It does my heart good to see this pretend tory and his ilk totally losing their minds that people have turned against them. How can it be?
Tony Bleeegh was god they say. New labour won elections they say. They lost them too remember.

The people know what they want and it is not you heartless liars of "new" labour.
They want the old Labour back and Corbyn is the man to do it.
If you traitorous scabs dont like it then tough. Go join the aristos in the tory party.
Oh thats right. They hate and despise you neuvo riche ponces more than the common man does.

Tony Bleeegh is a war criminal just the same as howard the coward and the shrub.
Oh for a government that will bring them before the Hague and then HANG THEM.

According to two opinion polls taken in July (YouGov and Comres), not only is Corbyn in-tune with the British public, but the two major parties are hopelessly OUT of tune.

60% support renationalisation of the railways; 20% opposed (even 50% of Tory voters supported it)
56% support a top 75% tax rate for incomes over £1 million; 31% opposed
64% support an international convention on the banning of nuclear weapons showed; 21% opposed
59% support introducing a rental cap on landlords; 7% opposed
60% support a mandatory living wage (as opposed to a minimum wage), 31% opposed
49% support axing university tuition fees, 31% opposed

On Corbyn’s opposition to the UK’s wars:
39% support the Iraq War, 43% opposed
24% support bombing Syria, 60% opposed.

Also, on the much-repeated claim that Corbyn’s ‘left’-leaning, anti-austerity policies are ‘unelectable’, because the British public traditionally ‘votes conservative’, consider the results of the recent UK election. The Liberal Democrats lost 4 million voters (15% vote reduction), having turned on their original electoral pledges to fight austerity and rising inequality. To ascertain where those votes are likely to have gone:

600,000 increase to the Tories (+0.8%)
3 million increase to Ukip (+9%)
1 million increase to the SNP (+3%)
1 million increase to the Greens (+2.8%)
900,000 increase to Labour (+1.5%)

So … the three anti-austerity, non-conservative parties (Ukip, SNP and Greens) increased their vote by a combined 5 million, while the ‘business as usual’ parties only increased their vote by 1.5 million.

Far from being a looney left Marxist, Jeremy Corbyn is actually a moderate centrist, offering the British public their best chance yet of ending its catastrophic three-decades long descent to the far Right and its hated ‘there is no alternative’ Blairite-Thatcherism.

(Main sources: http://www.bbc.com/news/election/2015/results; http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-jeremy-corbyn-policies-that-most-people-actually-agree-with-10407148.html)

Rhosty

You say “I'm no fan of David Cameron, but to be seen as a credible alternative government, Labor needs a credible Leader; and the old anti everything commie (nut job?) ain't it”!

Exactly my sentiment. Choosing Corbyn is a feel good exercise for the faithful and not a general election winning strategy.

Sam C

I believe you are splitting hairs by mentioning that Australia (and for that matter the UK) proscribes HAMAS’s military wing and not the entire group as a terror unit.

That is akin to saying “Stalin didn’t starve the Ukrainians by transporting most of Ukraine’s harvest to the Soviet Union and selling the rest. It was his Dept of Agriculture and Department of Trade.

That said, I suppose we can agree that the EU considers HAMAS lock stock ‘n barrel a terrorist organisation.

James

Permit me to clarify one point. By “out there” I did not refer to any political philosophy per se. I meant that Mr Corbyn is a successful media campaigner.
I accept that he is energising the Left and is responsible for a rise in membership of the Labour Party.

What I am trying to get across in the column is that a strategy based on appealing in the main to a party’s base at the direct expense of appealing to those who last time voted for another party is a fool’s errand. This strategy is also by default adopted by US politicians in their primaries. It is not a recipe to bridge the divide and “reach across the aisle”

I agree with your observation that many in Britain are tired of wars, austerity and the ever growing gap between rich and poor.

My point is that any attempt to radically upend the current economic system will only scare the horses. If Corbyn and his comrades want to win office, I mean seriously win, then a more measured, less radical manifesto has a better chance to win the support of many Britons.

And it’s the Britons outside Labour who the party needs to attract.

A question that is not being asked is this: where are Corbyn’s supporters coming from? If from the benches of the hitherto apathetic, then jolly good for him. But if they are defecting from the Liberal Democrats (or unhappy Scots) then he isn’t really growing the Left vote.

You say “Corbyn's main crime seems to be in pointing out the sickening hypocrisy that dominates western foreign policy discourse” I grant you that many in the UK are unhappy with government policies. But surely the hypocrisy is not limited just to foreign affairs. Is it?

Hi Killarney,

Love your maths ! The Lib Dems must have lost far more than 15 % of their vote, unless they polled around 25 million ?

And that distribution cracks out at six and a half million in total. I don't think the Lib Dems have ever won that many votes (and are never likely to).

Back to the entertainment of the day: Cameron must be praying for a Corbyn win. The next five years are going to be a riot of fun. Wouldn't be dead for quids !

So are you putting your money on Corbyn and the ease with which the British public can see through the evils of Cameron ? Or is the power of the banksters and corporate capitalist so monolithically overwhelming that the British public will be blind to the manifest superiority of Corbyn's ideology ?

Just wondering :)

Joe

Loudmouth

I meant to say that the SWING against the Lib Dems was -15% (as calculated by the British electoral office), not the vote reduction, which was more like 60%.

The reduction in Lib Dem votes was still roughly 4 million, much of which went to the SNP, UKIP and Greens.