I admire Corbyn's conviction and I agree wholeheartedly with his argument that our disastrous recent foreign policy has contributed to racial and religious resentment which has in turn increased the threat of terror attacks in the UK. It's a genuine, logical position to hold. It's just not a vote winning point to be making right now in the aftermath of a major terrorist incident.

The tories suggest spending less on the needy and minimising the tax hit to the wealthy, whereas Labour proposes the opposite. This is a simple point with broad appeal, and the recent social care for the elderly issue offers a perfect example that can be easily used to target potential tory voters. Corbyn ought to be hammering this point at every opportunity, and avoiding any potential banana skins like being seen to defend the scary muslims.

He's a passionate man with a consistent ideology. That's admirable, and he's won my vote and will win many more votes from other rational, non-partisan, compassionate voters. But he needs to come to terms with the fact that the vast majority of the electorate is ****ing stupid, and play accordingly or he'll just go down in history as that guy who could have changed the world for the better if only he'd been savvy enough to actually get elected. He's up against Theresa May ffs, the living female embodiment of Montgomery Burns. This ought to be a winnable election for Labour.

Yes, yes, yes, you hate the conservatives because they give tax breaks to the rich.

WE KNOW. You've made the point ad nauseum (I choose my words carefully).

I think most people don't vote for them cos of this tbh. It's more like they have better cultivated an air of competence. Not very well, lately, it's true, but compared to Diane Abbot and the like they are ****ing geniuses.

I'm not sure what you are getting excited about.

There was a poster who claimed the left were the good guys. You and richdog queried this. I explained why to you.

You can argue the toss endlessly about whether this is true, but it undoubte

Good post. Though it does need to be taken into consideration that at some stage the electorate begins to respect leaders who make unpopular decision because it shows conviction-which I think explains how Corbyn has lasted this long.

The measure of how well Corbyn did yesterday is that he's off the front pages of the papers that would love to have jumped all over him.
They're going big on the terror threat and as such are actually reinforcing his point of needing a different approach.

Very incisive point. I hadn't thought of it that way.

On a related matter-they have been running these IRA stories for a while now and it doesn't seem to be very effective. I'm not sure the public are buying it. Also, you wonder how much younger people actually know what the IRA is. You have to go back to the 90's to remember an active IRA.

May going full out attacking him with lies about what he said isn't going down too well either.
It seems the only genuine emotion we ever see from weak and wobbly Maybot is anger.

Seems the public support his view too.


https://yougov.co.uk/opi/surveys/res...b3830/toplines

We talked about this issue when JC was first elected leader. I dont think it hurts like it used to because of the peace process. Talking to people doesn't look so bad anymore.

I think on a simplistic level the argument that Corbyn is on one hand a poncy pacifist and at the same time an IRA sympathiser just doesn't convince many people.

A lot of people feel they were right to talk and we'll ahead of those people who castigated them for it.

Something else strikes me which is that up until very recently JC was unelectable and unreasonable for pushing principled economic policies. Now the conversation has switched to all that economic stuff being good, if only he was less principled on defense type stuff.

Unfortunately, despite it being logically inconsistent, it seems to have convinced many of the typical swing voters I know.

not inconsistent. one can support the cause of irish republicanism while disapproving of the violence of the IRA

its the support for irish republicanism which people have got the ump with

Tbh the Tories really need to go hard at Corbyn's "economics" and ideology. I appreciate neither manifesto add up, but getting it wrong when you are increasing spending by £100bn a year obviously has far greater consequences.

There are ideologies on both the left and the right I don't agree with, however if we look at May's Grammar school project and Corbyn university tuition fees, while I don't agree with grammar schools, at least May's idea isn't going to cost the taxpayer £10bn a year.

Both are just seen as very weak on defense of the UK.

He could try to chase those voters or he could stay principled. I can't imagine the former working even if he tried but some might be persuaded that his principles aren't so bad after all and may already think that being principled is a good thing in itself. Tough going either way but an easy choice.

If Corbyn had said anything different yesterday, half the activists would desert the campaign. And success will depend on these people getting the vote out.

I think this is a rare case where taking a leaf out of Blair's playbook wouldn't be a bad idea. Few will remember but the moment Blair rose to prominence was largely on the strength of a commitment to be "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime".

"Tough on terrorism, tough on the causes of terrorism" would be an effective slogan I think. You don't have to change the policy an iota, you just frame it differently.

Utter totally made up bollox.

Shambolic from the weak and wobbly hypocrites

I'd much prefer he didn't go down this line. I agree it means little in practice but the message of toughness is not a good thing. It's a silly macho thing that we need to get away from. Resolute, determined,.... These are much better things.

Half is a crude estimate but I stand by it, roughly. If you don't see the relevance then you should look more closely at the make up of the people door knocking for Labour.

Complete tosh. Corbyn could be found with indecent images of children on his computer and his supporters wouldn't desert him.

That's a pretty classless thing to say.
In the meantime - Gideon's gone rogue.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017...ory-manifesto/

Tory election strategy of "point at Corbyn and laugh-no Plan B"
seems to have been unwise.

That's weird as one of their other graphs shows both parties plans still having a deficit in 20/21



I'll need to look into it a bit more.