Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Here's some straight talking: John McDonnell is a dangerous, Left-wing, ideological clown

Despite spotting it, Labour's shadow chancellor has jumped headfirst into George Osborne's elephant trap





By Dan Hodges

2:17PM BST 13 Oct 2015

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John McDonnell is a fan of straight talking, honest politics. So he’ll appreciate the following observation. John McDonnell is a useless, incompetent, joke of a politician who should not be given responsibility for making the tea in his local constituency office, let alone hold the office of shadow chancellor of the United Kingdom.


The man is not a dangerous Left-wing ideologue, he is a clown. Actually, he’s both. He’s a dangerous Left-wing ideological clown. He should turn up to his first session of Treasury questions with a false nose, make-up, and giant floppy red feet. Then he should change his name from John McDonnell to Ronald McDonnell.



Four months ago, George Osborne set a trap for the Labour Party. We know this because he stood up in the House of Commons and said “I’m going to set a trap for the Labour Party”. The he walked around the Dispatch Box, took out a shovel, and began to dig a big hole just in front of the Labour front bench. As he was doing so, he said: “Labour front bench. This is the trap I’m digging for you. It’s this big hole right in front of you.” Then he took out a big sign. The sign read: “Giant Labour Party Trap.” And he placed it right next to the hole. Then he went and sat back on the Government bench.


“Don’t you think you’re being a bit obvious with this trap of yours, George,” David Cameron whispered to his Chancellor, upon his return. “No David, don’t worry. This is the Labour Party. They will fall for it. Trust me,” Osborne responded. “But you’ve just told them what you’re doing,” Cameron pressed. “And they’ve just seen you digging the hole. And you’ve put a big sign by the hole saying 'Giant Labour Party Trap'. At which point George Osborne patted his colleague reassuringly on the shoulder, and soothed: “Seriously. Don’t worry, David. This is the Labour Party. They will fall for it. Just you wait and see."


To be fair to John McDonnell, he did spot the trap. Which is why two weeks ago, he stood up at Labour Party conference and said this:

“You know the narrative George Osborne wanted to present of us this week. Deficit deniers risking the security of the nation etc. It was so obvious you could write it yourself blindfolded. He has brought forward his grandiose fiscal charter not as serious policy making but as a political stunt. A trap for us to fall into. We are not playing those games any more."

Let me just repeat those words. “It was so obvious you could write it yourself blindfolded." So. Obvious. You. Could. Write. It. Yourself. Blindfolded.



It’s worth pausing here for a moment to consider what George Osborne thought when he heard that speech. He’d set his trap – his new fiscal charter committing the government to running a surplus in “normal times”. He’d read John McDonnell’s interview in the Observer, in which he’d said: “We will support the charter. We will support the charter on the basis we are going to want to balance the books, we do want to live within our means and we will tackle the deficit.” And now he’d seen his opponent publicly mocking his strategy. Perhaps there was an instant when George Osborne thought: “Fair play. He’s not falling for it. This guy's smarter than I gave him credit for."


And now let’s consider what George Osborne thought yesterday. When he saw Ronald McDonnell strap on that fake nose, slip on his giant red shoes, finish the final touches to his make-up, then scream “Geronimo!!!!”, and leap headlong into the trap, dragging the rest of the Labour Party with him.

What did he think when he started to hear the reports of the mayhem coming out of the PLP last night, as Labour MPs demanded to know what the hell their shadow chancellor thought he was playing at? When he picked up the newspapers and read headlines like “Labour chaos as austerity reverse sparks rebellion”? When he turned on the Today program and heard the Labour Party’s latest act of political Hari-Kari leading the bulletins? I think we can probably guess.



For those of us who warned about the implications of electing Jeremy Corbyn leader of his party, the latest omnishambles actually contains a couple of upsides. First, this is a Corbyn/McDonnell patented omnishambles. The Blairites. The press. Traitors within the PLP. They can’t be blamed for this one. It was John McDonnell – unilaterally – who announced Labour would back the fiscal charter. And it was John McDonnell – unilaterally – who then reversed his position and plunged into George Osborne’s elephant trap.


Many people feared John McDonnell might prove to be a dangerous adversary for Labour’s moderate elements. That he was the brains of the Corbyn operation. And he may well be the brains of that operation. But as we now know – and apologies for again resorting to straight talking, honest language – the man is a moron. How does a sentient human being stand up and say the words: “He has brought forward his grandiose fiscal charter not as serious policy making but as a political stunt. A trap for us to fall into”, and then proceed to hurl himslef into the very trap he has just identified? What’s more, does John McDonnell actually believe other sentient people will fall for his own specious argument that the global economic situation has changed so fundamentally in the space of a fortnight that it necessitates the complete reversal of Labour’s entire macro-economic strategy?


But perhaps the most significant upside of John McDonnell’s increasingly comedic attempts to pass himself as our chancellor-in-waiting is the way he has shattered the myth that Jeremy Corbyn and his acolytes will be “taking the fight to the Tories”.


Yesterday the receiver at the Redcar steelworks announced that the coke ovens at the plant are to be closed, ending any hope that the 2,200 jobs there could be saved. On any other day that would have been a major political news story. The Labour shadow chancellor would normally have been expected to be touring the TV studios, hammering the inaction of his Conservative opponents. Instead, he was handing those Conservative opponents an early Christmas present, and single-handedly sweeping Redcar off the news agenda.

There is, of course, a minor downside to what John McDonnell has done. Which is that he’s just taken another giant step towards winning the 2020, 2025 and 2030 general elections for the Conservative Party.

I didn’t vote for Jeremy Corbyn, and I have always thought his and John McDonnell’s leadership would be a disaster for the Labour Party. But if you did vote for Jeremy Corbyn, or you’re one of the Labour MPs who supported Jeremy Corbyn (not put him on the ballot for a “debate” but genuinely backed him), I’d like to ask you this simple question. Is this really what you wanted? Honestly? The spectacle of your party not just imploding but mutating, grotesquely.

Labour is currently staggering from one self-inflicted wound to another. The re-shuffle, the anthem debacle, the privy council debacle, the IRA debacle, the chaos over Trident, the chaos over the fiscal charter, the impending chaos over Syria. Jeremy Corbyn has been Labour leader for one month. A solitary month. And the Labour Party – your party – is falling apart in front of your eyes. And in front of the disbelieving but grateful eyes of David Cameron and George Osborne and a Conservative Party that is now preparing itself for decades of uncontested power.

Straight talk. Honesty. You voted for Jeremy Corbyn, But is this what you voted for? Really?

state subsidy for redcar steel
it's certainly a very harsh world but, despite the bailout of the banks for reasons far more complex, "we" grew out of subsidising failing companies many years ago
if there was a decision to bail out redcar - prob "illegal" anyway - where does one draw the line?

fisfinger is apparently living in a caravan park. He claims on a post on the other side and under a new username that it is his latest investment. I think he has made the transition to 'trailer trash'.

So much for Corbyn being a pacifist! Another U turn.

This is because up to 50 Labour MPs would vote with the government to support military action in Syria.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/13/corbyn-signals-labour-could-support-military-action-in-syria-without-un-support

Corbyn signals Labour could back military action in Syria without UN support

Hilary Benn sets out in Guardian article party’s more flexible approach if Russia were to block security council resolution

eremy Corbyn has signalled for the first time that Labour could support forms of military action in Syria without UN support if Russia blocks a security council resolution.

Taking a more flexible approach to UK military involvement in the Syrian civil war, the new statement urges David Cameron to try again to win support for a new UN resolution allowing military action, and affirms that the party supports the creation of safe zones within Syria to protect Syrians who have had to flee their homes.

In an article in the Guardian on Monday, Diane Abbott, the shadow international development secretary, rejected the idea of safe havens when proposed by Jo Cox, one of the backbenchers trying to assemble a broader Labour policy on Syria that does not just wait to react to government proposals.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/corbyn-can-no-longer-ignore-the-spectre-of-his-imminent-demise-a6692766.html

Another U-turn by Cameron

The government just won the vote on the budget surplus by 62. It looks like some Labour MPs defied Corbyn and either abstained or voted with the government.

It was 21 Labour MPs that abstained against Corbyn's wishes.

LOL!!! What a circus.

To make iit worse, it was a three line whip.

Does that mean de-selection?

Don't you mean to make it better? Cornyn is finding out that what goes around, comes around.

Don't you mean to make it better? Cornyn is finding out that what goes around, comes around.

So what's happened to the 'Help thread' then?

In a few years time, I would think Labour will be happy to have voted the way they did last night.

Putting a pin in a getting a slow leak!

.

Another 37 Labour MPs didn't turn up to vote. 16 of them were on official business and the other 21 just stayed away. Corbyn originally threatened them with the sack and then backed down when they wouldn't give in.

Sounds a little like the likely vote by the con artists, when they come to vote on staying in the EU or not!

-=-=-=-=-=-=


But, I think every vote in government by an MP should be that of a vote "conscience" and not that a vote according to the hierarchy of a party, media, or donors to the party.

The vote should be based on the validity of facts and argument!

CORBYN
if the newspaper headline i saw this morning is correct - JC to upbraid the chinese president or whoever at a state banquet over china's lack of human rights, shows me that he has no idea (a) about decorum = time and place for everything and (b) having a proper sense of priorities

it's fine being a loose cannon as a backbencher, but absolutely not if you are to be taken seriously as a potential prime minister either by those at home or on the wider world stage