If you’ll permit me one last puerile statement of the bleedin obvious:

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… an unelected elite, for whom you and your existence appear to matter less than the life of an ant

A distinction needs to be made between the Parliamentary Labour Party and the Party as a whole – who are in fact the ‘main’ Labour party in a constitutional sense.

The Parliamentary Labour Party were utterly horrified, yes. He was ‘even Lefter’ as Sigma mentioned, which meant he came into Westminster with an inbuilt dislike of the middle-ground seekers, the professional politicians who tried to interpret the people’s thinking and mirror it rather than hold their own beliefs up to public scrutiny.

Unfortunately, that describes almost the entire parliamentary Labour Party – and they sought to rid themselves of the turbulent priest as quickly as they could.

He was voted in by the Labour Party as a whole – all members get a vote on the leader – and the nightmare scenario for those in Westminster is that it might happen again.

Once again we are in danger of invoking the undemocratic principle that ‘his is not the majority view therefore he has no place in democratic politics’.

I would much rather we had a politically clear opposition that remain so through lack of majority than a fake opposition that is just a currently slightly less popular bunch of suits the same political colour as the government.

That last has nothing to do with right or left.

Not defending his remaining in charge – the best thing for the party and for the debate to move on would be for him to stand down. He can be happy that he remained principled by his own reckoning – it is the real political world that was not a fit for him, and vice-versa.

Oh, and on the subject of references to the past (and no, he’s NOT the messiah…):

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Not comparing the two JC’s, but this is what is afoot (yes, that was deliberate). Those of a certain nature in the crowd will tell each other the guy is a ball-sack.

TonyT, I agree that no-one in our culture is going to give him or his ideas an audience while they can be branded ‘old fashioned’ and more damagingly ‘irrelevant’. It’s a vicious circle – while they stay ‘irrelevant’ nobody listens, and while nobody listens they are branded irrelevant. But it takes an active input from the ‘Pilate’ figure to maintain this status quo (deliberate too).

Maybe Jesus should have lost the sandals, shaved the beard, and got a bit of ‘Caeser-style’ bling on. Then people would go ‘OOh, he looks like a leader. Let’s listen’..

But then you get Blair.

Yessir :eagerness:

Stu, I need to have a chat – you around for a call this afternoon?

The Pub was the Green Dragon in Chesterton, Cambridge and the time was ten past six on Sunday. The pub fronts onto a quiet dead-end road, a bit of green and the river, and has its windows and doors open on nice afternoons. I later had it confirmed by a friend who knows her that she is indeed Polish. She says she was telling off her child, loudly, in Polish, for picking up dog-ends. I did not hear her, but I certainly heard the shouted abuse as I was at the bar about fifteen feet away.

I understand the bloke has been barred.

..and? That does not answer my question. I have a friend called Drosdowski – he is not a Marxist. Or Russian.

I have a friend who is a Marxist. His surname is Cantrell.

Karl Marx was born in Prussia, and essentially was German.

I do not follow your logic.

OK, OK, I get it – “Go back to Russia – I’ll call you -ski ‘cos you’re left wing like a Russian’… but it is a stereotype from a long time ago and which was largely based on ignorance even when it had any currency – I guess it comes from the same people who are now old and voted ‘Go Away Johnny Foreigner’ – or were told they were.

I have news. Socialism isn’t Russian, any more than Fascism is German.

Further, ‘-ski’ is more likely Polish, Germanic or Slavic. In Russia the more common suffix is ‘-sky’.

Yes, the very same. He doesn’t like much of what happens in Brussels and never has, frequently speaking out in disagreement. On balance, right now he’d rather be inside the tent.. etc. That is his positon. He could not campaign enthusiastically for Europe because he wasn’t that enthusiastic and could not fake it. However, if on balance he thought Brexit was a good idea right now he would have said it – he has not shied away from saying things that make life difficult for him if he believes them – that translates as ‘not a leader’ in newspeak.

He has also never been inside the ‘Westminster Bubble’ as you put it, instead he has always opposed the very idea of it. That is why Westminster politicians (of the professional ‘Blairite’ variety) in his own party have not rallied around him, as he sought to burst their bubble. He was always grass-roots, outside of Westminster, and this is why party members support him overwhelmingly, and why there is now this dichotomy.

The thought police really got to you, didn’t they? How is that standpoint crooked, corrupt and dishonest? The tabloids hate it as it is a reasoned and nuanced opinion, that allows for shades of grey and presents necessary compromise up front. He is the opposite of tabloid friendly. So they seek to destroy, and pretty much have done.

A corrupt person would say what people want to hear to gain power – (it’s not your fault, or the fault of the people you voted for, its the immigrants/bankers/Brussels politicians/socialists/jews (OK, that last one hasn’t happened again yet).

A non-corrupt person doesn’t come out with this stuff – and apparently that makes him ‘unelectable’. Regardless of left or right, it is this that I am ashamed of when others look at the state of our society.