MarkW

I got unceremoniously excommunicated from a guitar forum when Cilla died after I made some lighthearted reference to Mersey Trout. A load of scousers went berserk and that was the end of that.

Top man Bob. As I've said before, this is the best modded forum I've ever been on - relaxed, fair, and very good-humoured. It's no coincidence that it's pretty much the only forum I've frequented for some time now, and you should take your share of the [strikeout]credit[/strikeout] responsibility for that. Naturally, I'm casting my vote for Six. PS: Extensive grovelling for being a bit of a knob in the Election thread can be arranged at your convenience.

It wasn't me Sir! I was playing nicely and then Mawsley called me a Tory and ran off. I still like him, but he doesn't want to be my friend anymore...

Aaaaand it's over. You call me a Tory and then claim to be the offended party? Sorry mate, but I haven't got the time or the inclination to unpick all the irrelevant premises, false assumptions and schizophrenic leaps of reasoning in that lot.

How many rallies and speeches of his have you attended? Which politicians did you consider performed well for the media during the election campaign? Do you listen to Women's Hour every day or was this a one-off occasion because of your interest in obtaining information about Labour's policies? So, are you claiming to be an expert on Chinese socialism? Are you categorically stating that Corbyn's political outlook is one and the same as Mao's? Why can't you let it go? You're a Tory, you don't like him - that's fine, none of us have to like everybody. But why the fiction? You can dislike his policies that a staggering number of people find reasonable, you can wish for a neo-liberal leader that the party doesn't want, but why invent stuff? To accuse him of being a disciple of Mao (and thereby a student of planned economies) is drifting off into fantastical nonsense; as any cursory examination of his speeches and plans would attest. I appreciate other political perspectives, I get the fire-poking contributions Six makes, and I believe you're an intelligent and humorous chap - so I don't get why you can't simply stick to facts about why you dislike Corbyn? I'd plump for the beard, my Mum told me never to trust men with beards. (*I have a beard) He ran an outstanding campaign and made some human errors, even the bulk of the PLP have congratulated him and expressed their surprise. My reservation with him comes down to his choice for some of the shadow posts - but then, when your PLP is in open warfare with you and carrying out planned resignations (coordinated by the BBC) I kinda guess you have to take the Diane Abbotts where you find them. FWIW, I cancelled my membership of Labour during the last leadership election after he won. Twaddle.

The only winners in this election are the EU, who are pissing themselves laughing. I'm no Tory by any stretch of the imagination - it was just a case of choosing what I felt was the 'least worst' option. But this will surely go down as one of the greatest strategic blunders in Tory party history: to call an election when you had no need to, and then to run a campaign (if we can even dignify it with such a title) that was so poor it had people speculating that she was deliberately trying to lose - including announcing policies that specifically disadvantaged her core support base! Unbelievably inept. And yet despite all of that Corbyn still didn't even come close to winning, and it has taken a deeply worrying Tory alliance with the most extreme and distasteful bunch going to push him into a positive position. I can only conclude that Momentum and I have a very different concept of what constitutes a vindication of their candidate.

There is a lazy assumption that pervades political discussions at the moment, which is that if you don't support Corbyn you are by necessity a dupe of the mainstream media. It's as though their portrayal of Corbyn as a slow-witted fool with hopelessly simplistic and outdated ideas automatically precludes the possibility that he might - in fact - be a slow-witted fool with hopelessly simplistic and outdated ideas. There are only two places I read the Murdoch press: in the hairdressers, and in the Chinese when I'm waiting for a take-out. It is - without exception - low-grade, simplistic brain-rotting drivel, and in my opinion anyone who relies on it to inform their political opinions shouldn't be allowed to vote in the first place. I mean come one - it's not as though the journalism in more high-brow papers is unintelligible to anyone without a PhD in political science, is it? But I digress... Not all of us judge Corbyn by what the newspapers say. We judge him by what comes out of his own mouth, by how he responds to political interrogation, by the painful inevitability with which he blunders into the patently booby-trapped questions that cock-sure interviewers lay for all their interviewees, and by his actions. I first came across Corbyn's brand of politics as a teenager in the late 1980s. I was born and brought up on a university campus, surrounded by a fascinating collection of mainstream and more oddball academics. One of our neighbours was a professor of social anthropology who had traveled extensively in China and was a total convert to Chinese socialism, and with his blue Mao Suit and copy of the Little Red Book (from which he would quote at length) he was an odd figure by any standards. He remained a family friend until he died a couple of years ago, and in all that time I never understood how anyone could have been so completely bowled over by such simplistic and asinine twaddle. And then a couple of years ago Corbyn popped up as the prospective Labour leader, and I thought "Oh Jesus - you've got to be kidding. Not this shite again..."

Eh? I may have been a little defensive there. Tut tut round here is a proper piss take. Bloody Yorkshiremen! No worries mate - no offence was intended.

Tut tut - that really won't do. Plenty of us who voted against Corbyn want a fairer society - we just don't fancy going back to the 1970s in the process. Don't let's get personal Mark with the tut tut shite. It's been civil Eh?

Or perhaps some people prefer the idea of a fairer society Tut tut - that really won't do. Plenty of us who voted against Corbyn want a fairer society - we just don't fancy going back to the 1970s in the process.

Corporation tax hikes also hit small and medium sized businesses (who tend to pay their taxes) much harder than the big boys (who often don't bother).

It’s interesting how often media bias – on closer inspection - is almost indistinguishable from factual reporting of stuff you just didn’t like to hear. Now I’m not for a moment holding the British media up as some paragon of impartiality (not least because I’ve been on the receiving end of their mischief-making myself) but when politicians give idiotic answers – or indeed no answers at all – to perfectly reasonable questions you simply cannot lay the blame at the media’s door, however much you’d like to. Take Corbyn’s famous Woman’s Hour meltdown, when Emma Barnett asked him what his flagship childcare policy was going to cost. Even the most dim-witted observer of political interviews will have noticed that whenever a new policy is announced two questions immediately follow with elegant inevitability: 1. WHAT IS IT GOING TO COST? 2. WHERE IS THE MONEY GOING TO COME FROM? Corbyn never made it to the second question, floundering around over the cost whilst fingering his manifesto nervously and desperately willing his iPad to yield up the magic number. This is rank incompetence, plain and simple. It was especially amateurish in light of Diane Abbott’s track record of random-number generation in previous interviews, and the fact that one of the charges a Labour leader should be particularly sensitive to is the old chestnut about them not being a party that can be trusted with public money. So big deal: Corbyn f*cked up, as politicians from all sides do. But with tedious predictability Twitter was immediately filled to bursting with rabid Corbynistas dismissing the interviewer as a ‘partisan Zionist shill’ and other equally fatuous and far less palatable monikers, which – even if true – have no bearing whatsoever on the fact that their hopeless leader elected to give an interview to the BBC to discuss his flagship policy without knowing his figures. So, I’m sorry: the charge of media bias against Corbyn is simply insufficient on its own to excuse his lacklustre performance: listening to him on PMQs is a masterclass in missing open goals and punching himself in the face when any other leader would have May on the ropes; the banality of his answers on Question Time; his hopelessly inadequate EU referendum performance; the downright brainless decisions he is apt to make – and on and on it goes. And as for the charge that the media never gave Corbyn a fair trial? After 30 years as a complete political nonentity I think perhaps the trial period might be coming to an end.

This hits the nail squarely on the head: Despite all the daft Obi wan Kenobi memes and "Jez we can!" enthusiasm of his supporters, Corbyn's best chance of success has come entirely from the bizarre political suicide of his opponent. This is the new benchmark of success for Labour, is it? On the positive side, the knives are already out for May so we won't have to put up with her for much longer, which also raises the tantalising possibility of Boris as PM...

Yes, but equally there are plenty of experts and think tanks who cautioned that Labour's figures simply don't add up. There were some fairly well-publicised holes... Anyway, it seems to me - if I may be so presumptuous - that you and I both want more or less the same for our society. My entire family are life-long Labour voters, as is my wife's: her father has been a card-carrying party member since he was old enough to join. And every one of them has given up on Labour since Corbyn took over. Every last one. And whilst I'm more of a floating voter, nothing would have pleased me more than a Labour Party I could get behind and give the Tories a good hiding. A Labour leader who had taken a strong stance on Brexit and who had a bit more gumption than JC would have wiped the floor with May. It was a massive open goal, and they missed it.

I want change too - that's why I'm so annoyed by Corbyn. I'm sick of the Tories - I dislike their policies and I loath May. The NHS may or may not be better off under Labour (let's not forget that the last Labour government wasn't behind the door at privatisation: they pumped more money in than the Tories, but they also did an immediate U-turn on their opposition to Major's PFI program when they came to power, ramping it up massively and saddling the NHS with huge and unserviceable debts). But as important an issue as the NHS is it's not the only issue, or even the most important one. And a healthy NHS is scant consolation if the rest of the country has been brought to its knees.

This coalition is utterly appalling. I voted for May - holding my nose and wincing as I did so - for the simple reason that the Consevatives are the only even vaguely credible government at the moment. Corbyn can't even lead his party, let alone a country, and his views are so simplistic and doctrinaire they'd have been considered anachronistic 30 years ago. He's like Michael Foot but without the intelligence or charisma.

This is precisely what makes me despair for the Labour Party. Corbyn spent 30 years as a complete political non-entity on the back benches, where his only achievement was winning 'Parliamentary Beard of the Year' a few times. He was only put on the leadership ballot as a joke, and his short term of leadership has been utterly shambolic. Of those canvassing Labour MPs who actually discussed Corbyn on the doorstep during the election campaign (many found him too toxic to mention by name) more than one is reported as having told undecided voters that they may as well vote Labour because they didn't have a hope in hell of winning with Corbyn at the helm. Of the dozen or so people I know who voted Labour, only two are genuine Corbyn supporters: the others just wanted to reduce May's majority but couldn't stomach voting for Farron. Senior Labour Party members were predicting a 1930s style wipe-out, with the Conservatives tracking so far ahead of Labour that the election was a mere formality. All that changed when the manifestos were published: May's was pretty realistic and consequently thoroughly depressing, whereas Corbyn's was stuffed full of shiny enticements for the gullible and credulous: free childcare, free school meals, free university tuition, welfare, pensions, flexible train tickets for football matches... on and on it went. And people loved it. Or more accurately, people who didn't want to concern themselves with how it was going to be funded or what the implications were likely to be loved it. Then there were the campaigns themselves. Corbyn did his bit, pressing the flesh and interacting with the punters in his amiable way as they transported him from one adoring crowd to another like a glass-cased holy relic, with mere proximity to their messiah sending them into paroxysms of ecstasy. May, by contrast, treated the electorate with utter contempt. Already unpopular with the 48% who didn't vote for Brexit she had gone on to alienate a good percentage of the 52% who did by pushing for the hardest 'out at any cost' departure. She cemented her unpopularity by making some spectacular misjudgements on social care and winter fuel allowances during her campaign, and by refusing to take part in televised debates, making her - according to one Labour MP - the most beatable Prime Minister he had ever known. And still Corbyn lost. The fact that he did better than expected is merely a reflection of how low that bar was set. The sight of Corbyn's supporters hailing a 56 seat gulf between Labour and Conservatives as a famous victory is proof positive of their near total detachment from reality.

The DUP are vile. Corbyn's not evil, just deluded and a bit thick.

Except he doesn't seem to think so: he's parading around with a huge smile on his face saying people 'have voted for change' (err, no Jeremy, most of them voted for May) and that he's ready to form a minority government! This is confirmation, if it were needed, that Corbyn is the most deluded man in British politics. Even with a manifesto that promised as much as his, and with an electorate split down the middle over Brexit and an unpopular PM who seems to have gone out of her way to sabotage her own campaign, he still didn't even come close to winning. The sooner Labour rids itself of this ludicrous Marxist clown and goes back to being a party normal people can vote for, the better.

It comes to something when being marginally less shit than predicted is hailed as a triumph.

Erm, 'the last time round' I remember hospitals reducing waiting times, increased police on the streets, resourced classrooms and ambulances that got to emergencies on time. I then remember the banks f**king up the economy. Seems a bit stiff to blame a UK party's policies when corporate and personal greed crushed a global system. 'This simplistic socialist claptrap' includes breaking the ridiculous austerity measures in order to stimulate the economy, something May's administration adopted immediately (albeit watered down) when taking office. There's a lot to knock Labour for, but the collapse of Western economies isn't it. I think you're talking about the late 90s / early 2000s: I was talking about the 1970s.

Nathan, do you like my new bike? My daddy helped me choose it. - It's cool. Oh my God! There's another cyclist coming towards us! Don't worry Nathan - my daddy says you have to look where you want to go and not at the thing you don't want to hit. - Huh? That's dumb. Look - I can stare straight at her and still cycle in a straight AGHHH!! BANG!!!

I was intending to vote for the Church of the Militant Elvis Party, whose core manifesto pledge is to hold corporate pigs to account for turning Elvis from a man of huge talent into a fat media joke. Unfortunately their candidate fell at the first hurdle. But in reality there are only two options, aren't there? Voting LibDem might be a sop to my wishy-washy liberal conscience, but they're an absolute shower of shite. And as for the others...

Corbyn is right when he says his manifesto offers people hope, and I think that’s one of the things I find most objectionable about it – especially when you consider his popularity with young voters. But hand in hand with being young is not remembering the utter misery this simplistic socialist claptrap caused the last time round, and not yet having found out the hard way that there is a yawning gulf between a political manifesto and political reality. And in this election, more than any I can remember, the disparity between what is being promised and what can be delivered is vast. Despite Labour’s claims to have a fully costed manifesto, the fact is they don’t: merely putting a number next to a policy isn’t enough – there must also be a credible strategy for raising that money, and for Labour this is where it all unravels. I’m neither Labour nor Tory, and generally hold both parties in pretty much equal contempt. But as much as I dislike May and her ilk, the Conservatives are at least a credible party of government, which is more than can be said for Labour. And whilst the NHS may or may not be better off under Labour, it’s scant consolation if their other policies leave the country bankrupt. So I voted, even though I had to hold my nose as I did it. And I’m not going to pretend that I know I’ve done the right thing, because the truth is I’m not sure I have. But it’s done. And may God have mercy on my soul.

I know what you mean. I'm a floating voter with no strong political leanings (slightly left of centre if pushed, I guess) which means I enjoy gently needling both sides when their blinkered twaddle appears on my news feed.