Traingate

Strangely enough, Smith agrees with all that and more.
So labour will never win.
Satisfied?
Are you sure you're a socialist?

Yes I am a socialist Jen, are you sure your not a Militant. Why do you have this need to keep on about Smith, he isn't going to win, Momentum has eased the path for their mouth peace.

You are confused Jen, how do you question I am a socialist because I believe labour will not win? Have said many times, been here before , witnessed the damage a far left party caused , worse election defeat since 1913 followed by fourteen years to climb back up out the muck militancy made, I was a socislist then in 1883, and before and still am.

You do not seem to want Labour to win.
You're very old as well.
I was a member of the party in 1983, too. I watched them implode and tried to stop it.
I collected tins and money for South Wales miners. You are not the only one, even though you obviously think you are.

Should you not be fighting for Labour to win again?
I read today that Chukka Umunna thinks Corbyn could win the next election if May decides to stage a fast one. In 2020 he could definitely win if the party gets behind him.
But you will not, will you, no matter how many people vote for him next month.

I am not a member of momentum.
They sent me emails, but I never joined. I asked them to stop sending emails when they said they would remove the non-violence clause.
I am surprised you do not know they did that, and think that I would be a member of any group that thinks violence would be acceptable. Actually, you do know it, because I've said it before, but you still insist in your puerile condemnation of anyone who supports Corbyn.

Of course, I do not expect anybody on this thread to give me any respect for saying that.

anniebach Your views appear to be very much tied up with your position in your local labour party and your allegiance to the many high profile people you often cite as being your personal friends, e.g. the Kinnocks - who have shown themselves to be vociferously anti-Corbyn. It often happens that longstanding members of any organisation start to think of themselves as having ownership of it, and anyone new who comes along is seen as an interloper, not one of the clique, a person who hasn't served enough time to go against the established powers that be.

You blame Corbyn for the EU referendum result but many believe the figures do not support that contention. So, because the referendum didn't go the way you wanted it to go, you turn on Corbyn and anyone who expresses any sort of support for him. You pronounce that if he wins you will leave the party. (You made a similar pronouncement when someone suggested Gisela Stuart might be a good leader). It seems that you feel perfectly entitled, because of your many years in the Labour Party - to assume that your view as to who should or should not lead the party is the only valid one. Of course, you have the right to express an opinion but you do more than that - you state your opinions as facts and you insult and ridicule those who think differently from you by calling them "moral bankrupts", "groupies", "traitors", etc. etc. etc., and by describing what they say or provide links to as "rubbish", "not worth reading".

Do you recall saying "Thank God I did not vote with Brexit. I would have to accept I was of the same mindset as the Britain First movement"? The Brexiters on this thread - some of whom now insist indignantly that you are entitled to express your opinions even if some people are petty enough to take issue with them - were not quite so magnanimous when you insulted them, and they made their annoyance quite clear in the posts that followed.

@Jalima

Who is/was Thomas Pascoe?

Gordon Brown sold the UK's gold reserves long before the country was in financial trouble. His big mistake was in not waiting, because gold subsequently rocketed in value.

Even the FT thinks it was the right decision at the time...

Britain was right to sell off its pile of gold

By Alan Beattie


The Treasury made the right decision not selling, says Alan Beattie.

The continued run of the gold price is a global investment sensation. Recently it broke the $1,500 an ounce barrier for the first time, 30 per cent higher than a year ago. Surely this lays bare the extraordinary foolishness of Gordon Brown’s announcement, 12 years ago this week, that the UK Treasury would sell off some of Britain’s gold holdings?

Actually, no. On this one occasion, Mr Brown’s decision was the right one. Let speculators go gambling on a shiny metal, if they want to. For most governments in rich countries, holding gold remains a largely pointless activity.

With hindsight, of course, Mr Brown could have gained a better price by waiting. At current rates, the $3.5bn the UK received selling bullion between 1999 and 2002 would have been closer to $19bn. The difference at current exchange rates, by the way, would be enough to cover a little over three weeks of the UK’s expected public deficit for the fiscal year 2010-2011 – not negligible, but hardly pivotal.

Mr Brown, his critics say, must be kicking himself. Similarly, the French no doubt still suffer sleepless nights for prematurely taking profit on their Louisiana claim by offloading it to Thomas Jefferson in 1803. And had I put my life savings on Ballabriggs at 20-1 before last month’s Grand National, I’d be writing this on a solid platinum laptop while being sprayed with pink champagne in my new beachfront villa in Barbados.

That is the way of things with speculative assets. The truth is that no one has a good explanation why the gold price is currently where it is. The familiar story – a hedge against inflation or government insolvency – is flatly contradicted by the low yields and inflation expectations in US Treasury bonds. The volatility of gold (and other precious metals – witness the huge drop in silver prices this week) merely underlines the risk of holding it. The $1,500 landmark is a nominal price: had governments listened to the bullion fanatics and loaded up on gold in the last big bull market in the early 1980s, they would still be waiting to earn their money back in real terms.

More substantively, criticism of Mr Brown’s sale also betrays a misunderstanding of why a country such as the UK has gold at all.

In common with most rich nations, the function of British foreign exchange reserves is not for the government to manage wealth on behalf of the country. British citizens do that themselves. The UK does not have a sovereign wealth fund that aims to maximise returns, and nor should it. It is not a big net oil and gas exporter such as Norway – UK net foreign exchange reserves are about $40bn, equivalent to 2 per cent of nominal gross domestic product, while Norway’s sovereign fund has $525bn, equivalent to almost 140 per cent of its GDP.

Nor does the UK pile up foreign assets by persistently selling its own currency to manipulate the exchange rate, as does China. It is notable that the much-vaunted official purchases of gold over the past year are mainly by countries such as China and Russia – and, to a lesser extent, Mexico – with big excess reserves.

UK reserves are there mainly for precautionary reasons – to intervene in currency markets to stop a run on sterling or to pursue monetary policy objectives. Yet gold is badly suited for this task because, despite recent interest from private investors, a large proportion of global above-ground stocks – 18 per cent in 2010 – is still held by governments.

Any attempt to sell off large amounts quickly risks driving down the world price, which is what happened after Mr Brown’s announcement in 1999, leading to an international agreement between central banks to restrict further sales.

A precautionary reserve asset held for intervention purposes whose price is likely to fall the instant it is used to intervene is singularly pointless. Of course, central banks selling into a rising market like today’s may not have the same impact as in 1999, but who knows what demand for gold will be like if and when the intervention is needed?

There remains only one other main reason for governments to hold gold – to set monetary policy by linking the national currency to the gold price. This remains as bad an idea as ever. It would have meant sharply tightening monetary policy since the fall of 2008. This would have been madness.

Private investors, and sovereign wealth funds out to make returns, can punt their money on what they like. If they choose to plonk it down on the blackjack table of the commodity markets, that is their decision. But there is no good reason that governments that hold reserves for purely precautionary purposes should feel the need to follow them.

[email protected]

I am not a member of momentum.
They sent me emails, but I never joined. I asked them to stop sending emails when they said they would remove the non-violence clause.
*I am surprised you do not know they did that, and think that I would be a member of any group that thinks violence would be acceptable. Actually, you do know it, because I've said it before, but you still insist in your puerile condemnation of anyone who supports Corbyn.

Of course, I do not expect anybody on this thread to give me any respect for saying that.*

Hurrah! Finally! Someone has said why they do not want to be a member of momentum.[I presume there is a not missing from your third sentence]. I could not understand why people were stepping back from it.

If people did not know about the violence clause, and people do not know a poster personally, I can't see how they could expect to assume that a poster would definitely not resort to violence.

I will give you respect dj, for not joining up.

Just to make it clear, the highlight did not work. The first half section of my post above, are the words of durhamjen.

This thread which started off amusingly enough is deteriorating into yet another ding dong/ ping pong .
I do think it should have run out of steam by now and hit the buffers before it got derailed.
But oh no, now it seems to picked up its own Momentum .
Surely, to continue paraphrase the awful jargon of the train companies (you know, the ones which talk about "station stops") and continue the equally awful series of puns, this train of thought should terminate here.

Do members on the right of the party have to make a public declaration that they are not members of Progress, Saving Labour, Labour Tomorrow - and all the other new and established groups whose principal objective at the moment is to oppose Corbyn?

It seems it is only OK to be a member of a group representing the right of the party - even when its founders and funders try to conceal their identity - but absolutely beyond the pale to belong to a group representing the left of the party.

I assume that some are not liking the fact that the anti Corbyn cult seems to be losing the argument but it is really not up to any one poster to decide when a thread should end .

Despite an `amusing` play on words I think all posters contributed to the deterioration.

Durhamjen Respect .

Eloethan Well said .

I am not a member of any political party or anything remotely political. hth

Easy to do. No problem at all.

No, no one has to do that, but I didnt find it hard

Well let's face it, it has moved a LONG way from OP's post. and has taken over the space left by the first "Beginning to distrust Jetemy Corbyn" thread.
Nothing to do with trains any more at all ???

'All posters contributed to the deterioration' ? Including yourself f77ms ?

Corbyn made an idiot of himself with the train stunt, even if the thread is running out of steam. All change!
liked your post daphne..... It was only there for anyone with a sense of humour, but there are still a few of us left.

So Momentum threatened to remove their non violence clause , most interesting.

Jen you fought for the party in the eighties yet now support the people you fought , mmmmm

I thought DaphneBrooms post was a good distraction from some of the rather unpleasant comments here. EG durhamjen 23.45 yesterday to Anniebach "you're very old as well".
Most people on this site are beyond young, it's a grandparents forum. What on earth did that comment hope to say about Annie. Does passing a certain age mean your views on a party that's been part of your life for so long no longer count?
I lived through the wilderness years of the 80's as well. I worked with members of militant and other left groups, I have friendships with many of them but I didn't then and I wouldn't now want them running the country. Am I too old to have my views considered/

Yes including me roses but I am not suggesting ending it .

What on earth are you talking about Annie? Here we go again, trots infiltrating the party, which under Blair was pure as the driven snow, get a grip for heavens sake. It's getting boring now. All the information about momentum and its draft code of ethics which included non violence which was then left out is out there if you bother to look. Unlike those other dodgy groups mentioned by Eloethan that are very secretive about their origins, funding and membership.

I consider Jens and Eleothans attacks on me typical of the bile which Corbyn brought into the party , very McDonaldish

To be fair to dj(!!) I think she made that comment about age because ab mistakenly put 1883 instead of 1983! It was still a snide remark nevertheless!!

Why do we need a seat ?

Two wrongs dont make a right.-[dodgy groups assuming you are right nightowl, and removal of non-violence clause from momentum, though I dont think they have done any violence yet?].

did I type 1883? Hsve done same quite a few times and explained why , I apologise for my error .

anniebach What have I or durhamjen said to you that can be described as "bile"? I consider your calling people "morally bankrupt" "militants", "trots", "traitors" "groupies" "cult members", "people without principle who will destroy the party", etc. etc., to be nearer to that description.

You have been equally scathing of other people (who now, conveniently, choose to forget it). I think that likening Brexiters to members of Britain First, a far right racist organisation, as you did, is a good deal more insulting than any of the comments that I or durhamjen have made on here. (and I said so at the time, even though I - like you - voted Remain).

This thread has mostly consisted of people opposed to Corbyn agreeing with one another about how dishonest, stupid and generally dreadful he is and how sinister, corrupt, and underhand Momentum is. As soon as a few more people start to challenge some of the statements made, it is suggested that the thread has run its course or that the challengers are being aggressive.

Yawwnnn. Do excuse me Eleothan

Anniebach renationalising the railways wouldn't cost anything it would be done as the franchises ran out. When the E.Coast line was run by the gov between franchises it made a large profit. Are you not in favour of a National Rain system? Could you actually tell us what Labour policies (nothing to do with Corbyn) you believe in?