It's simplistic and basically a load of bull**** but it's credible in that it speaks to people's hopes and fears. Politicians have to do that if they are to have any chance. Can't you see that?

Thatcher understood it, Blair understood it, Obama understood it. Trump understood it, May understands it. Corbyn and McDonnell don't seem to.

Corbyn's message is that he wants to take power back from the banks and the corporations and give it back to the people. It is a simpler message than May's and would likely be more effective in a non-partisan media environment.

Honestly?
Do you think people would buy that?

It begs too many questions - How would you do that? Can we trust you? Isn't that just Communism? (Lots of negative associations there) Wouldn't that damage the economy and make me poorer?

It would make him sound like Citizen Smith.

I think that reference illustrates your problem with understanding this stuff.

You are conditioned to a older mindset where socialism/communism is considered something extreme.

For young people, neoliberal freemarket capitalism has been ****ting on them for a decade and they are looking seriously at alternatives. For this reason, you get a communist outperforming the centre-left in France, you have a party filled with communists in Greece winning elections, and most importantly of all, a self-proclaimed socialist polling better than anyone in the US.

The young especially perceive themselves as having no future and do not care in the slightest about damaging an economy which only benefits the super-rich. Nor do I. Economic growth nowadays means the government printed some money, devaluing the pound in my pocket, gave it to some bankers who washed it through various laundering schemes and gave it back to themselves.
In any case, after the near-collapse of the global economy and the unambigously socialist nationlization of the banking system, most people have little to fear from alternative systems.

^ yep, Labour winning amongst the young.

I wasn't talking about my views ( I was going on CND demonstrations before you were born)

We were talking about how your formulation of Corbyn's message would play to the electorate. Honestly - I don't think they would buy it- it has nothing to do with the media.

Sorry about the Citizen Smith reference - i couldn't resist it - He used to stand outside Tooting Broadway tube station shouting "Power to the People"

The point I am trying to make is that the electorate are a sceptical lot - they need to be convinced. Corbyn and his allies don't seem to have a coherent strategy for doing this convincing.

That party won't be winning anymore elections. It's election victory was based on the myth that they would somehow be able to stand up to the EU and avoid the austerity measures they were demanding. Of course this wasn't possible and they are now pretty damn unpopular.

Communist party has always been far far far stronger in Greece than its almost non existent equivalent in the UK.

Its had a civil war fought by communists and was part of the Gov in 1988.

Young people more radical than old people is hardly a new phenomenon.

First, you aren't significantly older than me and I know what Citizen Smith was. Times change.

I don't believe Corbyn's argument is particulary difficult concept to sell. It was essentially Trump's argument and he didn't sell it convincingly at all (mainly because he never intended to do it), yet still won.
Ironically what for decades had been the face of corporate america somehow won a campaign on the strength of being an "outsider". It should be trivial for Corbyn to do that since he actually is an outsider.

The problem is that the Tories have effectively been given billions of dollars of free advertising through the media which Labour can't compete with.

Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump both managed to counter this establishment money and media support in completely different ways. Trump did it by getting the media to attack him in ways that actually made him more popular with the white redneck demographic. Sanders did it by rousing rallies and generating a war chest from private individuals to compete with the corporate money Hilary, Bush et al had.

Corbyn's failing is that he has not devised a counter-strategy to the establishment. I don't believe the message is wrong, nor do I believe the message is important. Most people have no idea what policies the main parties have in any case.

People said that two years ago after the party split and called a fresh election. The polls suggested a tie vote bteweem Syriza and New Democracy. Syriza won by 7 points-a huge margin in a fractious political environment.

Ok – So Have I got this right?
Corbyn’s message is that he wants to take power back from the banks and the corporations and give it back to the people. And this is essentially Trump’s argument – so Trump is against corporations too – and Sanders argument too – who is a socialist – so that probably means Trump is a socialist too.
And the message isn’t wrong – but nor is it important whether it’s right or wrong.
Am I getting this wrong? Hmm – must be my older mindset

Yeah that was pretty much what happened. Ask an american. And no, it doesn't make any sense, which was the point. You are wasting your time talking about policies when it comes to electorates.

The thing you got wrong was that Trump never pretended to be a socialist, he simply used the same rhetoric socialists do with a bit of racism thrown in. It worked. So much for your logical coherent thing.

Thornberry is such a patronising primary school teacher type. Another siginifcant reason not to vote labour, the holy trifecta of terrible with Corbyn and Abbott.

Polls schmolls:

Labour on 32%, more than the 30.4% achieved in 2015.

I thought you didn't bother with polls? Or is it only when you don't like the message you ignore them?

Yes

Though to be fair, I'd rather the polls were wrong with the Tories on nearly 50% of the vote.
I just find it amusing if Labour wins a higher proportion of the vote than in 2015 when the message was supposedly more 'realistic/credible'.

I think the slight problem with this reasoning is that they lost by 6% in 2015. They can win a higher % of the vote this year and the margin could legitimately be three times this size this year.

Look to the mote in thine own eye.

Theresa May sounds like a 50's housewife after a Valium episode. You really want to go there?

They could.

However, it is worth mentioning that on current polling it looks very much like Labour has beaten off the challenge from UKIP and a supposedly resurgent pro-brexit Lib Dems.

This is very important. Both things were widely predicted in the media.

As usual no one gives Corbyn any credit for this.

How can you call people out for their views regarding Dianne Abbott, while concurrently holding such misogynistic attitudes against women?

Eh? It appears the Tories have all but completely hovered up the UKIP vote, in much the same was they did with the Lib Dems 2 years ago.

Neither vote collapse has anything to do with anything Labour or Corbyn have done.

I do. Most of us have said that Corbyn will be extremely effective at mobilising his base and that many of his policies are popular with a wider part of the population. However, you have to accept that if the conservatives manage to triple their margin of victory (and perhaps win a majority of 100+) on a platform of 'omg look how much of an clown this guy is', that too, is significant. If the Labour vote doesn't change (or goes marginally up or down), then they will still be really far away from being close to winning over voters in Northampton, Nuneaton, or Watford.

Plenty of room to raise corporation tax without causing an exodus:

[img]Fake News[img]

Disclaimer: I think we should raise corporation tax.

I saw that on Facebook the other day and my immediate thought was that it was quite disingenuous. A business in the UK's most obvious place to go would be Dublin, which does have significantly lower corporation tax already, speak the same language etc.