Corbyn is a bit of a twit

I had the tweet from SR , "10 ways to survive train journeys in the heat wave".

Perhaps 10 ways to survive the WAIT for a train journey?

A friend commutes to that London every day, today she walked to Gatwick Station (50mins) to find 2 successive Gatwick Expresses were cancelled.

Almost every day there are broken down trains cancelled due to staff shortages,  SR to sort out, signal failures and track collapses I suspect shows lack/cutting of maintenance by Network Rail. 

Yes Corbyn is a bit of a twit, but like Michael Foot a man of fundamental Labour principles, but like Foot completely unable to bring these to the non old school labour members and the rest of the country. So I see the alternatives are a long Conning party reign or another version of Con-lite, Blairism or heaven forbid new "New Labour".

Corbyn was apparently offered a free upgrade to 1st Class by staff but refused. Of course he did. The leader of the opposition (if not his MPs) could not possibly accept a seat in 1st Class where he might get some work done. He has to be down with the proles, the man of the people. Sorry, I think that makes him a fool. I'd quite like my MP in the quiet carriage working hard, not wedged in a corner to make a point.

I cannot see anything but disaster for Labour at the moment. You may not be a Labour supporter but I think everyone should accept that a well run opposition calling the Govt to account (it only has a slim majority remember) is an important part of our democracy.

I could not see any way out for Labour once Corbyn decided not to resign and stand again.

Bruce

Ardbeg10y posted:

'Bring Back British Rail'

'Great Britain'

'Make Britain Rule Again'

'Rule Britannia'

... all you need is a new Falkland war, and the identity crisis is gone ...

Jeez - Great Britain is a geographic term emanating back to the Roman times to describe the main island of the British Isles which homed the then celtic tribes . The minor Britain is called Brittany in NW France these days...

Kevin-W posted:

Hungryhalibut posted:

As one who battles daily with the ineptitude of Southern Rail, I'm up for that. Corbyn may be a bit bumbly, but his heart is in the right place. 

I agree, I use Southern two or three times a week and they are shite. They should have their franchise taken away immediately.

 

I'm a victim of Southern too and very much agree that their franchise should be removed.  If a local authority, government department or agency performed like Southern Rail the Government would have acted decisively ages ago.  The only Government statements I've seen seem to blame the RMT etc. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that Southern are being protected because they are in the private sector.  The whole thing stinks.  On this issue I think Corbyn's heart is probably is in the right place.

That said, his and his advisers' handling of the Virgin train issue looks inept. Whatever the truth, somebody on Corbyn's team should have pointed out that all modern trains have video and that it was highly likely that Virgin trains would react by showing footage that contradicted his story.  This was a wrong-headed stunt by Corbyn's team regardless of his motives.   

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Ardbeg10y posted:

'Bring Back British Rail'

'Great Britain'

'Make Britain Rule Again'

'Rule Britannia'

... all you need is a new Falkland war, and the identity crisis is gone ...

Jeez - Great Britain is a geographic term emanating back to the Roman times to describe the main island of the British Isles which homed the then celtic tribes . The minor Britain is called Brittany in NW France these days...

Yes, and even your (assume Suffolk implies truly that you are from the other side of 'la Manche') olympic team was having this 'Great Britain' reference on their shirts.

I know some Bretons, and they seem to hate the rest of France.

MDS posted:

I'm a victim of Southern too and very much agree that their franchise should be removed.  If a local authority, government department or agency performed like Southern Rail the Government would have acted decisively ages ago.  The only Government statements I've seen seem to blame the RMT etc. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that Southern are being protected because they are in the private sector.  The whole thing stinks.  On this issue I think Corbyn's heart is probably is in the right place.

 

Mmm. Much as I don't wish to seem to support some of these money-grabbing commercial enterprises, methinks you're looking at the old nationalised railways through rose-tinted glasses. In my experience, government departments are the most indecisive organisations you could find, and in the case of nationalised services, you can't just remove their franchises, you're rather stuck with them.

Tony - I wasn't suggesting that public sector organisations are inherently better than private sectors ones. I was trying make a point about the double standards that the Government seems to apply.  What I mean is, because the private sector is 'entrepreneurial' and 'carry a greater risk of failure' those running them deserve higher (grossly higher, to many) financial rewards whereas the slow, plodding, public sector organisations, where the risks of failure are low, deserve little financial reward.  The reality is (aka the banks) the private sector bosses conspire to reward themselves fabulously, regardless of performance, while public sector organisations get publicly hammered by ministers when anything goes wrong.           

I suppose I should be comforted by the fact that anyone who can't even organise their own seat reservations is unlikely be trusted by the electorate to run the world's 5th largest economy

However, I don't buy the "twinkly old man of principle" act.  For the first time ever, I'm genuinely quite apprehensive about the prospect of a "mainstream" UK party gaining power.  The Momentum movement  renouncing non-violence so they can "protect" themselves at political rallies gets uncomfortably close to the language of certain inter war totalitarian groups for my liking..

Yep, the same thing occurred to me.

The other story that came out that day has strangely been ignored by most of the news makers.

http://www.theguardian.com/pol...-farage-south-thanet

Momentum are scary in my view.   Neither of the two candidates for leader are likely to move the Labour Party forward or convince the electorate to vote for them above the Tories.  It's been a long time since I was as disillusioned with the Labour Party as I am now.  I would still not be surprised if there was a split if Corbyn wins.

dayjay posted:

Momentum are scary in my view.   Neither of the two candidates for leader are likely to move the Labour Party forward or convince the electorate to vote for them above the Tories.  It's been a long time since I was as disillusioned with the Labour Party as I am now.  I would still not be surprised if there was a split if Corbyn wins.

I feel the same way, David.  I suspect the split option will be something of a last resort as I'm sure there are those within the party who still remember how the last one turned out. The SDP didn't too well as I recall.

Mike

I think the present state of the Labour party is best represented by 

G

Could one say that UK Naimees are mainly conservatives?

Not if one didn't want a poke in ones eye! 

However one is confident that one is able to say so, one is now convinced that non-conservatives could be violent :-)

I am fed up with the lot of them, Brexit campaign was full of non truths with no consequences for those that lied.....

I am not against Corbyn's views per se but his ability to present them is very limited.... 

The whole self interest of those in power is breath taking..... 

We may live in a world with expensive hifi in our homes but I feel sick to the core watching the events in the Middle East unfold - history will not judge us well if we carry on as we are.

Gary

fathings cat posted:

I am fed up with the lot of them, Brexit campaign was full of non truths with no consequences for those that lied.....

I am not against Corbyn's views per se but his ability to present them is very limited.... 

The whole self interest of those in power is breath taking..... 

We may live in a world with expensive hifi in our homes but I feel sick to the core watching the events in the Middle East unfold - history will not judge us well if we carry on as we are.

Gary

 

Aye, what to do about it? There's the rub.

Chris

I'm mainly not.

fathings cat posted:

history will not judge us well if we carry on as we are.

 

That horse is already over  the horizon.  My (baby boomer) generation have royally ****ed up the world and we have no excuses. The next generation  down seem too obsessed with social media, image and trivia to be interested and I can only hope that my grandchildren start the process of dragging us back out of the 19th Century.

Harry posted:

fathings cat posted:

history will not judge us well if we carry on as we are.

 

That horse is already over  the horizon.  My (baby boomer) generation have royally ****ed up the world and we have no excuses. The next generation  down seem too obsessed with social media, image and trivia to be interested and I can only hope that my grandchildren start the process of dragging us back out of the 19th Century.

Socrate was the first one who seems to have said that the next generation is worse.

Each generation is having these things. In 'your' time just different things were important. I do work with many youngsters from different culture, and they have completely incorporated the social media in the way they communicate - also at work. As being the middle generation, I need to adapt to that 'social' way of communication. I must. Only then I can handover certain values to them.

Also, I've asked my English colleagues many times what happens in the UK. They are always avoiding real answers and it seems that only the topics of Gibraltar and Falklands can give a bit of their pride back.

When does UK finally get rid of Chamberlainism?

I'm actually nominating my generation as the big failure, as the lazy and complacent cohort who wasted our  parents' gifts to us, and who have (speaking very  generally) produced a successive generation  of twittering self  obsessed twinkies.  It's not my children's fault. It's my fault.

I'm not sure I follow you're argument, Harry.  What is it that you think our generation should have done that we didn't?  I think our parents gift to us was the importance of education, hard work and prudent financial management.  I know I learnt that. In some cases that generation would also have passed to us some wealth, that generation being the first where wider home ownership happened, but I suspect for most of us that would have been pretty modest.  Our children however will likely inherent two generations of equity built through home ownership, so while getting on the housing ladder today, in the UK at least, is harder than it's ever been, in time many will inherit properties.      

WW2, uniting Europe, rebuilding infrastructure and industry, the Welfare State, the NHS, the struggle out of austerity and the foundations of the technological age in which we now live.  Much of the technology we take for granted, although exploited by us was invented before we were born.  Things like property ownership are a red herring turned into something of disproportionate significance by our greed and short term vision.

We have/had the capability to  eradicate many diseases, redistribute wealth more equably, even if only a bit, put roofs  over  all heads, develop clean(er) power, end racial, religious and sexual bigotry and indolence in society and set the world an example. By the time I reached 20 I was bragging that by the time I reached my parent’s age, racial hatred, misogyny, religious intransience and all the violence and damage they inflicted would be stuff you could only read about in history books.  I should have spent more time doing and less time bragging. Not that Helen and I have not been politically active our whole adult  lives. We have and we still are.

Just look around. Look at the mess we have made of the world.  But of course it’s not our fault. It’s The Tories, Labour, The Right, The Left, The Unions, the rich, the radicalised Muslims, the NRA, the Media. Anyone but us. It got like this because I let it. And so did you. But it sounds like as long as you can own a house and pass on an inheritance it can be considered worth it? We must agree to disagree on that one. I'm not claiming it can be fixed. I'm not wringing my hands. I'm just pointing out that we are idiots and with luck, future generations will wake up, having studied our behaviour and learned (the hard way).

Ardbeg10y posted:

 

 

.. I do work with many youngsters from different culture, and they have completely incorporated the social media in the way they communicate - also at work. As being the middle generation, I need to adapt to that 'social' way of communication. I must. Only then I can handover certain values to them.

Being part of the 'generation' that has been the enabler of many methods of modern communication and personally contributing through my career in my own small way to  the development of many technologies that have allowed Social Media, Digital TV and the internet to flourish - I am proud of the legacy i have helped create that my children can take advantage of and take for granted.

I would love to have had what my kids have now with the internet and social media.. in all its forms.

I think one should be proud of the legacy you leave behind for your younger generations - and for me its not about financial inheritances... but what you have helped create and build - but then perhaps that is because I am engineer.

BTW - excuse my ignorance - but what is Chamberlianism - I can only think of Neville Chamberlain and his unfortunate letter - but I assume you are referring to something else?

Simon