Vocal Voices

Now we are hearing from "experts" - yes, the same experts who a couple of months ago were telling us that Corbyn was this years Michael Foot and was going to get marmalised in the general election - that the Tories reduced majority was "a vote against a hard Brexit".

Really? What did Corbyn campaign on? He campaigned on these issues:-

Abolition of student loans.
The NHS.
Support for industry.
An end to austerity.
Renationalisation of water, gas, electric and the railways.
Opposition to May's police cuts.

Every issue he campaigned on was domestic - Brexit was hardly mentioned. He didn't draw a crowd of 10,000 in Gateshead by talking about what type of Brexit (I'd like to see anyone do that!), he enthused them by talking about supporting industry and creating manufacturing jobs!

Yet the people in the Westminster bubble are trying to manipulate events to support their own agenda, when they are exactly the same people who never realised that talk of renationalistaion would draw back the old labour voters who had gone to UKIP. Unbelievable. Or do they actually believe what they are saying?

Oh and largesses for Students, don't forget that.

What did he campaign on? Spending money and taxing the "rich" and the companies to get it.

Their manifesto had one short paragraph about Brexit and it was a soft Brexit. But UKIP Labour voters jumped on the bandwagon rather than vote for "nasty May".

Of course the news would try and spin it. The Independent, yesterdayk, was prattling on about how the £ would suddenly rocket when the markets realised that it was going to be a softer Brexit. In fact nothing could be further from the truth. The £ has plummeted from €1.19 to €1.13 on the possibility of a softer Brexit.

What does that mean? More inflation, greater loss of earning power, less chance of wage rises, less GDP for the UK and a likelihood that the BOE will be forced to raise interest rates and push homeowners out of their homes. The very people who flooded to vote Labour at the last election are going to be punished, brutally, for their choice and the press and media are making it worse.

Ah well. I can now have another look at some of the jobs in Europe paying in Euro, because they just increased how many £ I'm going to get for them. Making them viable again.

As I said on the Tory Kicking thread. I'm only losing my aspirations. I'm gaining in hard cash. Which is a real irony compared to the fact that all those Labour voters voted for the money and are now going to pay the price.

Cromwell wrote:Every issue he campaigned on was domestic - Brexit was hardly mentioned. He didn't draw a crowd of 10,000 in Gateshead by talking about what type of Brexit (I'd like to see anyone do that!), he enthused them by talking about supporting industry and creating manufacturing jobs!

And that is perfectly in line with what I had been saying for months. Despite the best efforts of Blairites/Brownites (BBs) and the media to destroy him, Corbyn managed to drag the party kicking and screaming back to a centre left position, a position populated by millions of disenfranchised voters.

He did not *buy* the young, the students or old Labourites, as those on the right and in the press would have us believe, he simply laid out his stall and got on with things. He went out and spoke to people, engaged, and he was good at it.

I read today that former shadow chancellor, Chris Leslie, says Labour's election result was "not good enough", and he is right. Not being the biggest party in an election cannot and should not be described as a "win": it wasn't. However, Leslie and his ilk have big questions to answer in that regard.

When the ineffective Ed Miliband managed to reduce the number of Labour's MPs in a "winnable" election he was rightly dumped. There was a backlash in the party against the Blairites and Brownites so Corbyn stood on a platform for a broader range of candidates and a an open debate about the future of the party. He beat the old 'New Labour' trio of Cooper, Burnham and Kendall - and was never forgiven.

For the following 15 months the BBs constantly stabbed him in the back, refusing to accept his taking Labour in a new *old* direction, and the media picked up the baton on their behalf. He was relentlessly vilified in a way not seen since Michael Foot, to the point where his leadership was challenged in July 2016. He won hands down over Owen Smith and it was only at that point that the BBs finally started to shut up.

Corbyn has only had the support of the party for roughly ten months, and we will never know how well Labour could have done in the election had the party been a little bit more behind him over a longer period. Leslie is right, Labour did not win, but he and the other BBs need to sit down and ask themselves what part they played in that.

Workingman wrote:He did not *buy* the young, the students or old Labourites, as those on the right and in the press would have us believe, he simply laid out his stall and got on with things. He went out and spoke to people, engaged, and he was good at it.

Let me see. "I'll put 10 - 30 grand in your pocket. I can't afford it but I'll just borrow the money and get the older generation to pay for it".

Now that may not be buying votes in your book but it certainly is in mine. Exactly the same with a lot of his other policies. I thought, after Blair and Brown, people actually understood than you can't just keep on borrowing money and expect the books to balance, whether you are a person or a government.

Clearly I was wrong.

A couple of points that have been raised on SKY news:


Is this the revenge of the young against the old for voting to leave the EU?

Is the result of the general election validation that the country has not given Theresa May a stronger mandate for Brexit negotiations?

More spin on the facts. The students have been promised that they will not have to pay university fees by Labour, and the oldies have had the stool kicked from under them by the Torys by repeal of the triple lock, withdrawal of winter fuel, and a grab on their homes if they ever need care at home. Its all about money, nothing else. Theresa May should have seen it coming.

Suff wrote:Clearly I was wrong.

You certainly were.

Following the referendum the young from all walks of life were pilloried, mainly in the press, for not playing their part in the democratic protest. They were blamed for Brexit, denigrated as millennials and insulted as snowflakes when they tried to reply to some of the crap being thrown at them. They were on the move long before the election was called and certainly before any manifestos came out; it is just hard lines that they voted the *wrong* way.

They have probably got 50 or more years of voting ahead of them and it might take a while for some of them to vote as they are *supposed* to do. In the meantime we will just have to live with them.

When it comes to the wrinklies the loss of Tory votes can be laid firmly at their own door. They screwed up BIG time, so much so that it now emerges that May's advisers have *resigned*; well whoop-de-bloody-do. The thing about advisers is that they advise, their advice does not have to be heeded, but May bought it hook, line and sinker when she could have told them to stick it.

So, back to the press slant, it was all Hill and Timothy's fault: "They done it M'Lud, permission to hang 'em out to dry."

Hear, hear Frank!!

Personally I do NOT see free university, or any higher education, education as 'largesse', I see it as investing in the future of this country, and something that previous generations have had as a right.

I don't think young Labour voters are exacting a revenge for Brexit, I actually think they are voting for what they believe in (as is only right and proper for us all) and are mainly getting their news from social media rather than the heavily biased press.

Workingman wrote:So, back to the press slant, it was all Hill and Timothy's fault: "They done it M'Lud, permission to hang 'em out to dry."

In that I agree, it's slant. But it won't save May.

I know you think that the whole Corbyn pitch was a good starting place. I happen to think that it was opportunist lies and an attempt to buy voters on borrowed money which they had no intention of ever paying it back. Work out the honesty of that. Yes it had an affect of getting younger voters to vote. But only _some_ younger voters and only so long as they see a personal immediate impact in their pocket.

Personally I would prefer voters vote for different reasons. But that's only my personal opinion. You know that opinion stuff. I'm entitled to it even if I'm wrong.

Just bumping this because now TV pundits are repeating the mantra that "the voters have rejected hard Brexit". This is the biggest load of drivel.

For whatever reason Brexit didn't loom large in the election campaign. Corbyn's promises of re-nationalisation, the abolition of student loans, an end to austerity, etc did. All of which are purely domestic issues.

Plus, rather interestingly this.
https://order-order.com/2017/06/11/mcdo ... le-market/

John McDonnell, shadow chancellor, has said that if Labour had won they would leave the single market. Not something I've seen widely reported. Obviously this is going to cause ructions within Labour but it also means that the party perceived to have made huge steps in the election campaign is actually PRO hard Brexit.

I realise that this Labour position may quickly change, but still.

Just to say that last night, the ITV 10:00 News, I have never heard such a biased, populist, insulting, opening set of remarks from Bradbury about Theresa May's predicament in my life. Furious, I switched over to the Beeb only to hear Kunnesberg absolutely shrilling out at various passing politicians.

By 10:03, I'd turned the TV off and unplugged it.