General Election 2019

I agree with the overall pessimistic assessment, but I'm not sure that e.g. actually 'apologising for antisemitism' would help matters. You can bet that would be exploited to the max by the Tories just like the lack of one is being exploited now.

If, right at the start, they'd not tried to excuse it and had been seen to do something about it then it'd be a non-issue. As it was their response left enough room for the Tories to keep pounding on them and for swing voters to doubt their truthfulness.

Bang on the money.

If he apologised for the handling of antisemitism in Labour he would have admitted to not being able to handle antisemitism within his own party.

Which wouldn't have been a problem, had he handled it quickly and decisively in the first place.

It also didn't help that he was effectively overturning two manifesto commitments within a week of publishing it.

Yes - this. Plus they could then have shifted the conversation to the tories failing to honour the promise they made on Islamophobia during the leader's debate.

Completely agree and with best guess from John Curtis being a 50 seat majority we are looking at a thumping majority for a party that an effective leader could defeat.

Add that in North Herefordshire the Labour candidate address is simply Birmingham. When I queried why a local candidate wasn’t on offer (Tory, Green, Lib Dem all have north Herefordshire addresses), I was told “well, he used to live in Abergavenny”. With that reasoning it seemed futile to point out that as well as also not being in Herefordshire, it was also in another country. Still, given massive majority in the constituency it’s all a bit moot

I honestly think his Brexit position is the correct position. The media is allowing it to be turned into indecisiveness when it could just as easily report it as it is: the refusal to be partisan on a position which threatens to break up the UK.

I don't disagree. The final position of staying impartial to allow the people to choose is fine, but it took forever to get there and opened up the 'dither and delay' narrative. He's just not been decisive enough and shown enough individual leadership. No-one wants consultative, consensus-driven leading, no matter how sensible it might be.

50 majority certainly possible but not a given, still 2 weeks out and Boris will hopefully have to face Andrew Neil. Labour are in a very difficult position because of Brexit but from most of the people I have spoken to on the doorstep the right one.

Corbyn has just done a press conference on the NHS, not caught up with it yet but looks interesting and good to see labour on the offensive.

we are looking at a thumping majority for a party that an effective leader could defeat.

I don't buy this at all. What we are seeing is a Tory vote bloc that is firmly tied to Brexit. It's unclear to me how anyone, not matter how effective, would be able to eat in to that (without also being pro-Brexit).

Which wouldn't have been a problem, had he handled it quickly and decisively in the first place.

I'm not going to defend their handling of it.

But I'm still going to support them. Not least of all because similar (and worse) failings exist in other parties.

Agree - an apology would be an admission of being a racist, which is worse than swerving the direct request to apologise with a response of "any form of racism or intolerance is abhorrent"

Completely agree that no easily identified solution but, despite Corbyn being a decent and principled man, his leadership has been utterly ineffective. I genuinely hope that on 13th December I can look back on the wrongness if my view but I’m fearful that I won’t.

Glad labour have moved the narrative to the NHS, they need to keep hammering it home as that’s what will win on the doorstep.

On the topic of racism the tories are far far worse and anyone who votes for them because Jeremy is a racist is not doing so because of that reason.

Labour have dumped the NHS report on the media the same day as Johnson has his Andrew Neil interview in the same way that the Tories ramped up the anti-semitism stuff on the day Corbyn had his Andrew Neil interview.

We'll have to wait and see just how Andrew Neil deals with him this evening.

Of course, as am I. There's just huge frustration amongst Labour voters about how badly this and other things have been managed

On the topic of racism the tories are far far worse and anyone who votes for them because Jeremy is a racist is not doing so because of that reason.

huh

Sorry, I’m no great at explaining things.

What I meant to say is that if you vote for the tories because you think that the Labour Party are racist then there must be other underlying reasons and you are using that as a handy excuse.

"Crook & mythomaniac" vs. "sincere & dedicated socialist" (from 1.37)

https://youtu.be/4kV2iyHjWeg?t=97

I am quite shocked by the Rabbi’s intervention.

This thread suggests no-one should be shocked by this.

https://twitter.com/Tingaling007/status/1199215116706811904?s=19

Wait. So he's actually a tory activist?

Or is that just standard message of congratulations?

Where's the fucking fun in that?!

Allegedly.

Corbyn could have drawn a line under this months ago and should have done years ago. He could easily have taken the high ground and said, yes Labour had a problem and we took too long to sort it out - hands up - but now we have. What about the Tories?

The refusal to do so smacks of the hand of Milne or extreme stupidity. Neither is a good look. In a country where the press is largely right of center to let yourself be backed into this corner is unbelievably dumb.

I'd hope anyone who puts that forward as a theory has some better evidence than that tweet.