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I don't get the whole 'Corbyn has an army of supporters' line. He was elected against some useless competition and those who voted for him (including affiliated voters etc) represent about 2.5% of the Labour voting public (as of 2015 election). Labour lost the last election, amongst other things, due to their position being viewed as too far left and being utterly incompetent on the economy. Corbyn and co have taken the party further to the left and they have already lost all credibility on the economy in the eyes of the public. Every poll taken shows the Tories continuing to extend their lead. People on here seem a lot more optimistic about where all this is headed but I just can't see it.

... they have already lost all credibility on the economy in the eyes of the public.

begging the question.

just to be sure: are you suggesting the neo-liberal 'trickle down' psychopathy of the tories (and noted members of the PLP) is working a treat for 'the public'?

I work in the House of Lords, so at the same time as having to be politically neutral while I'm on duty, I get to meet a good number of current and retired politicians. The one who has surprised me most in terms of the difference between the public persona and the real person has been an old tory who is popularly remembered as being one of Margaret Thatcher's hit-men.
Everyone expects him to be the Spitting Image caricature, but he's a disarmingly nice guy with a very good sense of humour.
I'd still never vote conservative, but chatting to him has been a lesson that you should never judge people on their public persona.

Apparently he was a really nice bloke.

I've never heard of anyone who's met John Major in person say anything bad about him. Dispite the media portrayal, most also say he is/was very charismatic.

The left are just excited that they have a left leaning candidate.

It's been a while.

The two idiot system is here to stay?

My (long left birth country) The Netherlands always had a mix of parties with regular seat swapping and coalitions, and sometimes moves of politicians and having to lean on each other.

Here?

Nowhere to go for Corbyn or Cameron disagrees. There's no middle ground / parties. So both parties get caricatured and keep trying to undo each others work on NHS etc ...

Nowhere to go for voters but also not for politicians.

Is it Heseltine? I know you cant say...

It's a complex business, they all vary so much, Corbyn and Blair are from the same party ffs... One particularly interesting character is Lord Adonis. He's been in all three parties and is basically regarded as A-political and just wants to be doing something useful. There's a few people like that... Just not the current front-benchers.

I can't say, professional discretion and all that.
I find that there are people from all sides I think are bonkers, and some who seem very sensible, regardless of political affiliation. Some of the cleverest people are the ones absolutely nobody outside westminster will have ever heard of, and some of the ones who apparently do very little, in terms of their record of actually speaking in debates, are the most active in committees or in support for particular causes.

Lord Tebbit, betcha...

Yeah, I guess only the most PR inclined are the ones we really hear about. I have a very distinct memory from primary school when Ken Livingstone gave our class a tour of parliament and basically broke it to us that actually, a lot of them all get on and its actually quite bi-partisan. Even at 10 years old you realise that means something coming from a guy like him and its stuck with me since.

no comment

A lot of it is for show, and especially in the Lords there is a lot of cross-party co-operation. In the dining room there is a long table where tradition dictates that you have to sit in the next available seat without leaving a gap. This forces the peers to sit next to each other and talk to people from all parties.
The funniest thing about talking to the peers is when they let slip that there are people in their own side who they can't stand. I'm never sure whether to agree with them or whether it's some kind of test.

People on here seem a lot more optimistic about where all this is headed but I just can't see it.

I guess it's a good thing that people, many of them young, are becoming more excited about politics. Hopefully when Corbyn is inevitably kicked out they won't all lose interest again.

people won't 'lose interest', they'll actively disengage in utter disgust from a system that seems to hold the career ambitions of its born-to-rule parliamentary members in higher regard to (than?) the people they purport to represent. all that's left to people in this situation is protest. hopefully that's where young people will find their voice.

Imagine if these turncoat, blue labourists had put half as much effort into defeating cameron in the last election as they are into defeating corbyn now. cunts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B2Gww3ywDA

lines starting with a 'greater than' denote quoted text

No that's not what I'm suggesting at all. My post was about Labour in its entirety. I made no assertions or suggestions about the Tories.

I think your response is symptomatic of the Left at the moment. If someone has a view that is slightly different to yours, the auto-response is either "you're Tory scum" or "yeah but look at what the Tories are doing". There appears to be a staggering aversion to truthful introspection on the Left.

If the Tories are to be beaten, Labour needs to stop and properly assess why it lost the last election. Screaming bile at anyone who has the audacity to have a slightly different viewpoint isn't constructive in the slightest.

As for Syria, Corbyn is a pacifist. He was never going to be behind military action. So why did he suggest in te Commons that Labour MPs would have a reasoned debate and come to a collective position? He had no such intention. He was always going to demand they vote against military intervention, and now he has got himself into an awful pickle.

These are just my views, I'm no expert - it's just an interesting debate. No need for aggression or shouting people down.

who is shouting you down? i asked you if that is what you were suggesting. you haven't really answered. either way.

it is entirely justified to turn people's attentions to tory policy. they are the government in power and they are the ones making decisions that are severely affecting people's lives - the goings on in the pissing labour party are a convenient distraction for that dish-faced-wanksock and his sociopathic cronies.

corbyn is opposed to airstrikes. he is also opposed to sending in ground troops without a UN vote. something i entirely agree with, not because i'm a pacifist, but because anything less is merely going to result in an emboldened ISIS. dunno about you, but i dont particularly relish the thought of me or anyone i give a fuck about being blown to bits in my own backyard by one of these fuckwitted medievalists because a shower of bloodthirsty poshos who'll never realistically be in harms way, want to shake their cocks in the world's face.

This according to you and the MSM, makes corbyn worthy of ridicule.

Corbyn hasn't demanded anything from Labour MPs. He's clearly stated that he doesn't think Cameron has made a case for bombing Syria and that he is opposed to it. He would like a debate on this, and then Labour MPs will have a free vote on it. Hopefully enough of them will be rational and understand that indiscriminate bombing of civilians is what got us in this mess in the first place, so another wave isn't going to defeat anyone. Other than innocent Syrians.

He doesn't. Wishful thinking. All the polls suggest he's totally out of touch with the public on airstrikes in Syria too, although I absolutely agree with him on that point. YouGov have found public support for airstrikes consistent throughout 2015 - before and after the Paris attacks - so it seems the public have settled on this opinion. Anecdotal but the World Tonight last night went to a Labour club in Harehills and most of the people they interviewed disagreed with him and wanted airstrikes. That should be his base, if he can't convince a Labour club in inner-city Leeds he's fucked.

I was optimistic at when Corbyn first became leader (although I didn't vote for him) but now I feel that the lunatics have taken over the asylum. I thought it might result in some much needed new blood in the party but we've just replaced one bunch of dinosaurs with another. I'm quite embarrassed to be a member with people like Livingstone being wheeled out to blame Blair for the London bombing and mock the mentally ill, my utterly useless MP Diane Abbott who thinks Mao did more good than harm and John McDonnell whose terrible joke/poor judgement kicked off that whole episode. It's about time all these people retired if you ask me.

It's all one big car crash and I'm seriously questioning whether I want to stay in the Labour Party right now :/

I think my views are very similar to yours on this but then

whether I want to stay in the PLP right now

confusd me...isnt the PLP the labour members of parliament? are you an MP? have I got this wrong?

public support for airstrikes

I hope we're all thinking that public support is not a valid reason for bombing somewhere.

No you're right, sorry, I didn't get much sleep last night. Fixed and to be clear I am NOT a Labour MP!

I am against the airstrikes as I said but we do live in a democracy. If it comes down to a vote Cameron will win, because on this one he is in touch with public opinion. I don't like it and I don't agree with it, but for some balance, there are lots of valid reasons to want to bomb Islamic State. Just like you I think it will just make things worse and kill lots of innocent people.

This is the weakness of a democracy though- the majority can be wrong. Look at the current government for proof.

I said very clearly in my first line that that wasn't what I was suggesting. I'm not sure how I could have been any clearer.

I also didn't say that what the Tories are doing isn't worth of discussion. Of course it is, but it shouldn't be used as a deflection when people query the state of the Labour party.

I am against the airstrikes, but I think the way Corbyn has gone about this is all wrong. He shouldn't have suggested Labour MPs would get a free vote, then immediately write to them to demand the vote in line with him. I do not think Corbyn is worthy of ridicule, and have never ridiculed him. I do, however, think he has gone about this all wrong.

My reference to being shouted down was more referring to the vast majority of your other posts in this thread where people who disagree with you are called Tory scum or that you wish they would die and other such things. I'm not sure how you intend your posts to come across but they seem to me very full of aggression and very lacking in substance.