Rees Mogg or Corbyn?

[KeithPratt]

I'll respond to the other points later in detail.

[Diamond Dog]

I have just read about the latest Corbyn smear - that he was passing information to an Eastern Block spy in the 80s

Not entirely beyond the bounds of possibility. There's history for that by another Labour MP.
In earlier years, John Stonehouse was spying for Czechoslovakia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stonehouse

Nothing like a bit of "guilt by extremely tenuous association" is there?

Does that mean every Tory PM should resign because they may have had someone in their cabinet sleeping with an escort who was also sleeping with a Russian spy as well?

Jeez. If that;'s the best you (or anyone else) can do, I'd suggest Corbyn is a certainty at the next election.

[Geezee]

I admire politicians who are not afraid to tell awkward truths.

Yeah, he really tells it as it is.

[Nikki Gradual]

I suspect the majority of people don't have enough animosity for Rees-Mogg because they think that it is an act, they struggle with the very concept that someone like him can really exist in the modern world. The problem with that is that in portraying him as some bumbling cartoon character like Lord Snooty, you are throwing a veil over the fact that he really is a 1930s anachronism with 1930s values, the very worst Evelyn Waugh character you could imagine and itching to restore what he feels are the correct values on the British public. And if that is what he allows us to see, just imaging what days of empire nonsense is going on in his head. Far more dangerous than Boris. The Brexiteer's wet dream, bound to be beloved of rapist black cab drivers, Chelsea fans and anyone who plays golf.

I no longer know what I think about Corbyn. I feel sorry for him on Brexit, but only in the same way as I do Theresa May, who is also stoically doing a job that she clearly doesn't believe in because she believes that her job is being a public servant. Surely that is to be applauded rather than denigrated. I think it is a bit too easy to slag them off for betraying their beliefs when they do what they were elected to do, but also to slag them off for betraying their constituents when they stick to their personal beliefs. or vice versa if you like them.
I loved the fact that Corbyn is a grassroots socialist and a conviction politician, but the fact that he is becoming more and more like Michael Foot and is also more of a career politician than just about anyone else in parliament seems to be at odds with that. That said I would rather him unelected for a million years than a Blairite revival because it is important to me that the labour party actually stands for something more than just being in power. That it is the "honest" party even if that honesty is detrimental to its results. Yes, I know all the arguments about the fact that you must first be in power if you want to change anything, but they don't wash with me. Labour needs to be labour, not Tories in disguise. I hate Blair and his cronies every bit as much as I did Thatcher and hers.

[Rayge]

I suspect the majority of people don't have enough animosity for Rees-Mogg because they think that it is an act, they struggle with the very concept that someone like him can really exist in the modern world. The problem with that is that in portraying him as some bumbling cartoon character like Lord Snooty, you are throwing a veil over the fact that he really is a 1930s anachronism with 1930s values, the very worst Evelyn Waugh character you could imagine and itching to restore what he feels are the correct values on the British public. And if that is what he allows us to see, just imaging what days of empire nonsense is going on in his head. Far more dangerous than Boris. The Brexiteer's wet dream, bound to be beloved of rapist black cab drivers, Chelsea fans and anyone who plays golf.

I no longer know what I think about Corbyn. I feel sorry for him on Brexit, but only in the same way as I do Theresa May, who is also stoically doing a job that she clearly doesn't believe in because she believes that her job is being a public servant. Surely that is to be applauded rather than denigrated. I think it is a bit too easy to slag them off for betraying their beliefs when they do what they were elected to do, but also to slag them off for betraying their constituents when they stick to their personal beliefs. or vice versa if you like them.
I loved the fact that Corbyn is a grassroots socialist and a conviction politician, but the fact that he is becoming more and more like Michael Foot and is also more of a career politician than just about anyone else in parliament seems to be at odds with that. That said I would rather him unelected for a million years than a Blairite revival because it is important to me that the labour party actually stands for something more than just being in power. That it is the "honest" party even if that honesty is detrimental to its results. Yes, I know all the arguments about the fact that you must first be in power if you want to change anything, but they don't wash with me. Labour needs to be labour, not Tories in disguise. I hate Blair and his cronies every bit as much as I did Thatcher and hers.

Well said.

[Fonz]

I suspect the majority of people don't have enough animosity for Rees-Mogg because they think that it is an act, they struggle with the very concept that someone like him can really exist in the modern world. The problem with that is that in portraying him as some bumbling cartoon character like Lord Snooty, you are throwing a veil over the fact that he really is a 1930s anachronism with 1930s values, the very worst Evelyn Waugh character you could imagine and itching to restore what he feels are the correct values on the British public. And if that is what he allows us to see, just imaging what days of empire nonsense is going on in his head. Far more dangerous than Boris. The Brexiteer's wet dream, bound to be beloved of rapist black cab drivers, Chelsea fans and anyone who plays golf.

I no longer know what I think about Corbyn. I feel sorry for him on Brexit, but only in the same way as I do Theresa May, who is also stoically doing a job that she clearly doesn't believe in because she believes that her job is being a public servant. Surely that is to be applauded rather than denigrated. I think it is a bit too easy to slag them off for betraying their beliefs when they do what they were elected to do, but also to slag them off for betraying their constituents when they stick to their personal beliefs. or vice versa if you like them.
I loved the fact that Corbyn is a grassroots socialist and a conviction politician, but the fact that he is becoming more and more like Michael Foot and is also more of a career politician than just about anyone else in parliament seems to be at odds with that. That said I would rather him unelected for a million years than a Blairite revival because it is important to me that the labour party actually stands for something more than just being in power. That it is the "honest" party even if that honesty is detrimental to its results. Yes, I know all the arguments about the fact that you must first be in power if you want to change anything, but they don't wash with me. Labour needs to be labour, not Tories in disguise. I hate Blair and his cronies every bit as much as I did Thatcher and hers.

Did you hate Blair etc at the time, or is it a retrospective type of disgust?

Up to a point, I believed in ‘Blair’. It is only with the benefit of hindsight that they look egregious, but even with that knowledge, were probably better than the alternative.

I need politicians who are actually going to change things, not a commitment to an unworkable ideal principle.

[`]

I have just read about the latest Corbyn smear - that he was passing information to an Eastern Block spy in the 80s

Not entirely beyond the bounds of possibility. There's history for that by another Labour MP.
In earlier years, John Stonehouse was spying for Czechoslovakia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stonehouse

IIRC former Labour MP and CP member Tom Driberg used to regularly collect cash from the Russkies for passing them nothing more than inconsequential back-bench tittle-tattle back in the 60s. But then as someone at the time said, TD eventually betrayed everyone...

It's interesting that, in appearing on HIGNFY, Mogg is using exactly the same tactics to ingratiate himself with the public as the awful Boris did in the early 2000s.

To paraphrase Glenn(?) in The Thick of It. "it's like a choice between prostate cancer and a stroke"

[Goat Boy]

More or less, yeah.

I somehow doubt Mogg would be as destructive as Chavez, lets face it. Venezuela is fucked. Another failed experiment

Was it really?
Chavez took over from a government that was widely seen to be corrupt in a country riven by violence and appalling poverty. A more balanced view would admit that he did do things to improve the country and reduce levels of poverty and illiteracy.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/oct/04/venezuela-hugo-chavez-election-data
There were also failures and I certainly would condemn him on human rights. But your dismissal is too simplistic.

I think it was reckless, ideological short termism, G. The road to hell 'n' all that. Considering the level of the humanitarian crises and the future that country faces then, yeah, I see it as a failed experiment.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/ ... -shortages

This is from 2014:

http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/06/04/pov ... venezuela/

https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2017/c ... /venezuela

Chavez may have done “good” in the beginning but we are seeing the short sighted consequences of his regimes actions. It’s all very well wanting revolutionary policies to help reduce poverty and increase equality but they come at a cost of course. They always do and the far left needs to recognise this and own its failures.

[Nikki Gradual]

Did you hate Blair etc at the time, or is it a retrospective type of disgust?

Disliked and distrusted him from the first time I saw him speak, which was long before he was party leader. Like everyone else, I celebrated on election night when the Tories were ousted and so many grandees were given the bloody nose they so richly deserved.
When he was in power at first I had a great sense of unease, but when Robin Cook went that became opposition and then as the Blair-Mandleson-Campbell cabal continued (and it was just them, everyone else was just extras) then hate. Since they went and yet refuse to acknowledge that they are not running the Labour Party, when they slither out of the shadows with that messiah complex as strong as ever, it has become pure bilious vitriol.
Yup, I think that’s a pretty honest assessment.

[Jimbo]

but when Robin Cook went ...

And then suffered a heart attack walking down a mountain it was so sad.

Color me suspicious.

[KeithPratt]

Oh shut up you tit.

[naughty boy]

[KeithPratt]

Given the context of the post and the poster's generally delusional state about conspiracies, I think this answer was necessary.

[Geezee]

Did you hate Blair etc at the time, or is it a retrospective type of disgust?

Disliked and distrusted him from the first time I saw him speak, which was long before he was party leader. Like everyone else, I celebrated on election night when the Tories were ousted and so many grandees were given the bloody nose they so richly deserved.
When he was in power at first I had a great sense of unease, but when Robin Cook went that became opposition and then as the Blair-Mandleson-Campbell cabal continued (and it was just them, everyone else was just extras) then hate. Since they went and yet refuse to acknowledge that they are not running the Labour Party, when they slither out of the shadows with that messiah complex as strong as ever, it has become pure bilious vitriol.
Yup, I think that’s a pretty honest assessment.

I remember sitting in shock for about a week when, shortly after the election, they announced the tuition fees reform. It was a few weeks into becoming a student myself, and was a very unfortunate lesson in growing up. I certainly had been taken in by Blair until then.

[Nikki Gradual]

Did you hate Blair etc at the time, or is it a retrospective type of disgust?

Disliked and distrusted him from the first time I saw him speak, which was long before he was party leader. Like everyone else, I celebrated on election night when the Tories were ousted and so many grandees were given the bloody nose they so richly deserved.
When he was in power at first I had a great sense of unease, but when Robin Cook went that became opposition and then as the Blair-Mandleson-Campbell cabal continued (and it was just them, everyone else was just extras) then hate. Since they went and yet refuse to acknowledge that they are not running the Labour Party, when they slither out of the shadows with that messiah complex as strong as ever, it has become pure bilious vitriol.
Yup, I think that’s a pretty honest assessment.

I remember sitting in shock for about a week when, shortly after the election, they announced the tuition fees reform. It was a few weeks into becoming a student myself, and was a very unfortunate lesson in growing up. I certainly had been taken in by Blair until then.

The first time I saw him I was a local newspaper reporter covering a speech he was delivering to a police training college. He got a standing ovation. Regardless of what he had said, such a reception for a Labour politician from that audience was enough to set alarm bells ringing. My colleague and I turned to each other and said more or less in unison: "He's going be Prime Minister."

[Geezee]

My main takeaway from that experience was ultimately not so much that Blair/Brown were wrong in what they did (the tuition fees was only the first in a long laundry list of items that disillusioned me), but rather that I should never place so much faith or hope in one person, or party, or whatever. Hence while I'm deeply disappointed by someone like Corbyn, I never had a huge amount of expectation of him to begin with.

[Geezee]

I somehow doubt Mogg would be as destructive as Chavez, lets face it. Venezuela is fucked. Another failed experiment

Was it really?
Chavez took over from a government that was widely seen to be corrupt in a country riven by violence and appalling poverty. A more balanced view would admit that he did do things to improve the country and reduce levels of poverty and illiteracy.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/oct/04/venezuela-hugo-chavez-election-data
There were also failures and I certainly would condemn him on human rights. But your dismissal is too simplistic.

I think it was reckless, ideological short termism, G. The road to hell 'n' all that. Considering the level of the humanitarian crises and the future that country faces then, yeah, I see it as a failed experiment.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/ ... -shortages

This is from 2014:

http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/06/04/pov ... venezuela/

https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2017/c ... /venezuela

Chavez may have done “good” in the beginning but we are seeing the short sighted consequences of his regimes actions. It’s all very well wanting revolutionary policies to help reduce poverty and increase equality but they come at a cost of course. They always do and the far left needs to recognise this and own its failures.

Either way, I don't see anything that Corbyn has done in supporting Chavez's programme that is any worse than what right-wingers do in supporting their disgusting puppet regimes - in particular, I don't understand why right-wingers who criticise Corbyn's apparent "support" of Iran somehow doesn't also translate into abhorrence over right-wingers' support of Iran's nemesis Saudi Arabia.

In particular, why should Corbyn not get "anywhere near the reins of power", but anyone who supports Saudi Arabia should?

[Joe Baxter]

They are a pair of cunts.

[Goat Boy]

1997 was the only time I felt excitement about politics. It was the first time I'd voted. I was clueless really (I was clueless for most of my 20s too) but being Scottish I hated the Tories and was delighted to see them stuffed.

It was all downhill from there of course. Still, 97 was fun, huh?

[Nikki Gradual]

I loved the fact that Corbyn is a grassroots socialist and a conviction politician, but the fact that he is becoming more and more like Michael Foot and is also more of a career politician than just about anyone else in parliament seems to be at odds with that.

I don't quite get what you mean with this comment, James. Could you expand?



(Incidentally, the way Toby referred to him as a "competent constituency MP" was one of the reasons for my scoffing post.)

I guess my point is that Jezza only seems different now because he has come to prominence immediately after the New Labour era. Before that shit-shower he was the back-bench norm and probably still should be judged as so. Probably a bit more left-leaning than most, but still playing a role in the establishment, still a little bit too much in love with the processes and traditions of Westminster. I have had the good/mis fortune to meet a fair few MPs and it is astonishing how intoxicated they become by the Westminster bubble and the way it operates, the very concept of parliament becoming their opiate, separating them from the people and their causes. Not that they don't want to represent people, but that the status, process and freedom of Government to them somehow becomes more important than the basics of why they wanted to be there in the first place. They all seem to sometimes get so wrapped up in their sense of self-importance over the democracy thing that they lose track of their purpose. And Jezza fits that type entirely, often pontificating over the process rather than the results. You can see how much he loves the Westminster game, the fencing of PMQs etc. He's been in parliament for 35 years and no one had heard of him until 2015. Isn't that a bid odd?