The Chairman Mao resembling, Monarchy hating, threat to Britain, Labour Party thread

[Richard]

 

Why mistimed? Dont you question his judgement? I do.

If you want to question someone else's judgement for an allegation that's up to you really but it doesn't make my comment mistimed.

 

So you're sticking with this 'I question his judgement today because he slept with someone I don't like 40 years ago' argument? I've got to tell you, it was stupid yesterday and it hasn't improved in the intervening 24 hours.

It's okay. You don't like Corbyn. That's fine! But I think, on mature reflection, you're going to come to the conclusion that **** someone forty years ago as a man in his mid-20's is a pretty poor reason not to like him in his mid-60's.

Firstly I'm not sure how I can like or dislike Corbyn having never actually met him.  I tend to reserve those feelings for those Ive actually met. So it's not a question of disliking him as you suggest.  I very much disagree with his policies I think the majority of the country will too and in that respect he will harm labour's electoral chances.  So in many respects as I want their chances harmed,  using your analogy I should actually be more inclined to like him.  But neither is true.

Secondly on your first para,  yes I question his judgement.  Not only did he have an affair while married ,  which I find questionable ,  but then he gave his former lover a high profile role in the Shadow Cabinet a decision I would then asked on what was that based because quite frankly Diane Abbot is one of the least impressive politicans I have come across.  So yes I question his judgement but the quote you use against me is wrong.  I have not said 'I question his judgement today because he slept with someone I don't like 40 years ago' (again I neither like or dislike Abbot) but that is putting words in my mouth,  incorrect words at that.

 

Just so we can have this on record for four years time when Boris is standing for the leadership, you believe that having an affair should prevent you from leading a political party? Or it's just the cause of mournful tut-tutting, which you'll repeat for Boris of course, but doesn't really matter?

This bit is incredible:

then he gave his former lover a high profile role in the Shadow Cabinet a decision I would then asked on what was that based

First of all, it's not a high profile role - International Development? But I love the insinuation here! Dirty tricks! Corruption! What could it possibly have been based on? Well, you seem to be implying that it's related to the fact that he put his willy inside her half a century ago. That seems logical. 'Maybe one day dear I'll stand for Parliament, and so will you, and then maybe, many decades hence, one of us will become leader and then that one can make the other one Shadow Secretary of State for International Development'. You know as well as I do that the boring, prosaic reality is that he appointed her because she's on the same side of the party, she didn't rule herself out, and he'd promised a shadow cabinet with more women than ever before. Of course, that's a lot less exciting than insinuating some kind of foul play.

I believe it brings his judgement into question,  whether or not he is fit to lead a political party was not in my post,  if you read it again, and is actually for others to decide,  those with a vote in such matters.

International Development is pretty high profile at the minute given the issues we are facing in terms of refugees. The conversation need not have happened in terms of "one day I'll be leader etc etc ".  I'm saying once you have a relationship in that manner as he has done with Ms Abbott then it can affect your decision making one way or the other down the line. 

You obviously disagree and so continuing the debate is pretty pointless.

 

 

[bickster]

Did it bring John Major's judgement into question when he offered Edwina Currie a cabinet position in the Home Office in 1992 (she declined it)?

But if there's judgement to be questioned Richard one suspects you should hop over to the other topic about your own party, there's some spectacularly bad judgement being exposed over there

 

Edited September 22, 2015 by bickster

[Eames]

Who people are married to or who they chose to sleep with has absolutely no bearing on their ability to act as a politician and run the country. Its not in anyone's interest, public or otherwise to judge politicians on their personal lives. UNLESS...... 1) they have campaigned/been elected on the "family values" type ticket and then yes, I would say there is a reason to know or 2) they offer people they are sleeping with cabinet jobs or positions of influence where there is a clear conflict of interest. 

 

To simplify...... should Major have offered Currie the job? No. 

 

Is the fact they may or may not have had an affair several years ago relevant to Corbyn's appointment of Abbott? Probably not no. It certainly doesn't make his judgement questionable IMO.  

[bickster]

Its not several years its several decades

[MakemineVanilla]

Who people are married to or who they chose to sleep with has absolutely no bearing on their ability to act as a politician and run the country. Its not in anyone's interest, public or otherwise to judge politicians on their personal lives. UNLESS...... 1) they have campaigned/been elected on the "family values" type ticket and then yes, I would say there is a reason to know or 2) they offer people they are sleeping with cabinet jobs or positions of influence where there is a clear conflict of interest. 

 

To simplify...... should Major have offered Currie the job? No. 

 

Is the fact they may or may not have had an affair several years ago relevant to Corbyn's appointment of Abbott? Probably not no. It certainly doesn't make his judgement questionable IMO.  

But it has to be said that adultery, although not absolutely wrong in itself, does amount to a betrayal.

Partners tend to find the sex a lot easier to deal with than the lying involved in covering up the adultery.

So it is quite legitimate to accuse someone of a failure of ethical judgement in the case of adultery.

 

[Jon]

Who people are married to or who they chose to sleep with has absolutely no bearing on their ability to act as a politician and run the country. Its not in anyone's interest, public or otherwise to judge politicians on their personal lives. UNLESS...... 1) they have campaigned/been elected on the "family values" type ticket and then yes, I would say there is a reason to know or 2) they offer people they are sleeping with cabinet jobs or positions of influence where there is a clear conflict of interest.

 

To simplify...... should Major have offered Currie the job? No.

 

Is the fact they may or may not have had an affair several years ago relevant to Corbyn's appointment of Abbott? Probably not no. It certainly doesn't make his judgement questionable IMO.  

But it has to be said that adultery, although not absolutely wrong in itself, does amount to a betrayal.

Partners tend to find the sex a lot easier to deal with than the lying involved in covering up the adultery.

So it is quite legitimate to accuse someone of a failure of ethical judgement in the case of adultery.

 

"According to The Times , Mr Corbyn was already separated from his first wife at the time".

[bickster]

So affair is stretching a point in the first place unlike John Major….

[MakemineVanilla]

Who people are married to or who they chose to sleep with has absolutely no bearing on their ability to act as a politician and run the country. Its not in anyone's interest, public or otherwise to judge politicians on their personal lives. UNLESS...... 1) they have campaigned/been elected on the "family values" type ticket and then yes, I would say there is a reason to know or 2) they offer people they are sleeping with cabinet jobs or positions of influence where there is a clear conflict of interest.

 

To simplify...... should Major have offered Currie the job? No.

 

Is the fact they may or may not have had an affair several years ago relevant to Corbyn's appointment of Abbott? Probably not no. It certainly doesn't make his judgement questionable IMO.  

But it has to be said that adultery, although not absolutely wrong in itself, does amount to a betrayal.

Partners tend to find the sex a lot easier to deal with than the lying involved in covering up the adultery.

So it is quite legitimate to accuse someone of a failure of ethical judgement in the case of adultery.

 

"According to The Times , Mr Corbyn was already separated from his first wife at the time".

So a variation of the Ross Geller defence.

The jury are instructed to take that into account when sentencing but the charge of being in breach of the marital contract still stands.

 

[Jon]

So affair is stretching a point in the first place unlike John Major….

Indeed.  Being seperated takes away most of the 'cheating' or 'betrayal' elements. An 'affair' whilst still 'happily married' is something else indeed.

[bickster]

Who people are married to or who they chose to sleep with has absolutely no bearing on their ability to act as a politician and run the country. Its not in anyone's interest, public or otherwise to judge politicians on their personal lives. UNLESS...... 1) they have campaigned/been elected on the "family values" type ticket and then yes, I would say there is a reason to know or 2) they offer people they are sleeping with cabinet jobs or positions of influence where there is a clear conflict of interest.

 

To simplify...... should Major have offered Currie the job? No.

 

Is the fact they may or may not have had an affair several years ago relevant to Corbyn's appointment of Abbott? Probably not no. It certainly doesn't make his judgement questionable IMO.  

But it has to be said that adultery, although not absolutely wrong in itself, does amount to a betrayal.

Partners tend to find the sex a lot easier to deal with than the lying involved in covering up the adultery.

So it is quite legitimate to accuse someone of a failure of ethical judgement in the case of adultery.

 

"According to The Times , Mr Corbyn was already separated from his first wife at the time".

So a variation of the Ross Geller defence.

The jury are instructed to take that into account when sentencing but the charge of being in breach of the marital contract still stands.

 

This is the court of public opinion though and that would have it that in this case the law is an ass the size of a Kardashians 

[HanoiVillan]

BTW as hilarious as this all is, we mustn't forget that a **** General threatened a coup if Corbyn won.

Cannae trust the military.

Quite so, they're all wrong 'uns. I'd much rather entrust Corbyn and his eminently competent acolytes with the future security of the UK and my family.

Still, as the Conservatives have actually gone up in the polls since 'that' election, I think this can filed with contingencies like 'how to defeat an alien invasion' and 'actions on in the zombie apocalypse'. 

Labour may have lost its collective marbles but I doubt the country at large wishes to follow them off a cliff.

Its no ones place in the military to comment on politics. We have a General in the Army who potentially has traitorous intent. He should be found and sacked in the most public of manners. The excuse that there are over a hundred generals really doesn't wash as an excuse. GCHQ listen to everything, they really could find out who this was if they wanted to but apparently they don't want to and that is even more of a disgrace

There is an argument to be made about Corbyn's treasonous intent and whether in fact taking action to counter that would be treason or protection of the nation, but that's all hypotheticals about an event that will never occur anyway - hence file with the bizarre contingencies the MoD needs to have but will never need.  

That aside the General who felt that banging his chops to the media was a good idea has displayed the strategic and political acumen of a rock and should be sacked, both for saying what he did in public and for a lack of judgement that his soldiers deserve to be protected from.     

No, there really isn't. 

There is - and should be - a very clear, bright dividing line between 'army' and 'government'. You don't get to decide that a hypothetical government, which, in this hypothetical situation, would have won a general election, is 'treasonous'. To be completely clear, I also oppose whichever general was being quoted in the Mail's headline today of 'Top Brass Slam Cameron' or whatever it was. It's just as wrong when they do it to the Tories. 

[HanoiVillan]

Just so we can have this on record for four years time when Boris is standing for the leadership, you believe that having an affair should prevent you from leading a political party? Or it's just the cause of mournful tut-tutting, which you'll repeat for Boris of course, but doesn't really matter?

 

I believe this is known as the " ahh but " defence and was ruled inadmissible as evidence  in 2014

I think it is more appropriately called the 'for balance' reply.

how about  I update the Bolitics for dummies handbook to read   .....  balanced when attacking Tory hypocrisy , but ahh but if used against labour hypocrisy  ?

Would you like to provide some evidence of my hypocrisy please?

For the record, I've never once suggested that having an affair should disqualify anyone from anything. 

[snowychap]

 

For the record, I've never once suggested that having an affair should disqualify anyone from anything. 

Well, maybe from being Pope.

[tonyh29]

Just so we can have this on record for four years time when Boris is standing for the leadership, you believe that having an affair should prevent you from leading a political party? Or it's just the cause of mournful tut-tutting, which you'll repeat for Boris of course, but doesn't really matter?

 

I believe this is known as the " ahh but " defence and was ruled inadmissible as evidence  in 2014

I think it is more appropriately called the 'for balance' reply.

how about  I update the Bolitics for dummies handbook to read   .....  balanced when attacking Tory hypocrisy , but ahh but if used against labour hypocrisy  ?

Would you like to provide some evidence of my hypocrisy please?

For the record, I've never once suggested that having an affair should disqualify anyone from anything. 

I haven't accused you of any hypocrisy ....  my line is a reply to snowy about an In joke within VT Bolitics threads  .. possibly compounded by multi quoting but nothing to see here

[HanoiVillan]

Okay, sorry, that much meta went over my head.

[bickster]

Apparently more people have joined Labour since the Corbyn victory than are actually in the Liberal Democrats in total. That is quite remarkable.

[blandy]

BTW as hilarious as this all is, we mustn't forget that a **** General threatened a coup if Corbyn won.

Cannae trust the military.

Quite so, they're all wrong 'uns. I'd much rather entrust Corbyn and his eminently competent acolytes with the future security of the UK and my family.

Still, as the Conservatives have actually gone up in the polls since 'that' election, I think this can filed with contingencies like 'how to defeat an alien invasion' and 'actions on in the zombie apocalypse'. 

Labour may have lost its collective marbles but I doubt the country at large wishes to follow them off a cliff.

Thing is though, apart from the Sunday Times (like the Torygraph and the Sun and Mail etc.) writing "articles" to side with their proprietors interests, and making up rubbish about Corbyn, the gist of what the General said is crap too.

 

The Army wouldn't stand for plans to shrink the size of the forces? really. What's happened since the tories got in, exactly?. Yep, you guessed it. Shrinking and emasculation of the forces.

The "fair or foul means" threat of preventing an elected PM from carrying out the things he stood on is as others have said, treasonous.

I doubt anything will be done, though. I expect he sings when they play the national anthem, see. So that makes him a patriot. Not like Jeremy Corbyn who merely stands silently, the appalling traitor that he is.

There's nothing the establishment hate more than being challenged, of having their orthodoxies questioned. They generally don't react well, and expose themselves as loathesome, self important idiots - Whether it's labour people not accepting the vote on their leader, or Tories plotting to be leader, or pompous ex Army people.

 

[bickster]

Lib Dem councillor in Teddington defects to the Labour Party in support of Corbyn. Isn't this meant to be the other way around?

[tonyh29]

Lib Dem councillor in Teddington defects to the Labour Party in support of Corbyn. Isn't this meant to be the other way around?

don't really know exactly how councils work but if she defects shouldn't she have to be re-elected , presumably she was elected on Lib Dem policies rather than the Labour ones she is likely to now follow ?

[snowychap]

Lib Dem councillor in Teddington defects to the Labour Party in support of Corbyn. Isn't this meant to be the other way around?

 

don't really know exactly how councils work but if she defects shouldn't she have to be re-elected , presumably she was elected on Lib Dem policies rather than the Labour ones she is likely to now follow ?

If they voted for her as a Lib Dem, wouldn't they be expecting her not to stick to those policies?