# Diane Abbott makes a meal of it this morning



## Reiabuzz (May 2, 2017)

Jesus Christ. As if it couldn't get worse for labour they put this fucking idiot up on the news channels/radio stations this morning. Warning, toe curling listening.


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## twentythreedom (May 2, 2017)

Some comment here 

The 2017 General Election campaign


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## Reiabuzz (May 2, 2017)

It's such a spectacular car crash I thought it might deserve its own thread


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## twentythreedom (May 2, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> It's such a spectacular car crash I thought it might deserve its own thread


It was excruciating. Don't these people do any reading or preparation?


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## bi0boy (May 2, 2017)

And people wonder why the Tories are hammering home a message of them being the most competent to handle the Brexit negotiations.


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## Reiabuzz (May 2, 2017)

Nick Ferrari actually went quite easy on her by his standards and she still fucked it up. PIers Morgan also took her to pieces. The three of them, Corbyn, McDonnell and Abbott, please just go away. You're well out of your league. 250,000 new cops, for 80m quid?


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## Dan U (May 2, 2017)

it's a spectacular way of fucking up a policy that is probably reasonably popular in the wider world


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## Wookey (May 2, 2017)

Dan U said:


> it's a spectacular way of fucking up a policy that is probably reasonably popular in the wider world



Corbyn did the same thing going with the Universal Wage -  a really neat idea which was mangled in his mouth when he started on about footballers wages. 

That was the day I gave up on him tbh.


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## IC3D (May 2, 2017)

Going up against Piers Morgan she should have known better, or not gone on at all.


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## High Voltage (May 2, 2017)

I got 19 seconds into the interview and could see the car already accelerating hard towards the large immovable object - I couldn't watch any more

This shows a lack of basic preparation and there's no excuse for it


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## bi0boy (May 2, 2017)

High Voltage said:


> I got 19 seconds into the interview and could see the car already accelerating hard towards the large immovable object - I couldn't watch any more
> 
> This shows a lack of basic preparation and there's no excuse for it



You sure it's not the rigged system and the MSM's fault?


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## kebabking (May 2, 2017)

bi0boy said:


> You sure it's not the rigged system and the MSM's fault?



blairites, _shurely_?


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## IC3D (May 2, 2017)

Would you not use a nuclear weapon to save the lives of millions of Britons? was particularly dickish, but predictable.


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## agricola (May 2, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> Nick Ferrari actually went quite easy on her by his standards and she still fucked it up. PIers Morgan also took her to pieces. The three of them, Corbyn, McDonnell and Abbott, please just go away. You're well out of your league. 250,000 new cops, for 80m quid?



An embarrassment, though of course it should be pointed out that what she did is far less bad than what much more competent people have done in the past.


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## Smangus (May 2, 2017)

She's a rubbish advocate.


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## agricola (May 2, 2017)

IC3D said:


> Would you not use a nuclear weapon to save the lives of millions of Britons? was particularly dickish, but predictable.



That is the worst offence of all today; they have had thirty years to come up with an answer to that one, and the answer - that in all of the likely circumstances we would use the deterrent, our nukes wouldn't save anyone because we would all be dead by then - is easy.


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## Wilf (May 2, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> Nick . The three of them, Corbyn, McDonnell and Abbott, please just go away. You're well out of your league.


 There's no excuse for it really, it's a case of being shit at your job if you can't at least hold your own in circumstances like this.  I suspect for the 3 of them there's a shift from being the lefty on the fringes of the party where you are never really challenged about anything to this level, to being the person slap bang in the headlights.

Edit: well, that's _partly_ true. They did get routine challenges from journos when they were random back bench left wing MPs - a couple of half hearted challenges along the lines of 'but you say you oppose Blair, but what would you do?'  But this is very different, it matters (in the sense that anything 'matters' in party politics. Fucking up has real consequences, which was why she was nervous.


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## Gerry1time (May 2, 2017)

It's like she's become one of their main media people just because she sat and flirted with Michael Portillo on the telly for a few years.


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## Raheem (May 2, 2017)

Wilf said:


> There's no excuse for it really, it's a case of being shit at your job if you can't at least hold your own in circumstances like this.  I suspect for the 3 of them there's a shift from being the lefty on the fringes of the party where you are never really challenged about anything to this level, to being the person slap bang in the headlights.



Undoubtedly, although I think JM handles in a bit better tbf.

I'm not sure this incident is all that significant, though, in the context that the LP already has a ramshackle image. If anything, the coverage might actually result in some people being actually aware of an actual Labour policy.


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## bi0boy (May 2, 2017)

What is their policy though? x thousand extra bobbies on the beat is a tired cliche frequently trotted out by the tories in the past, its not a policy. Especially as crime has fallen dramatically over the last two decades.


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## kebabking (May 2, 2017)

Gerry1time said:


> It's like she's become one of their main media people just because she sat and flirted with Michael Portillo on the telly for a few years.



its really that there are such a tiny number of Labour MP's prepared to go on media and talk about what a great PM Corbyn will be. i doubt i've heard a dozen different Lab MP's on the national media, infact i doubt i've heard half-a-dozen...

i'm surprised Corbyns cat hasn't had a slot on the grid yet.

this - and not just the car crash interviews - also plays into the narrative. if less than a dozen of his 230 colleagues will speak up for him, why should the public vote for him?


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## bi0boy (May 2, 2017)

kebabking said:


> this - and not just the car crash interviews - also plays into the narrative. if less than a dozen of his 230 colleagues will speak up for him, why should the public vote for him?



Presumably he considered how he'd get his MPs on-side or otherwise proceed without their support before standing for office. That his answer to this conundrum was to promise to put more bobbies on the beat and get Diane Abbot to tell Nick Ferrari about it then that says it all really.


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## Raheem (May 2, 2017)

bi0boy said:


> What is their policy though? x thousand extra bobbies on the beat is a tired cliche frequently trotted out by the tories in the past, its not a policy. Especially as crime has fallen dramatically over the last two decades.



I didn't say it was good or original policy. But, technically speaking, it's a policy. I'm fairly sure of my ground.


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## Gerry1time (May 2, 2017)

bi0boy said:


> Presumably he considered how he'd get his MPs on-side or otherwise proceed without their support before standing for office.



He didn't initially though did he. He just stood to ensure representation of the left in the leadership election (that someone should be required to do that in the Labour Party is a whole other issue). Why he stood again though when challenged, and what he thought through in so doing, genuinely fuck knows. I can only hope someone writes a good biography someday that explains what the rubbery fuck this was all about.


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## DotCommunist (May 2, 2017)

historical mandate from all sections of the party. He's a believer in internal party democracy. The PLP however, are not 'its our party goddamit'. Well they've demonstrated that. real possibility of 40 years in the wilderness because they'd rather tank the party than accept the will of the membership and the person they voted to lead. Democrats my arse


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## Athos (May 2, 2017)

She is an imbecile.


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## hot air baboon (May 2, 2017)

High Voltage said:


> This shows a lack of basic preparation and there's no excuse for it



but it  *** can't ** *be more toe-curling than the infamous Natalie Bennett salted-slug impression where I ended up behind the sofa in a foetal cringe position

isn't it probably/possibly more indicative of someone who has just totally given up on the election & doesn't really give a toss about pretending otherwise or going through the motions of combative interviews


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## dessiato (May 2, 2017)

"Has this been thought through?"

Honest answer, "Not really. I don't know what I'm talking about."


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## ffsear (May 2, 2017)

Like a really bad episode of Dragons Den


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## Lepton (May 2, 2017)

the labour party are not fit for purpose


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## kebabking (May 2, 2017)

DotCommunist said:


> historical mandate from all sections of the party. He's a believer in internal party democracy. The PLP however, are not 'its our party goddamit'. Well they've demonstrated that. real possibility of 40 years in the wilderness because they'd rather tank the party than accept the will of the membership and the person they voted to lead. Democrats my arse



don't tell me - blairites spiked her morning coffee with half-a-pound of crystal meth?


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## DotCommunist (May 2, 2017)

kebabking said:


> don't tell me - blairites spiked her morning coffee with half-a-pound of crystal meth?


 no that was in answer to why corbyn stood a second time. I'm not saying he and his team haven't been a bit shit, they have. Today being a case in point. But with the party behind him? well we might not be looking at the real nadir of the parties history. They were briefing openly against him before he even got elected the first time.


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## bi0boy (May 2, 2017)

Presumably all these anti-Corbyn MPs will lose their seats at the election, seeing as they're denying the will of the people and all that. Then Corbyn will limp through the next five years with a handful of loyal MPs, get a bunch of supporting PPCs in place for 2022, and then have a big pool of talent to draw from in 2027 so he will be able to put competent candidates on the airwaves and sweep to power in ten years time.


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## DotCommunist (May 2, 2017)

bi0boy said:


> Presumably all these anti-Corbyn MPs will lose their seats at the election, seeing as they're denying the will of the people and all that. Then Corbyn will limp through the next five years with a handful of loyal MPs, get a bunch of supporting PPCs in place for 2022, and then have a big pool of talent to draw from in 2027 so he will be able to put competent candidates on the airwaves and sweep to power in ten years time.


I knew he had a cunning plan all along


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## Sprocket. (May 2, 2017)

Sadly as soon as I saw that she was going to start on BBC Breakfast, I said oh no, this could go so wrong, it didn't but LBC was her pitfall. Labour cannot afford mistakes like this with the media being so anti.
She should take a leaf from Johnny Depp's book.

Johnny Depp is fed lines through earpiece, ex-managers claim - BBC News


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## Pickman's model (May 2, 2017)

it just goes to prove that the people in parliament are less competent that those outside, so many of them makes huge messes of things like this. i could have done a better job in the half-awake state i was in while listening to abbott blather on.


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## Cid (May 2, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> it just goes to prove that the people in parliament are less competent that those outside, so many of them makes huge messes of things like this. i could have done a better job in the half-awake state i was in while listening to abbott blather on.



Indeed... I mean it's 30 years since Abbot's first seat. 30 fucking years. I mean fucking hell. I'm... I can't really put it into words, as much anything it's really fucking weird that someone can spend that much time doing something professionally, and yet fail to grasp the most basic elements of the framework they're working in. Fuck.


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## Pickman's model (May 2, 2017)

Cid said:


> Indeed... I mean it's 30 years since Abbot's first seat. 30 fucking years. I mean fucking hell. I'm... I can't really put it into words, as much anything it's really fucking weird that someone can spend that much time doing something professionally, and yet fail to grasp the most basic elements of the framework they're working in. Fuck.


all she had to do is say 'details of anticipated income from our changes to the tax regime, and how this income will be spent, are in our manifesto. when it's published i or any of my colleagues from the shadow cabinet would be happy to come in and discuss it in detail. what i was invited for today was (X), which i'm happy to talk about: but i won't talk about a document which hasn't yet been published'


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## Johnny Doe (May 2, 2017)

Who does the Damian McBride 'you will fucking learn this shit and you will say this and you will not answer this and if you don't know you will say that's a level of detail you are confident your staff can provide' role now?

That performance is a sacking in any line of work.


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## phillm (May 2, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> Nick Ferrari actually went quite easy on her by his standards and she still fucked it up. PIers Morgan also took her to pieces. The three of them, Corbyn, McDonnell and Abbott, please just go away. You're well out of your league. 250,000 new cops, for 80m quid?



*The Labour Party - the party of cheap cops - or maybe not *

quite a catchy campaign slogan.


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## phillm (May 2, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> all she had to do is say 'details of anticipated income from our changes to the tax regime, and how this income will be spent, are in our manifesto. when it's published i or any of my colleagues from the shadow cabinet would be happy to come in and discuss it in detail. what i was invited for today was (X), which i'm happy to talk about: but i won't talk about a document which hasn't yet been published'



The job's yours - when do you want to start ?


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## not-bono-ever (May 2, 2017)

DA has a terrible image - not all her fault obvs  but the press are always going to relish getting the boot in -  wheeling here out cos shes a mate is shoddy politics


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## Wilf (May 2, 2017)

not-bono-ever said:


> DA has a terrible image - not all her fault obvs  but the press are always going to relish getting the boot in -  wheeling here out cos shes a mate is shoddy politics


To be fair though, she is Shadow Home Sec.


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## bluescreen (May 2, 2017)

Wilf said:


> To be fair though, she is Shadow Home Sec.


A cheering thought.


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## TheHoodedClaw (May 2, 2017)

Harry Smiles said:


> Who does the Damian McBride 'you will fucking learn this shit and you will say this and you will not answer this and if you don't know you will say that's a level of detail you are confident your staff can provide' role now?



I thought McBride was back?

Edit: Working for Emily Thornberry, apparently


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## Wilf (May 2, 2017)

But here's a woman coming to terms with the fact that chips are hot:
Theresa May awkwardly eating chips could be 2017's 'bacon sandwich'


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## not-bono-ever (May 2, 2017)

Wilf said:


> But here's a woman coming to terms with the fact that chips are hot:
> Theresa May awkwardly eating chips could be 2017's 'bacon sandwich'


 

....and likely doused with someone elses snot and saliva as well ...


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## kebabking (May 2, 2017)

TheHoodedClaw said:


> I thought McBride was back?
> 
> Edit: Working for Emily Thornberry, apparently



she's been quiet so far, not made any comedic gaffs, loyal to The Great One and the membership who put him there - whats that line about _having no ambitions in that direction, but if asked_ etc...?


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## Pickman's model (May 2, 2017)

phillm said:


> The job's yours - when do you want to start ?


I want an assurance it will exist past June


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## phillm (May 2, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> I want an assurance it will exist past June



Fraid it's a zero hours jobbie like the rest of 'em. Don't put your books away just yet.


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## Wilf (May 2, 2017)

not-bono-ever said:


> ....and likely doused with someone elses *snot* and saliva as well ...


As she's at the seaside she probably thinks the winkles are very small this year. Blames the EU.


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## bluescreen (May 2, 2017)

Eating in the street. She's probably very conflicted about that.


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## Sprocket. (May 2, 2017)

bluescreen said:


> Eating in the street. She's probably very conflicted about that.



Where's a vicious gull when you need one?


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## Bahnhof Strasse (May 2, 2017)

She lost it fucking years ago sending her kid to City of London School cos the schools in her constituency were in her opinion not fit to provide a decent education, all whilst Labour was in power.


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## Bahnhof Strasse (May 2, 2017)

I mean: Since then she has admitted her decision was "indefensible" but attacked the state of the education system in her Hackney constituency - one of the most deprived areas in the country.

ffs, why was she not booted out years ago?


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## DotCommunist (May 2, 2017)

because the central party will put up with nearly anything for a solid constituency result every five years. See also: Simon Danczuk untill very recently


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## xenon (May 2, 2017)

But really.  Beyond  woeful .


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## Idris2002 (May 2, 2017)

bluescreen said:


> Eating in the street. She's probably very conflicted about that.


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## Bahnhof Strasse (May 2, 2017)

Diane Abbott says she 'misspoke' on Labour's police policy - BBC News

Ms Abbott claimed she had got her facts right in other interviews and her credibility had not been damaged.


ffs


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## treelover (May 2, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> Jesus Christ. As if it couldn't get worse for labour they put this fucking idiot up on the news channels/radio stations this morning. Warning, toe curling listening.





You are anti Corbyn though, Nick Ferrari is on the hard right, he, like so many others in our 'impartial' media are just desperate to trip Labour politicians up, particularly Corbyn allies, they are always less hard on Blairites, etc(see the Blair interviews) but yes, Diane Abbott doesn't always think first before she speaks.


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## ruffneck23 (May 2, 2017)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Diane Abbott says she 'misspoke' on Labour's police policy - BBC News
> 
> Ms Abbott claimed she had got her facts right in other interviews and her credibility had not been damaged.
> 
> ...


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## 8115 (May 2, 2017)

Quite how anyone took anything away from that interview other than what an enormous c*** Piers Morgan is, I do not know.


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## Reiabuzz (May 2, 2017)

treelover said:


> You are anti Corbyn though, Nick Ferrari is on the hard right, he, like so many others in our 'impartial' media are just desperate to trip Labour politicians up, particularly Corbyn allies, they are always less hard on Blairites, etc(see the Blair interviews) but yes, Diane Abbott doesn't always think first before she speaks.



Ferrari wasn't exactly going that hard on her. I know he's a right winger but he can't really be blamed for this fuck up. She's an incompetent idiot and so is her boss who a few hours later, when asked about the interview, said he wasn't embarrassed at all about it. How can they expect to be taken seriously?


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## Bahnhof Strasse (May 2, 2017)

treelover said:


> You are anti Corbyn though, Nick Ferrari is on the hard right, he, like so many others in our 'impartial' media are just desperate to trip Labour politicians up, particularly Corbyn allies, they are always less hard on Blairites, etc(see the Blair interviews) but yes, Diane Abbott doesn't always think first before she speaks.



Ferrari is normally a right arsehole, however he was well soft with Abbott today, he didn't need to be hard on her, she made it hard on herself. Massively unprofessional.


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## bi0boy (May 2, 2017)

Their incompetence at basic stuff makes people think the entire left consists only of such people, feeding directly into May's strong and stable government mantra.


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## Reiabuzz (May 2, 2017)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Diane Abbott says she 'misspoke' on Labour's police policy - BBC News
> 
> Ms Abbott claimed she had got her facts right in other interviews and her credibility had not been damaged.
> 
> ...



That's even more painful/amusing to watch than the actual interview. Jesus.


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## agricola (May 2, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> Ferrari wasn't exactly going that hard on her. I know he's a right winger but he can't really be blamed for this fuck up. She's an incompetent idiot and so is her boss who a few hours later, when asked about the interview, said he wasn't embarrassed at all about it. How can they expect to be taken seriously?



He said she made a mistake, corrected the figures and told people where the costing details of the plans would be. 

I am not sure what else he could reasonably say, certainly what he could say that would satisfy all the people who have dived into this and yet who raised not a peep when the PM declared war on tourism, or when she gave a statement giving the strong impression that she had no idea where she was, or who saw an MP of hers insist on national TV that people with permanent degenerative conditions could get better*.

* though of course one E. Saunders did get better after his dementia diagnosis.

** edited to clear up a grammatical error


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## Reiabuzz (May 2, 2017)

agricola said:


> I am not sure what else he could reasonably say



I guess you're right. Presumably after the election if he's still around though she'll be sent packing. If she can't name the correct figures for the flagship policy she'd been rolled out to promote then surely that's a sacking offence. Obv not during the campaign of course. Altho this is Corbyn we're talking about who seems to operate in some kind of delusional parallel universe so who knows.


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## phillm (May 2, 2017)

treelover said:


> You are anti Corbyn though, Nick Ferrari is on the hard right, he, like so many others in our 'impartial' media are just desperate to trip Labour politicians up, particularly Corbyn allies, they are always less hard on Blairites, etc(see the Blair interviews) but yes, Diane Abbott doesn't always think first before she speaks.


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## agricola (May 2, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> I guess you're right. Presumably after the election if he's still around though she'll be sent packing. If she can't name the correct figures for the flagship policy she'd been rolled out to promote then surely that's a sacking offence. Obv not during the campaign of course. Altho this is Corbyn we're talking about who seems to operate in some kind of delusional parallel universe so who knows.



No - the delusional thing about modern politics is that everyone rages about mistakes / unprofessional behaviour of this kind, whilst we the electorate repeatedly vote for (edit: and are told to support) the sort of people who do stuff like building a runway for nearly £300 million that is inherently unsafe, and who go on to not maintain the main alternative to the extent that it becomes unusable.


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## kebabking (May 2, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> I guess you're right. Presumably after the election if he's still around though she'll be sent packing. If she can't name the correct figures for the flagship policy she'd been rolled out to promote then surely that's a sacking offence. Obv not during the campaign of course. Altho this is Corbyn we're talking about who seems to operate in some kind of delusional parallel universe so who knows.



nah, if Corbyn stays she'll stay - he has very few real friends/allies in the PLP, and not only does Corbyn have an admirable (for a person, if not for a politician..) sense of loyalty, he can count, and he knows he simply could not afford to offend such a tremendous ego when he needs every vote in the PLP he can can get.

that said, don't be surprised if Abbot gets relegated to the home crowd rallied and Thornberry gets the media work...


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## William of Walworth (May 2, 2017)

kebabking said:


> that said, don't be surprised if Abbot gets relegated to the home crowd rallied and Thornberry gets the media work...



While I agree Abbot was beyond useless and utterly incompetent today, I'm far from convinced Thornberry would be _all that_ much better. Well she'd be somewhat better, but only relatively.


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## agricola (May 2, 2017)

William of Walworth said:


> While I agree Abbot was beyond useless and utterly incompetent today, I'm far from convinced Thornberry would be _all that_ much better. Well she'd be somewhat better, but only relatively.



There really isn't any way he can reduce the workload on any of them.  The strike that most of the PLP is holding - which is of course yet another reminder that their political sense is far worse than his is - during the campaign means that its only Corbyn and his immediate circle who are actually doing anything.


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## not a trot (May 2, 2017)

That wasn't a car crash interview it was a fucking motorway pile up.


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## Gerry1time (May 2, 2017)

DotCommunist said:


> no that was in answer to why corbyn stood a second time. I'm not saying he and his team haven't been a bit shit, they have. Today being a case in point. But with the party behind him? well we might not be looking at the real nadir of the parties history. They were briefing openly against him before he even got elected the first time.



Fair points. I guess part of my wondering too is how the PLP got itself into such a state where the 'best' people in it are the sort of unsufferable PPE graduate types that see academic ability in the niche environment of oxbridge as somehow related to ability in real politics. For example, how in shitting crikey is Yvette Cooper still any sort of anything in Westminster? These are the questions a biographer also needs to answer.


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## Beats & Pieces (May 2, 2017)

She's not an idiot, in person she can be quite engaging - but she just doesn't respond well when put under any kind of pressure. 

Setting the personal issues and criticism aside, it is interesting to see the inherent assumption that more Police Officers will necessarily equate to less crime - or that the drop in numbers can be solved simply by having money streamed in to the Police and presumably spent on recruitment.


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## ViolentPanda (May 2, 2017)

not-bono-ever said:


> ....and likely doused with someone elses snot and saliva as well ...



Nothing wrong with flob as a condiment for her chips!


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## phillm (May 2, 2017)

Apparently she wore poor old Jezza out..


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## oneflewover (May 2, 2017)

Here at 07:15 this morning she had it spot on, including putting down John Humpries.

BBC Radio 4 - Today, 'Reversing capital gains tax' will pay for police

The amount of times she'll have done that interview this morning and they wait for a chance to make personal attacks once they have found a weakness.

Yes, future home secretary, but still biased reporting.


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## agricola (May 2, 2017)

Beats & Pieces said:


> She's not an idiot, in person she can be quite engaging - but she just doesn't respond well when put under any kind of pressure.
> 
> Setting the personal issues and criticism aside, it is interesting to see the inherent assumption that more Police Officers will necessarily equate to less crime - or that the drop in numbers can be solved simply by having money streamed in to the Police and presumably spent on recruitment.



I am not sure it is just an inherent assumption - if anything the numbers are an accurate reflection (in London at least) of what will be required just to keep up with the increased population.


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## Beats & Pieces (May 2, 2017)

phillm said:


> Apparently she wore poor old Jezza out..



What is the point you are trying to make?


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## Beats & Pieces (May 2, 2017)

agricola said:


> I am not sure it is just an inherent assumption - if anything the numbers are an accurate reflection (in London at least) of what will be required just to keep up with the increased population.



Do you think that there is a minimum number of Police required per x of population?


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## Treacle Toes (May 2, 2017)

8115 said:


> Quite how anyone took anything away from that interview other than what an enormous c*** Piers Morgan is, I do not know.



Long time, no read


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## phillm (May 2, 2017)

Beats & Pieces said:


> What is the point you are trying to make?



no point - a flippant piece of gossip chucked in for mildy comic effect (maybe ?)


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## Raheem (May 2, 2017)

Beats & Pieces said:


> Do you think that there is a minimum number of Police required per x of population?



There must be, surely? 12 per billion, for example, is not going to be enough.


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## Raheem (May 2, 2017)

Beats & Pieces said:


> She's not an idiot, in person she can be quite engaging - but she just doesn't respond well when put under any kind of pressure.



To my ears, that's not what it is. She's shadow home secretary, but she gave the impression of being detached from her own brief. It should be like asking her what her house number is.


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## agricola (May 2, 2017)

Beats & Pieces said:


> Do you think that there is a minimum number of Police required per x of population?



Perhaps not Police specifically, but there has to be _someone_ to call for help when people are the victims of crime, or have mental health crises, have to deal with problem neighbours or want to report that someone is missing or vulnerable.  Thanks to cuts elsewhere down the years its increasingly the Police and the LAS who are the only people likely to respond, especially at weekends; cutting them further - when the population of the capital has gone up by at least a million (and may well be two million by 2021) - is madness.

What is more, I do wonder whether this is something that Corbyn has picked up on locally - it is in his constituency that the Met is currently testing one of its anti-cuts measures after all.


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## TheHoodedClaw (May 2, 2017)

Beats & Pieces said:


> She's not an idiot, in person she can be quite engaging - but she just doesn't respond well when put under any kind of pressure.



That's not really a glowing recommendation for someone who might be Home Secretary in a month or so's time.


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## Raheem (May 2, 2017)

TheHoodedClaw said:


> That's not really a glowing recommendation for someone who might be Home Secretary in a month or so's time.



Good job it only related to Diane Abbot, then.


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## Wilf (May 2, 2017)

Raheem said:


> Good job it only related to Diane Abbot, then.


True, there's a chance Corbyn might give her a different role in his first cabinet.


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## cantsin (May 2, 2017)

bi0boy said:


> You sure it's not the rigged system and the MSM's fault?



nope, absolutely nothing rigged about the system, its an even playing field for all, and MSM just does it's job,reporting the factz, agenda free .


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (May 2, 2017)

Raheem said:


> Good job it only related to Diane Abbot, then.



OK, heh. Someone who is supposed to be prepared to be Home Secretary in a months time, then.


----------



## Raheem (May 2, 2017)

Wilf said:


> True, there's a chance Corbyn might give her a different role in his first cabinet.



Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability.


----------



## Beats & Pieces (May 3, 2017)

agricola said:


> Perhaps not Police specifically, but there has to be _someone_ to call for help when people are the victims of crime, or have mental health crises, have to deal with problem neighbours or want to report that someone is missing or vulnerable.  Thanks to cuts elsewhere down the years its increasingly the Police and the LAS who are the only people likely to respond, especially at weekends; cutting them further - when the population of the capital has gone up by at least a million (and may well be two million by 2021) - is madness.
> 
> What is more, I do wonder whether this is something that Corbyn has picked up on locally - it is in his constituency that the Met is currently testing one of its anti-cuts measures after all.



Yes - undoubtedly there has to be some kind of response, but I do wonder if one of the issues might be the pressure caused by increased cuts, with each 'service' seeking to increasingly delimit what it is, and is not, responsible for. This can only cause conflict, and then add to that the changes in legislation and policy that widen what is, and is not, to fall under their respective remits. 

Those anti-cut measures are a curious thing - thank you for the link.


----------



## TheHoodedClaw (May 3, 2017)

Beats & Pieces said:


> Yes - undoubtedly there has to be some kind of response, but I do wonder if one of the issues might be the pressure caused by increased cuts, with each 'service' seeking to increasingly delimit what it is, and is not, responsible for. This can only cause conflict, and then add to that the changes in legislation and policy that widen what is, and is not, to fall under their respective remits.



Searing insight. "but I do wonder if one of the issues might be the pressure caused by increased cuts"

Ya think?


----------



## Beats & Pieces (May 3, 2017)

TheHoodedClaw said:


> Searing insight. "but I do wonder if one of the issues might be the pressure caused by increased cuts"
> 
> Ya think?



There may well be other issues at play, there might be a distinction to be made between the possibly causal, and the possibly contingent.


----------



## bemused (May 3, 2017)

The interested thing is now people are looking at the 300 million number and pointing out it doesn't include training or equipment. If she'd just wheeled out 300m in the interview I doubt the press would have even looked into the detail of the numbers.

Problem people like Diane have is they have such an unliklable public image that people relish this sort of thing more.


----------



## High Voltage (May 3, 2017)

treelover said:


> . . . Diane Abbott doesn't always think first before she speaks.



That's her job, to have thought all the options, twists and turns that could be thrown at her and have her response rehearsed and totally "off pat" and if anything falls but the merest gnats goolie outside what she has answers for then she's to also have a deflection answer and that's that

She's been doing this for a long, long time so to be caught out by perfectly predictable question is inexcusable


----------



## mwgdrwg (May 3, 2017)

Christ, what a muppet. No wonder we are getting Tories for the next 10 years at least, if not 20.


----------



## Who PhD (May 3, 2017)

This is meaningless and somewhat OTT.

She got her facts wrong and later corrected herself (IIRC).

Happens to all of us at one time or another.


----------



## Reiabuzz (May 3, 2017)

Who PhD said:


> This is meaningless and somewhat OTT.
> 
> She got her facts wrong and later corrected herself (IIRC).
> 
> Happens to all of us at one time or another.



She's the shadow Home Secretary. It's quite a big job. You'd expect her to have memorised basics like how many cops she's going to recruit and at what cost. Plays right into the tories mantra this election. A gift. Corbyn is surely privately furious. You'd hope so anyway.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (May 3, 2017)

Who PhD said:


> This is meaningless and somewhat OTT.
> 
> She got her facts wrong and later corrected herself (IIRC).
> 
> Happens to all of us at one time or another.



If you're a leftie and you want to go head to head with a cunt like Ferrari you'd better make damn sure you're well on top of your game, cos his job that he does five days a week is to make you look a twat. He didn't even need to try with Abbott, she made herself look a twat and displayed an image to the whole nation of what our Home Secretary would be like if we vote Labour. 

Meaningless.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 3, 2017)

mwgdrwg said:


> Christ, what a muppet. No wonder we are getting Tories for the next 10 years at least, if not 20.


Something to look forward to


----------



## Athos (May 3, 2017)

Who PhD said:


> This is meaningless and somewhat OTT.
> 
> She got her facts wrong and later corrected herself (IIRC).
> 
> Happens to all of us at one time or another.



Not just wrong, but spectacularly so. To the extent that it appeared she was just plucking figures out of the air. It played right into the Tories' narrative of Labour's fiscal incompetence. 

It's a joke that she is in the shadow cabinet; she has zero credibility whatsoever - could you seriously imagine her as Home Secretary?  Making massive decisions? 

Her constituents like her, and she's loyal to Corbyn (at the moment). But she's a buffoon who harms the image of the Labour Party in the eyes of undecided voters.


----------



## kebabking (May 3, 2017)

Athos said:


> ...she's loyal to Corbyn (at the moment)...



Not even that - remember the 'migraine' that suddenly afflicted her on the afternoon of the first Brexit vote? Corbyn needed every Labour vote he could get, and even more so he needed every shadow cabinet vote he could get, and Abbot hung him out to dry so she could give the nod and wink to the selection panel when the north London constituencies have their boundaries redrawn. Straight fight between Corbyn, Abbot and Thornberry for two seats...


----------



## hot air baboon (May 3, 2017)

tbf at least she hasn't tried to blame misogyny for being asked difficult stuff - like the ridiculous Thornberry when she didn't have a clue who the French foreign minister was


----------



## Who PhD (May 3, 2017)

Athos said:


> Not just wrong, but spectacularly so. To the extent that it appeared she was just plucking figures out of the air. It played right into the Tories' narrative of Labour's fiscal incompetence.
> 
> It's a joke that she is in the shadow cabinet; she has zero credibility whatsoever - could you seriously imagine her as Home Secretary?  Making massive decisions?
> 
> Her constituents like her, and she's loyal to Corbyn (at the moment). But she's a buffoon who harms the image of the Labour Party in the eyes of undecided voters.


She wasn't being asked to make policy, she was asked to recall figures. She fucked up, no argument, and I've no idea how good shed be in post. However the reason undecided voters might not like her is the media bias prompting the kind of catastrophic response that's reserved only for labour. She doesn't even compare to how bad May performs.


----------



## butchersapron (May 3, 2017)

Who PhD said:


> She wasn't being asked to make policy, she was asked to recall figures. She fucked up, no argument, and I've no idea how good shed be in post. However the reason undecided voters might not like her is the media bias prompting the kind of catastrophic response that's reserved only for labour. She doesn't even compare to how bad May performs.


Undecided voters might not like her for her personal hypocrisy, for taking money to help rehabilitate one of the most odious far-right of the tories - in the most smarmy knee-touching fashion, for blocking syrian opponents of assad from speaking at STWC meetings then calling the police to have them removed...all sorts of other reasons.


----------



## Who PhD (May 3, 2017)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> If you're a leftie and you want to go head to head with a cunt like Ferrari you'd better make damn sure you're well on top of your game, cos his job that he does five days a week is to make you look a twat. He didn't even need to try with Abbott, she made herself look a twat and displayed an image to the whole nation of what our Home Secretary would be like if we vote Labour.
> 
> Meaningless.


I was given to believe she corrected herself by the end of the interview.

Of course it shouldn't happen, but IMO the hostile media is the bigger issue.

I don't see this being a deciding factor.


----------



## Who PhD (May 3, 2017)

butchersapron said:


> Undecided voters might not like her for her personal hypocrisy, for taking money to help rehabilitate one of the most odious far-right of the tories - in the most smarmy knee-touching fashion, for blocking syrian opponents of assad from speaking at STWC meetings then calling the police to have them removed...all sorts of other reasons.


Certainly, but none of that is what were discussing here


----------



## butchersapron (May 3, 2017)

Who PhD said:


> Certainly, but none of that is what were discussing here


Of course, these prior thing - the long record of them - all help build up the picture of consistent incompetence, opportunism and hypocrisy. And a large part of it is her willingness to pay the media game.


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (May 3, 2017)

Who PhD said:


> I was given to believe she corrected herself by the end of the interview.
> 
> Of course it shouldn't happen, but IMO the hostile media is the bigger issue.
> 
> I don't see this being a deciding factor.



Middle-class, middle-England voters who are fed up with the Tories austerity affecting them are what Labour need to get elected. Do you imagine for a nano-second that when they see Abbott's interview they will be minded to put their X next to the red rose?


----------



## kebabking (May 3, 2017)

Who PhD said:


> ...I don't see this being a deciding factor.



It's unlikely to be _the_ deciding factor - though one might suggest that with 20+ million individual voters, the idea that there will be _one, single_ deciding factor is perhaps a bit foolish - but it certainly plays into the fairly widespread narrative/belief with the electorate that the Labour leadership and frontbench are either student politicians from the 80's suddenly, and badly, playing at grown-ups, or the barely sentient dregs of the PLP who are only available to Corbyn because they couldn't get work at Toys'r'us...

This wasn't some tedious exploration of policy or implementation that Abbott couldn't possibly be expected to explain after running a marathon, it was three very simple questions about the headlines of a major policy in her shadow department - she didn't 'mispeak', she didn't get flustered, she just very obviously has no grasp of her own policy.


----------



## LDC (May 3, 2017)

Who PhD said:


> I don't see this being a deciding factor.



Of course the interview isn't the deciding factor, I don't think anyone has said, or thinks, that. What it does do though is show Labour up to be exactly the same in person as the image that the Tories paint them as - incompetent and stupid. And _that is_ the deciding factor for many people.


----------



## kabbes (May 3, 2017)

Who PhD said:


> This is meaningless and somewhat OTT.
> 
> She got her facts wrong and later corrected herself (IIRC).
> 
> Happens to all of us at one time or another.


It's not just "facts wrong".  That implies something like it should have been £300m and she said £200m.  No.  By saying £300,000 for 10,000 officers, she was showing a really basic inability to intuitively grasp the scale of numbers.  Nobody remotely responsible for any kind of budget should ever say that 10,000 jobs will cost £300,000.  It shouldn't be possible.  The fact that she compounded this by not immediately grasping Ferrari's point about cost per officer and talking about 250,000 officers instead just makes a very bad situation a lot worse.  It makes her look simply unqualified (by a country mile) to be taking the Home Secretary job.  Incompetent.


----------



## Athos (May 3, 2017)

Who PhD said:


> She wasn't being asked to make policy, she was asked to recall figures. She fucked up, no argument, and I've no idea how good shed be in post. However the reason undecided voters might not like her is the media bias prompting the kind of catastrophic response that's reserved only for labour. She doesn't even compare to how bad May performs.



False dichotomy. It's not incompetent OR the victim of biased coverage. It's both. But the fact remains she's incompetent. And a hypocrite and an opportunist.


----------



## mikey mikey (May 3, 2017)

Well, if the Tories win, it will be down to this catastrophic apocalyptic interview that will clearly show that Abbot is a weapon of mass destruction in clothes and vicariously Corbyn should be placed on an island in the middle of the Atlantic. Moreover, all those who didn't join in on the coup should be feathered and tarred and members voting for corbyn should be given only one last chance to vote in a moderate leader.

I can't wait to say I told you so to all those Corbynistas. It will make the next five years of Tory rule all worth just to have Progress back at the helm of Labour.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (May 3, 2017)

mikey mikey said:


> Well, if the Tories win, it will be down to this catastrophic apocalyptic interview that will clearly show that Abbot is a weapon of mass destruction in clothes and vicariously Corbyn should be placed on an island in the middle of the Atlantic. Moreover, all those who didn't join in on the coup should be feathered and tarred and members voting for corbyn should be given only one last chance to vote in a moderate leader.
> 
> I can't wait to say I told you so to all those Corbynistas. It will make the next five years of Tory rule all worth just to have Progress back at the helm of Labour.



Have you actually read the thread? 
Can you point to one poster who has suggested that this will be the deciding factor as opposed to every poster who said precisely the opposite? 
Don't you think it is moderately important that the PLP at least give the _impression_ of basic competence and a grasp of their major policy proposals?   
Given the agenda of the media - to build the narrative that Jeremy and friends are unworldly eternal students playing at politics - can you think of some ways to counter this narrative or at least make the media work harder to run the line?


----------



## treelover (May 3, 2017)

The real incompetent, indeed guilty of malfeasance, is Liz Truss: over 100 prison suicides, many of them teenagers, riots, prison warders leaving en masse, why isn't she getting grilled?


----------



## kebabking (May 3, 2017)

treelover said:


> The real incompetent, indeed guilty of malfeasance, is Liz Truss: over 100 prison suicides, many of them teenagers, riots, prison warders leaving en masse, why isn't she getting grilled?



Because she has a basic grasp of English?


----------



## Smokeandsteam (May 3, 2017)

treelover said:


> The real incompetent, indeed guilty of malfeasance, is Liz Truss: over 100 prison suicides, many of them teenagers, riots, prison warders leaving en masse, why isn't she getting grilled?



Because that isn't the media agenda. They want the Tories to win. And Corbyn's social democracy to fail. 

We know this. This isn't hard. Whataboutery isn't going to help.


----------



## treelover (May 3, 2017)

> Corbyn may have won the party’s leadership handsomely twice over, but insiders say that the leader of the opposition’s office – or “Loto”, as it is known in party parlance – has never really lost a sense of siege. They would add that there is some justification for that. Matt Zarb-Cousin, who recently stepped down as Corbyn’s spokesman, told the US magazine Jacobin this week – just as the election campaign cranks into gear – that Labour party staff habitually handed sensitive information to the press to destabilise the leadership.
> 
> “There were endless leaks from Southside, which makes it incredibly difficult to function in a professional way,” he said. “I don’t think anyone would be able to under those conditions.”
> 
> General election 2017: John McDonnell accuses Tories of 'lies' on Labour spending plans – politics live



Disgraceful


----------



## mikey mikey (May 3, 2017)

Smokeandsteam said:


> Given the agenda of the media - to build the narrative that Jeremy and friends are unworldly eternal students playing at politics - can you think of some ways to counter this narrative or at least make the media work harder to run the line?



Well, how about we ask a dozen moderate Labour MPs to write articles for the Mail, Telegraph, Times and Sun telling us how shit Corbyn is?

Oh, I think that's been done.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 3, 2017)

mikey mikey said:


> Well, how about we ask a dozen moderate Labour MPs to write articles for the Mail, Telegraph, Times and Sun telling us how shit Corbyn is?
> 
> Oh, I think that's been done.


when did you ask them?


----------



## Pickman's model (May 3, 2017)

treelover said:


> Disgraceful


i'd have thought you'd be glad that this sort of thing was being exposed. but no, not a  bit of it.


----------



## mikey mikey (May 3, 2017)

Because he's unelectable, we had to make sure he doesn't get elected.

keep up, Prickman.


----------



## Reiabuzz (May 3, 2017)

Smokeandsteam said:


> Because that isn't the media agenda. They want the Tories to win. And Corbyn's social democracy to fail.
> 
> We know this. This isn't hard. Whataboutery isn't going to help.



How do you define 'the media'? You sound like Spicer/Trump. Corbyn and his little posse of incompetents can't keep using that particular tool. 

They're unelectable because they have no idea what they're doing and have the politics of adolescent green day fans, not because of some media conspiracy to keep them out. I'm virulently anti Tory and sadly this has to also make me anti-labour in its present incarnation. As long as fuckwits like Corbyn and Abbot linger on we'll never get rid of the cunts.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 3, 2017)

mikey mikey said:


> Because he's unelectable, we had to make sure he doesn't get elected.
> 
> keep up, Prickman.


ho ho

how original

or maybe not

a mere 15 million posts ago...


pk said:


> Show some proof or fuck off, Prickman, before you really begin to annoy me.


----------



## DotCommunist (May 3, 2017)

yer an angry liberal.


----------



## mikey mikey (May 3, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> ho ho
> 
> how original
> 
> ...



Who am I to fly in the face of popular opinion?


----------



## Pickman's model (May 3, 2017)

mikey mikey said:


> Who am I to fly in the face of popular opinion?


yet you persist in flying in the face of popular opinion


----------



## mikey mikey (May 3, 2017)

Oh yeah. Well, maybe the evidence is overwhelming in this case.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 3, 2017)

mikey mikey said:


> Oh yeah. Well, maybe the evidence is overwhelming in this case.


yeh, that you're a dull auld twat without the wit to come up with something either original or cutting.


----------



## mikey mikey (May 3, 2017)

LOL


----------



## Smokeandsteam (May 3, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> How do you define 'the media'? You sound like Spicer/Trump. Corbyn and his little posse of incompetents can't keep using that particular tool.
> 
> They're unelectable because they have no idea what they're doing and have the politics of adolescent green day fans, not because of some media conspiracy to keep them out. I'm virulently anti Tory and sadly this has to also make me anti-labour in its present incarnation. As long as fuckwits like Corbyn and Abbot linger on we'll never get rid of the cunts.



I agree with your second paragraph (and laughed at your first re the Trump/Spicer line).

You need to be careful though. To suggest that there is no media agenda, to suggest that there isn't never ending work for them to do to discredit ideas that run contrary to the prevailing narrative around the political economy is naive. Yes, Corbyn and his mates make that job piss easy for them it's true, but behind that obvious foregrounding there is more serious battle around ideas being pursued. Always. It's why Corbyn's limited new left social democrat politics are being presented as an existential threat. Anything that does not accept the prevailing logic of the market must be hammered.


----------



## mikey mikey (May 3, 2017)

Hopefully this will be on all the front pages and in the headlines. But then again...


----------



## kabbes (May 3, 2017)

You don't have to convince me that Theresa May is a lying sack of shit that needs binning off at the first opportunity, though.  And posting more about it doesn't really help me come to terms with Diane Abbott's basic incompetence, does it?


----------



## mikey mikey (May 3, 2017)

No, you're right. Best dwell on our own sides shortcomings and ignore the flagrant crimes of our political opponents. God knows that's what they do, eh?


----------



## Smokeandsteam (May 3, 2017)

mikey mikey said:


> No, you're right. Best dwell on our own sides shortcomings and ignore the flagrant crimes of our political opponents. God knows that's what they do, eh?



Are you new to Urban 75?

Two tips:

1. It's a message board for debate. Not a campaign page for Corbyn.
2. If you navigate around the board you'll find a lot of criticism - some of it expressed in quite forthright terms - about the nasty Tories.


----------



## kabbes (May 3, 2017)

mikey mikey said:


> No, you're right. Best dwell on our own sides shortcomings and ignore the flagrant crimes of our political opponents. God knows that's what they do, eh?


There are lots I could say to that.  Pick your own:
1) Which is my "side", exactly?
2a) Why would it not be important to me to have a competent Home Secretary?
2b) Why should it not be important to everybody else to have a competent Home Secretary?
3) Who is ignoring the crimes of others?
4) How does what I say on urban impact what the rest of the country is shown?
5) If the media is waiting for you to fuck up, doesn't that imply you should work extra hard to know the most basic things about your own policies that you are going on air to shout about?


----------



## Wilf (May 3, 2017)

mikey mikey said:


> No, you're right. Best dwell on our own sides shortcomings and ignore the flagrant crimes of our political opponents. God knows that's what they do, eh?


I'd rather Corbyn won this election or, more to the point, there isn't a full on tory landslide. But that doesn't make Labour 'our/my' side.


----------



## Who PhD (May 3, 2017)

butchersapron said:


> Of course, these prior thing - the long record of them - all help build up the picture of consistent incompetence, opportunism and hypocrisy. And a large part of it is her willingness to pay the media game.


Anyone that shares this probably isn't on her side to begin with. The rest, who might be persuaded to vote labour, probably don't even think these claims are true.


----------



## mikey mikey (May 3, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> How do you define 'the media'? .


----------



## Who PhD (May 3, 2017)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Middle-class, middle-England voters who are fed up with the Tories austerity affecting them are what Labour need to get elected. Do you imagine for a nano-second that when they see Abbott's interview they will be minded to put their X next to the red rose?


Some will, others won't. Its impossible to generalise.

I suspect that with a nasty piece of work like nick Ferrari it wouldn't have mattered how she perfor, WD, he would always frame the discussion a certain way


----------



## green.tea (May 3, 2017)

Diane Abbott looks like a man.


----------



## mikey mikey (May 3, 2017)

green.tea said:


> Diane Abbott looks like a man.


So does your ma.


----------



## Who PhD (May 3, 2017)

kebabking said:


> Because she has a basic grasp of English?


So does Diane Abbot, so what?


----------



## Who PhD (May 3, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> How do you define 'the media'? You sound like Spicer/Trump. Corbyn and his little posse of incompetents can't keep using that particular tool.
> 
> They're unelectable because they have no idea what they're doing and have the politics of adolescent green day fans, not because of some media conspiracy to keep them out. I'm virulently anti Tory and sadly this has to also make me anti-labour in its present incarnation. As long as fuckwits like Corbyn and Abbot linger on we'll never get rid of the cunts.


you mean as longs you choosenot to vote labour.

That's entirely your privilege, but don't pretend it's something else


----------



## green.tea (May 3, 2017)




----------



## kebabking (May 3, 2017)

Who PhD said:


> So does Diane Abbot, so what?



Really, it didn't sound like it during the interview...


----------



## Nine Bob Note (May 3, 2017)

green.tea said:


> Diane Abbott looks like a man.



Somewhere there's a poor guy who is repeatedly told he looks like Diane Abbott


----------



## butchersapron (May 3, 2017)

Who PhD said:


> Anyone that shares this probably isn't on her side to begin with. The rest, who might be persuaded to vote labour, probably don't even think these claims are true.



Not sure what you're saying here? By share do you mean share the rubbish interview? Share the political and personal criticisms i listed? If the latter then i know tons of labour voters - on here and away from the internet - who will be voting labour and have exactly those views of Abbot. It's perfectly possible to be voting labour as anti-tory vote, as part of a long tradition of supporting the party (rather than individal MPs) and still despise Abbot and people like her.

And if, as you say, there is a media bias against her, then being rubbish only helps this agenda doesn't it? It allows the narrative to develop speed. Does she have no responsibility for this at all? I think she does, i think the collective leadership does as well. The mixture of individual/collective choices (that is her own careerism, plus the leadership groups facilitating it due to long standing personal and political relationships between them all) that led to this situation where the media are gifted a field day have to be questioned and not just waved away.

And green tea, please leave the thread. And preferably the boards. You're not wanted here.


----------



## green.tea (May 3, 2017)

butchersapron said:


> And green tea, please the thread. And preferably the boards. You're not wanted here.



She _does _look like a man tho. I'm just sayin. I mean, lots of people like women to not look like a man. They obviously aren't going vote for it.


----------



## editor (May 3, 2017)

green.tea said:


> View attachment 105849


You're a fucking misogynistic dickhead. What she looks like is absolutely immaterial. Shut the fuck up or be banned, twat.


----------



## editor (May 3, 2017)

green.tea said:


> She _does _look like a man tho. I'm just sayin. I mean, lots of people like women to not look like a man. They obviously aren't going vote for it.


And have another warning.


----------



## not-bono-ever (May 3, 2017)

Why do you do this ? what do you get from it ?


----------



## Who PhD (May 3, 2017)

butchersapron said:


> Not sure what you're saying here? By share do you mean share the rubbish interview? Share the political and personal criticisms i listed? If the latter then i know tons of labour voters - on here and away from the internet - who will be voting labour and have exactly those views of Abbot. It's perfectly possible to be voting labour as anti-tory vote, as part of a long tradition of supporting the party (rather than individal MPs) and still despise Abbot and people like her.
> 
> And if, as you say, there is a media bias against her, then being rubbish only helps this agenda doesn't it? It allows the narrative to develop speed. Does she have no responsibility for this at all? I think she does, i think the collective leadership does as well. The mixture of individual/collective choices (that is her own careerism, plus the leadership groups facilitating it due to long standing personal and political relationships between them all) that led to this situation where the media are gifted a field day have to be questioned and not just waved away.
> 
> And green tea, please the thread. And preferably the boards. You're not wanted here.


Shares the view that she's all the things you stated.


----------



## butchersapron (May 3, 2017)

Who PhD said:


> Shares the view that she's all the things you stated.


Ok then - as i said i know many people who share those views and will still be voting labour. And many who might be persuaded to vote labour who think they're true. And many who did vote labour in the past but won't know because they believe these things are true, and that what applies to Abbot applies to many other labour MPs, including many in the Corbyn leadership. This latter group includes many ex-labour left activists.


----------



## Who PhD (May 3, 2017)

butchersapron said:


> Ok then - as i said i know many people who share those views and will still be voting labour. And many who might be persuaded to vote labour who think they're true. And many who did vote labour in the past but won't know because they believe these things are true, and that what applies to Abbot applies to many other labour MPs, including many in the Corbyn leadership. This latter group includes many ex-labour left activists.


I don't care why people vote labour, tbh, just that they do. There really is no alternative if you want to end tory rule and that's an absolute must.

And I'd much rather Diane Abbot in post than Amber Rudd


----------



## DotCommunist (May 3, 2017)

not-bono-ever said:


> Why do you do this ? what do you get from it ?


redditor. Never shave your neck, all attention is attention even if its negative


----------



## butchersapron (May 3, 2017)

Who PhD said:


> I don't care why people vote labour, tbh, just that they do. There really is no alternative if you want to end tory rule and that's an absolute must.
> 
> And I'd much rather Diane Abbot in post than Amber Rudd


So, going back to my posts in reply to you above - do you think her performance (and past issues) have made this more or less likely that wavering or undecided voters will now vote labour? Do you think she has helped the anti-labour media agenda that you identified - and i presume that you must believe this agenda has some real material effect on voting outcome - or somehow blunted it?


----------



## mikey mikey (May 3, 2017)

Wow


----------



## Who PhD (May 3, 2017)

butchersapron said:


> So, going back to my posts in reply to you above - do you think her performance (and past issues) have made this more or less likely that wavering or undecided voters will now vote labour? Do you think she has helped the anti-labour media agenda that you identified - and i presume that you must believe this agenda has some real material effect on voting outcome - or somehow blunted it?


Well, let's go through it.

You're asking me whether on balance her peformance adversely affected labour's chances - at best I could only speculate, and I'm going to cop out. I really have no way of knowing. It's possible, certainly. BUt then again will enough labour voters be turned away from voting for them because of this? I'm not sure.
Has she helped the anti media cause - certainly her mistake will be capitalised on, but that's all it was a mistake and, like it or not, we all make them. Even when interviewed by bloated right wing hatefish like Ferrari, and even while attaining to political office. So it shouldn't have happened, but it did. She corrected herself. If this happened repeatedly then I'd be more concerned. But I'm more bothered by how the media doesn't show the same degree of opprobrium toward the Tories when they fuck up - and they have, a lot more than this.


----------



## xenon (May 3, 2017)

butchersapron said:


> Not sure what you're saying here? By share do you mean share the rubbish interview? Share the political and personal criticisms i listed? If the latter then i know tons of labour voters - on here and away from the internet - who will be voting labour and have exactly those views of Abbot. It's perfectly possible to be voting labour as anti-tory vote, as part of a long tradition of supporting the party (rather than individal MPs) and still despise Abbot and people like her.
> 
> And if, as you say, there is a media bias against her, then being rubbish only helps this agenda doesn't it? It allows the narrative to develop speed. Does she have no responsibility for this at all? I think she does, i think the collective leadership does as well. The mixture of individual/collective choices (that is her own careerism, plus the leadership groups facilitating it due to long standing personal and political relationships between them all) that led to this situation where the media are gifted a field day have to be questioned and not just waved away.
> 
> And green tea, please the thread. And preferably the boards. You're not wanted here.



^ All of this basically. I'm voting Labour in spite of DA et al, not because of.


----------



## xenon (May 3, 2017)

green.tea said:


> She _does _look like a man tho. I'm just sayin. I mean, lots of people like women to not look like a man. They obviously aren't going vote for it.



Fuck off you pointless tosspot.


----------



## butchersapron (May 3, 2017)

Who PhD said:


> Well, let's go through it.
> 
> You're asking me whether on balance her peformance adversely affected labour's chances - at best I could only speculate, and I'm going to cop out. I really have no way of knowing. It's possible, certainly. BUt then again will enough labour voters be turned away from voting for them because of this? I'm not sure.
> Has she helped the anti media cause - certainly her mistake will be capitalised on, but that's all it was a mistake and, like it or not, we all make them. Even when interviewed by bloated right wing hatefish like Ferrari, and even while attaining to political office. So it shouldn't have happened, but it did. She corrected herself. If this happened repeatedly then I'd be more concerned. But I'm more bothered by how the media doesn't show the same degree of opprobrium toward the Tories when they fuck up - and they have, a lot more than this.


I think the logic of your post that i originally replied to actually answers my question that you talk about in your first para above. You talked of anti-labour media bias. Presumably this bias has a material effect on voting outcomes in some way or why would people be up in arms about it? Now, given that this Abbot interview has gifted them (and the tory party) the opp to activate that bias then surely it has had those effects this time? How can it not have done? If it hasn't then why the fuss? 

Surely there is _something _that labour are at fault for somewhere in this election? Any resort to simply suggesting bad media is not not going to help labour deal with their problems (at least those they can attempt to address) in anyway. In fact, it buries them (listen to mikey's _keep moving people nothing to see here_ schtick) when lots of non-media types, lots of labour types are begging you/them to recognise how bad this (and other) things appear to them as voters and party members.


----------



## Who PhD (May 3, 2017)

butchersapron said:


> I think the logic of your post that i originally replied to actually answers my question that you talk about in your first para above. You talked of anti-labour media bias. Presumably this bias has a material effect on voting outcomes in some way or why would people be up in arms about it? Now, given that this Abbot interview has gifted them (and the tory party) the opp to activate that bias then surely it has had those effects this time? How can it not have done? If it hasn't then why the fuss?
> 
> Surely there is _something _that labour are at fault for somewhere in this election? Any resort to simply suggesting bad media is not not going to help labour deal with their problems (at least those they can attempt to address) in anyway. In fact, it buries them (listen to mikey's _keep moving people nothing to see here_ schtick) when lots of non-media types, lots of labour types are begging you/them to recognise how bad this (and other) things appear to them as voters and party members.


You're asking me a question I cannot reasonably answer. I can only speculate as to whether the interview has had a material effect. I have no way of knowing.

What other problems are you referring to? I think you're shifting the goalposts by asking me that. 

I have already acknowledged this was something that shouldn't happen. Anything more is pointless and counter productive. I see no point in flagellating Diane Abbot, we all know - as I'm sure she does - that she dropped a bollock. Unfortunately there's nothing that can change that, however I'm not going to overreact because I think that also plays into the anti-Corbyn bias.


----------



## Who PhD (May 3, 2017)

xenon said:


> ^ All of this basically. I'm voting Labour in spite of DA et al, not because of.


I have no problem with that at all. 

All I care about is unseating the Tory filth.


----------



## Winot (May 3, 2017)

Who PhD said:


> I have no problem with that at all.
> 
> All I care about is unseating the Tory filth.



Then (as Bahnhof Strasse pointed out) you should despair when the Labour Party does something to alienate people who might otherwise vote for it.


----------



## Reiabuzz (May 3, 2017)

> “According to rumours, Arsenal are now proposing to pay Alexis Sánchez £300,000 a week. Has the world gone mad? That’s about the same every week as four years’ wages for 10,000 police officers” – Andrew Geddes.



From the Fiver


----------



## Wilf (May 3, 2017)

green.tea said:


> Diane Abbott looks like a man.


I presume you do this kind of stuff all over the internet. How does it feel at the end of each day? There's no point telling you how misogynistic or juvenile you are, it's just genuinely _sad_.


----------



## kebabking (May 3, 2017)

Wilf said:


> I presume you do this kind of stuff all over the internet. How does it feel at the end of each day? There's no point telling you how misogynistic or juvenile you are, it's just genuinely _sad_.



If I was a cynical soul, the words that might leap to mind would be _dead cat..._


----------



## chilango (May 3, 2017)

mikey mikey said:


> No, you're right. Best dwell on our own sides shortcomings and ignore the flagrant crimes of our political opponents. God knows that's what they do, eh?



Dianne Abbot isn't on "my side".


----------



## chilango (May 3, 2017)

chilango said:


> Dianne Abbot isn't on "my side".



Nor am I on hers tbf.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 3, 2017)

mikey mikey said:


> No, you're right. Best dwell on our own sides shortcomings and ignore the flagrant crimes of our political opponents. God knows that's what they do, eh?


and best to ignore the flagrant crimes of the labour party, right.


----------



## Who PhD (May 3, 2017)

Winot said:


> Then (as Bahnhof Strasse pointed out) you should despair when the Labour Party does something to alienate people who might otherwise vote for it.



I despair in the sense that I wish it hadn't happened, but it did and we are where we are. The correct information is available. I personally am not going to shit the bed over one gaffe. If she does this all the time, I might feel differently. Hopefully Labour can make people aware of the correct data.

I'm not really sure what more can be done.


----------



## Wilf (May 3, 2017)

The thing about discussing Diane Abbot is also about ... how _we_ have ended up discussing Diane Abbot.  For most of the left on urban, however described, had long consigned the Labour Party to enemy status, regardless of how we reached that conclusion (Blair's neo-liberalism, Iraq, Miliband's timid attempt at saying nothing at all, inability to carve out a position - or just because we had long embraced other left/anarcho traditions).  But things have changed since Corbyn.  Some people have embraced it, some have joined/rejoined, expected ... _something_ to come out of it. 

Others, me included, didn't join, didn't really embrace it.  But then all of us have embraced it at some level because we've been posting repeatedly on threads like this.  Even if you are not part of it, Corbynism has moved centre stage, again for all kinds of reasons (it briefly looked like a victory of some sorts, even if it's been obvious for many months that it has failed).  And we are still - Labourite, leftists and anarchos - still looking Labourwards, now just hoping they can avoid a wipeout.  But this is about the fact that little else is happening in terms of working class politics. I think Butcher's is entirely right about Abbot and the contradictions and self interest she embodies - she's a politician (add to that list Livingstone and many more). The pally dance she does with Brillo et al is disgusting.  So, whilst what most people have said on this thread is spot on - she _is_ fucking things up and making things worse for Labour/Corbyn - the bigger problem is that we've been reduced to looking for some kind of coherent/effective politics amongst the remnants of the Labour left.


----------



## Wilf (May 3, 2017)

... and I'll lose any kind of agreement there might have been with that last post by saying _Denis Skinner is a wanker too._  That's a deliberate attempt by me to choose someone who doesn't smooch with Brillo, comes out with the odd witty one liner on pigsheadfucking and the like, actually keeps a class perspective - a much harder case to make.  In fact I seem to remember that 30 years ago he 'tithed' 15% of his MP's salary to the Labour Party and didn't feature in the expenses scandal iirc.  But what has he done - he's spent the last 20 years supporting Blair/Brown/Miliband, whether he rebelled on particular votes or not.  It's not just about how much of a _hypocrite_ you are, how much you _milk from the expenses_, it's how loyal you have ultimately been to a party inflicting neo-liberalism on us.  Abbot has and so have the relative paragons of class virtue such as Skinner.


----------



## xenon (May 3, 2017)

Winot said:


> Then (as Bahnhof Strasse pointed out) you should despair when the Labour Party does something to alienate people who might otherwise vote for it.


 Well if not despair, because there's plenty to go around,  at least concede there are big  self-created problems  with Labour.  Even the most ardent Corbynistas aught to acknowledge that  for credibility sake.   Sidestepping, waving it away as all the fault of bias media ,  is completely counter-productive  if trying to persuade  anyone labour are worth voting for.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 3, 2017)

Wilf said:


> ... and I'll lose any kind of agreement there might have been with that last post by saying _Denis Skinner is a wanker too._  That's a deliberate attempt by me to choose someone who doesn't smooch with Brillo, comes out with the odd witty one liner on pigsheadfucking and the like, actually keeps a class perspective - a much harder case to make.  In fact I seem to remember that 30 years ago he 'tithed' 15% of his MP's salary to the Labour Party and didn't feature in the expenses scandal iirc.  But what has he done - he's spent the last 20 years supporting Blair/Brown/Miliband, whether he rebelled on particular votes or not.  It's not just about how much of a _hypocrite_ you are, how much you _milk from the expenses_, it's how loyal you have ultimately been to a party inflicting neo-liberalism on us.  Abbot has and so have the relative paragons of class virtue such as Skinner.


To his credit, skinner said when I met him during the poll tax there was fuck all he could do to help the apt campaign, thus removing the remainder of my youthful naive belief in parliamentary democracy.


----------



## green.tea (May 3, 2017)

Wilf said:


> I presume you do this kind of stuff all over the internet. How does it feel at the end of each day? There's no point telling you how misogynistic or juvenile you are, it's just genuinely _sad_.



Have you ever actually visited any of the rest of the internet?


----------



## kabbes (May 3, 2017)

Just stick it on ignore, with the other tedious trolls.


----------



## Who PhD (May 3, 2017)

green.tea said:


> Have you ever actually visited any of the rest of the internet?


Oh you're one of _those!_


----------



## green.tea (May 3, 2017)

Who PhD said:


> Oh you're one of _those!_



Yeah. I'm one of _those _normal people.


----------



## Wilf (May 3, 2017)

kabbes said:


> Just stick it on ignore, with the other tedious trolls.


Done.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 3, 2017)

green.tea said:


> Yeah. I'm one of _those _normal people.


Not sure misogynist 'loons are normal.


----------



## green.tea (May 3, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> Not sure misogynist 'loons are normal.



How is that even misogynistic? Is that meme likening Corbyn to Obi Wan and May to the emperor misogynistic too?


----------



## Pickman's model (May 3, 2017)

green.tea said:


> How is that even misogynistic? Is that meme likening Corbyn to Obi Wan and May to the emperor misogynistic too?


I see you're one of these self-centred meme people. Sad.


----------



## green.tea (May 3, 2017)

Such terrible misogyny hypocrisy.


----------



## bimble (May 3, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> Not sure misogynist 'loons are normal.


I'm pretty sure they are.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 3, 2017)

bimble said:


> I'm pretty sure they are.


Yeh. Well, you live in south london so that would skew your view of things.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 3, 2017)

green.tea said:


> How is that even misogynistic? Is that meme likening Corbyn to Obi Wan and May to the emperor misogynistic too?


I was talking about your diane abbott looks like a man bit


----------



## Treacle Toes (May 3, 2017)

green.tea said:


> Yeah. I'm one of _those _normal people.



Just your run of the mill, 'normal' misogynist rather than someone more complicated and righteous?


----------



## green.tea (May 3, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> I was talking about your diane abbott looks like a man bit



Ok ok fine. She looks nothing like a man.


----------



## Spymaster (May 3, 2017)

ffs.


----------



## Treacle Toes (May 3, 2017)

green.tea said:


> Ok ok fine. She looks nothing like a man.



Please do put a pic up so we all might try not to judge you and make silly statements about your appearance.


----------



## DotCommunist (May 3, 2017)

Wilf said:


> didn't join, didn't really embrace it. But then all of us have embraced it at some level because we've been posting repeatedly on threads like this. Even if you are not part of it, Corbynism has moved centre stage, again for all kinds of reasons (it briefly looked like a victory of some sorts


Well, the hope that kills you is you think perhaps the labourites of a leftist stripe in power can be harried from the left. Never going to happen though, its been a nice in front of my eyes example of how power plays out.


----------



## rubbershoes (May 3, 2017)

What she looks like is irrelevant


----------



## Pickman's model (May 3, 2017)

green.tea said:


> I'm just sayin.


The unmistakable mark of the onanist


----------



## Reiabuzz (May 3, 2017)

Erm, I got a warning once here for quoting Trump talking about his daughters arse. And this fuckwit is still here?


----------



## Pickman's model (May 3, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> Erm, I got a warning once here for quoting Trump talking about his daughters arse. And this fuckwit is still here?


Yeh and I'll be here after you're gone, chuck


----------



## Athos (May 3, 2017)

green.tea said:


> Ok ok fine. She looks nothing like a man.



So what?


----------



## editor (May 3, 2017)

green.tea said:


> Ok ok fine. She looks nothing like a man.


Fuck off you tiresome little cunt. Permabanned.


----------



## editor (May 3, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> Erm, I got a warning once here for quoting Trump talking about his daughters arse. And this fuckwit is still here?


He'd already been warned twice and now he's been permabanned so what are you whining about?


----------



## Reiabuzz (May 3, 2017)

editor said:


> He'd already been warned twice and now he's been permabanned so what are you whining about?



He wasn't permabanned when I posted that. Learn how to use a forum. And stop being so fucking aggressive to me. I don't take kindly to that, thanks editor.


----------



## Treacle Toes (May 3, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> He wasn't permabanned when I posted that. Learn how to use a forum. And stop being so fucking aggressive to me. I don't take kindly to that, thanks editor.






what?!1?!!! Stop rambling!


----------



## agricola (May 3, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> He wasn't permabanned when I posted that. Learn how to use a forum. And stop being so fucking aggressive to me. I don't take kindly to that, thanks editor.


----------



## Reiabuzz (May 3, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> what?!1?!!! Stop rambling!



Eh?


----------



## Treacle Toes (May 3, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> Eh?



Well exactly... can you be a bit more coherent please?


----------



## Reiabuzz (May 3, 2017)

I'm not quite sure what you don't understand? I've been told to 'stop whining' for reporting a sexist pig.


----------



## Smangus (May 3, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> Yeh. Well, you live in south london so that would skew your view of things.



Oi watch it, stop being sarfist!


----------



## Treacle Toes (May 3, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> I'm not quite sure what you don't understand? I've been told to 'stop whining' for reporting a sexist pig.




Is this true editor ? Let's be clear.


----------



## Reiabuzz (May 3, 2017)

its just cross thread beef on editors behalf I think. Nothing to see here. He acted on my reported post so let's leave it at that. Stop stirring.


----------



## Treacle Toes (May 3, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> its just cross thread beef on editors behalf I think. Nothing to see here. He acted on my reported post so let's leave it at that. Stop stirring.


 Many accusations and no desire for clarity?


----------



## stethoscope (May 3, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> its just cross thread beef on editors behalf I think. Nothing to see here. He acted on my reported post so let's leave it at that. Stop stirring.



_Stir. Stir. Stir. 

Stop stirring!_


----------



## Reiabuzz (May 3, 2017)

Stop stirring rutitia. Let's get back on track eh?


----------



## Reiabuzz (May 3, 2017)

stethoscope said:


> _Stir. Stir. Stir.
> 
> Stop stirring!_



A troll is gone, let's leave it at that. Do you have anything worthwhile to add to the actual subject of this thread?


----------



## Treacle Toes (May 3, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> Stop stirring rutitia. Let's get back on track eh?



Oh it's my fault? What track would you like to get back on?


----------



## Reiabuzz (May 3, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Oh it's my fault? What track would you like to get back on?



Read the thread title


----------



## Treacle Toes (May 3, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> A troll is gone, let's leave it at that. Do you have anything worthwhile to add to the actual subject of this thread?



Yeah stethoscope ADD to this thread or not FFS!


----------



## stethoscope (May 3, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> A troll is gone, let's leave it at that. Do you have anything worthwhile to add to the actual subject of this thread?


Do you?


----------



## Reiabuzz (May 3, 2017)

Jesus wept


----------



## Treacle Toes (May 3, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> Read the thread title



But is isn't the same morning anymore...can we move on to today?


----------



## Treacle Toes (May 3, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> Jesus wept



So they say...


----------



## stethoscope (May 3, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> Jesus wept



He did yes, at your post history.


----------



## Reiabuzz (May 3, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> But is isn't the same morning anymore...can we move on to today?



 Bleugh. Ignored.


----------



## Treacle Toes (May 3, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> Bleugh. Ignored.



 Should I feel special?


----------



## Beats & Pieces (May 3, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> Something to look forward to



It will keep you in work, no?


----------



## editor (May 3, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> He wasn't permabanned when I posted that. Learn how to use a forum. And stop being so fucking aggressive to me. I don't take kindly to that, thanks editor.


You're rambling like a drunken oaf. Shush now. This thread isn't about you and that Supposedly Terrible Moderating Decision You Simply Can't Let Go Of. Forever.


----------



## Reiabuzz (May 3, 2017)

editor said:


> You're rambling like a drunken oaf. Shush now. This thread isn't about you and that Supposedly Terrible Moderating Decision You Simply Can't Let Go Of. Forever.



Lol. 'Drunken oaf'. I'm not the one who just shuffled in from the pub and accused someone of 'whining' for reporting the posts of a misogynist cunt. Anyway well done for banning him. Good boy.


----------



## RD2003 (May 3, 2017)

Diane Abbott is basically the most patronising teacher at the shit comprehensive school you went to in the 1970s. Right-on enough, but patronising nonetheless, and despises you really for not being more like her.


----------



## Treacle Toes (May 3, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> Lol. 'Drunken oaf'. I'm not the one who just shuffled in from the pub and accused someone of 'whining' for reporting the posts of a misogynist cunt. Anyway well done for banning him. Good boy.


Amazing, you are trying to take full responsibility and glory for calling out a misogynist, even though loads of other posters did too?  I can see why that could be experienced as whinny.


----------



## classicdish (May 3, 2017)

Whinny, winey or whiney?


----------



## Beats & Pieces (May 4, 2017)




----------



## editor (May 4, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> Lol. 'Drunken oaf'. I'm not the one who just shuffled in from the pub and accused someone of 'whining' for reporting the posts of a misogynist cunt. Anyway well done for banning him. Good boy.


For the record, the post was reported multiple times by multiple posters but guess what? You're the only one acting like complete bellend about it. So shut the fuck up now. There's a good boy.


----------



## William of Walworth (May 4, 2017)

I for one appreciate the permaban  -- this 'green tea' returner was also fucking up various other threads recently (not least the Glastonbury one with a pile of disruptive but also tedious nonsense).


----------



## Reiabuzz (May 4, 2017)

editor said:


> For the record, the post was reported multiple times by multiple posters but guess what? You're the only one acting like complete bellend about it. So shut the fuck up now. There's a good boy.





> You're rambling like a drunken oaf. Shush now. This thread isn't about you and that Supposedly Terrible Moderating Decision You Simply Can't Let Go Of. Forever.



Hmm.. you can patronise others but can't take it yourself?

Anyway, shush now and stop derailing this thread with your cross thread nonsense and personal abuse. Read the FAQ. I won't report this post but next time you might not be so lucky sunshine.


----------



## editor (May 4, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> Hmm.. you can patronise others but can't take it yourself?
> 
> Anyway, shush now and stop derailing this thread with your cross thread nonsense and personal abuse. Read the FAQ. I won't report this post but next time you might not be so lucky sunshine.


Take a day off for acting like a prize dick and continuing to disrupt a thread with dull cross-thread beefery after you've been asked to stop.


----------



## Reiabuzz (May 5, 2017)

editor said:


> Take a day off for acting like a prize dick and continuing to disrupt a thread with dull cross-thread beefery after you've been asked to stop.



Editor, I'd like to sincerely apologise for my behaviour. Bang out of order.

#drunkenoaf


----------



## Wilf (May 5, 2017)

Poor old Diane, when she mumbled her way through thousands and millions she didn't know what she'd started.


----------



## Reiabuzz (May 5, 2017)

Anyway, back on track after that absurd derail. There she goes again.

Diane Abbott gets her numbers wrong ... again – video


----------



## Pickman's model (May 5, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> Anyway, back on track after that absurd derail.


Perhaps you should apologise to Rutita1 and stethoscope for it.


----------



## bimble (May 5, 2017)

Can this go here? Seems sort of apt, in terms of totally avoidable fuckups that could have been prevented by doing about 5 minutes work. 
5 typos and one 'pledge main text here' in a single small leaflet.


----------



## Who PhD (May 5, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> Anyway, back on track after that absurd derail. There she goes again.
> 
> Diane Abbott gets her numbers wrong ... again – video


Completely different discussion, surely?


----------



## Pickman's model (May 5, 2017)

bimble said:


> Can this go here? Seems sort of apt, in terms of totally avoidable fuckups that could have been prevented by doing about 5 minutes work.
> 5 typos and one 'pledge main text here' in a single small leaflet.
> 
> View attachment 106013


Yeh that's clearly connected to Diane Abbott


----------



## weltweit (May 5, 2017)

Listening to Diane in the first interview reminds me of her often on This Week with Michael Portillo. There would come a moment when she wanted or needed to speak and she would speak even though she might not have anything particularly interesting to say.

And when she is caught out in that first interview you can hear her doing it again, she says to herself, I should say something now, I can't be sure what but I will start speaking anyhow!


----------



## bimble (May 5, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> Yeh that's clearly connected to Diane Abbott


ok. Where's the 'what stupid thing has the labour party done today' thread


----------



## Pickman's model (May 5, 2017)

bimble said:


> ok. Where's the 'what stupid thing has the labour party done today' thread


There's no end of threads it could have gone in, you picked the one Labour thread it doesn't fit in.


----------



## Reiabuzz (May 5, 2017)

bimble said:


> Can this go here? Seems sort of apt, in terms of totally avoidable fuckups that could have been prevented by doing about 5 minutes work.
> 5 typos and one 'pledge main text here' in a single small leaflet.
> 
> View attachment 106013



There are actually even more errors in there in terms of case inconsistency. The Tories don't even need to try this time around. Very depressing.


----------



## bimble (May 5, 2017)

Some of this is just the lack of any halfway competent sane people choosing to go into party politics as a job isn't it.


----------



## bluescreen (May 5, 2017)

bimble said:


> Some of this is just the lack of any halfway competent sane people choosing to go into party politics as a job isn't it.


It's not exactly a job held in universally high esteem.


----------



## Reiabuzz (May 5, 2017)

Prolly should go in the feedback forum but I've got more ignored members on this thread than the chumps standing by the wall at a school disco. Why can I even see that the idiots I've got on ignore have posted? Is it supposed to tempt me to unignore?


----------



## Treacle Toes (May 5, 2017)

No one cares


----------



## Wilf (May 5, 2017)

bimble said:


> View attachment 106013


"sent from my iPhone using...."


----------



## Treacle Toes (May 6, 2017)

Wilf said:


> "sent from my iPhone using...."



_'Sent from my phone using blame Diane Abbot for everything app because meh, may as well'_


----------



## teqniq (May 6, 2017)




----------



## Reiabuzz (May 28, 2017)

Really not sure why they keep putting her up in front of the media. Not exactly doing them any favours. She's not just completely incompetent she's borderline insane.



> Diane Abbott, who hopes to be in charge of anti-terror operations after next month’s UK general election, has compared her previous support for the defeat of the British army in Northern Ireland to a haircut that is no longer in fashion.



Diane Abbott under fire over 'afro' remark when questioned about IRA

She did manage to get police numbers correct right this time mind you, something for which she was mockingly congratulated for by Marr.


----------



## bi0boy (May 28, 2017)

She keeps appearing because she's Shadow Home Secretary, so can't not. Why she's Shadow Home Secretary is because Corbyn obviously likes loyal comrades around him and there aren't many MPs to choose from in that regard. They also boned, which may or may not be relevant.


----------



## Reiabuzz (May 28, 2017)

I watched Corbyn on the Peston show afterwards. He was asked about the Afro stuff and if she would be Home Secretary. His response was 'Dianne is our home affairs spokesperson'. She must have been quite a shag.


----------



## mikey mikey (May 28, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> She must have been quite a shag.









I was just saying how the normal rules of "let's not be a sexist prick" don't seem to apply in Diane's case. I was swiftly made to understand that this was all in my own head and that it didn't happen here.


----------



## Reiabuzz (May 28, 2017)

Sexist? In what way?

Please don't ever accuse me of sexism. Feel free to accuse me of making flippant remarks in response to another poster's likewise flippant remark but please fuck off otherwise, got it?

I don't care what gender she is - she's fucking barking nuts. And if they keep wheeling her out in front of the cameras/microphones they're going to lose by an even larger margin that they already will. Corbyn's useless but even he must be regretting appointing her.


----------



## agricola (May 28, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> Sexist? In what way?
> 
> Please don't ever accuse me of sexism. Feel free to accuse me of making flippant remarks in response to another poster's likewise flippant remark but please fuck off otherwise, got it?
> 
> I don't care what gender she is - she's fucking barking nuts. And if they keep wheeling her out in front of the cameras/microphones they're going to lose by an even larger margin that they already will. Corbyn's useless but even he must be regretting appointing her.



Perhaps, though it is not as if there is a huge list of alternates he could put out instead.  I am not sure her response was any more nonsensical than Rudd's afterwards.


----------



## bemused (May 29, 2017)

agricola said:


> I am not sure her response was any more nonsensical than Rudd's afterwards.



Comparing your views on the PIRA to what hairsyle you prefer wasn't the best thought out line.


----------



## mikey mikey (May 29, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> Please don't ever accuse me of sexism.



You suggested that a woman reached her current position via sexual favours. Sexist.


----------



## Idris2002 (May 29, 2017)

bemused said:


> Comparing your views on the PIRA to what hairsyle you prefer wasn't the best thought out line.


I disagree. Based on what I've seen posted on here, it looks to me like the Oxbridge brat was trying to trip her up, and she batted him away. Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.


----------



## bemused (May 29, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> I disagree. Based on what I've seen posted on here, it looks to me like the Oxbridge brat was trying to trip her up, and she batted him away. Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.



Didn't they both go to Cambridge?

I don't think it was a stupid question, it was pretty relevant for someone who wants to be Home Secretary.


----------



## Idris2002 (May 29, 2017)

bemused said:


> Didn't they both go to Cambridge?
> 
> I don't think it was a stupid question, it was pretty relevant for someone who wants to be Home Secretary.


I don't think having been to Cambridge makes DA equivalent to the sort of Oxbridge brat I was thinking of.

And I don't think said brat would have been seriously concerned about a mad chuckie suddenly getting to be Home Secretary, in fact I doubt if he/she could find Norniron on a map.


----------



## redsquirrel (May 29, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> Sexist? In what way?
> 
> Please don't ever accuse me of sexism. Feel free to accuse me of making flippant remarks in response to another poster's likewise flippant remark but please fuck off otherwise, got it?


For once mikey mikey is on the money, it was a shitty remark.


----------



## Treacle Toes (May 29, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> He was asked about the Afro stuff


What? The? Fuck?


----------



## Pickman's model (May 29, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> Sexist? In what way?
> 
> Please don't ever accuse me of sexism.


Not an accusation but a fact


----------



## Pickman's model (May 29, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> She must have been quite a shag.


By that calculus I wouldn't be surprised if you languish in shitty jobs throughout your working life.


----------



## Athos (May 29, 2017)

How is likening your political convictions to a hairstyle (trivial, liable to change with fashion or at a whim), not political suicide? She's a moron, and a liability.


----------



## Athos (May 29, 2017)

bi0boy said:


> She keeps appearing because she's Shadow Home Secretary, so can't not. Why she's Shadow Home Secretary is because Corbyn obviously likes loyal comrades around him and there aren't many MPs to choose from in that regard. They also boned, which may or may not be relevant.



The idea that she could be Home Secretary is probably the least credible thing about Labour.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 29, 2017)

Athos said:


> How is likening your political convictions to a hairstyle (trivial, liable to change with fashion or at a whim), not political suicide? She's a moron, and a liability.


Surely it's the mark of the consummate politician, see e.g. tm and her policy changes


----------



## Athos (May 29, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> Surely it's the mark of the consummate politician, see e.g. tm and her policy changes



Nothing wrong with a change of position, per se. But likening it to how you change your hairstyle?! She's utterly daft.


----------



## bemused (May 29, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> What? The? Fuck?



To be fair he was asked about the whole line not her choice of haircuts. I'm sure she thought it was funny when she came up with, but, she doesn't have the charm to pull it off.

When Corbyn is asked these questions he does much better because he takes the time to explain why he said it at the time.


----------



## LDC (May 29, 2017)

She also fucked-up the easy question about refusing to sign the list of groups to proscribe. Marr read the list out which included the PKK, and it would have been an easy out to say that was the one she didn't support banning on the list, especially given the current situation with them fighting IS and being supported by the US/UK States. 

She's useless and needs getting rid of asap. More of a liability than Corbyn.


----------



## bi0boy (May 29, 2017)

Perhaps she is ill. I'm am sure she used to be more quick witted than this.


----------



## gosub (May 29, 2017)

LynnDoyleCooper said:


> She also fucked-up the easy question about refusing to sign the list of groups to proscribe. Marr read the list out which included the PKK, and it would have been an easy out to say that was the one she didn't support banning on the list, especially given the current situation with them fighting IS and being supported by the US/UK States.
> 
> *She's useless and needs getting rid of asap. More of a liability than Corbyn.*




 As opposed to the majority of Labour MP's who'd rather undermine their  party's choice in leader , than work with him?


----------



## gosub (May 29, 2017)

bi0boy said:


> Perhaps she is ill. I'm am sure she used to be more quick witted than this.



Will be having to work a lot harder as a front bencher. But never struck me as the sharpest tool in the box


----------



## likesfish (May 29, 2017)

Both those questions were easy to deal with.
 The provos didnt just wake up and decide terrorism sounds like a right laugh they came out of the nightmare we created in ireland when you have a state that sends paras in to shoot unarmed demonstraters then spends 30 years claiming they were actually heavily armed terrorists  and people still infer that yeah that state needs a bloody nose.
 Same with the list PKK are terrorists but then again they fight isis and want a homeland along with the murderous dissidents who fight israel the same state that was founded by terrorists.
  She's not exactly top flight but then again jezza hasnt got much to choose from.


----------



## LDC (May 29, 2017)

gosub said:


> As opposed to the majority of Labour MP's who'd rather undermine their  party's choice in leader , than work with him?



No, they're worse. But she's supposed to be on his side! And he can remove her from post, something he can't do with the MPs that are against him. Anyway, it's not going to happen this close to the election even if he wanted to, it'd be a disaster.


----------



## bi0boy (May 29, 2017)

gosub said:


> Will be having to work a lot harder as a front bencher. But never struck me as the sharpest tool in the box



Check this out. Anne Widdecombe sounds exactly the same nowadays as she did back then. Abbott in comparison was at least quick and cogent back then, but sounds like she's drowning in treacle these days:


----------



## Pickman's model (May 29, 2017)

bi0boy said:


> Perhaps she is ill. I'm am sure she used to be more quick witted than this.


What's your diagnosis Dr bi0boy?


----------



## Idris2002 (May 29, 2017)

likesfish said:


> Both those questions were easy to deal with.
> The provos didnt just wake up and decide terrorism sounds like a right laugh they came out of the nightmare we created in ireland when you have a state that sends paras in to shoot unarmed demonstraters then spends 30 years claiming they were actually heavily armed terrorists  and people still infer that yeah that state needs a bloody nose.
> Same with the list PKK are terrorists but then again they fight isis and want a homeland along with the murderous dissidents who fight israel the same state that was founded by terrorists.
> She's not exactly top flight but then again jezza hasnt got much to choose from.


All true, but do you think some teenager from the BBC would even listen to any of that?


----------



## likesfish (May 29, 2017)

Sadly true.
Ira = evil bombers that we must defeat anyone asking why they are evil bombers = support for the mad evil bombers.
   While the armed struggle was a ridiculous tactic even mcnamara of lets see how many body bags we can make in vietnam might have questioned the "plan".
   There were legit problems in northern ireland playing "emerald dawn" was probably the least effective way of resolving said problems although better than carsons plan


----------



## Idris2002 (May 29, 2017)

On reading these posts:



bi0boy said:


> Perhaps she is ill. I'm am sure she used to be more quick witted than this.





gosub said:


> Will be having to work a lot harder as a front bencher. But never struck me as the sharpest tool in the box



I just realised that I'd never actually read anything she's written. So I read this:

I fought racism and misogyny to become an MP. The fight is getting harder | Diane Abbott

And I have to say it sounds pretty good to me. She gets a lot of deserved stick for sending her kid to a private  school. I think that may have distorted some people's perceptions of her.


----------



## billy_bob (May 29, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> On reading these posts:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I certainly don't doubt that she's faced, and faced down, a lot of shit of that sort in her time. Fair play to her for that.

But you don't have to deny that fact to also feel that at least some of the people calling her a fucking idiot now are doing so _only _because she will keep saying things that strongly suggest she's a fucking idiot.


----------



## Treacle Toes (May 29, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> Really not sure why they keep putting her up in front of the media. Not exactly doing them any favours. She's not just completely incompetent she's borderline insane.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Ah now I understand the bruhaha...so Diane is using the 'Afro' association to mean more militant/anti-establishment? It's a common association abeit a fucking annoying, reductionistic stereotype. What's all the fuss about though? I think it's clear that she means she has 'mellowed'.


----------



## Reiabuzz (May 29, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> For once mikey mikey is on the money, it was a shitty remark.



It was a joke you idiot.


----------



## Reiabuzz (May 29, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> I disagree. Based on what I've seen posted on here, it looks to me like the Oxbridge brat was trying to trip her up, and she batted him away. Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.



What stupid question was that?

This is the woman who is intending to be in charge of the police. A woman who also supported the group killing 1800 people in the 80s and is now comparing that support to her fucking Afro  

She's nuts. Absolutely nuts. Let's face it, she's only in her current position as nobody else in the party wanted to commit career suicide by aligning with Corbyn.


----------



## Treacle Toes (May 29, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> It was a joke you idiot.


Nothing wrong with sexist jokes, nothing at all.


----------



## magneze (May 29, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> What stupid question was that?
> 
> This is the woman who is intending to be in charge of the police. A woman who also supported the group killing 1800 people in the 80s and is now comparing that support to her fucking Afro
> 
> She's nuts. Absolutely nuts. Let's face it, she's only in her current position as nobody else in the party wanted to commit career suicide by aligning with Corbyn.


You're being a dick.


----------



## Treacle Toes (May 29, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> What stupid question was that?
> 
> This is the woman who is intending to be in charge of the police. A woman who also supported the group killing 1800 people in the 80s and is now *comparing that support to her fucking Afro*


 You didn't understand the associations she was making did you? You felt left out.


----------



## agricola (May 29, 2017)

bemused said:


> Comparing your views on the PIRA to what hairsyle you prefer wasn't the best thought out line.



It wasn't, but its far less dangerous than - apparently solely for a political soundbite - making it much more likely that returnees from IS will try to sneak in rather than presenting themselves at the border.


----------



## gosub (May 29, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> What stupid question was that?
> 
> This is the woman who is intending to be in charge of the police. A woman who also supported the group killing 1800 people in the 80s and is now comparing that support to her fucking Afro
> 
> She's nuts. Absolutely nuts. Let's face it, she's only in her current position as nobody else in the party wanted to commit career suicide by aligning with Corbyn.



This bit, I have a problem with.


----------



## bi0boy (May 29, 2017)

gosub said:


> This bit, I have a problem with.



You think they didn't align with Corbyn due to their deeply held principals?


----------



## gosub (May 29, 2017)

bi0boy said:


> You think they didn't align with Corbyn due to their deeply held principals?



I think not playing ball with their democratically elected leader will have a career limiting effect.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 29, 2017)

bi0boy said:


> You think they didn't align with Corbyn due to their deeply held principals?


principles. principals have bodyguards or are american headmasters e.g. principal skinner out of the simpsons


----------



## 19force8 (May 29, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> principles. principals have bodyguards or are american headmasters e.g. principal skinner out of the simpsons


Maybe that's what happened to their old headmasters.


----------



## bi0boy (May 29, 2017)

They keep them in a dungeon.


----------



## Athos (May 29, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Ah now I understand the bruhaha...so Diane is using the 'Afro' association to mean more militant/anti-establishment? It's a common association abeit a fucking annoying, reductionistic stereotype. What's all the fuss about though? I think it's clear that she means she has 'mellowed'.



Have you watched the clip? It doesn't come across as though she was referring to her afro as a metaphor for her supposed radicalism. Rather, she was on the spot and said something very silly - seemingly, she thought it was a lighthearted way of saying 'times change ' - to avoid answering the question.  She's a buffoon.


----------



## billy_bob (May 29, 2017)

Athos said:


> Have you watched the clip? It doesn't come across as though she was referring to her afro as a metaphor for her supposed radicalism. Rather, she was on the spot and said something very silly - seemingly, she thought it was a lighthearted way of saying 'times change ' - to avoid answering the question.  She's a buffoon.



I don't know that I could judge from the clip whether she was or wasn't intending the reference metaphorically. You'd have to be able to see inside her mind to answer that, really. But she strikes me as unlikely to choose to emphasise having mellowed out or moved to the right or whatever as her way of answering any question. I think she values her self-perception, justified or not, as someone who speaks her mind, doesn't always toe the line, says unpopular things if she believes in them, etc. She also, maybe because of the longstanding double act with Portillo, often seems to adopt a slightly flippant, jocular tone imagining that it will endear her to people, but which ends up seeming inappropriate or misjudged.

So I tend to agree that probably 'hairstyles change, so do opinions' was just the best she could come up with on the spur of the moment and no more meaningful than that.


----------



## redsquirrel (May 29, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> It was a joke you idiot.


Ah, a joke, well it must make it alright to come out with sexist claptrap then. U75s own Jim Davidson


----------



## Reiabuzz (Jun 6, 2017)

She pulled a sickie for women's hour this morning after another car crash yesterday on sky


----------



## agricola (Jun 6, 2017)

billy_bob said:


> I don't know that I could judge from the clip whether she was or wasn't intending the reference metaphorically. You'd have to be able to see inside her mind to answer that, really. But she strikes me as unlikely to choose to emphasise having mellowed out or moved to the right or whatever as her way of answering any question. I think she values her self-perception, justified or not, as someone who speaks her mind, doesn't always toe the line, says unpopular things if she believes in them, etc. *She also, maybe because of the longstanding double act with Portillo, often seems to adopt a slightly flippant, jocular tone imagining that it will endear her to people, but which ends up seeming inappropriate or misjudged.*
> 
> So I tend to agree that probably 'hairstyles change, so do opinions' was just the best she could come up with on the spur of the moment and no more meaningful than that.



TBH it may be the case that her experience on there is what is causing this, that she has done that show for years and so she doesn't need to do what the rest of the Shadow Cabinet seem to have done and work on improving their presentational skills.


----------



## gosub (Jun 6, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> She pulled a sickie for women's hour this morning after another car crash yesterday on sky




Given she was seen on her phone in Oxford Circus tube (nearest tube) at 8:40 this morning, I think somebody called in sick for her.


----------



## BemusedbyLife (Jun 6, 2017)

Jezza's biggest problem is his lack of a pool of decent talent to draw from, the bulk of the PLP have spent more time trying to stab him in the back rather than accepting the will of the membership and rallying behind their democratically elected leader, so he is forced to fill the Shadow Cabinet with 2nd and 3rd raters who should have been left on the back benches.
He won the leadership twice by the rules, the 2nd time despite a rather crude attempt to rig the result, He has won the right to present his policies to the public and let them decide what they want, not less than 200 people in Westminster. If he loses by a big margin then maybe they will have the right to say I told you so but in the meantime you can't say you're in favour of democracy and then say "Oh sorry I don't like this result, so I will ignore it!"
If there is a big loss of Labour seats then a lot of them will be responsible for their own predicament.


----------



## gindygoo (Jun 6, 2017)

I was honestly not surprised by Abbott's car crash interview, it's becoming her trademark isn't it..

Admit it when you've not read a report, ask what the question is relating to and then answer at the best of your ability. It's not hard. If you're unable to do this very basic thing, then I don't want you I a position of power.

Corbyn needs to sack this idiot asap, there's nothing worse than somebody who cannot fess up when they're in the wrong.

Stupid woman.


----------



## billy_bob (Jun 6, 2017)

BemusedbyLife said:


> Jezza's biggest problem is his lack of a pool of decent talent to draw from, the bulk of the PLP have spent more time trying to stab him in the back rather than accepting the will of the membership and rallying behind their democratically elected leader, so he is forced to fill the Shadow Cabinet with 2nd and 3rd raters who should have been left on the back benches.



There's a difference between talent and experience. The latter is undoubtedly often more useful for playing the game, which ideally you'd want to be pretty good at during an election campaign. I think there are people around Corbyn who seem to have some talent (nous, ability, relevant experience, whatever) but in a fairly raw state at the moment because obviously they've had to be drafted in with relatively little preparation.

At the moment a middle ground between winning the election and catastrophic defeat looks plausible. If he achieved the former he'd have many of the traitorous-unprincipled-but-experienced PLP crawling back because they know which side their bread's buttered, but would he want them if he can win without them anyway? In the latter case, he'd probably have had his chips. But if he steers somewhere in between he may stay on without necessarily winning the old guard over, but at least with enough time before there's another electoral challengefor some of the potential future talent to get some more experience and develop. That might be better for the party in the long term than a win at this stage, tbh.


----------



## agricola (Jun 6, 2017)

Taken out of the Evening Standard's hustings as well now, replaced by Thornberry.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Jun 6, 2017)

She seems to have signs of not being mentally all there and I'm a bit concerned for her actually.


----------



## skyscraper101 (Jun 7, 2017)

Diane Abbott replaced as Labour's shadow home secretary


----------



## Reiabuzz (Jun 7, 2017)

I do actually feel a bit sorry for her. I think you might be right - there's clearly a few issues there mentally at the moment. Although her glorious leader wasn't exactly on the ball with his figures on Woman's Hour himself.

Corbyn unable to give cost of childcare pledge in interview


----------



## Brainaddict (Jun 7, 2017)

So...a genuine health problem, or a surprisingly ruthless move from the Corbynator in the face of her unpopularity?


----------



## nuffsaid (Jun 7, 2017)

Brainaddict said:


> So...a genuine health problem, or a surprisingly ruthless move from the Corbynator in the face of her unpopularity?



I think more of a genuine mathematics problem.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jun 7, 2017)

I doubt it's originating from Corbyn - either a genuine health issue or Abbott is pissed off and taking her ball home


----------



## brogdale (Jun 7, 2017)

It's Labour HQs use of the descriptor "indenifite" that signals some Corbyn ruthlessness; saying whatever happens Abbott won't be HS.


----------



## tim (Jun 7, 2017)

Ah well, presumably she'll be able to recuperate on Andrew Neil's sofa.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jun 7, 2017)

tim said:


> Ah well, presumably she'll be able to recuperate on Andrew Neil's sofa.


in michael portillo's arms


----------



## Who PhD (Jun 7, 2017)

Brainaddict said:


> So...a genuine health problem, or a surprisingly ruthless move from the Corbynator in the face of her unpopularity?


mutual agreement I shouldn't wonder.

Although that Sky interview about terrorism wasn't nearly as bad as has been made out.


----------



## bimble (Jun 7, 2017)

I don't know if this is real or not. Even if it is real its dodgy.


----------



## Who PhD (Jun 7, 2017)

"add colour to the illness story"?


----------



## Pickman's model (Jun 7, 2017)

Who PhD said:


> "add colour to the illness story"?


spit it out, what precisely do you mean?


----------



## Pickman's model (Jun 7, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> Jesus Christ. As if it couldn't get worse for labour they put this fucking idiot up on the news channels/radio stations this morning. Warning, toe curling listening.


----------



## bimble (Jun 7, 2017)

If her recent performance is due to an illness which she knew about then obviously she should have stood down a while ago instead of insisting on going on tv repeatedly.


----------



## Reiabuzz (Jun 7, 2017)

It casts a lot of doubt on Corbyn's judgement let's face it. She pulled a sickie on the article 50 vote too.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jun 7, 2017)

bimble said:


> If her recent performance is due to an illness which she knew about then obviously she should have stood down a while ago instead of insisting on going on tv repeatedly.


yeh. if's a big word, bimble. she may have seen a doctor because of how she felt during the interviews.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jun 7, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> It casts a lot of doubt on Corbyn's judgement let's face it. She pulled a sickie on the article 50 vote too.


yeh how dare he have someone on his team who has the audacity to be ill

i don't like diane abbott. but i like wankers like you less.


----------



## Tankus (Jun 7, 2017)

illness ? .......



agricola said:


> TBH it may be the case that her experience on there is what is causing this, that she has done that show for years and so she doesn't need to do what the rest of the Shadow Cabinet seem to have done and work on improving their presentational skills.


all she needed was an opinion with brillo  ....make it up on the spot ....As a shadow cabinet minister ....she needs to be on top of her brief .....and facts  ..... needs a lot more preparation ...cant just turn up and expect to wing it ... its not presentation  ... its preparation


----------



## butchersapron (Jun 7, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> It casts a lot of doubt on Corbyn's judgement let's face it. She pulled a sickie on the article 50 vote too.


I would say it casts a lot of doubt on the actions and motivations of those members of the PLP who boycotted corbyn and his cabinet leaving him with such a paucity of 'talent' and basic competency - the replacement for example is an expenses scrounging blind-man pushing non-entity. Corbyn left his wife because she wanted to send their kids to a grammar school, Do you think he wanted to put abbott in this key position given her past actions in sending her kid to private school? Despite their past personal and political relationships. 

People like you.


----------



## Who PhD (Jun 7, 2017)

bimble said:


> If her recent performance is due to an illness which she knew about then obviously she should have stood down a while ago instead of insisting on going on tv repeatedly.


why do you assume that's the case? it could be that she's only just become too ill to continue?


----------



## bimble (Jun 7, 2017)

It could be. I don't know, obviously.
The story last week about her being asked directly by Corbyn to please not do any more interviews might suggest that something was up back then at least.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jun 7, 2017)

bimble said:


> It could be. I don't know, obviously.
> The story last week about her being asked directly by Corbyn to please not do any more interviews might suggest that something was up back then at least.


at that point it might just have been a question of shit interviews.


----------



## Lucy Fur (Jun 7, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> It casts a lot of doubt on Corbyn's judgement let's face it. She pulled a sickie on the article 50 vote too.


No it don't, but unless you are in possession of a whole load of facts the rest of don't have, your post casts a lot of doubts over you.


----------



## ShiftyBagLady (Jun 7, 2017)

Who PhD said:


> why do you assume that's the case? it could be that she's only just become too ill to continue?


Or it may be that, as with many people who have long term health issues, she wanted to keep going and not let her condition thwart her ambitions.

Useless speculating about what it is but I don't think she, or anybody else with chronic health concerns, should be belittled for having a go and admitting defeat if they are not quite able to perform at work.

Call me a bleeding heart


----------



## Brainaddict (Jun 7, 2017)

To be fair, I was thinking the other day that the kind of pressure the top team have been under would make most people crack. To be going into a snap election with most of the PLP hating you and the media tearing you apart is a pretty intense situation to be in. It shouldn't really be surprising if some of them have genuine stress-related problems. Still, I suspect it is a bit strategic too. It's been a bit of a running joke doing the rounds the last few days (at least in my office), that the main problem with voting Corbyn is you would get Diane Abbott as home sec. I'm sure such talk has got back to the strategists...


----------



## redsquirrel (Jun 7, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> yeh how dare he have someone on his team who has the audacity to be ill
> 
> i don't like diane abbott. but i like wankers like you less.


LibDem wanker, what can you expect


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jun 7, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> She pulled a sickie on the article 50 vote too.



And as we know, she had the casting vote on article 50.


----------



## stuff_it (Jun 7, 2017)

ShiftyBagLady said:


> Or it may be that, as with many people who have long term health issues, she wanted to keep going and not let her condition thwart her ambitions.
> 
> Useless speculating about what it is but I don't think she, or anybody else with chronic health concerns, should be belittled for having a go and admitting defeat if they are not quite able to perform at work.
> 
> Call me a bleeding heart


I'd like to speculate about what it is. 

Any takers?

I'd post a poll if it wasn't in dreadful taste.


----------



## Wilf (Jun 7, 2017)

stuff_it said:


> I'd like to speculate about what it is.
> 
> Any takers?
> 
> I'd post a poll if it wasn't in dreadful taste.


Affluenza?


----------



## bimble (Jun 7, 2017)

I'll call ShiftyBagLady a bleeding heart. You're all a bunch of softies. 
I do get the sentiment but really, 'her ambitions' should've taken a back seat to the bigger picture, IF she knew that she was ill and aware that it was making her incapable of fulfilling her role properly. 
There's no question her recent performance has done real damage and handed free easy points to Corbyns enemies. Im sorry she's ill and all but don't think she deserves admiration for clinging on and giving one disastrous interview after another, especially  after having been asked to stop by JC himself.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jun 7, 2017)

Hang on, you know that last part for a fact do you?


----------



## bimble (Jun 7, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> Hang on, you know that last part for a fact do you?


Nope but read it in the Times (can't rember who posted it here) . It may not be true but they reported that after other people's requests had gotten nowhere Corbyn called her himself and asked her to do no more interviews and she went ahead anyway.


----------



## stuff_it (Jun 7, 2017)

Wilf said:


> Affluenza?


I'm torn between congestive heart failure and early onset senile dementia.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jun 7, 2017)

Right and what are they basing this report on?


----------



## bimble (Jun 7, 2017)

Corbyn allies 'tried to persuade Diane Abbott against Marr interview'
(Can't find the times one that this is based on)
But anyway, more to the point is I don't think she should be commended for carrying on trying to fulfil 'her ambitions', if she knew her illness was causing her to be unable to do her job properly. Her decision to carry on has caused damage to the cause she's supposed to be helping and led to this last minute thing that I'm sure you agree looks really bad.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jun 7, 2017)

Precisely, "claims", "reports" -  so you're treating as fact something that has bugger all evidence for it, "reported  by" two Tory papers.


----------



## bimble (Jun 7, 2017)

Even if that story were completely untrue, do you think she did a good thing for Labour's chances by carrying on regardless until she gets somehow shuffled off on the very last day before the election?


----------



## Plumdaff (Jun 7, 2017)

Many chronic illnesses are very incremental in onset; it can be very hard for the sufferer to notice the change in their abilities, especially when they are continuing what they've been doing for many years. I don't think you can expect someone to judge their abilities that competently when they are ill, sometimes it takes a crisis. For example, when my uncle got very unwell many years ago we'd all noticed he was grumpier and not on top form, he hadn't at all, in the end it took him having to call family from a service station because he simply couldn't remember his way home before we got him diagnosed and starting treatment.


----------



## redsquirrel (Jun 7, 2017)

bimble said:


> Even if that story were completely untrue, do you think she did a good thing for Labour's chances by carrying on regardless until she gets somehow shuffled off on the very last day before the election?


I think she's both inept and a hypocrite with crap politics.

But all we've got to go on in this story are vague reports and unsubstantiated claims, I've no idea if she really is ill and if so how serious it is, and so taking bullshit claims, made by partisan source, as fact is pretty daft.


----------



## Lucy Fur (Jun 7, 2017)

Until we know a good deal more about it, any discussion is pointless. That there Boris is a right cunt tho, of that we can be assured.


----------



## not-bono-ever (Jun 7, 2017)

Interesting outburst on jack monroe blog if you can be arsed to google . Im pub so wOnt


----------



## Celyn (Jun 7, 2017)

"...  brilliant, bright, dedicated, little black girl".

That's a bit yuk.

I do think that if she's ill, she could have disappeared before doing damage in interviews.  Oh well.


----------



## Thimble Queen (Jun 7, 2017)

not-bono-ever said:


> Interesting outburst on jack monroe blog if you can be arsed to google . Im pub so wOnt



I was just reading this as a friend posted it on Facebook. It mentions quite a few facts and brings in some wider context that I wasn't aware of. We need to talk about Diane Abbott. Now. (EXPLICIT CONTENT)


----------



## 19force8 (Jun 8, 2017)

Thimble Queen said:


> I was just reading this as a friend posted it on Facebook. It mentions quite a few facts and brings in some wider context that I wasn't aware of. We need to talk about Diane Abbott. Now. (EXPLICIT CONTENT)


Perfect, thank you.


----------



## SpookyFrank (Jun 8, 2017)

Celyn said:


> "...  brilliant, bright, dedicated, little black girl".
> 
> That's a bit yuk.
> 
> I do think that if she's ill, she could have disappeared before doing damage in interviews.  Oh well.



If we're thinking mental health issue, well thay sort of thing has been known to affect decision making.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jun 8, 2017)

Lucy Fur said:


> Until we know a good deal more about it, any discussion is pointless.


but you know how we love uninformed speculation here


----------



## Thimble Queen (Jun 8, 2017)

A lefty women's group I'm in put some money together to send DA a card and some flowers as a token of thanks and to wish her well. We raised a bit more than we needed for flowers so we have put the rest towards a charity of her choice. One of our group members gave her the flowers earlier today and she was quite touched by all accounts ❤ I was pleased to be part of a joint effort to show her a bit of kindness considering the absolute rinsing she gets from all and sundry.


----------



## Athos (Jun 8, 2017)

Thimble Queen said:


> A lefty women's group I'm in put some money together to send DA a card and some flowers as a token of thanks and to wish her well. We raised a bit more than we needed for flowers so we have put the rest towards a charity of her choice. One of our group members gave her the flowers earlier today and she was quite touched by all accounts ❤ I was pleased to be part of a joint effort to show her a bit of kindness considering the absolute rinsing she gets from all and sundry.


Maybe she can put the rest towards her son's school fees.


----------



## not-bono-ever (Jun 8, 2017)

She may have to send the cash back in a fucking time machine, he is about 30 now


----------



## Athos (Jun 8, 2017)

not-bono-ever said:


> She may have to send the cash back in a fucking time machine, he is about 30 now



Yeah, I was just kidding, she paid them long since (probably with the money from the BBC which she was censured for failing to declare).


----------



## Thimble Queen (Jun 8, 2017)

not-bono-ever said:


> She may have to send the cash back in a fucking time machine, he is about 30 now



He forgot to include a winkyface, again


----------



## classicdish (Jun 8, 2017)

Thimble Queen said:


> I was just reading this as a friend posted it on Facebook. It mentions quite a few facts and brings in some wider context that I wasn't aware of. We need to talk about Diane Abbott. Now. (EXPLICIT CONTENT)


This says _"In 2017 only 15 black kids went to Cambridge"_

Here's some recent figures that (depending on how you want to define 'black') give a far higher figures (eg nearer 130-plus per year).
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/383224/response/933841/attach/2/FOI 2017 36 Amin response letter and data.pdf


----------



## Thimble Queen (Jun 8, 2017)

classicdish said:


> This says _"In 2017 only 15 black kids went to Cambridge"_
> 
> Here's some recent figures that (depending on how you want to define 'black') give a far higher figures (eg nearer 130-plus per year).
> https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/383224/response/933841/attach/2/FOI 2017 36 Amin response letter and data.pdf



I did think that seemed on the rather low side on first reading. I wondered if it was a misprint and it meant to refer to the year of DAs admission. 

According to the info in the charts Black or Black British - Caribbean, Black or Black British - African and Other Black 
background respectively 19+95+17 =131 so yeah 130ish as you say. 

Are you going to let JM know?


----------



## MikeMcc (Jun 8, 2017)

Thimble Queen said:


> I did think that seemed on the rather low side on first reading. I wondered if it was a misprint and it meant to refer to the year of DAs admission.
> 
> According to the info in the charts Black or Black British - Caribbean, Black or Black British - African and Other Black
> background respectively 19+95+17 =131 so yeah 130ish as you say.
> ...


I think it may be some confusion from a recent publicity story in the last month or so.  A group of black students were photographed to show that it is possible for students from ethnic minorities to go to Cambridge University.  The story behind it is that at some recent point in the past there were only 15 black students in Cambridge.  AFAIA it's still below being representative, but an improvement so far.


----------



## bimble (Jun 8, 2017)

Getting into Harrow County Grammar School For Girls will have helped a lot with the trajectory to Cambridge. Might help explain her posh accent and why she felt private education was necessary for her children who knows.


----------



## 19force8 (Jun 8, 2017)

From the stats provided there were 15 Black or Black British - Caribbean students enrolled in 2014-15.


----------



## Treacle Toes (Jun 8, 2017)

Thimble Queen said:


> He forgot to include a winkyface, again


Urgh... Fucking creep.


----------



## Athos (Jun 8, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Urgh... Fucking creep.



Why are you so angry?  On this occasion, I was highlighting Abbott's hypocrisy, rather than yours.


----------



## Thimble Queen (Jun 8, 2017)

Rutita1 said:


> Urgh... Fucking creep.



It's pathetic really.


----------



## Thimble Queen (Jun 8, 2017)

19force8 said:


> From the stats provided there were 15 Black or Black British - Caribbean students enrolled in 2014-15.



Yep but the article talks about 2017 and refers to Black students not just 'Black or Black British - Caribbean' students. There are two other Black categories in the stats for each year listed.


----------



## classicdish (Jun 9, 2017)

MikeMcc said:


> I think it may be some confusion from a recent publicity story in the last month or so.  A group of black students were photographed to show that it is possible for students from ethnic minorities to go to Cambridge University.  The story behind it is that at some recent point in the past there were only 15 black students in Cambridge.  AFAIA it's still below being representative, but an improvement so far.


Maybe this BBC story which quotes a facebook page that claimed: _"In 2015, only 15 black, male undergraduates were accepted into Cambridge."
_
It makes sense that the number for undergraduates only is less than all entrants, and that the number for males is also less than the total. There is also the issue of looking at UK (home) students versus students from overseas - for example there has been a large uptick in student categorised as Chinese but probably most of these are not UK students.

*edit:*_ Here's the source for '15 black male undergrads':
University of Cambridge Undergraduate Admissions Statistics 2015 cycle
(see page 30)

Looks like if you exclude all non-UK students, all post-graduates, all 'mixed' category students and all female students you can get to the 15 figure._


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Jun 9, 2017)




----------



## Thimble Queen (Jun 9, 2017)

If anyone else wants to contribute to a care package for DA. There's a fundraiser here. Anything over £50 is going to charities in Hackney. They've raised over £3k so far ❤

Click here to support DIANE ABBOTT CARE PACKAGE organized by Sophie Dukebox


----------



## Celyn (Jun 9, 2017)

What sort of contribution can she need, given that the basic pay for an M.P. is £76,011? It's not as though she is waiting for £73.10 weekly ESA, really. I'm sure she'll manage.


----------



## Thimble Queen (Jun 9, 2017)

Celyn said:


> What sort of contribution can she need, given that the basic pay for an M.P. is £76,011? It's not as though she is waiting for £73.10 weekly ESA, really. I'm sure she'll manage.




Read the link maybe? It's a token gesture to say thank you to her for everything she's done for people in the UK. The actual money is going to named charities in Hackney not in DAs pocket. Are you honestly begrudging her a bar of chocolate?


----------



## Reiabuzz (Jun 9, 2017)

'Vindicated' Diane Abbott celebrates as she wins biggest ever majority

Mental. Her gobsmacking incompetence probably cost labour a few close seats and potentially even downing st and she's celebrating. And people are sending her chocolates and cash


----------



## Idris2002 (Jun 9, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> 'Vindicated' Diane Abbott celebrates as she wins biggest ever majority
> 
> Mental. Her gobsmacking incompetence probably cost labour a few close seats and potentially even downing st and she's celebrating. And people are sending her chocolates and cash


If her 'incompetence' was a vote loser, why didn't she lose any votes in her own constituency?


----------



## RD2003 (Jun 9, 2017)

Just mailed her a bag of Revels and one of the new pound coins.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Jun 9, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> If her 'incompetence' was a vote loser, why didn't she lose any votes in her own constituency?


False equivalence. Being seen as a good constituency MP and seen as a good candidate for Home Sec are two different things. I spoke to a couple of people who referenced Abbott becoming Home Sec as a reason not to vote Labour, and there's similar comments all over the web.

I'm not judging either way on what happened, just pointing out that's not a very solid argument.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jun 9, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> 'Vindicated' Diane Abbott celebrates as she wins biggest ever majority
> 
> Mental. Her gobsmacking incompetence probably cost labour a few close seats and potentially even downing st and she's celebrating. And people are sending her chocolates and cash


yeh. no one will ever send you chocolates or cash, because right wing shits don't get presents from strangers.


----------



## Lord Camomile (Jun 9, 2017)

Hell, you could say the same for Corbyn, really! Lot of people thinking "yes, he's good for his constituency but not good for the country".


----------



## gosub (Jun 9, 2017)

Fozzie Bear said:


>




depends who did the counting.  If it was Diane...


----------



## Thimble Queen (Jun 9, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> 'Vindicated' Diane Abbott celebrates as she wins biggest ever majority
> 
> Mental. Her gobsmacking incompetence probably cost labour a few close seats and potentially even downing st and she's celebrating. And people are sending her chocolates and cash



Who is sending her cash? Stop deliberately misrepresenting what's happening. She's being sent a token gift because she's unwell. Just fuck off you no mark cunt.


----------



## 1927 (Jun 9, 2017)

Idris2002 said:


> If her 'incompetence' was a vote loser, why didn't she lose any votes in her own constituency?


Do you really think people voted for her! Or just the fact she was standing as a labour candidate? Put a red rosette on a teddy bear and it would win in some constituencies!


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 9, 2017)

1927 said:


> Do you really think people voted for her! Or just the fact she was standing as a labour candidate? Put a red rosette on a teddy bear and it would win in some constituencies!



Go on, let me guess. You don't like her?

Wrong combination of chromosomes again?


----------



## Fozzie Bear (Jun 9, 2017)

Clearly people voted for her for a bunch of different reasons but I think one of them is undoubtedly out of affection for her after shitty treatment in the media. Also because of Corbyn. 

That's why her vote went up so much. Her usual massive majority could be explained away by the "rosette on a teddy bear" thing. Not this. 

I really don't like her at all (mainly the private school thing) but it's undeniable that a lot of people in Hackney North where I live do see her as "our Diane".


----------



## gosub (Jun 9, 2017)

Teaboy said:


> Go on, let me guess. You don't like her?
> 
> Wrong combination of chromosomes again?



 You can't see reasons for having a problems with her that aren't rooted in her sex/race???

She is clearly out of her depth.


----------



## Sirena (Jun 9, 2017)

1927 said:


> Do you really think people voted for her! Or just the fact she was standing as a labour candidate? Put a red rosette on a teddy bear and it would win in some constituencies!



You're right.  I don't think she has any real local support....


----------



## redsquirrel (Jun 9, 2017)

Thimble Queen said:


> Just fuck off you no mark cunt.


No mark LibDem cunt


----------



## Reiabuzz (Jun 9, 2017)

Ouch. That hurts.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jun 9, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> No mark LibDem cunt


You're pulling your punches, rs


----------



## Thimble Queen (Jun 9, 2017)

redsquirrel said:


> No mark LibDem cunt



Where's the crying with laughter react for that


----------



## Reiabuzz (Jun 9, 2017)

Thimble Queen said:


> Who is sending her cash? Stop deliberately misrepresenting what's happening. She's being sent a token gift because she's unwell. Just fuck off you no mark cunt.



Erm. Did you read the emails she sent back to the hoaxer pretending her to be her advisor after her last withdrawal? She wasn't, and isn't fucking ill. She's just thick as fuck. Though not as thick as the fucking idiots who sends cash and chocolate to such a deceitful idiot.

She was pulled from the campaign because she was a liability. How fucking stupid are you?


----------



## redsquirrel (Jun 9, 2017)

Yeah twitter posted images by a know hoaxer - definitely 100% trustworthy. And you're calling others stupid.


----------



## Thimble Queen (Jun 9, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> Erm. Did you read the emails she sent back to the hoaxer pretending her to be her advisor after her last withdrawal? She wasn't, and isn't fucking ill. She's just thick as fuck. Though not as thick as the fucking idiots who sends cash and chocolate to such a deceitful idiot.
> 
> She was pulled from the campaign because she was a liability. How fucking stupid are you?



No one is sending her cash from thr two fundraisers posted here. Stop peddling nonsense, Twatkins.


----------



## 1927 (Jun 10, 2017)

Reiabuzz said:


> Erm. Did you read the emails she sent back to the hoaxer pretending her to be her advisor after her last withdrawal? She wasn't, and isn't fucking ill. She's just thick as fuck. Though not as thick as the fucking idiots who sends cash and chocolate to such a deceitful idiot.
> 
> She was pulled from the campaign because she was a liability. How fucking stupid are you?


Some people are just too blind or stupid to see the obvious.


----------



## Schmetterling (Jun 10, 2017)

gosub said:


> depends who did the counting.  If it was Diane...



One
Two
42
Thousand


----------



## not-bono-ever (Jun 10, 2017)

bullying & stress behind the DA issues.


----------



## stethoscope (Jun 10, 2017)

I'm not surprised, the shit and abuse I've seen her be on the receiving end of on twitter and stuff is grim. Way beyond political differences and challenges.


----------



## Dowie (Jun 10, 2017)

Yup, sure she's made a few gaffs in interviews recently, but the flack she's been getting just reeks of racism... we've had someone in this thread even comparing her to a man etc.. I came into this thread to post the below link but then saw it has already been posted. It is sad to see so many people jumping on the band wagon and attacking her, objectively she's achieved so much and now people are prepared to throw her under the bus after a few bad interviews.



Thimble Queen said:


> I was just reading this as a friend posted it on Facebook. It mentions quite a few facts and brings in some wider context that I wasn't aware of. We need to talk about Diane Abbott. Now. (EXPLICIT CONTENT)


----------



## stethoscope (Jun 10, 2017)

And loads of shit about her size, etc.


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 10, 2017)

stethoscope said:


> And loads of shit about her size, etc.


It's been frankly disgusting, the number of comments around from all sides laughing about her relationship with Corbyn ("how could he"), calling her fat, ugly, stupid. It's not like they just started after she messed up a few interviews when sick either.


----------



## not-bono-ever (Jun 10, 2017)

...from other MP's


----------



## not-bono-ever (Jun 10, 2017)

..


----------



## gosub (Jun 13, 2017)

Diane Abbott reveals she has type 2 diabetes - Diane Abbott reveals she has type 2 diabetes - BBC News

Ffs


----------



## Treacle Toes (Jun 13, 2017)

gosub said:


> Diane Abbott reveals she has type 2 diabetes - Diane Abbott reveals she has type 2 diabetes - BBC News
> 
> Ffs


FFS what?


----------



## Athos (Jun 13, 2017)

Might have to rethink the chocolate bars in the care package.


----------



## Who PhD (Jun 14, 2017)

This neither news nor implausible, surely?


----------



## girasol (Jun 14, 2017)

Everyone who was a judgemental, ignorant, racist, sexist prick: enjoy eating your words up


----------



## gosub (Jun 14, 2017)

girasol said:


> Everyone who was a judgemental, ignorant, racist, sexist prick: enjoy eating your words up



Yep, all you people outraged that Mrs May didn't do debates.   Type 2 Diabetes is now classed as a condition so debilitating that you are all cunts.   Oh, hang on...


----------



## bi0boy (Jun 14, 2017)

If she was ill she needn't have done the interviews. Yet another politician grasping on to power.


----------



## Wilf (Jun 14, 2017)

Over the years she's suffered a significant amount of racism, as well as misogyny and comments on her size.  Whilst I don't think I can recall any of the coverage in the election being overtly racist/sexist on this issue, its reasonable to assume that a fair bit of the glee about her memory failures was motivated by an unexpressed racism/sexism. 

Can't say I particularly like her, all the cosy chats on brillo's sofa, the private school stuff.  Equally, her performance in those interviews _was_ dreadful, though it may well have been her illness.  Not sure what that all adds up to?  Suppose you can have sympathy and stand with her in terms of the combined sexism and racism she gets, without necessarily warming to her personally.  Dunno really, to be honest I _don't_ really dislike her, she just seems like she's moved into the bubble permanently now.


----------



## ShiftyBagLady (Jun 14, 2017)

I feel similarly. I don't _like_ her very much. the public school thing grated on any possibility I might have of developing a liking for her and I often find her tone supercilious and plain irritating. However, I believe she has been a force for good in advancing gender and race equalities in politics and I think she is an important political figure. I don't need to like politicians to appreciate if they are principled people and I'd much rather have principled politicians than likeable ones.

I don't have diabetes but I've seen how it can effect people so I think that it may well explain some of her confusion and somewhat vacant and absentminded presentation in interview. 2 years is a fairly recent diagnosis too, I imagine she is still learning proper management.


----------



## Athos (Jun 14, 2017)

Who knew a symptom of diabetes is hypocrisy?

The stuff criticising her for her gender and/or ethnicity,  her weight, or her attractiveness is out of order. 

And completely unnecessary; there are other, legitimate, bases of criticism.


----------



## wiskey (Jun 14, 2017)

ShiftyBagLady said:


> I don't have diabetes but I've seen how it can effect people so I think that it may well explain some of her confusion and somewhat vacant and absentminded presentation in interview. 2 years is a fairly recent diagnosis too, I imagine she is still learning proper management.


I do. 

It can take a while when it goes completely fubared before it becomes apparent. Any small infection or stress can fuck up your blood sugars.


----------



## Thimble Queen (Jun 14, 2017)

Athos said:


> Might have to rethink the chocolate bars in the care package.



Sophie Dukebox is the person arranging the care package. Get in touch with her and give her your feedback. I'm sure she'd love to hear from you Sophie Dukebox (@sophiedukebox) on Twitter


----------



## Who PhD (Jun 14, 2017)

bi0boy said:


> If she was ill she needn't have done the interviews. Yet another politician grasping on to power.


this is just fallacious.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jun 14, 2017)

bi0boy said:


> If she was ill she needn't have done the interviews. Yet another politician grasping on to power.


the most obvious politician grasping onto power in the uk now is theresa may.

diane abbott may not be to your taste or mine. but with a massive fucking majority she's hardly grasping onto power.


----------



## bi0boy (Jun 14, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> diane abbott may not be to your taste or mine. but with a massive fucking majority she's hardly grasping onto power.



the power of being a member of the shadow cabinet, obvs.

why else would she continue to do interviews when ill?


----------



## Pickman's model (Jun 14, 2017)

bi0boy said:


> the power of being a member of the shadow cabinet, obvs.
> 
> why else would she continue to do interviews when ill?


you've never gone into work a bit under the weather, i take it.

being in the shadow cabinet has no power, that's why it's the shadow cabinet.


----------



## bi0boy (Jun 14, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> you've never gone into work a bit under the weather, i take it.



only because I wanted to keep my job.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jun 14, 2017)

bi0boy said:


> only because I wanted to keep my job.


yeh. and so it's fine for you to do but not for da.


----------



## bi0boy (Jun 14, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> yeh. and so it's fine for you to do but not for da.



Only when capable of performing my duties though. Otherwise I'd say I'm ill and let someone cover me. Especially as I cared about the work and wanted it to be completed successfully.


----------



## Wilf (Jun 14, 2017)

bi0boy said:


> only because I wanted to keep my job.


She's not my cup of tea politically and she probably made a (very small) dent in Labour's election campaign, but maybe give her the benefit of the doubt on her illness having an effect?  Like a lot of people, I posted things up along the lines of 'omg, get her away from the campaign'. Whilst that was what actually happened, I still feel a bit shit if she was ill. So, yeah, give her a break?


----------



## bi0boy (Jun 14, 2017)

Wilf said:


> She's not my cup of tea politically and she probably made a (very small) dent in Labour's election campaign, but maybe give her the benefit of the doubt on her illness having an effect?  Like a lot of people, I posted things up along the lines of 'omg, get her away from the campaign'. Whilst that was what actually happened, I still feel a bit shit if she was ill. So, yeah, give her a break?



Like we all gave Theresa May a break for having diabetes you mean?


----------



## Teaboy (Jun 14, 2017)

As others have said if she is struggling to adapt to her new condition and control her blood sugar levels than that would certainly explain the brain fades. Its a shame she went on and did the second interview though given everyone was pleading with her not too.  Maybe she wanted to put it all right and set the record straight, pride is strong motivator I guess.


----------



## Wilf (Jun 14, 2017)

bi0boy said:


> Like we all gave Theresa May a break for having diabetes you mean?


Well, yes, possibly. Though I don't think TM has come out and said her poor performance was to do with that.


----------



## Pickman's model (Jun 14, 2017)

bi0boy said:


> Only when capable of performing my duties though. Otherwise I'd say I'm ill and let someone cover me. Especially as I cared about the work and wanted it to be completed successfully.


you cared about your work? what sort of freak are you?


----------



## bi0boy (Jun 14, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> you cared about your work? what sort of freak are you?



I was a fire safety officer and radiation protection supervisor...


----------



## Pickman's model (Jun 14, 2017)

bi0boy said:


> I was a fire safety officer and radiation protection supervisor...


The Homer Simpson of urban


----------



## Bahnhof Strasse (Jun 14, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> The Homer Simpson of urban


----------



## Thimble Queen (Jun 14, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> The Homer Simpson of urban


----------



## Idris2002 (Jun 14, 2017)

Teaboy said:


> As others have said if she is struggling to adapt to her new condition and control her blood sugar levels than that would certainly explain the brain fades. Its a shame she went on and did the second interview though given everyone was pleading with her not too.  Maybe she wanted to put it all right and set the record straight, pride is strong motivator I guess.


Pride, probably, and also a career based on wading through an ocean of shit - that would have predisposed her to believe that the best way to deal with a problem is to plough straight on through it, even if everyone is pleading with you not too.


----------



## Wilf (Jun 14, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> The Homer Simpson of urban


You're a very naughty poster.


----------



## tim (Jun 14, 2017)

bi0boy said:


> the power of being a member of the shadow cabinet, obvs.
> 
> why else would she continue to do interviews when ill?



Because it was at the climax of an election campaign and she felt obliged to. In addition the condition itself might impair her judgement of her own a abilities


----------



## FridgeMagnet (Jun 14, 2017)

People who've been diabetic for years and are used to it can still have trouble with their glucose levels, and not be able to tell when they're in trouble.


----------



## Beats & Pieces (Jun 14, 2017)

Pickman's model said:


> you've never gone into work a bit under the weather, i take it.
> 
> being in the shadow cabinet has no power, that's why it's the shadow cabinet.



Power is about _strategic relations_ - so she most definately has a form of power.


----------



## Reiabuzz (Apr 30, 2018)

Oh dear. Labour's got an open fucking goal here. And once again they've wheeled out Diane Abbott  Is she actually on ket?

Diane Abbott repeatedly refuses to say what should happen to illegal migrants in car-crash interview with Piers Morgan


----------



## Pickman's model (Apr 30, 2018)

Reiabuzz said:


> Oh dear. Labour's got an open fucking goal here. And once again they've wheeled out Diane Abbott
> 
> Diane Abbott repeatedly refuses to say what should happen to illegal migrants in car-crash interview with Piers Morgan


you do like _the sun_ i see.


----------



## killer b (Apr 30, 2018)

Reiabuzz said:


> And once again they've wheeled out Diane Abbott


She's the shadow home secretary, it's her job.


----------



## Reiabuzz (Apr 30, 2018)

She's really good at it


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## killer b (Apr 30, 2018)

The home office brief seems a pretty difficult one atm. Dunno if you've noticed.


----------



## Reiabuzz (Apr 30, 2018)

Do you think she's doing a good job of being shadow home secretary?

I don't know who's more incompetent. Abbott herself or whoever appointed her and keeps her on despite fuck-up after fuck-up after fuck-up. Not naming names here of course.


----------



## killer b (Apr 30, 2018)

It's difficult for Labour to make hay out of the current immigration shambles, because the policies which caused it have wide support in the country, including among many of their voters / potential voters. Unequivocal support for free movement would be heavily punished at the ballot box.

Likewise, a more hardline immigration stance would be punished by the other half of the Labour electoral coalition. So strategic vagueness is a fairly sensible position to take (especially three days before the local elections).

I don't much care for Abbott, but she's got a shit sandwich to deal with atm.


----------



## existentialist (Apr 30, 2018)

Reiabuzz said:


> Do you think she's doing a good job of being shadow home secretary?
> 
> I don't know who's more incompetent. Abbott herself or whoever appointed her and keeps her on despite fuck-up after fuck-up after fuck-up. Not naming names here of course.


She's certainly doing a better job of being shadow home secretary than either of the last two active incumbents in government. Which isn't necessarily saying much...


----------



## Pickman's model (Apr 30, 2018)

Reiabuzz said:


> Do you think she's doing a good job of being shadow home secretary?
> 
> I don't know who's more incompetent. Abbott herself or whoever appointed her and keeps her on despite fuck-up after fuck-up after fuck-up. Not naming names here of course.


you presumably reserve some ire for her constituents who returned her to power after the racist, sexist and misogynistic campaign against her round the time of the general election, a campaign you seem proud to be part of.

you haven't said how you feel she's been incompetent, which to my mind is itself incompetence. unless you want to identify yourself entirely with _the sun_ on this. you appear to have as much political nous as you have footballing acumen.


----------



## Celyn (Apr 30, 2018)

She mainly does happy little telly chats with Portillo (possibly a different person - but I think it is Portillo). It is all extremely charming and cosy. 

_Confession_: I have not seen their telly show at all often, so I might be years out of date here.


----------



## DotCommunist (Apr 30, 2018)

Celyn said:


> She mainly does happy little telly chats with Portillo (possibly a different person - but I think it is Portillo). It is all extremely charming and cosy.
> 
> _Confession_: I have not seen their telly show at all often, so I might be years out of date here.


used to appear on the daily politics often with that wank portillo, but the show itself is under the clammy hand Andrew Neil. These days portillos getting license fee money to make fun programs and abbot is busy. Andrew Niel is still there, looking sweaty


----------



## wtfftw (Apr 30, 2018)

DotCommunist said:


> used to appear on the daily politics often with that wank portillo, but the show itself is under the clammy hand Andrew Neil. These days portillos getting license fee money to make fun programs and abbot is busy. Andrew Niel is still there, looking sweaty


You've managed to conjure the same amount of pre sick saliva as watching the program. So well done, I think.


----------



## skyscraper101 (May 1, 2018)

One of the biggest Home Office immigration policy fuckups in like forever, and she can't even explain her party policy on immigration. Let alone score a victory against the easiest of open goals.



Even the weird long blinking she does. I'd say you couldn't write this shit, but then...



Fucking useless.


----------



## Reiabuzz (May 1, 2018)

It's astonishing she's in the job. Surely there's someone on the Labour front bench who actually learns the facts before going into interviews. Piers Morgan was going very easy on her there by his normal standards, as was Nick Ferrari during the other car crash interview last year.


----------



## killer b (May 1, 2018)

skyscraper101 said:


> One of the biggest Home Office immigration policy fuckups in like forever, and she can't even explain her party policy on immigration. Let alone score a victory against the easiest of open goals.



You're sharing a video from the fb page of Raheem Kassam from Breitbart. Click through and you'll find a banner ad for his new book 'Enoch was Right'. Lovely.


----------



## skyscraper101 (May 1, 2018)

killer b said:


> You're sharing a video from the fb page of Raheem Kassam from Breitbart. Click through and you'll find a banner ad for his new book 'Enoch was Right'. Lovely.



Er.. what? I just nicked it from the Thick Of It Quotes facebook page. No idea who he was.

Have replaced.


----------



## LDC (May 1, 2018)

skyscraper101 said:


> One of the biggest Home Office immigration policy fuckups in like forever, and she can't even explain her party policy on immigration. Let alone score a victory against the easiest of open goals.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Is she on fucking valium in that clip? She's struggling to get a sentence out.


----------



## killer b (May 1, 2018)

skyscraper101 said:


> Er.. what? I just nicked it from the Thick Of It Quotes facebook page. No idea who he was.
> 
> Have replaced.


Looks like the thick of it quotes facebook page is sharing material from fascists then. Whoops.


----------



## killer b (May 1, 2018)

Anyway: I'm not going to watch another _Diane Abbott Car Crash Interview, _but I will say that it's probably best for Labour with the election on Thursday to maintain a certain amount of ambiguity about their immigration policies - come down decisively on one side or the other and they risk alienating a large number of their electoral coalition.


----------



## killer b (May 1, 2018)

Oh. in fact I said the same yesterday, when someone else posted the same video (without the added fascism)


----------



## Reiabuzz (May 1, 2018)

The guy on the Thick of It was actually slightly more coherent than Diane 

Seriously though, I think after the Nick Ferrari one she said wasn't well or something by way of an excuse. Is she on prescription meds? If so, she shouldn't be allowed near a tv camera or microphone to explain Labour's position on anything, let alone something as serious as this. Imagine if she was actually in post. The mind boggles.


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## ElizabethofYork (May 1, 2018)

She's a gift to the tories.


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## Smokeandsteam (May 1, 2018)

Basic competence in the role. Understanding the brief in your own area. Being able to communicate clearly with those whose votes you seek and support you canvas. 

Despite what she or her fanclub might say these are not Blairite principles or traps laid for Abbott. Her biggest weakness isn't her politics, it's the fact that she's fucking useless.


----------



## agricola (May 1, 2018)

Smokeandsteam said:


> Basic competence in the role. Understanding the brief in your own area. Being able to communicate clearly with those whose votes you seek and support you canvas.
> 
> Despite what she or her fanclub might say these are not Blairite principles or traps laid for Abbott. Her biggest weakness isn't her politics, it's the fact that she's fucking useless.



Fucking useless _at interviews_.  

Abbott's problems are all down to her either not understanding her brief or (more likely) not having confidence in her understanding of her brief and so falling apart in set-piece interviews like this every so often (and of course repeat incidents dent confidence even further); in terms of her actual performance as Shadow HS (policies, achievements, direction of thinking, performance in the Commons) she has been far better than all of her post-2010 predecessors were.


----------



## killer b (May 1, 2018)

The whole thing about _communicating clearly_ is that you need to have something you want to communicate. Where Abbott comes unstuck is when trying avoid communicating. I can't think of many politicians who do this well.


----------



## Rob Ray (May 1, 2018)

agricola said:


> Fucking useless _at interviews_.



Yeah her writing never strikes me as particularly spectacularly unintelligent for a politician, a bit pedestrian but no more so than the rest. I do think people like to mistake video fuck-ups for incapability (that goes for right and left btw) while not bearing in mind that brain freeze in front of a live camera can happen to the best of us. That said, she's had years on the punditry circuit to hone her craft for moments like this.


----------



## Reiabuzz (May 1, 2018)

killer b said:


> The whole thing about _communicating clearly_ is that you need to have something you want to communicate. Where Abbott comes unstuck is when trying avoid communicating. I can't think of many politicians who do this well.



Well then the question needs to be asked about why she doesn't have anything to communicate. In this case, Labour's policy on immigration. Why wasn't she, as the shadow home secretary and going into an interview with one of the country's more combative interviewers, armed with this basic knowledge? Where does the blame lie for that?


----------



## agricola (May 1, 2018)

Rob Ray said:


> Yeah her writing never strikes me as particularly spectacularly unintelligent for a politician, a bit pedestrian but no more so than the rest. I do think people like to mistake video fuck-ups for incapability (that goes for right and left btw). That said, she's had years on the punditry circuit to hone her craft for moments like this.



That (or at least how she was on _This Week_) is a different art though; she was being asked to be herself there and not "stick to this, do not say this, this, this, especially this or this, mention this but in this specific form" in the bizarre script format of modern political interviews.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 1, 2018)

Reiabuzz said:


> Well then the question needs to be asked about why she doesn't have anything to communicate. In this case, Labour's policy on immigration. Why wasn't she, as the shadow home secretary and going into an interview with one of the country's more combative interviewers, armed with this basic knowledge? Where does the blame lie for that?


What does the sun say on that?


----------



## killer b (May 1, 2018)

Reiabuzz said:


> Well then the question needs to be asked about why she doesn't have anything to communicate. In this case, Labour's policy on immigration. Why wasn't she, as the shadow home secretary and going into an interview with one of the country's more combative interviewers, armed with this basic knowledge? Where does the blame lie for that?


Here, I said earlier in the thread (twice actually) why Labour are avoiding talking about their own immigration policy. Abbott knows very well what those policies are, she's just trying to avoid talking about them, and keep the focus on Tory immigration policy failures. Sustained questioning of almost any politician about something they're avoiding talking about gets very similar results. 


killer b said:


> It's difficult for Labour to make hay out of the current immigration shambles, because the policies which caused it have wide support in the country, including among many of their voters / potential voters. Unequivocal support for free movement would be heavily punished at the ballot box.
> 
> Likewise, a more hardline immigration stance would be punished by the other half of the Labour electoral coalition. So strategic vagueness is a fairly sensible position to take (especially three days before the local elections).
> 
> I don't much care for Abbott, but she's got a shit sandwich to deal with atm.


----------



## agricola (May 1, 2018)

killer b said:


> Here, I said earlier in the thread (twice actually) why Labour are avoiding talking about their own immigration policy. Abbott knows very well what those policies are, she's just trying to avoid talking about them, and keep the focus on Tory immigration policy failures. Sustained questioning of almost any politician about something they're avoiding talking about gets very similar results.



She should have a better answer than she does though - something along the lines of "_the last thing we want to do at a time when thousands of people are in very real fear of being thrown out of the country is to spread even more fear around_".


----------



## killer b (May 1, 2018)

agricola said:


> She should have a better answer than she does though - something along the lines of "_the last thing we want to do at a time when thousands of people are in very real fear of being thrown out of the country is to spread even more fear around_".


I can't disagree too much with that, she could be better. But they'd still call it a car crash anyway. 

An extra layer of complexity for Abbott is her long and well documented history of campaigning on immigration issues, which interviewers are no-doubt trying to catch her out on too.


----------



## skyscraper101 (May 1, 2018)

killer b said:


> Here, I said earlier in the thread (twice actually) why Labour are avoiding talking about their own immigration policy. Abbott knows very well what those policies are, she's just trying to avoid talking about them, and keep the focus on Tory immigration policy failures. Sustained questioning of almost any politician about something they're avoiding talking about gets very similar results.
> 
> 
> > It's difficult for Labour to make hay out of the current immigration shambles, because the policies which caused it have wide support in the country, including among many of their voters / potential voters. Unequivocal support for free movement would be heavily punished at the ballot box.
> ...



I don't think that gives much credit to potential Labour voters. Her vagueness just comes over as incompetence at being able to outline a basic policy, especially on top of her maths fail on LBC.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 1, 2018)

I don't get this singling out of Diane Abbott as especially useless. For one thing she's being asked questions about immigration to which there are no simple answers, or at least no simple answers that won't get her and Labour torn apart in the press again. 

As for getting facts and figures right in interviews etc, well some people don't have a knack for memorising numbers. I would hope that anyone in a senior government job wouldn't be working from memorised figures anyway, but would rely on competent staff and accurate records. 

She's only a 'gift to the tories' because everything she does is raked over by the press. If actual government ministers were exposed to that level of scrutiny they'd all be in the dole office by now. Apparently being a less-than-perfect presence in front of TV cameras is more of an issue than, for example, deliberately sabotaging the NHS.


----------



## killer b (May 1, 2018)

skyscraper101 said:


> I don't think that gives much credit to potential Labour voters.


Have you seen the polling on immigration? It's... contradictory to say the least. Massive majority approve of the policies which resulted in the windrush crisis, massive majorities disapprove of the actual results of those policies. The tension between these two seemingly contradictory positions needs to be balanced somehow by a party hoping to win a load of local elections next week. Avoiding talking about your own party's position seems the most sensible way of doing this at the moment - the home secretary has basically resigned after failing to deal with it another way.


----------



## skyscraper101 (May 1, 2018)

killer b said:


> Have you seen the polling on immigration? It's... contradictory to say the least. Massive majority approve of the policies which resulted in the windrush crisis, massive majorities disapprove of the actual results of those policies. The tension between these two seemingly contradictory positions needs to be balanced somehow by a party hoping to win a load of local elections next week. Avoiding talking about your own party's position seems the most sensible way of doing this at the moment - the home secretary has basically resigned after failing to deal with it another way.



You know she'd have avoided it a lot better if she didn't go on live TV on Good Morning Britain for all and sundry to see her incompetence.


----------



## Pickman's model (May 1, 2018)

agricola said:


> She should have a better answer than she does though - something along the lines of "_the last thing we want to do at a time when thousands of people are in very real fear of being thrown out of the country is to spread even more fear around_".


You have a future as a spin doctor ahead of you


----------



## agricola (May 1, 2018)

Pickman's model said:


> You have a future as a spin doctor ahead of you



I have always wanted to visit the South Atlantic


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## Pickman's model (May 1, 2018)

agricola said:


> I have always wanted to visit the South Atlantic


Yeh you could organise the pr for the South Georgia rehabilitation colony. Get onto lloyd webber and get him to write a musical, South Atlantic, pronto before he's embarked for points south


----------



## killer b (May 1, 2018)

skyscraper101 said:


> You know she'd have avoided it a lot better if she didn't go on live TV on Good Morning Britain for all and sundry to see her incompetence.


How might the shadow home secretary avoid giving live interviews about crises directly relating to her brief?


----------



## agricola (May 1, 2018)

Pickman's model said:


> Yeh you could organise the pr for the South Georgia rehabilitation colony. Get onto lloyd webber and get him to write a musical, South Atlantic, pronto before he's embarked for points south



"_South Atlantic_"?  Surely a hypothetical Lloyd-Webber penned musical set in a rehabilitation colony for Westminster types would be called "_Twats_"


----------



## ElizabethofYork (May 1, 2018)

skyscraper101 said:


> You know she'd have avoided it a lot better if she didn't go on live TV on Good Morning Britain for all and sundry to see her incompetence.



I wonder how many votes that appearance cost the Labour party?


----------



## killer b (May 1, 2018)

The nazis liked wanking over it by the looks of it. I doubt they're big Labour voters, mind.


----------



## skyscraper101 (May 1, 2018)

killer b said:


> How might the shadow home secretary avoid giving live interviews about crises directly relating to her brief?



Exactly the point. It's why they need someone who can actually handle the media if they want to win votes. I reckon she'd have cost the Labour party more votes here than she'd salvaged by appearing to not know her own policy.


----------



## killer b (May 1, 2018)

skyscraper101 said:


> they need someone who can actually handle the media if they want to win votes


Any thoughts on who might be able to brush off sustained questioning like this? IME they mostly crumble or look like automatons.


----------



## Reiabuzz (May 1, 2018)

killer b said:


> Any thoughts on who might be able to brush off sustained questioning like this? IME they mostly crumble or look like automatons.



Any experienced, professional politician should have the basic skills to deflect Morgan's questioning there if their policy is still 'in development'. At that level that kind of thing should be their bread and butter.


----------



## skyscraper101 (May 1, 2018)

killer b said:


> Any thoughts on who might be able to brush off sustained questioning like this? IME they mostly crumble or look like automatons.



I don't want to hate on Abbott, but you can surely see where I'm coming from no? I want a credible Labour opposition but she routinely presents open goals for ridicule.

I reckon most of that front bench would've made less a hash of it really. e.g. Dawn Butler was pretty good on C4 news last night.


----------



## DotCommunist (May 1, 2018)

killer b said:


> Any thoughts on who might be able to brush off sustained questioning like this? IME they mostly crumble or look like automatons.


hah, the secret of Paxmans legend, identify the question they won't/can't answer, hammer that till the interviewee looks a cunt. Then its home for kippers cooked by his live in help.


----------



## killer b (May 1, 2018)

skyscraper101 said:


> I don't want to hate on Abbott, but you can surely see where I'm coming from no? I want a credible Labour opposition but she routinely presents open goals for ridicule.
> 
> I reckon most of that front bench would've made less a hash of it really. e.g. Dawn Butler was pretty good on C4 news last night.


ah yes, Dawn Butler. Here's her last summer.

Listen: Dawn Butler’s car-crash interview – ‘this election is Theresa May trying to rig democracy!’ | Coffee House


----------



## Teaboy (May 1, 2018)

Reiabuzz said:


> Any experienced, professional politician should have the basic skills to deflect Morgan's questioning there if their policy is still 'in development'. At that level that kind of thing should be their bread and butter.



What, like the PM?

She's brilliant when being questioned.


----------



## Rob Ray (May 1, 2018)

Why can't we have real politicians rather than soundbite technocrats?
*former backbenchers give bad interviews*
Why are these politicians so shit at interviews?? This should be their bread and butter!!

I mean I'm not saying Abbott shouldn't do better, but the path to conviction politics (or even a pale imitation of such) isn't the same as the one to silky-smooth dissembling.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (May 1, 2018)

agricola said:


> Fucking useless _at interviews_.
> 
> Abbott's problems are all down to her either not understanding her brief or (more likely) not having confidence in her understanding of her brief and so falling apart in set-piece interviews like this every so often (and of course repeat incidents dent confidence even further); in terms of her actual performance as Shadow HS (policies, achievements, direction of thinking, performance in the Commons) she has been far better than all of her post-2010 predecessors were.



How many people watch the House of Commons debates? 1,000? How many watch GMB? 1 Million? 

I'm not as convinced as you that she has 'a direction of thinking' but let's assume she has. Surely the point is that unless she can communicate it effectively to the electorate its largely academic. Perhaps she should go and get a policy job instead?


----------



## Smokeandsteam (May 1, 2018)

Teaboy said:


> What, like the PM?
> 
> She's brilliant when being questioned.



Exactly like the PM. Both are clueless liabilities and incapable of even giving the apperance of being normal humans.


----------



## Rob Ray (May 1, 2018)

Smokeandsteam said:


> I'm not as convinced as you that she has 'a direction of thinking'



Please don't do this, it doesn't persuade anyone of your point it just makes you sound like a malicious idiot. Pick out that Abbott's been rubbish on telly, sure. Speculate as to why, fine. But for all that Abbott is someone I don't care for she's demonstrated a clear political perspective throughout her career and achieved a great deal on her own terms in the face of enormous obstacles. This kind of line is not a critique it's mindless slagging, which I can go to Twitter for if needs be.


----------



## patman post (May 1, 2018)

In my opinion Diane Abbott, like Boris Johnson, has been promoted several rungs above her competence level — and I speak as someone who is a constituent of Ms Abbott and believes she does well as a local MP...


----------



## not-bono-ever (May 1, 2018)

Its pretty obvious that DA has stuff going on in the background(foreground)  and is backed up from what I heard from local LP activists during the last GE it seems . Given the press penchant on dissecting everything she says and ramping it up, surely it is sensible to give her some space and get out of the public eye for a while ? ( Not a LP member by any means btw)


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## Smokeandsteam (May 1, 2018)

Rob Ray said:


> Please don't do this, it doesn't persuade anyone of your point it just makes you sound like a malicious idiot. Pick out that Abbott's been rubbish on telly, sure. Speculate as to why, fine. But for all that Abbott is someone I don't care for she's demonstrated a clear political perspective throughout her career and achieved a great deal on her own terms in the face of enormous obstacles. This kind of line is not a critique it's mindless slagging, which I can go to Twitter for if needs be.



Bar more cops what exactly is the 'direction of thinking' in the Shadow Home Office team?

ETA 1 - I've just looked on the Shadow Home Team twitter and it's post after post about more police.


----------



## Rob Ray (May 1, 2018)

Smokeandsteam said:


> Bar more cops what exactly is the 'direction of thinking' in the Shadow Home Office team?



Shadow Home Office _team _now is it? With misdirection skills like that maybe it should be you in front of the camera.


----------



## killer b (May 1, 2018)

Smokeandsteam said:


> Exactly like the PM. Both are clueless liabilities and incapable of even giving the apperance of being normal humans.


The leader of a party running at 40% in the polls is a clueless liability.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (May 1, 2018)

Rob Ray said:


> Shadow Home Office _team _now is it? With misdirection skills like that maybe it should be you in front of the camera.



She's the Shadow Home Secretary.

So please, examples of this 'direction of thinking' she's brought to the role.


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 1, 2018)

Reiabuzz said:


> Any experienced, professional politician should have the basic skills to deflect Morgan's questioning there if their policy is still 'in development'. At that level that kind of thing should be their bread and butter.



Shouldn't actually getting shit done be their bread and butter?


----------



## Rob Ray (May 1, 2018)

No no, you started out with Diane Abbott having no 'direction of thinking' in and of herself there Smokeandsteam, not "the Shadow Home Office*" has no direction of thinking. Are you starting a new topic here? Are you going to recant your mindless personal slurring of Diane Abbott as "a clueless liability" before this change in topic?

* ie. a body which as we all know is an actual department subject to multiple pressures  and voices from within itself, from the leader's office, from other departments and from the broad Labour Party, all of which feed into a policy that the serving MP represents but does not dictate.


----------



## Reiabuzz (May 1, 2018)

SpookyFrank said:


> Shouldn't actually getting shit done be their bread and butter?



Yep, but selling that shit effectively to the electorate is crucial. Do you not agree?


----------



## Smokeandsteam (May 1, 2018)

Rob Ray said:


> No no, you started out with Diane Abbott having no 'direction of thinking' in and of herself there Smokeandsteam, not "the Shadow Home Office" has no direction of thinking. Are you starting a new topic here? Are you going to recant your mindless personal slurring of Diane Abbott as "a clueless liability" before this change in topic?



What I said exactly was “Basic competence in the role. Understanding the brief in your own area. Being able to communicate clearly with those whose votes you seek and support you canvas.“ 

So instead of putting words in my mouth how about answering my question


----------



## Rob Ray (May 1, 2018)

ITT I learned that direct quoting is "putting words in my mouth." Fella, if you think I'm being mean here by suggesting that you play ball not man, and not letting you pretend you didn't actually mean what you meant to spare your blushes, then you'd disintegrate in front of a proper interview. That being the case, perhaps you should hold off calling anyone else incompetent.


Smokeandsteam said:


> *I'm not as convinced as you that she has 'a direction of thinking' but let's assume she has.* Surely the point is that unless she can communicate it effectively to the electorate its largely academic. Perhaps she should go and get a policy job instead?





Smokeandsteam said:


> Exactly like the PM. *Both are clueless liabilities and incapable of even giving the apperance of being normal humans.*


----------



## Smokeandsteam (May 1, 2018)

Rob Ray said:


> ITT I learned that direct quoting is "putting words in my mouth." Fella, if you think I'm being mean here you'd disintegrate in front of a proper interview. That being the case, perhaps you should hold off calling anyone else incompetent.



I'm genuinely strugling to understand the point you are now making. If it's 'you wouldn't be able to stand the heat of an interview' I'd say a) I'm not the Shadow Home Secretary b) if I was I'd like to think I'd anticpate questions about my policy brief and c) what is this 'direction of thinking' that she's demonstrated?


----------



## Rob Ray (May 1, 2018)

I'm saying that you've been reduced to denying you said your own words in less than a dozen posts on a forum where the relevant posts are available for anyone to see. No cameras, no difficult policies to try and parse, no illnesses (real or not), no real pressure at all. Does that make you a "clueless liability" d'you think?


Smokeandsteam said:


> what is this 'direction of thinking' that she's demonstrated?



Moving on then? What topic would you like? I assume immigration? I'd suggest page 28 of the Labour manifesto, and for more personal views you can check out her long running column in the Morning Star which has copious amounts of writing on that very topic. Or you could scan back through her years of punditry on the Daily Politics. Or her many Parliamentary speeches. I mean fucking hell of all the people to accuse of having no solid personal views on migration...


----------



## SpookyFrank (May 1, 2018)

Reiabuzz said:


> Yep, but selling that shit effectively to the electorate is crucial. Do you not agree?



Given that the politicians we put in front of cameras have all been coached by PR people, we might as well just interview the PR people themselves and let the politicians get on with the job. I worry about how much talent goes to waste in favour of useless imbeciles who can do a winning smile and memorise talking points.


----------



## agricola (May 1, 2018)

Smokeandsteam said:


> I'm not as convinced as you that she has 'a direction of thinking' but let's assume she has. Surely the point is that unless she can communicate it effectively to the electorate its largely academic. Perhaps she should go and get a policy job instead?



Not really - surely the last forty years of British politics should have drummed it into us that what a politician is trying to do is more important than how well they communicate. 

Take Rudd's resignation for example - as an achievement, it would have been impossible for Miliband-era Labour to obtain; they either agreed with it (edit: the hostile environment) or didn't consider the issue important enough to fight over, even though they could probably have stopped a lot of the worst of it before it ever happened.


----------



## Reiabuzz (May 1, 2018)

SpookyFrank said:


> Given that the politicians we put in front of cameras have all been coached by PR people, we might as well just interview the PR people themselves and let the politicians get on with the job. I worry about how much talent goes to waste in favour of useless imbeciles who can do a winning smile and memorise talking points.



While I admire your loyalty to Diane, I don't think really think knowing what her party's immigration policy consists of is a 'talking point'.


----------



## Smokeandsteam (May 1, 2018)

Rob Ray said:


> I'm saying that you've been reduced to denying you said your own words in less than a dozen posts on a forum where the relevant posts are available for anyone to see. No cameras, no difficult policies to try and parse, no illnesses (real or not), no real pressure at all. Does that make you a "clueless liability" d'you think?
> 
> 
> Moving on then? What topic would you like? I assume immigration? I'd suggest page 28 of the Labour manifesto, and for more personal views you can check out her long running column in the Morning Star which has copious amounts of writing on that very topic. Or you could scan back through her years of punditry on the Daily Politics. Or her many Parliamentary speeches. I mean fucking hell of all the people to accuse of having no solid personal views on migration...



I suggest you do just that that starting with #462 which was my first post. You've continually attempted to virtue signal/hysterically gesture/change the goalposts away from the points I've made there. It's not going to happen though pal.

As for 'direction of thought' here are a few areas where I'd like to know what it is:

1. The increase in knife and gun crime
2. Prevent/Counter terrorism
3. Police conduct
4. Surveillance
5. Borders policy

I could go on and on. But I'm asking a simple question - what is the direction of thought? Other than 21,000 more police.

Read the Morning Star?? ....fucking hell


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## Smokeandsteam (May 1, 2018)

agricola said:


> Not really - surely the last forty years of British politics should have drummed it into us that what a politician is trying to do is more important than how well they communicate.



I'd argue that the ability to communicate ideas and thought - and win support for them - is an essential part of the job for politicians. Given the oppostion of most of the media to Corbyn's social democratic platform I'd argue its even more critical for his key allies at this point. I'd also add May's failure to do just that saw a 20% poll lead vanish in weeks last year


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## Rob Ray (May 1, 2018)

Smokeandsteam said:


> I suggest you do just that that starting with #462 which was my first post. You've continually attempted to virtue signal/hysterically gesture/change the goalposts away from the points I've made there. It's not going to happen though pal.



Lol sure, you've not spent most of this thread mixing up Abbott's performances on TV with her general capability and intelligence and deriding both in the most tiresome of ways. Righto.



Smokeandsteam said:


> As for 'direction of thought' here are a few areas where I'd like to know what it is:
> 
> 1. The increase in knife and gun crime
> 2. Prevent/Counter terrorism
> ...



So you're demanding a breakdown of her office's entire policy slate (which again, is not dictated by her and reflects _party _policy) but can't be bothered to read the Labour Manifesto it's based on or her fortnightly column in which she actively states her own viewpoints. And you have the audacity to slag anyone else off for being clueless? Jesus fucking wept.


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## Smokeandsteam (May 1, 2018)

Rob Ray said:


> Lol sure, you've not spent most of this thread mixing up Abbott's performances on TV with her general capability and intelligence and deriding both in the most tiresome of ways. Righto.
> 
> 
> 
> So you're demanding a breakdown of her office's entire policy slate (which again, is not dictated by her and reflects _party _policy) but can't be bothered to read the Labour Manifesto it's based on or her fortnightly column in which actively she states her own viewpoints. Jesus fucking wept.



I've asked you to set out her 'direction of thought'. So far I've been advised to read the Morning Star and also understand her 'direction of thought' might not be currently available as it's subject to the constraints of Labour Party policy making. 

I think we are done here.


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## Rob Ray (May 1, 2018)

Yes, I think we probably are.


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## andysays (May 1, 2018)

I don't want to get into either slagging or supporting Diane Abbott, but if the Labour Party doesn't have the ability and the confidence to come up with a coherent response to this "Windrush" situation, focussing on some sort of demand for *what the government should do now to sort it*, and it can't find *someone*, whether it's the Shadow Home Sec or not, with the ability to put that across in interviews, without getting drawn into wider issues of detailed Labour Party immigration policy or because they're nervous about possibly pissing off some of their potential voters, then you really have to wonder what chance they have of successfully fighting a general election campaign based on the sort of social democratic policies the Corbyn leadership is supposed to want.


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## Smokeandsteam (May 1, 2018)

Rob Ray said:


> Yes, I think we probably are.



Thanks for bringing me up to the speed with the 'direction of thought' of Abbott. It's been most illuminating


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## agricola (May 1, 2018)

Smokeandsteam said:


> I'd argue that the ability to communicate ideas and thought - and win support for them - is an essential part of the job for politicians. Given the oppostion of most of the media to Corbyn's social democratic platform I'd argue its even more critical for his key allies at this point. I'd also add May's failure to do just that saw a 20% poll lead vanish in weeks last year



I don't think it was May's failure to communicate that was responsible for that; it was what she was trying to communicate that destroyed her poll lead.


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## Rob Ray (May 1, 2018)

andysays said:


> I don't want to get into either slagging or supporting Diane Abbott, but if the Labour Party doesn't have the ability and the confidence to come up with a coherent response to this "Windrush" situation, focussing on some sort of demand for *what the government should do now to sort it*, and it can't find *someone*, whether it's the Shadow Home Sec or not, with the ability to put that across in interviews, without getting drawn into wider issues of detailed Labour Party immigration policy or because they're nervous about possibly pissing off some of their potential voters, then you really have to wonder what chance they have of successfully fighting a general election campaign based on the sort of social democratic policies the Corbyn leadership is supposed to want.



Immigration has always been a major problem for them though, and has only gotten worse with old lefties in charge because they'll know exactly how shit the reality of border control is, but realise a pro-migrants' rights line won't fly across the membership/electorate so have to fudge. There's no easy solution, because if they put a smoothie soundbite merchant in charge that's a pain in the arse in a power position at the centre of the party — and at least Abbott won't be repeating the immigration mugs fiasco any time soon.


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## killer b (May 1, 2018)

There's a weird narrative - from some on this thread and widely believed elsewhere - that both parties are currently in the hands of clown-shoed incompetents. They aren't, and it doesn't help anyone trying to analyse or understand what's happening to imagine they are. 

Politicians from all sides regularly fuck up. They do so because the precarious balancing act of electoral politics - right now as precarious as it's ever been - of setting and enacting policy, while acting and reacting to the onslaught of daily clusterfucks, balancing the needs and requirements of your constituents, your party and any other interest groups you represent, all under the close scrutiny of the press (some parties more than others) - means it's impossible to get the balance right every time. They don't, on the whole, do so because they're totally useless.


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## redsquirrel (May 1, 2018)

Reiabuzz said:


> Well then the question needs to be asked about why she doesn't have anything to communicate. In this case, Labour's policy on immigration. Why wasn't she, as the shadow home secretary and going into an interview with one of the country's more combative interviewers, armed with this basic knowledge? Where does the blame lie for that?


What's the LD policy on immigration? And considering the LDs were in government when May was Home Sec how do you defend your parties imposed hostile environment for immigrants?


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## kenny g (May 1, 2018)

DA is remarkably shit at interviews though.


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## killer b (May 1, 2018)

So what? Each of the parties only has a couple of reliable performers, the rest get regularly hammered when faced with difficult questions.


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## SpookyFrank (May 1, 2018)

Reiabuzz said:


> While I admire your loyalty to Diane, I don't think really think knowing what her party's immigration policy consists of is a 'talking point'.



I don't have any loyalty to Diane Abbott, I just think the way she gets treated shows up some massive flaws in the way politics works. If you look like establishment and talk like establishment you'll get an easy ride even if what you actually do as a politician is indefensible.


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## killer b (May 1, 2018)

killer b said:


> There's a weird narrative - from some on this thread and widely believed elsewhere - that both parties are currently in the hands of clown-shoed incompetents. They aren't, and it doesn't help anyone trying to analyse or understand what's happening to imagine they are.
> 
> Politicians from all sides regularly fuck up. They do so because the precarious balancing act of electoral politics - right now as precarious as it's ever been - of setting and enacting policy, while acting and reacting to the onslaught of daily clusterfucks, balancing the needs and requirements of your constituents, your party and any other interest groups you represent, all under the close scrutiny of the press (some parties more than others) - means it's impossible to get the balance right every time. They don't, on the whole, do so because they're totally useless.


further to this, Gavin Williamson is genuinely a total fucking clown.


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## Pickman's model (May 1, 2018)

Reiabuzz said:


> While I admire your loyalty to Diane, I don't think really think knowing what her party's immigration policy consists of is a 'talking point'.


I admire your deference to the sun as a reliable source


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## flypanam (May 10, 2018)

Pickman's model said:


> Yeh you could organise the pr for the South Georgia rehabilitation colony. Get onto lloyd webber and get him to write a musical, South Atlantic, pronto before he's embarked for points south


The rats are leaving now they know you've marked the place out for vermin
Remote island of South Georgia declared rat free after over 200 years


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## Sasaferrato (May 12, 2018)

Reiabuzz said:


> Jesus Christ. As if it couldn't get worse for labour they put this fucking idiot up on the news channels/radio stations this morning. Warning, toe curling listening.




Who? Oh yes, the purported socialist who had her child privately educated. So did Blair and Chakrabarti. Harman's son went to a Grammar school.

Hypocritical heap of 'socialist' shit? Of course.


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## Sasaferrato (May 12, 2018)

agricola said:


> That is the worst offence of all today; they have had thirty years to come up with an answer to that one, and the answer - that in all of the likely circumstances we would use the deterrent, our nukes wouldn't save anyone because we would all be dead by then - is easy.



Indeed, whether a first strike, or a retaliatory strike, we are dead. Fire first, and the opposition have their missiles in the air long before yours land.

If Trump can get NK to disarm, that will be a major achievement.  Indeed, if he achieves that, he could _possibly _be re-elected.

That would then leave Iran and Israel as the next pair, followed by India and Pakistan, and finally Russia, France and the UK.

I've completely reversed my view on the nuclear 'deterrent'. The vast amount of money could be spent elsewhere.

We can hope.


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## maomao (May 12, 2018)

Sasaferrato said:


> Who? Oh yes, the purported socialist who had her child privately educated. So did Blair and Chakrabarti. Harman's son went to a Grammar school.
> 
> Hypocritical heap of 'socialist' shit? Of course.



None of them are socialists private schools or not. 

And stop responding to year old posts you doddering old sod.


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## Sasaferrato (May 13, 2018)

maomao said:


> None of them are socialists private schools or not.
> 
> And stop responding to year old posts you doddering old sod.



Twas not me that resurrected the thread you doddery sod of indeterminate age. 

I suspect that they are socialists, Urban, don't forget, is to the left of Mao.


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## SpookyFrank (May 13, 2018)

Sasaferrato said:


> If Trump can get NK to disarm, that will be a major achievement.  Indeed, if he achieves that, he could _possibly _be re-elected.



I absolutely love the idea that the highest priorities of the people who elected Trump are disarmament and international relations.


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