Seanm
pfm Member
Corbyn played the long game - remember 2D chess, a year or so later 3D chess, 4D, etc...considerable rope was extended to him at first on here and in the wider community, hell I even thought he was great myself. Went with my son to see him speak, my son shook his hand and didn't wash it for a week.
Then not brexit itself, not the vote, but the realities of what it would mean became obvious to those capable of joined up thought and thinking it through.
And as time went on, it became obvious that the multidimensional chess involved embracing this flawed right wing coup to not lose votes.
Unfortunately, this meant sacrificing the votes of the population segment labour had made strongest gains in - the young. No not all of them, but by and large the ones who could think, and had been inspired and motivated.
I'm sure you'll remember myself and many others on here pointing this out, and warning that it was not only destroying labours election chances, but the left wing direction the party was taking. As time went on, it became obvious that aside from a general favouring of brexit by corbyn, for ideological reasons I personally find infathomable, his strategy, such as it was, was wait.
Opportunities to surge ahead on tory lies, cockups and infighting arrived - and departed un capitalised on - almost daily. He defined inept (or did until the johnsons strategy on CV arrived). On here, almost daily, he was railed at, and predictions of labours slaughter at the next GE were made, presciently.
Finally, in a masterstroke of underachieving, he agreed to the johnsons election at the time of his choosing.
What happened?
Most of us on here were good enough to not rub it in or say I told you so, though for two years criticism of corbyn had been ongoing. You and others persisted in not addressing the criticism, but loftily asserted that the corbyn doubters were not sufficiently pure in some unspecified way and were not privy to the truth underlying it all.
For the record, I thought the policies labour ran on at the last election were great, and even their brexit fudge, had it been confidently introduced after the ref, might have flown.
So after years of open goals missed, support of a right wing coup, pathetic for the most part PMQs and being unable to keep his MPs in order, gammon allotment man was not voted for.
Two other factors - media hated him, and he didn't have the people skills to strategise with the other parties.
In retrospect he was a disaster.
Starmer seems more competent, I say tentatively, if only because he can think on his feet and articulate it. Don't necessarily like what comes out of his mouth but I do like the appearance of competence, and maybe that's more important at the moment.
Just scanned the rabid stuff there but yes, the mistake was triangulating and trying to use clever parliamentary manoeuvring: they should just have accepted the result of the referendum and voted through May's deal.
Just looking at the tentative support you're offering Starmer, and contrasting it with the rabid stuff about Corbyn. It's interesting what kind of triangulation people will put up with. Membership of a trading block? A point of principle! This shall no pass! Racism, support for unions? Let's give him the benefit of the doubt here! Got to admire the competence!