Labour Leadership watch

No, you do not get it, POGS.
It's not prejudice, it's the fact that Blair cannot be trusted. It's not to do with Corbyn. Brown is a decent person, a socialist, who can be trusted. Blair is not. That's all.
Some people might have changed their vote from Corbyn because of what Brown said. They certainly would not change their vote because of Blair insulting them yet again.

One of the Corbyn effects should be on those to the right of the LP. Since people have been talking about the possibility of him winning I have noticed many more - not necessarily pro Corbyn writers, etc., - talking about the priority the Conservatives are giving to cutting the budget deficit.

"Many economists accept that five years of budget cutting have acted as a straightjacket on growth. Simon Wren-Lewis of Oxford University reckons that a conservative estimate for the cumulative cost of austerity would be 5% of GDP, or nearly £100 billion (about $150 billion). Debate rumbles on as to whether it was, nonetheless, necessary."

That is from the Economist who are not pro Corbyn in general. I think that many people on the left think that we really need to see someone with a voice to say - no, in this instance we believe just the opposite to what the conservatives are doing and we believe something different can be done. Up 'till now we seem to have heard very timid views so the LP doesn't upset ... who?

All these cuts are not the "only way" They are being done because capitalists believe only in the market and the Conservatives have moved increasingly more in that direction. No we are not only hearing someone say this but the media having to discuss it at last.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/the-northerner/2015/aug/30/jeremy-corbyn-manchester-rally

This is why Corbyn is going to become leader.

Gordon Brown must have disappointed quite a few by backing Cooper then.

It certainly is interesting to follow it all.

Wow Jen.

Long-Bailey ... said she had encountered two kinds of MP in Westminster: conviction politicians and “consensus” ones. She had no time for the latter, describing them as the sort of people who think changing the world “is all a very good idea in principle but they like to put their efforts into tweaking an existing consensus and appealing to what’s popular in the media at the time.”

This is definitely what the very existence of Corybyn is challenging.

POGS Perhaps it's because Blair's reputation has been destroyed since leading this country into an illegal invasion of Iraq that cost hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of pounds, and which has created social and environmental mayhem in Iraq and the Middle East. Some therefore feel that he, perhaps more than anyone else, should keep his thoughts to himself.

I don't think it's just the "far left" (however that is defined) that mistrusts Tony Blair. I think he's not very popular with lots of people, right across the political spectrum.

Contrary to your contention that no-one criticised Brown for the ridiculous speech he made re the leadership election debate, I clearly recall posting that at least B|air had the honesty to say outright what he thought, unlike Brown. I believe several other people made similar comments.

I'm obviously of a different opinion from durhamjen and anniebach as, although I think he was unfairly treated by the media because of his rather gruff and impenetrable persona, I'm not a great fan of Brown.

That's uncanny Eloethan - I could have written your last two posts myself.

Totally agree.

I would agree with you about Brown, Eloethan.

Every time I hear people say "Corbyn couldn't win an election" (the journalists "report" this a lot) I have to ask - who says and why.

In the last election the Conservatives only won just over a quarter of all potential voters. The Labour party did not win a lot less. Only 66% of potential voters voted in the election.

So, Labour can look to about three quarters of the population without a single conservative voter voting differently. Obviously some of the conservative voters may vote for a Corbyn led Labour Party and some current Labour voters may not but we have heard from a lot of the smaller party supporters - Greens, UKIP and Lib Dems for starters that they are attracted to what Corbyn is saying. Attracting them will be a lot easier than giving up principles to attract Conservative voters. Then there are the non-voters, many of whom are young or from groups who feel disenfranchised by the what the two leading parties currently offer. We know Jeremy Corbyn is attracting these people in droves. Yes, the party would need to continue that but this is far, far from what the naysayers comment when they, oh so wrongly in my opinion, say that a Labour Party could not win under Corbyn leadership.

I think there had been a good number of years of social and environmental mayhem in Iraq before the 'Blair invasion'. That's not an excuse for the 'Blair invasion', just a fact that is worth remembering when saying it's all our fault. It isn't. Iraq had been a very modern country in many ways before Saddam Hussein became president.

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/toxic-legacy-of-us-assault-on-fallujah-worse-than-hiroshima-2034065.html

I was particularly thinking about the massive environmental damage that is affecting the health of everyone, including unborn children, widely believed to result from the US's use of depleted uranium and white phosphorous.

A few extracts from the above article in The Independent:

"Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, according to a new study.

"Dr Chris Busby ........ said it is difficult to pin down the exact cause of the cancers and birth defects. He added that "to produce an effect like this, some very major mutagenic exposure must have occurred in 2004 when the attacks happened".

" ....... US forces later admitted that they had employed white phosphorus as well as other munitions.

"..... Dr Busby says that while he cannot identify the type of armaments used by the Marines, the extent of genetic damage suffered by inhabitants suggests the use of uranium in some form.

"The study, entitled "Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005-2009", is by Dr Busby, Malak Hamdan and Entesar Ariabi, and concludes that anecdotal evidence of a sharp rise in cancer and congenital birth defects is correct. Infant mortality was found to be 80 per 1,000 births compared to 19 in Egypt, 17 in Jordan and 9.7 in Kuwait. The report says that the types of cancer are "similar to that in the Hiroshima survivors who were exposed to ionising radiation from the bomb and uranium in the fallout".

"Of particular significance was the finding that the sex ratio between newborn boys and girls had changed. In a normal population this is 1,050 boys born to 1,000 girls, but for those born from 2005 there was an 18 per cent drop in male births, so the ratio was 850 males to 1,000 females. The sex-ratio is an indicator of genetic damage that affects boys more than girls. A similar change in the sex-ratio was discovered after Hiroshima."

Yes, elo. I'm not excusing any of that. Just saying that there were massive problems in Iraq before the 2003 invasion.

That may be so thatbags but there are massive problems in lots of countries and we don't invade them, in fact we often count them as our "allies".

My understanding is that unless a country directly threatens another country or can be shown without any doubt to be preparing an attack on it, it is against international law to invade. The UN did not accept that Iraq posed a direct threat to other nations and never authorised an attack on Iraq.

There were problems before we invaded Iraq but they were as nothing compared to the total chaos which reigns now.

I wouldn't call the regression caused by Saddam's regime "nothing compared to..." but, yes, I agree with what you're saying about the UN and that it was wrong to invade.

Latest attack on Corbyn is because he said in 2011 that Bin Laden should have been arrested and tried, not killed.

I think many people thought that at the time, even some Tory MPs.

They must really be frightened of him.

In an article in this weeks New Statesman it says:

"The campaigns' canvass returns show that the majority of the selectorate has yet to vote (with turnout as low as 25 per cent in some areas) and others have yet to receive their ballots. Most people expect Corbyn to win comfortably among the new category of registered supporters but his opponents hope that party members and affiliated trade unionists will be swayed by warnings of his unelectability.

Definitely not a forgone conclusion.

Osbourn has started the same old ,same old.he is warning of an alliance between labour left and the SNP . Well, it worked for them at the election

Bin Laden needed killing. Saved a lot of hassle doing it the way they did. Sod justice for all.

The Nazi leaders were tried , I can't agree with sod justice for all, if we support that where does it stop

That's one opinion jinglebellsfrocks.

There is a story that Bin Laden was under arrest by Pakistan when he was killed and the USA staged the killing. He should have been brought to trial.

A story? So not a fact.

I think there was a story at the time, that Pakistan may have had him under observation, but this may have been put about to save face by them, after the Americans stormed his compound.

Oh yes, they didn't want it to seem as though they were harbouring him.

Or even worse ( from their point of view) that they had no idea he was there!