POLITICS CORNER

[Stanley]

Eventually, world migration is going to be seen as a fact of life. The Romans had the same problems with the Goths but they invaded and sacked Rome. The Viking expeditions were driven by the lack of resource at home to support them. As world conditions alter due to climate change there is going to be even more pressure. It all reminds me of osmosis or heat transfer where nature automatically tries to even things out by substances permeating each other. It's exactly like trying to control the tide.
The Tories are still hiding behind the Labour Conference. Laura Kuenssberg was being a bit obtuse when she interviewed Jeremy Corbyn yesterday. He gave a clear and plausible reason for the motion on Brexit at conference and why he wouldn't be pinned down by her to make statements about what would eventually happen because it was hypothetical but she ignored him and kept trying to get her sound bite.
Delighted by the fact that Trump was laughed at at the UN when he tried to convince them that globalism is dead and patriotism is the way to go. he wants to destroy the basis of everything the UN has worked for since its inception and says this will make America great.... Has he ever read any history at all?
(Actually, reading 'Fear' by Woodward I know the answer is no, he doesn't do books, concentrated study or even logic. He is the master of the knee jerk lie.)
Think about the President of the United States being publicly ridiculed by a gathering of world leaders. Incredible and says more about the man than a thousand words.

[Stanley]

We are told that Jeremy Corbyn's key note speech at Liverpool will be centred on criticism of the regime of deregulation and corporate greed which led directly to the 2008 melt down.
I can do nothing but applaud this. I have been banging on for years about the events of the late 1950s when monetarist economic theories led to the growth of the Friedman inspired Chicago School of Economics and the fact that Reagan and Thatcher, in common with the wealthy far right endorsed this and started a bonfire of sensible regulation that had been gradually built since the 1930s depression. I got the evidence that my suspicions were right when I read the careful research of Thomas Piketty for his book 'Capital in the 21st century'. His conclusions reinforced my amateur ones and at the time I said it was required reading for anyone trying to understand present trends towards austerity and even more income inequality. I first came to this conclusion after doing a concentrated course on the history of England in the inter war years. I have not changed it since and I am glad that Corbyn is raising the matter as one that has to be addressed. The Tories are historically incapable of recognising the logic of these arguments, they are too closely tied to the great wealth holding elite and the multi-national empires.
Not too sure about the call for a General Strike as an alternative to an election...... It didn't go well last time!

[PanBiker]

If you heard John McDonnell's address to conference the other day you will have noted that the economic think tank team being put together will include Joseph Stiglitz.

[plaques]

The Labour Party conference can only outline the options they would take should they get in power. Up to them Mrs May is in charge of the tiller. Having declared that she is in it for the long run She has said that there will be NO second referendum (peoples vote or whatever you want to call it) . There will be NO early general election. The only Brexit deal on the table is the Chequers deal, anything else would be considered a bad deal therefore we finish up with a NO deal. She may possibly come at the eleventh hour waving a 'peace in our time piece of paper' giving no time for discussion. Or, wishful thinking, fall on her sword making all the previous promises redundant.

[Tizer]

Corbyn gave Laura Kuenssberg an interview on video but he dropped out at the last minute from the live interview he was supposed to be doing on the Today programme. He only wants to talk to his supporters. That gives a poor impression to everyone else.

[Tripps]

There will be some who think that releasing the 'real' identities of the 'Salisbury 123 metre spire tourists' will be an effort to deflect attention away from Jeremy Corbyn's big moment at the Labour Party conference.

Not I, but it is very convenient.

[Stanley]

Ian, no surprise, they have been consulting with both Stiglitz and Piketty ever since Corbyn came in.
Tiz a bit unfair because his team explained he was too busy preparing his keynote speech. I have no doubt he thought that was more important given that he was already on video.
Good campaigning speech and though it will be hard he has put his markers down in public and knowing his style he will pursue them.
P, in the event that you are right Labour is committed to opposing her in a Commons Vote.
It will be interesting to compare the Labour Conference with the Tories. I predict that they will try to manage their event to make sure it gives the impression of backing May but I think that may be an uphill struggle.
The right wing press will of course ridicule Corbyn's speech and the progressive policies he is proposing but on the quiet I suspect that even they are impressed. Best Conference for years.....

[plaques]

Corbyn gave Laura Kuenssberg an interview on video but he dropped out at the last minute Saw a slightly different explanation to the one Stanley gave. There are still memories of the 2015 conference when he was asked "would you press the nuclear button?". This became the dominant headline ignoring what was said at the conference altogether. So something like " would you drop a bomb on Israel?" would wreck the conference. John McDonnell felt that his own interview was heading this way.

There will be some who think that releasing the 'real' identities of the 'Salisbury..... This was my first thought. Funny how these things are first leaked by the newspapers and not No 10.

[Tizer]

If the Opposition leader ducks out of public interviews it means we don't get the chance to see how he/she fares under such questioning and what their answers are rather than those of their henchmen. We need to know if the said person might be the next PM. Party conferences are no help, they're just preaching to their followers. I hate to hear all the cheering at party conferences. It's too much like football supporters than politics!

[plaques]

....ducks out of public interviews it means we don't get the chance to see how he/she fares under such questioning...

I totally agree, But at the same time there's no point in having an interview where all the questions have to be submitted, vetted/ redacted weeks before the interview. Equally, questions that are totally hypothetical of the 'what if?' variety and would you put an end to all the life on the planet? Have you stopped beating your wife.. Yes or No! are there to cause mischief. I think we all know that in the current climate of the rightwing press any answers will be distorted beyond recognition with headlines such as 'Corbyn fails to answer a simple question'.

[Stanley]

Tiz, Laura Kuenssberg certainly gave Corbyn a hard time in the interview I saw. She was like a terrier trying to get a sound bite out of him about the Brexit strategy but Corbyn told her that as she said, it was Hypothetical and therefore there was no point in nailing a particular action. I noticed that the more she pushed, the quieter his voice became. Very impressive. I also note that Matthew Parris criticised the Corbyn speech on the grounds that it was a slick political presentation. Of course it was! That's why he was busy rehearsing and refining it instead of doing more click-bait interviews looking for damaging sound bites! Compare with Theresa May last year, a disaster and the right wing commentators didn't go for her throat but reached for the cough sweets and tissues and said how 'game' she was to carry on. Corbyn knows he can't win that one.
Objectively, he didn't put a foot wrong and laid some good foundations for the future campaign for office, exactly as Ian pointed out. If the Tories do half as well they will be overjoyed! If they stick with the format of previous years they will not be aiming for a working and debating conference with voting like Labour's but a US Presidential style managed rally and ticker tape parade. Let's see how that works out.
(I'll take a small bet they will have ditched the stick on letters on the backdrop and go for something more trustworthy!)

[Tizer]

You and Ian are obviously strong believers in Corbyn so I hope for your sakes he turns out good. To me, out here in No Man's Land, watching all the left versus right politics I feel a bit like an atheist having to endure squabbles between Protestants and Catholics when all I want them to do is get on with governing the country effectively. (I hope there's not too many metaphors mixed in all that!)

[Stanley]

Tiz, you're not alone. That's a good analogy and I wish they would stop the internal squabbles and get on with proper governance! My attitude towards Corbyn is that for all his faults I believe he is honest, not driven by self-interest and speaks the truth. That's as good as it gets at the moment.
Internal squabbles: that bloody Johnson needs to stop acting like an Etonian who believes he is the only one who is qualified to run the world. He's still on the playing field or more likely in the playground.
I see that Matthew Parris, writing in the Times, is warning the Tories that 'old fashioned socialist ideas seem to be very popular'. A lovely example of how mind sets can influence thinking. He is living in the past and equates Corbyn's ideas about resetting the relationship between the electorate, the politicians, the financial system and industry with the dark days of the Militant crisis in the Labour Party. He is totally wrong, these are modern social democratic ideals which not only Labour but many Tories and Liberals secretly agree with, simply because they make sense and go to the heart of many of our current problems.
I suspect that all Tories aren't insensitive bigoted retards. It may be that under current pressures they might find the courage to stand up and be counted because even they must realise that there is something rotten at the core of modern governance. If you look back at history circumstances like these have resulted in surprising shifts, hopefully this is one of them. I shall be watching the Tory conference with interest!
Later.... a wonderful cunning wheeze to get the conference off to a good start. let's discuss bidding to host the World Cup in 2030!

[Tripps]

Interesting paragraph from 'The Conservative Woman' website which shows the difference between the conferences of the main parties.

"These days ordinary members at party conferences are unwanted by the organisers, partly because they cause problems for the press office and partly because the Parliamentary party do not like having to talk to them. Even Conservative MPs don’t want to attend their own party conference any longer. (Question: How many MPs turn up? Answer: fewer than half). So the centre stage is an expensive showpiece for the party to do something for the media. As the Telegraph (October 5, 2016) wrote two years ago: ‘Think of the party members. They’ve paid up to £520 each for this. They don’t get to vote on policy or express their opinions. They’re paying through the nose for the privilege of clapping.’ "

[Stanley]

I told you there must be some sensible Tories..... One of them wrote that! They ought to call it a rally.
See THIS BBC report on the fact that an IT cock up has meant that at some point the personal details of people were freely accessible. Not a good start.
Later. I don't think there can be any doubt at all now as to what Boris Johnson's intentions are. I'd say he is in full leadership challenge mode. However, historically the front runner fails at the last few furlongs. My advice is to watch Gove and Hunt very carefully. Andrea Leadsom can be discounted I think.

[Tizer]

See THIS BBC report on the fact that an IT cock up has meant that at some point the personal details of people were freely accessible.

I note the sentence: `BBC political correspondent Chris Mason said the technical glitch was "deeply, deeply embarrassing" for the party.' That's what I call an understatement!
There was news in recent days of a major security glitch in the US voting system. Computer hacks got together to prove that was the case.

[Stanley]

I've been watching some of the interviews of Tory spokes people in the attempt to get 'news' out of them before the action really starts. Somewhere in the Westminster Village the Tories have a finishing school that teaches the techniques for obfuscating and avoiding direct answers to questions.It can't be a coincidence that many of them use the same phrases and avoidance strategies.... One of my least favourite ploys is when they come to the end of avoiding a question they say "Look!....." and shoot off on another tack in the same breath. It has been developed to a fine art.
Have you noticed how quiet Mr Gove is?

[PanBiker]

So, Theresa May is taking the Labour Party to task for making Brexit political! Hang on, isn't this the biggest political decision that the country has been forced into in the last 50 years? Has she conveniently forgotten as well that it was her own party that started it.

The Tory Party Conference is nothing more than a PR exercise and I predict a demonstration of how the magic money tree can be made to bear fruit. She's started with the 180million or so for some kind of post Brexit festival, followed today with letting the minions keep their tips, (a zero outlay exercise). She's probably going to mention that our new shiny aircraft carrier now has an aeroplane which I believe landed the other day. When she gets to health they will announce their instant rescue package for the Royal Liverpool and link it to the fact that the North gets more than it's fair share of the loot so the Northern Power House is alive and well.

Impartiality from the BBC, noticed last night that Laura Kuenssberg presented in her smart Tory Blue top, I think she wore Grey for the Labour conference, certainly wasn't Red.

[Tizer]

All political parties are over-optimistic about the magic money tree, Ian. If they don't wheel it out we might suspect them of something even worse! T May could have second thoughts about mentioning the aircraft landing on the new carrier - one of them has just been written off in a crash in the US, all $90 million dollars of it.

Give Laura a break - not everyone dresses to indicate support of a political party!

[plaques]

Clearly Philip Hammond does not believe in the money tree. The good news is that he has made one monetary promise which backs up his statement “..and we must answer their challenges with our own, Conservative solutions based on realism, not populism; delivery, not rhetoric”. So what is this realism promise? You've guessed it. More AUSTERITY. We're all in it together, well very nearly.
Something else which could have the global giants quaking in their shoes. "the time was approaching when the government would need to tax internet companies such as Amazon and Google," I suppose the year 2050 is approaching. Talk about making vague promises and kicking the can down the road at the same time this takes some beating.

[Stanley]

I note that they are all using 'The Corbyn' as a bogey man to frighten the faithful and bring them to heel. They talk about Labour as if it is an STD.....
I was right about back projection........ 'OPPORTUNITY' is the key word this year..... For whom.....?

[Tizer]

At least T May gave a live interview on the Today programme this morning so that I had the opportunity of confirming that I don't want her in charge of the UK. In the case of Corbyn, I don't want him in charge either but he doesn't come out and give me a chance to change my mind.

[Stanley]

I saw it Tiz, It struck me that she is just the right person to be leading the Tories at this moment......
I also watched Johnson doing his thing..... Words fail me.....
Phew! We can all relax. T May is going to tell us today that Brexit will be OK and a glorious future awaits us. So that's all right.....
I hate giving air time to Trump but his public ridiculing of the lady who was brave enough to stand up in court and give evidence against the candidate for the Supreme Court was the act of a bully and a good indication of his mind set. How much more disgraceful can he get?

[PanBiker]

I actually watched a bit of the Tory conference yesterday, my god it was boring, there was hardly anyone there for the Home Secretary bloke Sajid Javid. Boris did get about a thousand watching his circus though but a good proportion of those would be the media frenzy feeders.

Just for the record the daily attendance of delegates at the Labour Party conference was over 1800 in the main hall alone, not including those at the fringe events.

[plaques]

Mrs May is adamant that the Chequer's Brexit proposal is the only one on the table. Unfortunately at this point in time there are a number of opposing views, These include.
40 or more of the Tory MPs.
The DUP which has supported here so far.
The EU , Barnier etc:
The Confederation of British Industry.
The Labour party.
The Trade unions.

Her confidence or should we say chutzpah is beyond belief. A bit like the old Yiddish joke about the boy convicted for killing his parents. " I hope the court will take into account that I have recently been orphaned" !