrative burden and half-baked IT systems delivered by the private sector (virtually all public sector IT was privatised in 90s, which is why there has been barely a single successful large project since).

Years ago when you went to see your GP, you walked into the room, were dealt with, and if you were lucky he might scribble a prescription or glance at a medical book off the shelf behind him. Nowadays, you wait 10 minutes just for the bloody computer to respond (I kid you not). And if you want to book another appointment, rather than just going to the front desk and asking the receptionist, you call some central number where they spent 20 minutes trying to find the right electronic diary system for the practice.

It honestly makes you wonder how they managed to provide total NHS healthcare in the 40s and 50s. I’ll tell you how, the rich paid a proper rate of bloody tax rather than now where tax rates at at their lowest since the 1930s, and public officials knew how to run public services as efficient and integrated monoliths with committed frontline staff who had the gumption and the freedom to make things work, without all the market bureaucracy and the inefficiencies and demoralisation caused by manageralism and constant attacks on pay and staffing. It only takes one less doctor, nurse, or administrator than necessary, to change an organisation from a flexible one that runs like clockwork, to one that is engaged in constant crisis and firefighting. But of course, for the Tories that want to discredit the very principle of public provision, the choas of crisis and firefighting is exactly what they want to create, in order to make public services reflect badly compared to private healthcare.

If Corbyn’s Labour can poll 40% last year without even making a committment to scrapping or completing Brexit, and reforming the overseas charity structures, to make more “Charity begin at Home”

Well Corbyn actually did commit to a Brexit, albeit not one based on right-wing lies about sailing the high seas to find these illusory new trading markets that both ourselves and the rest of the world have hithertol overlooked, but on taking back democratic control of the economy in the sense of re-regulating markets and a return to the state intervention of the post-war period. We are already blessed to be one of the richest economies in the world.

The real agenda of the right-wing Brexiteers is not to “take back control”, but to force down wages and yoke us more closely to the more neoliberal, free-market, highly-unequal societies like the US, whose workers have done even worse in the free markets than ours since the 1970s, whilst moving us away from the EU nations who for the most part have been to the left of Britain and have not done nearly so badly.

The idea that the very richest societies cannot afford basic things like education, healthcare, social security, housing, and so on - things that even societies with a fraction of our wealth in Europe are able to provide. Even the Scots have free university education. Our society is about 4 times richer in real terms than it was in the 1950s, and twice as rich as it was in the 1970s - and even then, people weren’t just living hand-to-mouth, even working class people in routine manual jobs had reasonably secure jobs, housing, healthcare, and so on, and could support a family on a single wage.

And one last thing, our country is not in need of any great amount of “charity at home” - simply more basic fairness and better political management of the economy.

[winseer]

All the time we have Left and Right divisions along the lines you depict above - then we’re not ever going to get anywhere.

What rubbish that Brexit was ever about “RIght wing lies”.

If I belived for a minute that Brexit was about “Pushing down wages” for example, then I, of all people - would hardly be in favour of it - would I?

More and More I reckon that the reason a lot of people voted Remain - was because “The wrong government was seen to be in power to implement Brexit”.

In other words, we now have two distinct different visions of Brexit that are believed by Left and Right respectively:

(1) The Left want us to retain all the upsides of Remain, keep the “Laws” that force the UK to be nice to criminals, foreigners, and other undesirables, whilst leaving the EU in “Name Only”.

The UK gets to stay called the United Kingdom and the Republican elements of Europe (including Brits of that leaning) - decide to very magnanimously drop their calls for our monarchy to cease.
“Brexit means f—all” in essence.

(2) The RIght want full judical control, full border control, and full trade route selection control - which is to do what? Chuck everyone in prison who votes Labour? Nope. Kick everyone out who wasn’t born here? Nope. Trade with the rest the world on a capitalist basis rather than heavily regulated EU basis? - Hell yes!

(3) Then there’s people like me, who are neutral on the Monarchy, Neutral on “Those immigrants already here”, Neutral on “Which government would be best post-Brexit”, but overly in favour of a Law and Order crackdown on Crimes against the Person, a replacement of Strasbourg/Brussels laws with those we already had in the first place - based on Magna Carta, and of course a full Democracy, where civil laws become fluid, and can be changed by popular vote as and when our population sees fit, which requires reform of BOTH houses of parliament in due course.

If we all stand apart, and slag each other off over what were “Lies” and what were not - then the whole thing become a matter of Faith. WHO do you believe?

DO you believe that you’ve got more chance of being Stabbed in London by a fellow Londoner, Blown up in any UK city by an Islamist, or Poisoned by a Russian in a Cathederal City?

You can believe part, none, or all of those three of course. I know what I believe though, and it’s what I get to see first-hand, rather than on anyone’s hearsay.
Actual dead people - is hard to lie about. Anything else we get told by our illustrious ruling classes - should be considered as bully until proven otherwise. “Say So” is NOT proof. They are ALL liars then, and they need to win back the goodwill of the public, rather than just be considered one’s enemies because we didn’t happen to vote for them at the last election.

Left wing extremists are just as much filth as Right wing extremists then. That doesn’t make yours truly a centerist of course. I’m just anti “Criminal” full stop. You can be of any background and be that, of course.

[winseer]

If Corbyn wants to commit to a Brexit that appeals to the 52% (enough for a thumping majority in any general election) rather than the 40% ceiling he got in the general election last year - then he will need to get rid of everyone in his party who won’t be in favour of meeting the RIght half-way at very least, with a proper Brexit that encompasses those popular aspects of Brexit, as voted for by the very RIght-wing brexiteers, that the Left are intent on continuing to slag off…

Brexit does NOT have to mean “Being nasty to immigrants” - far from it. I could suggest that we

(1) Keep all those already here, fast-tracking full rights to remain to those who have paid taxes and NICs for more than 5 years already.

(2) Deport any criminal immigrants, with the alternative being jailed in this country alongside other criminals. NO special treatment. A criminal is a criminal. It would save the most money of course, if we could deport “petty criminals” BEFORE they’ve served time in a UK jail of course. Save the jail spaces for those convicted of the more serious crimes. So, in essence - if you are an immigrant in the UK today - you keep your nose clean - or any application to get a perment residency status - is binned on the spot, once a conviction for so much as littering is handed down.

(3) Immigrants in full time employment get day release to college to learn English properly, part cost to be paid by the employer, part cost to be paid out of the taxes already levvied on that member of staff.

(4) Immigrants are not entitled to draw benefits until five full years of NICs have been paid. This includes Tax Credits, so all immigrants other than those with a DECENT job lined up - are discouraged from coming in the first place. Those already here, will of course have by now, got some kind of NICs record, unless they are attempting to stay as benefit scroungers, in which case they will be rounded up, and deported once here for five years with no NIC record whatsoever. Hard to round up? - Only Illegal immigrants under current definition - will be able to avoid such a round-up. The black market economy cannot support the non-criminal fraternity for very long.

Brexit does NOT mean taking away any UK-born taxpayer’s rights then. Just those who shouldn’t have had such rights extended to them in the first place. We were idiots for allowing non-documented individuals, highly likely to be criminals rather than qualified persons - into the country in the first place.
The Left really need to “Remove the log from thine own eye, Brother” on this one. Be nice to your Leftists UK supporters FIRST - otherwise you’ll be upset in the future, when ordinary former labour voting folk keep on doing this upsetting thing of “speaking out against those who threaten their communities”… The public want JUSTICE rather than excuses such as “diversity” and “postive discrimination” and “equal rights, but for you home-growns last of all” kind of hand-wringing arguments that the Leftist in higher society have been rather too in favour of for some time already.

I suggest a REGULAR referendum with the burning issues of the day put as a question to the public - to see if they want any laws changed, abolished, introduced - to suit that same public.

Any vote getting 75% support - gets passed with immediate effect. 51-74% support - comes back as a question on the next ballot, and is only advisory in the meantime. 49% or less - has failed, and is banned from future ballot papers for the rest of this parliament. There’s something in there for everybody if you think about it.

“Popularism” can truly unite the Left, Right, and Center - I reckon. Punishment for Criminals. Taxation upon those who can afford to pay. Benefits for those who actually deserve them, such as the elderly, disabled, and recently-made-redundant.

I rest my case.

“The Enemy isn’t Left, Right, or Center - it’s the whole bloody lot of them, in power as MPs - but failing to act in the public’s interest!”

[rjan]

Winseer:
All the time we have Left and Right divisions along the lines you depict above - then we’re not ever going to get anywhere.

But there are left and right divisions, it’s that simple.

What rubbish that Brexit was ever about “RIght wing lies”.

If I belived for a minute that Brexit was about “Pushing down wages” for example, then I, of all people - would hardly be in favour of it - would I?

So why vote for a party whose agenda is precisely that?!

More and More I reckon that the reason a lot of people voted Remain - was because “The wrong government was seen to be in power to implement Brexit”.

I don’t agree. The Tory party under Cameron was pro-Remain. It might be true to say that some people were even more staunchly pro-Remain due to the fact that Brexit was driven by right-wing radicals (that’s true of me, for example), but being driven by right-wing radicals is also probably part of the reason why some people were even more staunchly pro-Brexit (the bosses and businessmen who want to see wages attacked).

In other words, we now have two distinct different visions of Brexit that are believed by Left and Right respectively:

(1) The Left want us to retain all the upsides of Remain, keep the “Laws” that force the UK to be nice to criminals, foreigners, and other undesirables, whilst leaving the EU in “Name Only”.

The laws that “force the UK to be nice to criminals” are simply the rule of law itself. As for foreign criminals (I assume that’s what you meant when you characterised foreigners as undesirables), it’s one thing kicking back out gangsters who arrived here 3 months ago, nobody really objects to that in principle (and as far as I know, it’s always been permitted by law).

It’s another thing completely to kick out people who arrived here as toddlers, whose entire family and community are here, back to some notional homeland of which they have no memory or experience - in substance that’s a policy of transportation and exile, not deportation and “return”. It is these sorts of policies that the law is designed to stop. And as the Windrush scandal shows, they are necessary protections for citizens and restrictions on right-wing politics, because right-wingers don’t stop where reasonable people would expect them to, in the political and bureaucratic shadows they go far beyond it, usually so that they can pretend they are getting spectacular results tackling a problem that in fact barely exists, or so that they can deflect attention away from the hardships their other policies impose on the masses.

The UK gets to stay called the United Kingdom and the Republican elements of Europe (including Brits of that leaning) - decide to very magnanimously drop their calls for our monarchy to cease.
“Brexit means f—all” in essence.

I think for left-wingers, the only issue at stake is democratic control of the economy. Even things like ending free movement, are designed to control the bosses by cutting off their endless supply of cheaper labour and forcing them to provide proper training and careers for settled workers - it’s got nothing to do with “foreign undesirables” and similar.

(2) The RIght want full judical control, full border control, and full trade route selection control - which is to do what? Chuck everyone in prison who votes Labour? Nope. Kick everyone out who wasn’t born here? Nope. Trade with the rest the world on a capitalist basis rather than heavily regulated EU basis? - Hell yes!

Yes, and trading on a “capitalist”, free-trade basis will mean lower wages! What is it about these dots that you cannot connect?

I’m not aware of a single case in history where British judges were to the left of EU law - after all, British lawyers wrote it. EU law is either used as a fig leaf for unpopular laws and policies that national right-wing politicians actually support on a sustained basis, or it has stopped British judges and politicians going even further to the right.

You are precisely an example of a right-winger who would make me vote Remain, WInseer!

(3) Then there’s people like me, who are neutral on the Monarchy, Neutral on “Those immigrants already here”, Neutral on “Which government would be best post-Brexit”, but overly in favour of a Law and Order crackdown on Crimes against the Person, a replacement of Strasbourg/Brussels laws with those we already had in the first place - based on Magna Carta, and of course a full Democracy, where civil laws become fluid, and can be changed by popular vote as and when our population sees fit, which requires reform of BOTH houses of parliament in due course.

Why are you obsessed with Magna Carta? Do you really think that it bequeathed effective rights to the average peasant? Most peasants rights were enforced simply through the threat of riot and uprising. And do you think it protected peasants from evictions and enclosures on land they and their families had worked since time immemorial, and being forced into squalid factories during the industrial revolution?

The working man in this country only gained a democratic vote in 1918! A mere hundred years ago! The working class woman not until 1928. It wasn’t until 1948 that double votes for businessmen and university graduates were abolished!

This idea that the British state has some long history of protecting the common man is laughable. Working people fought the British state tooth and nail for their rights - working people were massacred at Peterloo in 1819 for demanding parliamentary representation and an end to the Rotten Boroughs which meant the House of Commons was dominated by the influence of old-monied aristocrats - and it was until the 20th century that it even remotely started to democratically represent ordinary people.

Anyone who mentions Magna Carta as a fine British tradition of laws and rights, I know he’s living in a dreamworld. There has even been a civil and war and revolution in England since the days of the Magna Carta, fought to overturn the King’s autocratic power.

And the judges of the common law were not guardians of the little man - they were members of the ruling class, determined to keep ordinary people in their rightful place, and themselves in theirs.

If we all stand apart, and slag each other off over what were “Lies” and what were not - then the whole thing become a matter of Faith. WHO do you believe?

Indeed, who do you believe? Not the right-wingers, in my case.

DO you believe that you’ve got more chance of being Stabbed in London by a fellow Londoner, Blown up in any UK city by an Islamist, or Poisoned by a Russian in a Cathederal City?

You can believe part, none, or all of those three of course. I know what I believe though, and it’s what I get to see first-hand, rather than on anyone’s hearsay.

So you accept that you have more chance of being stabbed in London by a fellow Londoner (which is the truth)? Or am I misinterpreting your rhetoric?

Actual dead people - is hard to lie about. Anything else we get told by our illustrious ruling classes - should be considered as bully until proven otherwise. “Say So” is NOT proof. They are ALL liars then, and they need to win back the goodwill of the public, rather than just be considered one’s enemies because we didn’t happen to vote for them at the last election.

Left wing extremists are just as much filth as Right wing extremists then. That doesn’t make yours truly a centerist of course. I’m just anti “Criminal” full stop. You can be of any background and be that, of course.

So if you’re anti-criminal, do you want to see all trade union and collective bargaining rights abolished? Since workers broke the law, became criminals, and some were sent to prison, to insist on these?

[rjan]

Winseer:
If Corbyn wants to commit to a Brexit that appeals to the 52% (enough for a thumping majority in any general election) rather than the 40% ceiling he got in the general election last year - then he will need to get rid of everyone in his party who won’t be in favour of meeting the RIght half-way at very least, with a proper Brexit that encompasses those popular aspects of Brexit, as voted for by the very RIght-wing brexiteers, that the Left are intent on continuing to slag off…

Rubbish. There will be no indulgence of the right-wing whatsoever in Labour if they want my vote, and under Corbyn I don’t expect there to be any indulgence.

Brexit does NOT have to mean “Being nasty to immigrants” - far from it. I could suggest that we

(1) Keep all those already here, fast-tracking full rights to remain to those who have paid taxes and NICs for more than 5 years already.

No, anybody who is already resident and stays resident, stays.

(2) Deport any criminal immigrants, with the alternative being jailed in this country alongside other criminals. NO special treatment. A criminal is a criminal. It would save the most money of course, if we could deport “petty criminals” BEFORE they’ve served time in a UK jail of course. Save the jail spaces for those convicted of the more serious crimes. So, in essence - if you are an immigrant in the UK today - you keep your nose clean - or any application to get a perment residency status - is binned on the spot, once a conviction for so much as littering is handed down.

No chance.

(3) Immigrants in full time employment get day release to college to learn English properly, part cost to be paid by the employer, part cost to be paid out of the taxes already levvied on that member of staff.

Oh come off it, how many people do you think settle in Britain and go to work every day, and don’t learn English? Many EU migrants speak damned better English than some native speakers! I accept there may be some temporary workers who don’t bother, but that’s because they’re not here to settle and tend to be in unskilled occupations amongst high proportions of others who speak the foreign language (something that would disappear if bosses, like farmers, weren’t allowed to undercut local rates by hiring foreigners on cheap rates).

(4) Immigrants are not entitled to draw benefits until five full years of NICs have been paid. This includes Tax Credits, so all immigrants other than those with a DECENT job lined up - are discouraged from coming in the first place. Those already here, will of course have by now, got some kind of NICs record, unless they are attempting to stay as benefit scroungers, in which case they will be rounded up, and deported once here for five years with no NIC record whatsoever. Hard to round up? - Only Illegal immigrants under current definition - will be able to avoid such a round-up. The black market economy cannot support the non-criminal fraternity for very long.

There is no appreciable problem with foreign benefit scroungers - it’s a right-wing lie.

Brexit does NOT mean taking away any UK-born taxpayer’s rights then. Just those who shouldn’t have had such rights extended to them in the first place. We were idiots for allowing non-documented individuals, highly likely to be criminals rather than qualified persons - into the country in the first place.

What “undocumented individuals”? You mean people who came here 50 years ago and whose personal documentation may have been misplaced since, and whose official records the government has destroyed?

The Left really need to “Remove the log from thine own eye, Brother” on this one. Be nice to your Leftists UK supporters FIRST - otherwise you’ll be upset in the future, when ordinary former labour voting folk keep on doing this upsetting thing of “speaking out against those who threaten their communities”… The public want JUSTICE rather than excuses such as “diversity” and “postive discrimination” and “equal rights, but for you home-growns last of all” kind of hand-wringing arguments that the Leftist in higher society have been rather too in favour of for some time already.

I make no bones that amongst right-wingers like yourself, the problem is not that you need to be indulged, but that your false beliefs and disproportionate preceptions need to be dislodged. Most of you have gotten exactly what you have voted for for 40 years, and when you’re ■■■■■■ off with the results, you double down, vote for even more of it, and start searching for minorities and scapegoats instead of tackling the bosses.

[winseer]

I’m not a Right winger, didn’t vote for Thatcher OR Blair, and have never actually joined any political party, especially UKIP, BNP, or EDL.

Stand me up next to a hard leftist though, and granted - I’m going to look not so much like Hitler, but rather more “Victorian Dad”.

There isn’t actually any single MP in the whole of Parliament at this time that represents my views.
This means that if you consider any of that shower to be Right Wingers, then by definition - I cannot be of their number. My and their opinions are going to be mutually exclusive.

If we reverse this, and say that it’s Me who is the Right Winger then the current Conservatives incumbent as MPs - are fake Tories through and through. We know already that May is now a centerist, where she was considered formerly to be a Right Winger herself… Then there’s “Pretend Brexiteer” Boris. Then “Absent” Mogg and Gove.
I’m wondering if there are any center-rights among the incumbent Conservative Party today?

Among the Labour side, then we seem to have rather too many lining up behind Vince Cable’s “Remainac” stance, rather than Corbyn’s ideas for or against Brexit, not that we outsiders are aware of what they might be at this time, of course…

So… The Tories are losing voters by being “No longer for the Right” and Labour are refusing to butter-up those same voters, which they must get on board, if they are ever to win a majority government in any future election, before all three leaders die of old age (Or WE do, of course!)

What’s truth and what’s lies among the politicians themselves, is water under the bridge by this point. They lied, Got believed enough to get into power, or stay there. Draw a line under it, rather than a “lie” under it then.

Labour got into power with a “Tory Lite” at the helm. They could do so again, if they only had such a character in the current Westminster complement.
Blair only had to ditch Clause 4 to make his rabble electable.
What should Corbyn do (other than “resign”) to facillitate a future Labour majority victory?

If the Labour Party that won’t back their own leader don’t watch out - the rest of us might hand Corbyn the keys to number 10, and then these Europhile back bench rabble will truly be toast, if he could get elected without any help from them at all… What an Irony that would be!

Wouldn’t it just be so stupid if Corbyn managed to scrape home one day like Cameron did in 2015, only to be removed by his own people, who then try to block the Conservatives trying to force another general election as a result? “Two thirds to pull off a vote of no confidence”… ? I reckon Corbyn’s worst enemies are those currently sitting on safe labour seats, myself…
The more he purges, the more electable he becomes, of course.

Meanwhile, I will continue to “always vote” as I do, and I’ll keep on voting for the “least worst” candidate with “some chance of winning” as I always do.
My vote has yet to propel a new candidate of any party to win a seat - but I’ll keep on banging away at it, democratically -as is my, and all our rights to do.

[mazzer2]

Rjan:
Rubbish. There will be no indulgence of the right-wing whatsoever in Labour if they want my vote, and under Corbyn I don’t expect there to be any indulgence.

[quote
And that is the reason why Labour under Corbyn will not win an election, in British politics to win an election you have to appeal outside of your core supporters if you want a majority. If either the Conservative or Labour party stray to far to the right or left then they lose support as has been shown multiple times in past general election results.

[winseer]

The “Minority” I want to make a scapegoat of - are the 1%.

The day Labour go for the throats of the 1%, instead of lining the pockets with their money - will be day I consider putting my cross in the Labour box for the first time ever.

“Anti Semetism within the Labour Party” - SMOKESCREEN. Go for the throat of 1%ers like “Sir” Phillip Green.

“Bullying within the Labour Party?” - SMOKESCREEN. There are “loose” members of both the Labour Party and Momentum that are actively trying to put people off voting Labour.
(I get trolled by such people all the time, usually when I make an argument that is actually backing Corbyn in some way…)

“Boris Johnson is a Brexiteer” - SMOKESCREEN. Theresa May wants to create the impression there is a Brexiteer within her senior cabinet. There isn’t. It took me the Salisbury Incident to realize that though.

“Labour need more postively-discriminated candidates” - FOLLY - There are a lot of voters who don’t want to be dictated to in this way, including and especially among the ordinary working classes.

“Theresa May could have been forced out after losing her majority” - MISSED OPPORTUNITY. We neved did get an explanation from ANY westminster MP as to why she stayed on as PM.

“Islamists are not our enemy, Russia are” - FOLLY. A lucrative Arms Deal with Saudi Arabia isn’t worth ■■■■■■■ off voters by driving up the cost of energy for. Once again, Labour have missed an opportunity to bring May down here. Instead, they carp on at Corbyn when he tries to ask some awkward questions over this Salisbury business, just as Robin Cook did over WMD some years back.

“Islamists make a great ally for the Left” - FOLLY. Making the “Haves” fear the “Have Nots” or rather the “Entitled” - just drives conservatism underground, and then no one can make accurate political predictions any more.

“Benefit Claimants make a a great ally for the Left” - FOLLY now that the Conservatives in office have never reversed the generous benefit handouts of the previous Labour administration.

“White Eastern Europeans make a great ally for the Left” - FOLLY - they don’t give a toss about Labour in this country. They act on “What is” rather than push for “What might be”. Perhaps the EE’s are the most pragmatic of ALL of us… But alas, most of them don’t even vote.

“Brexit would be bad for Britain” - A complete speculation by the educated with no vision OR a fabricated lie to protect one’s position as one “being on the take” from the EU.
“Brexit would be good for Britain” - A complete foregone hope by the ordinary taxpayer with great vision, but floored by any and all lies to protect someone else’s position who earns more than you, but pays less tax than you.

“University” - Increasingly an indoctrination center for those people capable of thinking outside of the box otherwise.

All in all, people want the same things. More of what they like, Less of what they don’t like.

The difference in people’s politics - is the price they are prepared to pay of themselves (usually “not much”) compared to the price they are prepared to pay of others (frequently more than the “others” would like to pay)

Labour have no chance of ever being elected - unless they change to what the majority of people want. 40% don’t cut it. Last year proved that.
The increasingly yellow Tories - will not win a majority back again - until they regain what they have lost. That’s no longer possible now, whilst we remain in the EU.
The increasingly gone Libdems - are now ruling us by proxy, from the very EU that we are trying to get away from. So much for “Democracy”!

[winseer]

Mazzer2:

Rjan:
Rubbish. There will be no indulgence of the right-wing whatsoever in Labour if they want my vote, and under Corbyn I don’t expect there to be any indulgence.
[quote

And that is the reason why Labour under Corbyn will not win an election, in British politics to win an election you have to appeal outside of your core supporters if you want a majority. If either the Conservative or Labour party stray to far to the right or left then they lose support as has been shown multiple times in past general election results.

I agree, although I blame the wider Labour party as it stands for this self-defeating stance, rather than Corbyn who’s merely caretaker of an increasingly outmoded political faction.
Today’s young supporters of Labour - won’t be so young by the time of the next election. Expect Labour to lose such voters, to “Disinterest” if nothing else.
Today’s older generation - are not guaranteed to be dead of old age by the next election - ignore these people that “always vote” at your political peril.
Today’s population being paid by the EU to be remain supporters, or indoctrinated by the Left to believe that “Brexit is a bad idea because…” have clearly ignored their own “Labour Leave” movement.

Brexit’s best hope of proceeding now is for Labour MPs to be forced away from the center, that is - to be fair - holding them back, and keeping them out of office.

Syria? - What IS Labour’s current policy for Syria?

After 9/11 - we didn’t get asked if we wanted to Bomb Iraq/Afghanistan/Libya - but if we’d been asked if we could bomb Mecca - they might have got a more supportive response at that point eh?

“Not doing something” doesn’t stop someone else from doing it, no one got saved.

So again… What IS Labour’s current policy for Syria - NOT keeping in with the UN/USA/Internation Community, et al.

[newmercman]

So the war on terror started after 9/11, a Saudi national, OBL was ‘responsible’ and America went on the warpath, but chose to take on the Taliban in Afghanistan, not the extremist Wahhabi movement in Saudi Arabia that were behind the attacks. The Taliban, a another extremist Islamic group had clamped down on the natives and their Opium Poppy business. The yanks went over and gave them some “freedom” from their oppressors, the Poppy fields bloomed and Opium related deaths in America increased significantly, coincidence?

But that’s only the icing on the cake, Afghanistan is sitting on USD 3 trillion of untapped mineral deposits, lithium being one particularly useful substance in abundance there, plus the oil and gas reserves and the enviable location of being in the way of an oil and gas pipeline between Central Asia and the sea ports of the Gulf, prevent that and oil prices can be manipulated at whim.

Iraq, Libya, pretty much the same, under Saddam and Gaddafi they wouldn’t bow down to the mighty USA and its behind the scenes financiers, so they had to go, it was all in the name of “freedom” but in reality it was all about the USD. Other countries with oppressive Islamic regimes but lacking in resources carry on as normal, their poor subjects getting no offer of “freedom”

ISIS, an islamic terror organization are now the current enemy, extremist muslims whose biggest enemies are the great satan (the USA) and the little satan (Israel) although I believe that to be the other way around, but I digress, so obviously ISIS is targeting its two biggest enemies right? Err… No they’re not, they’re rampaging through the middle east trying to establish a Caliphate apparently, yet they don’t want the caliphate to extend to the land that contains the two great mosques, nor do they want to reclaim Palestine from the crusaders, something not quite right about that me thinks.

Sent from my SM-G950W using Tapatalk

[rjan]

Mazzer2:

Rjan:
Rubbish. There will be no indulgence of the right-wing whatsoever in Labour if they want my vote, and under Corbyn I don’t expect there to be any indulgence.

And that is the reason why Labour under Corbyn will not win an election, in British politics to win an election you have to appeal outside of your core supporters if you want a majority. If either the Conservative or Labour party stray to far to the right or left then they lose support as has been shown multiple times in past general election results.

He practically already has won an election despite having everything but the kitchen sink thrown at him, runs the biggest mass membership party in Europe (with more members than all the other UK parties combined), and it’s not getting any better for the Tories.

Previous elections don’t show that left-wingers always lose, even if they have been substantially to the left of where Corbyn is today (although of course it’s tautology to say that those “too” left-wing or right-wing have lost).

Indeed, nobody other than the Blairite MPs are actually accusing Corbyn of being too left-wing, despite the fact that they’ve been smashed at the polls twice, and their ex-leader Blair is utterly reviled. Brown also scored the worst result for Labour since 1922, and Miliband scored the second-worst even after 5 years of Tory austerity (notwithstanding 1983 when the Labour party split with the SDP, whose roughly combined total was not too bad, and Foot himself scored only 1.5% less than Brown after a split that sundered the Labour vote).

By contrast, Corbyn has scored levels of popular support for the Labour party not seen since Wilson. The idea that there are huge number of centrist (as opposed to “core”) voters waiting to be netted if Corbyn just adjusts or moderates a few peripheral policies is nonsense. The centrists are implacably opposed to Corbyn on every single important policy - as Miliband showed in 2015, no amount of concessions will placate them. Miliband was still hectored for being too left-wing, with the media still dreaming of dating his more right-wing brother, and that was even after he’d diluted his left-wing agenda to nought and barely had a waffer-thin mint left to offer workers.

The natural home of people who claim to be “centrists” is the Tory party, and it is for the Tories to moderate their agenda to attract these people, and for these so-called centrists to get involved in the Tory party to moderate it away from the extreme right, rather than expecting the Labour party to bend over backwards for them.

I’ve never heard a compelling argument yet for why these “centrists” are so sentimental about supporting Labour and wanting it to win, rather than just going over to the Tories - I think for many of them, it’s just so they don’t have to admit to themselves, their families, and their colleagues that they’re actually Tories, or it’s because they suffer both from a narcissism of minor differences with the Tories, and such a sense of entitlement that, like Goldilocks, at the time of an election they should have the choice of breaking into someone else’s home and finding something for themselves that is “just right”.

[rjan]

Winseer:
Today’s young supporters of Labour - won’t be so young by the time of the next election. Expect Labour to lose such voters, to “Disinterest” if nothing else.

I disagree. Corbyn is a stadium-filling cultural icon amongst the young.

Today’s older generation - are not guaranteed to be dead of old age by the next election - ignore these people that “always vote” at your political peril.

Corbyn has gained support from every single age group except the over-70s and over-80s - despite the fact that Corbyn has not attacked the interests of the elderly generally, and the Tories have.

Amongst the Tory elderly, partly it’s an ideological issue, partly it’s being insular from the realities of today’s world as a worker (as people whose incomes and housing are set and secure, and who haven’t done badly in their lives, and whose own children are likely already to be in late middle age), and partly it’s the fact that the right-wing capture of the media will have a greater bearing on this age group because of their lesser engagement with alternative technologies and information sources. There is no option, in the end, but to wait for that generation to die and be replaced - the Labour party cannot pander to them, because they’re too right-wing.

[mazzer2]

Rjan:

Mazzer2:

Rjan:
Rubbish. There will be no indulgence of the right-wing whatsoever in Labour if they want my vote, and under Corbyn I don’t expect there to be any indulgence.

And that is the reason why Labour under Corbyn will not win an election, in British politics to win an election you have to appeal outside of your core supporters if you want a majority. If either the Conservative or Labour party stray to far to the right or left then they lose support as has been shown multiple times in past general election results.

He practically already has won an election despite having everything but the kitchen sink thrown at him, runs the biggest mass membership party in Europe (with more members than all the other UK parties combined), and it’s not getting any better for the Tories.

Previous elections don’t show that left-wingers always lose, even if they have been substantially to the left of where Corbyn is today (although of course it’s tautology to say that those “too” left-wing or right-wing have lost).

Indeed, nobody other than the Blairite MPs are actually accusing Corbyn of being too left-wing, despite the fact that they’ve been smashed at the polls twice, and their ex-leader Blair is utterly reviled. Brown also scored the worst result for Labour since 1922, and Miliband scored the second-worst even after 5 years of Tory austerity (notwithstanding 1983 when the Labour party split with the SDP, whose roughly combined total was not too bad, and Foot himself scored only 1.5% less than Brown after a split that sundered the Labour vote).

By contrast, Corbyn has scored levels of popular support for the Labour party not seen since Wilson. The idea that there are huge number of centrist (as opposed to “core”) voters waiting to be netted if Corbyn just adjusts or moderates a few peripheral policies is nonsense. The centrists are implacably opposed to Corbyn on every single important policy - as Miliband showed in 2015, no amount of concessions will placate them. Miliband was still hectored for being too left-wing, with the media still dreaming of dating his more right-wing brother, and that was even after he’d diluted his left-wing agenda to nought and barely had a waffer-thin mint left to offer workers.

The natural home of people who claim to be “centrists” is the Tory party, and it is for the Tories to moderate their agenda to attract these people, and for these so-called centrists to get involved in the Tory party to moderate it away from the extreme right, rather than expecting the Labour party to bend over backwards for them.

I’ve never heard a compelling argument yet for why these “centrists” are so sentimental about supporting Labour and wanting it to win, rather than just going over to the Tories - I think for many of them, it’s just so they don’t have to admit to themselves, their families, and their colleagues that they’re actually Tories, or it’s because they suffer both from a narcissism of minor differences with the Tories, and such a sense of entitlement that, like Goldilocks, at the time of an election they should have the choice of breaking into someone else’s home and finding something for themselves that is “just right”.

He didn’t practically win the election otherwise he would now be in number 10, as Winseer said some of the younger ones who were students at the last election won’t be at the next and therefore may change who they vote for, my son being an example was in his second year at the last election and voted for Corbyn as he thought if he won it would wipe out his student debt, by the next election he will be in a well paid job with the potential for high earnings and has said not cat in hells chance of him voting Labour again, I’m guessing he is not alone.

[winseer]

newmercman:
So the war on terror started after 9/11, a Saudi national, OBL was ‘responsible’ and America went on the warpath, but chose to take on the Taliban in Afghanistan, not the extremist Wahhabi movement in Saudi Arabia that were behind the attacks. The Taliban, a another extremist Islamic group had clamped down on the natives and their Opium Poppy business. The yanks went over and gave them some “freedom” from their oppressors, the Poppy fields bloomed and Opium related deaths in America increased significantly, coincidence?

But that’s only the icing on the cake, Afghanistan is sitting on USD 3 trillion of untapped mineral deposits, lithium being one particularly useful substance in abundance there, plus the oil and gas reserves and the enviable location of being in the way of an oil and gas pipeline between Central Asia and the sea ports of the Gulf, prevent that and oil prices can be manipulated at whim.

Iraq, Libya, pretty much the same, under Saddam and Gaddafi they wouldn’t bow down to the mighty USA and its behind the scenes financiers, so they had to go, it was all in the name of “freedom” but in reality it was all about the USD. Other countries with oppressive Islamic regimes but lacking in resources carry on as normal, their poor subjects getting no offer of “freedom”

ISIS, an islamic terror organization are now the current enemy, extremist muslims whose biggest enemies are the great satan (the USA) and the little satan (Israel) although I believe that to be the other way around, but I digress, so obviously ISIS is targeting its two biggest enemies right? Err… No they’re not, they’re rampaging through the middle east trying to establish a Caliphate apparently, yet they don’t want the caliphate to extend to the land that contains the two great mosques, nor do they want to reclaim Palestine from the crusaders, something not quite right about that me thinks.

Sent from my SM-G950W using Tapatalk

If ISIS are supposed to be our current enemy, we seemed to have suffered a bit of “Mission Creep” in aiding and abetting those fighting alongside ISIS (Syrian Rebels, Turkish Troops) who are attacking Sovereign Leader Assad and victims-of-genocide-already The Kurds respectively.

I thought we were supposed to be bombing Raqqa, as an ISIS stronghold - rather than making up attacks that didn’t happen, making attacks on places held by sovereign forces in their own country, and of course - not lifting a finger to help the Kurds, being butchered in the North East of Syria as we speak.

The “War on Terror” could have been ended practically overnight - if we’d have an inquisition against that thousand-year-out-of-date “Religion” known as Islam, instead of inviting die-hardliners over to the west to push this oh-so-political “Faith” upon the rest of us, like some kind of brainwashing communist extremism with knobs on.

Instead, we’re now told to look to Russia for “our new enemy”. Russia have got some catching up to do. They’ve “allegedly” failed to kill three people with an alleged nerve agent that’s supposed to be deadlier than British-devloped VX (fatal from a smear on the skin) and despite being discharged from hospital, no one has seen them in public since…

Compare that to the hundreds of actual UK men, women and children killed by just ISIS terrorists in the past decade alone - and that’s leaving out 7/7 of course!
If ISIS were not representative of “Political Islam” - then doesn’t anyone think that Saudi Arabia with all it’s Right Wingness - would have stamped it flat in the most brutal manner by now■■?
No. They’re bloody running it as a paramilitary arm, most likely. Meanwhile, that so-called religion brings in a lot of revenue for that same Saudi Arabia, complete with the attrition that “making the Hajj Pilgrimage” cuts out of those attempting to attend, as today’s news gives a good example of… Britons killed in Saudi Arabia coach crash - BBC News I guess pilgrims don’t get a “warning” that “attempting to attend the Hajj could seriously endanger your continued existance on this Earth”…

If we can ban Nazism from the Earth, and leave it well behind in the 20th century - then why can’t we do the same to “Political Islam” which is what ISIS are all about… Along with those that fund it from afar, protect it from superpower retatlation, plus provide everything from supply lines and banking facilities for their forthcoming “Caliphate” to boot.

[carryfast]

newmercman:
So the war on terror started after 9/11, a Saudi national, OBL was ‘responsible’ and America went on the warpath, but chose to take on the Taliban in Afghanistan, not the extremist Wahhabi movement in Saudi Arabia that were behind the attacks. The Taliban, a another extremist Islamic group had clamped down on the natives and their Opium Poppy business. The yanks went over and gave them some “freedom” from their oppressors, the Poppy fields bloomed and Opium related deaths in America increased significantly, coincidence?

But that’s only the icing on the cake, Afghanistan is sitting on USD 3 trillion of untapped mineral deposits, lithium being one particularly useful substance in abundance there, plus the oil and gas reserves and the enviable location of being in the way of an oil and gas pipeline between Central Asia and the sea ports of the Gulf, prevent that and oil prices can be manipulated at whim.

Iraq, Libya, pretty much the same, under Saddam and Gaddafi they wouldn’t bow down to the mighty USA and its behind the scenes financiers, so they had to go, it was all in the name of “freedom” but in reality it was all about the USD. Other countries with oppressive Islamic regimes but lacking in resources carry on as normal, their poor subjects getting no offer of “freedom”

ISIS, an islamic terror organization are now the current enemy, extremist muslims whose biggest enemies are the great satan (the USA) and the little satan (Israel) although I believe that to be the other way around, but I digress, so obviously ISIS is targeting its two biggest enemies right? Err… No they’re not, they’re rampaging through the middle east trying to establish a Caliphate apparently, yet they don’t want the caliphate to extend to the land that contains the two great mosques, nor do they want to reclaim Palestine from the crusaders, something not quite right about that me thinks.

It’s a bit more complicated than that.

Radical Islam in the form of the Saudis is our ally as were the Mujahideen in Afghan and equally Saudi friendly Al Nusra and it’s spin offs in Syria.But we are also at war with radical Islam.

Which is supposedly why Saudi based Al Qaeda,which was/is also linked with Al Nusra etc,carried out the 9/11 attacks in which some unqualified untrained radical Islamic Saudi loons managed to fly airliners into the Pentagon and WTC and in which lightly constructed aluminium aircraft wings and fuselages managed to cut through structural steel under thousands of tonnes of compression like a knife through butter.Let alone doing a brilliant impression of a bunker busting missile in the case of the Pentagon.

Meanwhile the Russians went to war with the Mujahideen in Afghan and radical Islam in Cechnya but they are also allies with Islamic revolutionary Iran and the moderate Alawite Assad regime.But who the Iranians supposedly view as Christian infidels and Alawite heretics respectively.The Iranians also apparently can’t stand the Wahhabist Saudis and vice versa both viewing each other as heretics.But they all get together as Islamic mates together at the Haj in Saudi with the Saudis being happy to invite them and the Iranians being happy to turn up for the Party every year.

Meanwhile the Americans only recognise the Saudi bunch as being good geezers even though it was them who managed to bring down two massive skyscrapers and demolish the Pentagon with a few flying aluminium cans.While the Russians think that the Saudi mob are a bunch of zb’s but the Iranians are ok they are good mates.To the point where both the Americans and the Russians are prepared to go to war with each other to back their respective Islamic nutter zb sides.Or have we all missed something.

[rjan]

Mazzer2:

Rjan:
[…]

He didn’t practically win the election otherwise he would now be in number 10, as Winseer said some of the younger ones who were students at the last election won’t be at the next and therefore may change who they vote for, my son being an example was in his second year at the last election and voted for Corbyn as he thought if he won it would wipe out his student debt, by the next election he will be in a well paid job with the potential for high earnings and has said not cat in hells chance of him voting Labour again, I’m guessing he is not alone.

Corbyn is not primarily a youth or student movement, although it has that component. As I said, he has increased the support for Labour substantially across the entire working-age range. And for obvious reasons, whilst some students will get older, new ones are being produced.

Your son may be the minority, but the majority of graduates are not going into “well paid jobs” - mostly they are going into average jobs that are under sustained attack, and many are going into substandard jobs - and in a democracy it will always be the circumstances of the majority that determine elections. And the fact that your son has done such a volte face in as little as a year shows that there is no reasonable concession that Corbyn can make to attract such people, and there’s no point him trying to do so at the expense of his left-wing support and enthusiasm.

As I say, in terms of the actual demographics, the Tories have a bulge of support amongst a specific generation (the bulge broadly maintains it’s shape but gets older each year). Once that bulge goes - as it must, since they are already in their 70s and 80s - the Tories will be wiped out (or be forced to completely revamp).

As a point of curiosity, has your son actually turned to the Tories in their current state?

[rjan]

Winseer:
If we can ban Nazism from the Earth, and leave it well behind in the 20th century - then why can’t we do the same to “Political Islam” which is what ISIS are all about… Along with those that fund it from afar, protect it from superpower retatlation, plus provide everything from supply lines and banking facilities for their forthcoming “Caliphate” to boot.

Nazism hasn’t been banished. It returns every time the capitalist economy goes into the [zb]er.