Labour supporters may be ignorant.

Corbyn and co are only interested in votes for power, they promise much for the young, it worked for Clegg but then brought about his and his party's demise, same will happen to the Labour Party, Corbyn and Co are not Labour , they are militants who now hope to bring their far left beliefs to power, they tried in 1983 and failed badly . Vote for Corbyn is a vote for communism

Well the first article is written by Nick Cohen, a man so consumed with hatred for Jeremy Corbyn that nothing he writes is at all balanced.

The second is a vehicle for Progress.

Nuff said.

You can understand why a man with the name Cohen is disturbed by Labour's antisemitism though.

Jewish or not, many, many former Labour supporters share his views.

Isn't it fair that if Momentum has a stranglehold on Labour that the Progress group within the party tries to strike a balance? Just saying. (I disliked the Blair years.)

But it is unreasonable to suggest ignorance in those with whom you disagree.

Are the other lot any better? - Johnson, Gove and crew. They give lip service to social equality and cohesion then just proceed to feather their own nests.

Much better to feather your nest with bribes from property developers

I think a lot of Labour voters are ignorant about Momentum, ( not ignorant in an insulting way) just that they don’t realise what those at the top of Momentum are like.
I sometimes think that the UK does need the wake up call of a Labour Government led by those two Marxists Corbyn and McDonnell, let them borrow until they ruin the economy with their follies, and then we can get back to normal Conservative and Labour Governments.
The worry is though, that we need time to get on track after we leave the EU.

NOT antisemitic.....anti the vile Israeli government and their treatment of the Palestinian people .....as ANY person who has a conscience will be

"But it is unreasonable to suggest ignorance in those with whom you disagree."

Just to clarify. I didn't suggest it. The writer of the article did. I was quoting him.

Day 6

I hope I will not be accused of being the 'forum poluce' or indeed upset you but--

There is a thread that is currently running on this subject and I know this is a personal thought but I wish you had posted your view on that thread rather than starting 'another' thread on the same subject.

All that happens is to join in we have to repeat the same point and it will turn into the boring repetition of the Brexit/Tory threads that repeat and repeat the same posts.

I agree paddyann!

I do wonder about people who write articles like Nik Cohen's. It isn't factual simply a biased diatribe. Has he actually spoken to a real Marxist or Revolutionary Socialist ? They have very little in common with any members of the Labour Party. They are interesting in that they sometimes have knowledge of historical events and a perception of what happened that is sometimes at odds with the accepted accounts. This ridiculous idea that the Labour party is in some way a communist organisation is simply a piece of right wing propaganda.

Yes Day6 - I was not referring to you personally.

lemongrove - economists have long argued about the best way to manage national economies - the borrow and spend on improving infrastructure and employment opportunities is a legitimate theory. National budgets are different from personal or family budgets and are not managed in the same way.

Huffpost is usually fairly unbiassed, but do notice this article was written 2 months ago before the Conferences.

As to the rest, I am fed up with the slur that Corbyn and McDonnell are Marxists. They are in fact Keynsians, an economic plan that worked very well for half a century before Thatcher decided on a different model.

And many people have not turned away from Labour, a few Blairites maybe, but many more (like me) have rejoined seeing a return to traditional values

Spot on yggdrasil

Yes Luckygirl I do realise that (your last paragraph) but think that McDonnell would go much further down the borrowing line than anyone else has done in the past within a Labour Government( when we are not ‘at war’.)
Why does anyone think that there is such division in the LP about Corbyn being Leader?
If anyone wants an ultra left Government and the return of the immense power of the Unions influencing everything that they do ( the government) then fine.....but not fine for anyone else, including a good number of Labour MP’s and voters.

Why does anyone think that there is such division in the LP about Corbyn being Leader?
There was division at the start lemongrove partly to do with who runs the party, the PLP or the grassroots, most have now come round to the grassroots. There are of course a small number of vociferous people who continue to deny the reality and want something else. Arguably the equivalent of those who opposed Blair when he led the country to war.

I am so tired of trying to explain the policies are not ultra-left and nowhere like the equivalent of the 1945 government that made growing up in the 50s and 60s so much better. As for the Unions I would love them to have more power, perhaps then they could act against the iniquitous zero hours contracts, which ruin people's lives, and take us back to the 1930s, when my grandfather queued at the dock gates in the hope of being given work to feed his family.

Or we could be taken back to the 1970’s?

I agree with you yggdrasil. I would rather have someone who cares than someone who doesn’t any day.

At least in the 70s families were not living for years in B&B accommodation, or relying on food banks to eat lemongrove.
Still if that makes you feel better.

I heard someone saying on BBC yesterday that most of the doorstep campaigners for Labour at the last election were Momentum members.
I did a little door-knocking last June and those campaigning were ordinary Labour members. They were all older people, lifelong Labour supporters (and mainly teachers or retired teachers!).
But I don't live in a young urban area - there might be different Labour membership profile elsewhere I suppose.

"At least in the 70s families were not living for years in B&B accommodation, or relying on food banks to eat lemongrove."

And once again Trisher you are spouting WORST CASE SCENARIOS, as if every other person in the UK knew this sort of awful deprivation and as though it is the personal fault of government.

It isn't.

There weren't food banks in the 1970s. Poor people, who existed then, surprise surprise, went hungry or lived on meagre meals.

In the '70s social housing was often a disgrace. People lived in damp and draughty homes.

Neither of the above is desirable but we do have more social awareness now.

We also have people who cannot manage money, however much they are given. A former colleague of mine works with the unemployed and runs courses regarding how to budget and live within your means (something many of us older people have to do too.) She is shocked by the way those with little prioritise, especially when feeding children is not their priority.

We have to look at society too and appreciate that some people will need benefits and advocates for life. Some people just cannot cope for a myriad of reasons. I am sympathetic but this has always been the case and advocates like my colleague exist.

Many left-wingers who contribute tend to pick this sector as being typical when it isn't. It exists and in a fair world it wouldn't, but I don't see Corbyn and co giving anyone a fair world. Unless managing the country's finances is a priority many people struggling now will fare even worse in years to come. Those who work want to see value for money too as far as the way their taxes are spent.

Momentum also use worst case scenarios to promote Labour and bash the government. They are losing the support of the working classes who also know struggle but also aspire to better things, as do most people, even in the lowest paid jobs.

A very fair post Day6.

The seventies bring back memories of strikes, it was not the blissful decade some seem here to think it was, it led to 1983 followed by the yuppies decade . The young who think Momentum-Corbyn is the answer will learn the hard way.

I found the seventies hard, had to save for a house phone , it was needed because daughter 2 suffered badly with ear infections, it was buy the phone or take my daughters to the kiosk, rented a TV, a reconditioned one, read the electric meter every night to work out how much electricity had cost that day, either pay the bill or get cut off. It just meant balancing every penny every day, never got into debt, but it was a struggle. This is how the poorer in society lived .

As it is now?