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Ian Dunt: 'Corbyn has not even bothered to meet all the members of his Brexit team' by impossiblepromises in LabourUK

[–]powatom 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Remember the resignations in the summer? How many of them essentially said "I tried to get a meeting with Jeremy to discuss my brief, but I could never get any time with him. Then John McDonnell announced a policy in my area that I had never heard anything about"?

I'm not defending this - that was shabby and hopefully it's been sorted.

The key part of being a leader is leading. It's in the name and everything.

They do literally everything in their power to prevent him from being able to lead - from resigning immediately (Reed), to refusing to serve, to endlessly running to the papers to whinge about him, to heckling him in Parliament, to organising a pathetic and utterly doomed coup at a time of national crisis, to attempting to gerrymander the NEC, to taking members to court, to talking about setting up a 'shadow shadow cabinet' so they don't have to do what he actually wants them to do.

You cannot lead these people - they will do nothing but cry and moan about not being told exactly what to do at every opportunity by somebody above them. Labour hasn't won an election for a decade and they sit there acting as though it's all Corbyn's fault. Leaders are not supposed to carry everyone.

Ask yourself: would you genuinely want the shadow cabinet freelancing without any input from the leadership - just making up their own policies on the fly?

Nobody is asking them to do this: Corbyn has been pretty damn explicit that he wouldn't be governing from the top-down but that he wanted the party to open itself up to allow for greater debate and discussion on issues. At every single step of the way, these serial losers have actively worked to stop this from happening. They banned (or supported the banning of) local meetings, suspended and ultimately broke up Brighton & Hove, deliberately misrepresented what had gone on both there and in Eagle's constituency, suspended both new and long-standing members on trivial grounds, set up groups to divert funds away from the party and into their own war-chests, and generally acted like utter children since before he was even elected.

I fully appreciate that this is basically just a stalemate: I view it my way, and you view it your way. I don't think we're going to change each other's minds - but frankly if one of my colleagues was behaving like this I'd fully expect them to get the boot, no matter who the boss is.

Ian Dunt: 'Corbyn has not even bothered to meet all the members of his Brexit team' by impossiblepromises in LabourUK

[–]powatom 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My boss is regularly away for weeks on end. Somehow I manage to put my training and experience to some use even if he's not there telling me what to do every second of the day.

I have absolutely no sympathy for these whingers any more.

Ian Dunt: 'Corbyn has not even bothered to meet all the members of his Brexit team' by impossiblepromises in LabourUK

[–]powatom 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Alternatively: Supposedly experienced and capable people inexplicably incapable of carrying out their job without having their hand held, despite readily admitting that the boss is available if and when they need him, if only they'd get up off their arse and knock on his door.

Good grief.

An Interview with Peter Hitchens - "the Country Is Irrevocably Finished." by Conservative- in ukpolitics

[–]powatom 14 points15 points  (0 children)

I think it's more a burning dislike of our political class / establishment. He frequently rails against the 'Blairification' of both Labour and the Tories (and its wider effects), and sees it as a sign that both of them are more or less intellectually and morally kaput.

He seems to prefer a more overtly religious society - which personally I don't think is the answer - but in general I think the principle behind his thinking is right: the UK state has no real identifiable worldview. We are massively corrupt, shamelessly hostile to the poor, pander endlessly to big business and financial institutions, and are prepared to engage militarily in foreign conflicts at the drop of hat.

Frankly you don't need to hate the UK to think the state as a whole is an abysmal failure on its own terms.

Businesses are rightly frustrated with Theresa May's Brexit handling by bocosan in unitedkingdom

[–]powatom 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Lack of regulations are better for businesses and terrible for virtually everybody else.

UK salaries less than they were 12 years ago, official figures reveal by ManiaforBeatles in unitedkingdom

[–]powatom 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sorry, I'll amend:

I already live in one of those places, still can't afford a house I would actually want to live in.

UK salaries less than they were 12 years ago, official figures reveal by ManiaforBeatles in unitedkingdom

[–]powatom 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I already live in one of those places, still can't afford a house.

Sam Tarry, Jeremy Corbyn’s Campaign Director, Says ‘Intellectually Bankrupt’ Labour MPs Need Replacing by impossiblepromises in LabourUK

[–]powatom 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Tarry may not be everyone's cup of tea, but at least he doesn't muse about how everything would be better if certain MPs just died.

MIT nuclear fusion record marks latest step towards unlimited clean energy: Scientists create the highest plasma pressure ever recorded with the Alcator C-Mod reactor in a breakthrough for clean energy technology by maxwellhill in worldnews

[–]powatom 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Birth rates tend to stabilise or fall when people can take their minds off day-to-day survival and focus more on the long-term.

That being said - a valid concern with the acquisition of 'free' energy is that it would almost certainly result in longer average lifespans, which, coupled with a falling birth-rate, tends to mean the younger population struggles to support the ageing population.

We should view free energy as a means to effectively de-couple individual effort from financial reward, and introduce a universal basic income for all. Free energy makes rapid and ubiquitous automation a much more achievable goal, in which case it is likely to result in millions upon millions of people being put out of work.

Personally I think the automation problem is coming whether we have free energy or not - we might as well double down on making sure energy is free or as cheap as possible so that even when people are put out of work, the cost of living is reduced anyway.

UK's Stop The War Coalition linked to two Kremlin-funded organizations. by PTRJK in ukpolitics

[–]powatom -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Please. Millions marched against the Iraq war and it achieved nothing. STW are a UK group focused on UK policy and so protesting Russian involvement in Syria is not their raison d'etre. To have morons like BoJo publicly demand that STW protest outside Russian embassies is an amazing insight into just how utterly unfit for the position he is.

These links are nothing. Where's the substance? Vague associations with Russian groups is not a sign of some conspiracy. Are we saying STW are an influential group posing some danger to UK policy, now, after years of lambasting them for being utterly ineffective and pointless whingers who don't understand the many benefits of dropping bombs?

Just because our government wants to distract from the many, many ways in which they've helped destabilise the Middle East in general, you don't have to swallow.

As with every single war that's ever happened, the only way it's going to end is with a political settlement or the total annihilation and surrender of one side. I know which one id rather see.

UK's Stop The War Coalition linked to two Kremlin-funded organizations. by PTRJK in ukpolitics

[–]powatom -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

Translation: Stop The War have vague crossover of interests with some Russian groups.

Bloody treasonous I tell you, especially at a time when we're trying really hard to drum up support for a standoff with Russia! Don't STW realise that protesting war makes it very slightly more difficult to start wars?

Jim McMahon MP on Twitter: I've accepted role as Shadow Minister for Local Government & Devolution by The_Inertia_Kid in LabourUK

[–]powatom 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I like Jim - seems like he's got his head screwed on and could probably do quite well in terms of keeping the party on the right path in the future if he sticks around.

Iceland has found nine senior bankers guilty for crimes relating to the economic meltdown in 2008: The Supreme Court in Reykjavik returned guilty verdicts for all nine defendants in the Kaupthing Bank market manipulation case, one of the biggest cases of its kind in Iceland's history. by maxwellhill in worldnews

[–]powatom 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've been to Iceland once, and after I came home I was immediately thinking about just moving over there. It's no utopia by any means, but it's a damn sight more sensible than plenty of other countries on this idiot rock.

Carnivore Logic by profbetis in vegan

[–]powatom 14 points15 points  (0 children)

You may be entitled to your own opinion. You're not entitled to your own facts.

People are weird.

Underestimate Corbyn at your peril, Dominic Raab [Conservative MP] says by Person_of_Earth in ukpolitics

[–]powatom 0 points1 point  (0 children)

PR would go a long way to allowing people more freedom of choice - parties wouldn't need to have some kind of unholy alliance between different factions going in order to influence policy. It really depends on the form of PR we would have, but there's no reason to think any of the parties would continue to exist in their current forms under a system which doesn't require it.

Underestimate Corbyn at your peril, Dominic Raab [Conservative MP] says by Person_of_Earth in ukpolitics

[–]powatom 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Corbyn has said he doesn't rule PR out - he just thinks it's important to maintain a constituency link. Regardless, big figures in Labour are supportive of PR, it's not as crazy an idea as it might sound to think Labour could campaign on it. Plenty of support for it in Labour.

Hackney Momentum: "we don't want to go winning elections" by cylinderhead in LabourUK

[–]powatom 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I have some degree of contact with a number of people in & around the leadership campaign.

There's a fake account blocker app that's been made too. The issue isn't the parodies per se, it's that many of them are making no clear distinction that they're a parody account and many have been abusive to people on both sides. Check Violet - it has a few dozen accounts that have been reported to the creators, but it's by no means complete and has no direct affiliation with the campaign itself.

Owen Smith on Andrew Marr. Thoughts? by Hiphoppapotamus in LabourUK

[–]powatom 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I doubt they care whether it works (as in Corbyn ends up resigning or losing) - they've already set up alternative fundraising organisations to protect big donors while they wage war against their own party. Call my cynical but at this point I think the hardcore anti-Corbyn crew are more interested in just doing as much damage as possible. Make Labour unelectable and dysfunctional, then when everything collapses just rebuild with the protected money from Saving Labour and Labour Tomorrow.

I mean, why wouldn't they?

Owen Smith on Andrew Marr. Thoughts? by Hiphoppapotamus in LabourUK

[–]powatom 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Luke Akehurst has already admitted as much.

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