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Next Labour Leader II

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thebigfredc said:
In today’s world of ferocious global capitalism, venture capitalists and billionaire oligarchs, I would like to think most people could find comfort in electing a centre or left of centre government in order to moderate these forces.

Instead the best Labour can proffer is an old fashioned champagne socialist. At least Tony Benn had charisma.
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Who is a champagne socialist?
 
Not sure that I agree with labelling Corbyn a Champagne Socialist. Plenty of the previous senior labour people were the North London intelligentsia that I would call Champagne types - all those lawyer or married to lawyer types.

What most of us in the electorate could see was that Jeremy was a ditherer and thick. And made a very good impression of being friendly towards groups you should not be friends with.
 
Stunsworth said:
I’m no Corbyn fan, but he’d have made a better PM than Johnson - who has the attention span of a mayfly.
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Referring specifically to the part of your post in bold text, I have to part company with you there, I'm afraid. I think Corbyn would have been a catastrophic choice as PM, not just because he's Corbyn, but because whereas right now with Johnson we also appear to have got the (unelected) Dominic Cummings, with Corbyn we would also have got the (equally unelected but doubly sinister, not to mention hard left) Seamas Milne.

I'm glad we never have to find out just how bad things would have been with Corbyn in No10.
 
thebigfredc said:
I meant Corbyn in the sense that he never really lived anywhere else but London and never really done a days work in a hospital, on a building site, in a factory etc.
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OK, but not sure that qualifies him as a champagne socialist. Wasn't it a term applied to Blair and New Labour? I get the antagonism to our Londoncentric world, but how many politicians of any stripe have worked in a hospital, factory or building site? I have no numbers, but my guess would be not very many.

Champagne Socialist surely means someone who’s commitment to the cause of the many is tempered by their personal tastes for a high life only obtainable by the few? Regardless of your other feelings for the man, that’s not Corbyn is it?
 
JonR said:
Referring specifically to the part of your post in bold text, I have to part company with you there, I'm afraid. I think Corbyn would have been a catastrophic choice as PM, not just because he's Corbyn, but because whereas right now with Johnson we also appear to have got the (unelected) Dominic Cummings, with Corbyn we would also have got the (equally unelected but doubly sinister, not to mention hard left) Seamas Milne.

I'm glad we never have to find out just how bad things would have been with Corbyn in No10.
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What makes Milne sinister and hard left?
 
ks.234 said:
OK, but not sure that qualifies him as a champagne socialist. Wasn't it a term applied to Blair and New Labour? I get the antagonism to our Londoncentric world, but how many politicians of any stripe have worked in a hospital, factory or building site? I have no numbers, but my guess would be not very many.

Champagne Socialist surely means someone who’s commitment to the cause of the many is tempered by their personal tastes for a high life only obtainable by the few? Regardless of your other feelings for the man, that’s not Corbyn is it?
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There're not that many MPs who have worked anywhere other than in political posts. That is really the big problem with Westminster at the moment in the public's eyes. Incidentally, you never hear anyone being called a champagne Tory, nouveau or some other condescending term from the toffs maybe...
 
Incidentally, you never hear anyone being called a champagne Tory, nouveau or some other condescending term from the toffs maybe...

Probably because on this website Tories are usually referred to as Scum, A***holes, Cv*Ts and other equally offensive and derogatory terms. "Champagne socialist" is a put down a sneer if you like of people who espouse Socialist ideals without having any experience of how or what it is like to be living on a council house estate, working in a factory and trying to make ends meet. What does Lady Nugee know how it feels to live on top of a run down tower block or for that matter Harriet Harman and Geoffrey Robinson.
 
thebigfredc said:
I meant Corbyn in the sense that he never really lived anywhere else but London and never really done a days work in a hospital, on a building site, in a factory etc.
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Lucky we got Boris ‘man of the people’ Johnson then! Everyone in Barnsley gets paid £250k pa to coil-out a couple of columns for The Sunday Telegraph. They feel his pain!
 
SteveT said:
Incidentally, you never hear anyone being called a champagne Tory, nouveau or some other condescending term from the toffs maybe...

Probably because on this website Tories are usually referred to as Scum, A***holes, Cv*Ts and other equally offensive and derogatory terms. "Champagne socialist" is a put down a sneer if you like of people who espouse Socialist ideals without having any experience of how or what it is like to be living on a council house estate, working in a factory and trying to make ends meet. What does Lady Nugee know how it feels to live on top of a run down tower block or for that matter Harriet Harman and Geoffrey Robinson.
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Tory will do - we know what you mean. I try not to swear here and I do limit myself to the T-word
 
Tony L said:
Lucky we got Boris ‘man of the people’ Johnson then! Everyone in Barnsley gets paid £250k pa to coil-out a couple of columns for The Sunday Telegraph. They feel his pain!
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Labour’s crime is always caring without really knowing. Fred knows but doesn’t care. Preference is for people who won’t make him feel bad about that, by neither knowing or caring.
 
Unfortunately there are reports of serious backtracking from RLB - she's said it is antisemitic to describe the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their own homes as racist. At a meeting of Labour Friends of Israel, she agreed that it is antisemitic to “describe Israel, its policies, or the circumstances around its foundation as racist.”
 
gavreid said:
Unfortunately there are reports of serious backtracking from RLB - she's said it is antisemitic to describe the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their own homes as racist. At a meeting of Labour Friends of Israel, she agreed that it is antisemitic to “describe Israel, its policies, or the circumstances around its foundation as racist.”
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It should be possible to criticise the state of Israel without calling it racist.
 
ks.234 said:
It should be possible to criticise the state of Israel without calling it racist.
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How do you argue for full civilian rights for Arab Israelis and the right of return for those who land was taken from them if you can't describe what actually took place? I don't believe that many in the 'West' after WWII would have supported the creation of a new state if they had realised what was to happen to the people who lived there.
 
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gavreid said:
How do you argue for full civilian rights for Arab Israelis and the right of return for those who land was taken from them if you can't describe what actually took place? I don't believe that many in the West after the War would have supported the creation of a new state if they had realised what was to happen to the people who lived there.
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I said was that it should be possible to criticise the State of Israel without reference to racism. I did not say that the state of Israel should not be criticised
 
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