Jeremy Corbyn

I don’t hate him, I believe him to be a hypocrite and have not a scrap of trust in him .

Anyone would think that Corbyn was running this government and was responsible for the absolute mess the country is in now - not just the Brexit shambles but also the systematic running down of every public service.

There are plenty of one-liners on Gransnet which are nothing more than shrill opinions on Corbyn's character, motivation and abilities. There appears to be very little examination of what has happened to this country over the last 9+ years, who is responsible for it and an analysis of their performance and abilities.

Cameron and Osborne, true to Conservative objectives, committed the government to reducing the role of the state to 36% or less of GDP, in perpetuity, and espousing a policy of outsourcing services to private providers. In 2017 it was 38% of GDP; in Germany it was 44% of GDP and in Denmark it was 50% of GDP.

The results of these cuts deserve to be recognised:

Probation Service

the Financial Times recently headlined "Management of ex-offenders was so poor that public safety "put at risk" " ........ "Working Links, a key private provider [to the probation service] , collapsed in February. Inspectors had warned that "professional ethics had been compromised and immutable lines crossed" because of cost issues."

The BBC recently reported "Numbers returning to prison "rocket" ".

There have been numerous reports over the years citing the exodus of experienced staff, resulting in record numbers of assaults, suicides and self harm incidents. Now that the situation is really chaotic, in panic mode, the government recently allocated money for recruitment and training. There is really no point decimating a service and then throwing money at it once it is severely damaged. Because of right wing dogma (and some might say vested interests intent on pushing the privatisation of public services), the warnings were ignored and the prison service allowed to descend into chaos.

NHS
I think the disastrous effects of a significant reduction in funding, a plethora of private providers cherry picking the most profitable areas of the NHS and the knock-on effect of reductions in social care spending are already well known. The I this week also headlined "160,000 nurses leave NHS since 2010". There is a crisis in the recruitment of all areas of medical, nursing and support staff, which has not been addressed.

Public Health

Environmental Health officers have, on average, been cut by 25%. For example, in Huntingdonshire there has been a 33% cut, despite the number of food outlets to be inspected and monitored rising significantly. This obviously has implications for public health and for the NHS.

There have been reductions in local services including out-of-hours noise abatement services, park maintenance and park keepers, station masters, guards, post office counters, district nurses, health visitors, police officers and Community Support Officers, services for the elderly and disabled, to name but a few.

Legal Aid has been slashed to such a point that members of the public unable to obtain legal representation are trying to conduct cases themselves and, as a result, there are increasing numbers of adjournments blocking up the Court system.

Education

The surging "marketisation" of all areas of education has led to vast amounts of money being wasted on "free" schools and academies, with insufficient monitoring of expenditure on salaries and unnecessary peripheral spending - resulting in spiralling costs and the reduction of spending on vital maintenance and teaching materials (as evidenced in two Panorama programmes broadcast in 2018 and last week).

And the list goes on. Yet May, who was an inept Home Secretary and has continued as an inept Prime Minister, is heaped with praise for her stoicism and hard work.

Eloethan I know you still think Corbyn is the best thing since sliced bread, but others can now see him for what he is.
Labour heartlands can’t stand him and no wonder.
How can anyone have any confidence in him ( only Marxists need answer that)

Only a Tory could call Corbyn the best thing since sliced bread. He's been a gift to the Tory party.

I tend to agree with you. Eloethan. I don't think he's' the best thing since sliced bread'. But he's much less potentially harmful than others think.
To me, he has a few issues to which he sticks through thick and thin. eg pro Palestine, con EU.
But he can't be bothered with, or doesn't understand tactical politics. He's a very complex person, and maybe not all that bright. But doesn't have the potential to bring in an extreme trotskyist regime.
We all have our own opinions, the truth is somewhere in the middle.

I don’t think Corbyn could bring in an extreme anything, he is led not a leader. This makes it more worrying thinking he could be PM .

Yet you have been quite admiring of May anniebach.

She has allowed herself to be pushed and pulled by so many interests (including the DUP, for a price of course) instead of trying to bring various factions together in an effort to reach some sort of consensus. And once again she has a a tantrum in which she points the finger at everyone but herself.

She had three years to try and create a forum in which to achieve some basic points on which MPs could, if not welcome, at least be prepared to compromise on. Instead she has waited until the final possible moment to demonstrate that nothing at all has been achieved in those three years and everything is still up in the air

My admiration for Mrs May is for her dignity .

She could have done this, that and the other ? That’s
‘Being wise after the event’.

Can we get back to Corbyn please?

So can anyone who is a remainer and has trusted the Corbyn 'long game' - can still continue to trust him. Have I got it right - he and friends have voted against Conference, which they have been swearing by for months - and allied themselves with the DUP and ERG. Really?

If he is cosying up to the DUP he must have changed his mind on a United Ireland.

I agree with Grandad1943 Jeremy Cornyn is a great guy and a true socialist. Anyone know who the first true socialist was? Well I'll tell you it was someone with the same initials. Got it now? Yes, it was Jesus of course! Keep on keeping on Jeremy!

That ended very badly

but Christ was a Jew !

Only the initials were the same...
Jesus was not a Socialist, the concept was unknown.
He said ‘render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s’ when people complained about taxes paid to Rome.
You must be his number one fan grannyrebel99

I expect he will keep keeping on, mind you.Unless things get difficult.

I trust Jeremy Corbyn. We need change in this country, things need to change big style!

We need a radical change in housing, Education, NHS, social Security just for starters. A Labour Government can deliver the change required.

The change in direction in the Labour Party is led by Jeremy Corbyn but it is supported by the greatly increased membership under his leadership.

There are Labour MPs who don’t agree with the new direction as they are still committed to the Labour Party as was under Tony Blair.

In my opinion Tony Blair and his acolytes have been shown to be no friends of democracy or decency and I’m happy their day is done.

The change in direction in the Labour Party is led by Jeremy Corbyn
Well, that is debatable. Some may say that Jeremy is not so much a leader as a figurehead for those who have real charge of the Labour Party.

The Labour MP’s who disagree with Corbyn are not particular friends of Tony Blair, just that they are realistic enough to see that Corbyn and McDonnell would likely bankrupt the country with hare brained schemes.
There is a reason Corbyn was only a backbencher for all those years.

Corbyn is to Labour what May is to Conservatives
They are both the wrong leaders for their parties at this moment in time.

I couldn’t trust an MP who attended a wreath laying ceremony for terrorists but four years later said he was there but didn’t know if he was involved . Either a lie or a serious problem with memory

Very true Brid

One wonders how it’s all going to end Lemongrove, , they are leaving space for NF to fill, so no light at the end of the tunnel there either. It may make interesting reading in years to come, ..... not so good in real time.

Yes, the history books in the future will have many chapters on the last few years!

I agree with Eloethan’s analysis of the dreadful state of public services as a result of years of Tory misrule. I wish I was confident A Corbin led Labour Party could win the next election. This week the polls are in Labours favour.
I despair that left leaning labour supporting people continue to express only negative comments about the Blair:Brown governments. No one can defend Iraq. However they came in after education and health had been neglected by successive Tory governments. The difference in health and education can’t be underestimated, there was real investment on early years because research evidence said that’s what was needed.
I’m no fan if Corbyn but I fear a Boris/Gove (name any tory) government much more than. Labour government even with Jc in charge

I guess it’s all been done before in one form or another.
How does that rude (ish) saying go : same s - -t , different day (month , year, century ?)