Corbyn's letter.

[Suff]

I think the media and the Tories are worried about the seductive nature of the message of Corbyn and his cronies. Communism (forget socialism this man is the worst kind of communist), is extremely seductive to a certain group of people. That group tends to be low paid, poorly paid or "peasant". For peasant replace perpetually unemployed and you get the idea.

This group takes no active interest in either politics or how the country runs and is therefore very susceptible to the kind of message Corbyn and his allies send out. Worse is that since Blairism, a generation of "peasants" has grown up with absolutely no allegiance to the UK or even interest in the UK's standing in the world. After WW2 it was completely impossible for someone like Corbyn to take high office. Standing up and saying he was too weak to protect the interests of the UK, let alone the UK itself, would have been total political suicide for high office even as late as 1995.

Now we see this. Being reported by Reuters. Something we would never have seen before.

The press are rattled. Corbyn came to the leadership and most of the cabinet resigned. So he should have stepped quietly and wisely. What did he do? He stepped confidently forward with this communist, IRA supporting, chancellor and a gag order on his MP's. Then he tried to gag the cabinet. Then he excluded the cabinet from his speeches he was writing but expected them to back him fully. But did he back off? Not a bit of it, he's pushing hard for Momentum to get into office, using the threat of deselection, rather than whipping, to bring reluctant MP's back in line. He's openly at war with his deputy leader (where have we seen that before in Labour) and is dragging in discredited and banished political figures from the 70's to try and bulwark his office.

Corbyn will resist all attempts to remove him. He will play every dirty communist gagging game there is and he will also play the disinformation and information withholding games to keep his position. In the end it will almost destroy the party to get rid of him.

This, I think, above all, is what the press and the Tories are after. They don't want Corbyn removed. They want the fight as Labour tries to remove him and he refuses to back down. Corbyn is in a position he could never, never have expected to be in if you consider this article. Corbyn will have known, from a very early time, that his politics are not compatible with British Socialism. He will have expected to be able to control a strong subcommittee where he could, insidiously, push his values on a society which did not want them. But he would never, never, have expected to take the position he is in except in his wildest night-time fantasies.

Now that Corbyn is in the place he has so long coveted he won't go. Forget quietly, forget screaming and kicking, he'll hold that place with a knife in the back and a poisoned chalice in his left hand. He will believe that if he can just hold on long enough, get rid of enough blairites fast enough, threaten enough people and hold the reigns of the party controls firmly enough, he will survive and thrive.

The "honest man"? The "principled man"? The man of "democracy"? The cabinet are finding the truth of that. When his cabinet basically told him that he either backs down from his stance on Syria or they would openly defy him in chamber, he acceded to the "majority" decision not to oppose Cameron on his request and not to oppose it. What followed is right out of the communist manual. Corbyn wrote his speech himself, did not invite the cabinet to review with him, delivered the rambling stinking pile in the commons and then wrote, personally, to every Labour MP asking them to override the "democratic" decision of his cabinet. He then started issuing dark threats to his cabinet as to what would happen to them at the next election if they did not comply.

Dangerous? Certainly. But mainly to the Labour party.

Personally I'm a Social Conservative. I believe that before we spend money on "welfare" we have to earn it. To earn that money we need business and business investment. I believe that we need to take a proportion of that money and spend it where it is really needed, BOTH to keep the economic engine going and to help those who cannot help themselves.

BUT, I am not hard right wing. Which means that the danger I see from Corbyn is in 2 decades of unbridled right wing Tory policies through the destruction of the Labour party.

But I see more. I see the way that the Tories will damage themselves in the eyes of the people and the incredible damage that could be done by a 3 or 4 way coalition designed out of expediency to get the Tories out of office. That, to me, is the true danger of Corbyn. Although I'd like him to stay in his position until after the next election. Then be evicted by a truly effective and truly honest Labour leader.

Other articles from the Labour press.

Labour works around Jeremy Corbyn in Greater Manchester byelection. Shades of Miliband and Scotland.
Tom Watson piles pressure on Jeremy Corbyn after backing British air strikes on Isis in Syria

These are not the Tory press. They are saying something else which, I believe, is in line with my position.

[Workingman]

Suff, I do not disagree with the thrust of what you say, in general, apart from the bit about low paid, poorly paid and "peasants". There are more than a few middle and higher income liberal leftists out there, and many of all of them disagree with Corbyn and 'socio communism', as the Oldham by-election will show.

The fact remains that he is the leader of a party in disarray and had about as much chance as me of becoming PM, and I am not even an MP.

[Suff]

Don't disagree WM, I have more chance of being PM and since Mrs S has told me she'll divorce me if I put myself forward to stand; that's even less likely. But I do think that Corbyn pushes himself at the don't care, don't know and don't want to know group. He doesn't care about the middle income middle class left. He knows they won't like him at all.

He wants an army convinced by sound bytes who couldn't care less about verifying what he says.

However he's going to find it harder and harder to get the mainstream press or media to play his sound bytes without some pretty scathing commentary along with it.

The honeymoon is over, almost everyone who thought change, for the sake of change, was a good thing, is pretty much feeling the same way about that change, after a few months, that the public felt about the coalition after 5 years....

ITYS seems to be in the air. If someone wants my backing they have to build a reputation I want and then follow through on it. The only reputation Corbyn has ever built is one of troublemaking and being well off the main stream of politics.

[moondancer]

I do not support bombing Syria because I can see no long term UK strategy for the middle east. Just chucking a few bombs in there is going to do no good. The whole situation is a mess.

And I agree absolutely.

[Workingman]

I do not support bombing Syria because I can see no long term UK strategy for the middle east. Just chucking a few bombs in there is going to do no good. The whole situation is a mess.

And I agree absolutely.

So do I.

The few aircraft we can offer are irrelevant overall.

Don't get me wrong. The T- GR4, often described 'ageing' by the media, as if the F-16 is 'young', is still a very competent aircraft, but numbers are everything.

The US and coalition allies have the numbers we lack, so do the Russians.

It is worth noting that the Mig 29 and Sukhoi Su-24. being used by the Russians in Syria, are both older than the Tornado.

I ask myself, what is the best use of our air power, and I keep getting the answer that bombing Syria is not it.

[Suff]

The best use of air power is to destroy clearly defined targets, well into enemy space, without having to travel all the way through that enemy space to get to it.

To do that requires excellent intel which does not always come from electronic surveillance.

It is also good for destroying large closely packed targets where there are a lot of enemy. What it is not so good at is for taking on a widely dispersed enemy with a very low density of low value targets. Best used in close support of ground attacks in place of artillery.

That and also getting rid of the opposing air force and anti aircraft defence.

Our 90 Tornado's are not a force to be dismissed. Although it is less than one carrier group of the US to be sure.

I don't see the UK tornado's as key in principle. But I do see them as being able to reduce equipment stress by taking on sorties which allow constant round the clock bombing of IS targets.

In the end, though, boots on the ground will be required. My preference is that those boots are Syrian from the legal Syrian army and not UK troops. UK air in close support I go with.

Of course what all the EU and NATO forces will have to swallow is that the only way to free up those Syrian Army forces is to remove the forces they are fighting against.... Which will be a big one to swallow given that those same forces have been trying to use the insurgents to remove Assad.

This is where most of the spleen venting and navel gazing is coming from...

[Workingman]

We are not sending 90 Tornadoes, talk is of another four for a squadron or so worth (~12) in total.

It [an aircraft] is also good for destroying large closely packed targets where there are a lot of enemy. What it is not so good at is for taking on a widely dispersed enemy with a very low density of low value targets. Best used in close support of ground attacks in place of artillery.

IS is widely dispersed in groups in low value targets; and there are no ground attacks to speak of being carried out.

It is going to take troops on the ground before air support can show its true worth. Those troops should, of course, be Syrian, and you know what, there are plenty of fit and strong Syrian males traipsing all over Europe!

[Suff]

No I was thinking about our total force. Not that we would deploy it.

4 Tornado's will probably be a sortie rate of under 40 per week. However it depends on the targets. Cameron is talking SAS ground intel with tornado decapitation strikes aimed at the leadership.

For what we are offering that's not a bad plan and it has worked before. After all, killing all the grunts on the ground is a very inefficient way of fighting a war. If you kill command and control then the grunts on the ground are in disarray and unable to coordinate. It was one of our specialities for cold war training. You don't have to know what is being said so long as what is being said leads you to the location of the talker.

The more I hear about what is planned, the more I think it has been fairly well thought through but it is only one piece of an integrated approach. I doubt the 70k "moderates", more likely there will be other troops in play.

Also the deal with Turkey granting billions in aid but much more importantly Accession talks. Probably even more important, to them, is the visaless travel to Schengen within a year, so long as they play ball.

I wonder how hard it is to rip off a Turkish passport?

Corbyn, in the meantime, is meeting with his cabinet to tell them what he has decided he will do about the vote this week. Not to discuss with them, but to tell them. Seems that he has decided that canvassing the "party faithful" is the only "democratic" method he needs to follow. Apparently you don't need to canvas the voters for such a vital vote.

He may think that threatening to deselect MP's, especially cabinet members, will bring them in line along with a 3 line whip. But he's sorely missed his bet with back benchers who scraped their seat at the last election. Deselection is the least of their issues, if the play ball with Corbyn then they will lose their seat at the next election. If they try to bring him down, then they have a chance but they need to do it in the next 18 months in order to heal the breach before the next election...

This is fascinating watching avowed "socialists" realising that they are threatened by communist politics.... All those warnings we heard in the 60's and 70's about the threat of communism transported into the 21st century politics to a generation who are not prepared to deal with it.

There are reams of books written about these tactics. All someone has to do is read and compare...

[Workingman]

So, the non-story is over.

Corbyn is to allow Labour MPs a free vote, but wants the party to officially oppose air strikes. No whips. No de selections. No mass resignations from the shadow cabinet.

I wonder what the media will come up with next - "Corbyn to raise benefits to same level as median income" or "Corbyn's top rate tax of 95% proposal".

For somebody who will never have real power he is playing a blinder.

[Suff]

Do you recall the phrase I used about trying to remove him and the consequences to those who confronted him?

I haven’t changed my view. I just think he has a refined sense of survival which will not allow him to charge head on into oblivion. Two pieces of the picture are missing in all reports.

1. How many cabinet members told him that they would not stand with him
2. How many of the MP’s, he wrote to, wrote back telling him they would not stand with him.

The last piece is what he will do about it. He won’t take having to climb down and offer a free vote lightly.

It’s all good for me. This was not a storm in a teacup engineered by the press. This was a very serious rift in the Labour party, eagerly reported by the press. In the end, barring political suicide, Corbyn took the only possible action left to him.

As a party leader and head of the opposition, that is not an auspicious start. It will get dirty and bloody from here on out. In the end I expect the main reason he backed down was the by election in Oldham on Thursday. Not the week to be a tyrant to your party and cause a 50% rebellion of your MP’s. Who would vote for that????