All things Labour Party

[edprice1984]

Firstly, any discussion about Russian money being donated to any political party is an important one and I hope that it is revisited in the coming weeks. However my first question regarding Jeremy Corbyn is: Which part of the electorate is he playing to?

 

Other than his devoted followers I would suggest that there are few people who really believe anyone other than the Russian government are responsible. I understand no-one wants to rush towards conflict, whether diplomatic or armed - but conspiracy theories are not particularly helpful. Maybe it is just coincidence, but is it not interesting that the one theory not involving Russia that has gained traction among many of the Left is the one involving Israel?

 

Anyway, from my reading about the nerve agent involved it does seem unlikely that someone without specialist training would be running around with it. As for the idea that our own security services did this as some sort of 'False flag', well, you probably should go off grid because you know that THEY will be after you!

 

The problem Corbyn has is that he has spent his entire political career as an outsider, fighting against the mainstream. Sometimes you could argue with justification (anti Iraq war etc), on other occasions (Irish Republicanism, links with Arab and Palestinian terror groups) probably not. It appears that he doesn't know how to turn off this anti-establishment streak. Over the past few years, I do think he has been a little unfortunate in that when he has been pragmatic he has been accused of hypocrisy and being 'just another politician' - I wonder, because of this, he simply feels more comfortable being contrary and argumentative.

 

All of this has opened up the lingering issues with the PLP and combined with Labour's confused stance on Brexit (the Conservative party is no better of course) it is conceivable that Theresa May will give herself some breathing space, at least until the end of the year.

[aintforever]

Corbyn always manages to judge the mood wrong and score massive own goals. What he has said is spot on but sometimes he needs to just do what all the other politicians do and pander to the mass hysteria whipped up by the press. He surely must know by now that everything he says will be misrepresented in the press and quoted out of context.

 

It obviously probably was Putin so, whilst the correct thing to do would be to wait until there is sufficient evidence, if you want to win votes best just shut up and try and appear tough like all the others.

[buctootim]

Corbyn always manages to judge the mood wrong and score massive own goals. What he has said is spot on but sometimes he needs to just do what all the other politicians do and pander to the mass hysteria whipped up by the press. He surely must know by now that everything he says will be misrepresented in the press and quoted out of context.

 

It obviously probably was Putin so, whilst the correct thing to do would be to wait until there is sufficient evidence, if you want to win votes best just shut up and try and appear tough like all the others.

 

The problem Corbyn has is that he has spent his entire political career as an outsider, fighting against the mainstream..... It appears that he doesn't know how to turn off this anti-establishment streak. Over the past few years, I do think he has been a little unfortunate in that when he has been pragmatic he has been accused of hypocrisy and being 'just another politician' - I wonder, because of this, he simply feels more comfortable being contrary and argumentative.

 

There is a real need in Parliament for MPs like Corbyn, Dennis Skinner and even people like Farage and George Galloway. They might even be good as Ministers with a domestic portfolio. But they are too principled / blinkered / dogmatic to the leader of HM Opposition.

[John B]

Corbyn always manages to judge the mood wrong and score massive own goals. What he has said is spot on but sometimes he needs to just do what all the other politicians do and pander to the mass hysteria whipped up by the press. He surely must know by now that everything he says will be misrepresented in the press and quoted out of context.

 

It obviously probably was Putin so, whilst the correct thing to do would be to wait until there is sufficient evidence, if you want to win votes best just shut up and try and appear tough like all the others.

 

I have now received confirmation from a well placed FCO source that Porton Down scientists are not able to identify the nerve agent as being of Russian manufacture

 

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/03/of-a-type-developed-by-liars

 

Tories are only interested in doing what is best for the Tory Party

[Batman]

I have now received confirmation from a well placed FCO source that Porton Down scientists are not able to identify the nerve agent as being of Russian manufacture

 

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/03/of-a-type-developed-by-liars

 

Tories are only interested in doing what is best for the Tory Party

 

How come.yiu believe that article and not the government, nearly all of the opposition, even the SNP, the French, Germans and USA?

[CB Fry]

I have now received confirmation from a well placed FCO source that Porton Down scientists are not able to identify the nerve agent as being of Russian manufacture

 

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/03/of-a-type-developed-by-liars

 

Tories are only interested in doing what is best for the Tory Party

That sh ite has been widely debunked already.

 

There's a reason why that nonsense is appearing on sites like Squawkbox and The Canary. Just conspiro-horsesh it for conspiro-idiots who think they are, like, awfully clever free thinkers because they don't believe what THE MAN says or whatever.

 

Because exciting conspiracies are simpler to understand than boring old reality.

[Lord Duckhunter]

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[OldNick]

Has Corbyn surrendered yet? No sign of him showing his face in support of businesses or the people in the street. He was quick as a flash to go to Grenfell.

[Jonnyboy]

Has Corbyn surrendered yet? No sign of him showing his face in support of businesses or the people in the street. He was quick as a flash to go to Grenfell.

 

You mean where 77 people burned to death?

[aintforever]

Has Corbyn surrendered yet? No sign of him showing his face in support of businesses or the people in the street. He was quick as a flash to go to Grenfell.

 

Show his face where?

[SFC Forever]

As much as we are in need of a responsible opposition party, I can not envisage Labour in any guise under Corbyn being even close to resembling a worthwhile proposition to fulfil that role.

[Sheaf Saint]

Let’s just examine the Tories recent record in regards to Russia…

 

Repeatedly blocked the setting up of an inquiry into the death of Litvinenko

 

Blocked Labour’s tabled motion to introduce anti-money laundering legislation to disrupt the constant flow of dark money into Britain which has so artificially inflated the London housing market.

 

Accepted huge amounts of donations from Russian billionaires, including a £30,000 bung to grant direct access to our defence secretary only weeks ago, right before this poisoning took place.

 

Blocked a motion tabled by Russia to the UN security council calling for an “urgent, civilised investigation” into the poisoning incident.

 

Refused (initially) to cooperate with the terms of the OPCW by providing samples of the nerve agent to Russia for analysis.

 

Sent an over-privileged manchild masquerading as our defence secretary to a press briefing, with a PRE-SCRIPTED statement saying Russia should “go away and shut up”.

 

The government’s handling of this entire situation has been shoddy at best, and downright corrupt at worst. And in the midst of all this current lunacy and rush to jump to conclusions, the only actual sane voice in parliament comes from Corbyn, saying that we should wait until the investigation is complete and then IF it is proved that Russia are responsible, we should provide a response which is actually more robust than the half-baked idea that the government have already come up with. He was among many who called for more evidence of WMDs before going into Iraq remember, and was proved absolutely correct in his stance on that when they, unsurprisingly, couldn’t find any WMDs.

 

Yet despite the Tories quite obvious connections to Russia, Corbyn is the one making all the headlines and is being portrayed as a Russian stooge who is a danger to the security of the UK by pretty much the entire mainstream media, including our own supposedly impartial BBC who thought it was acceptable to host their Newsnight discussion about the issue in front of a backdrop comprising a red-tinted picture of Corbyn in front of the Kremlin that had been photoshopped to make his hat appear more Soviet-looking.

 

What the actual fk!? This is some f*cking Orwellian level of reality-reversing propaganda going on here, where the one guy who is showing calm restraint in proposing that we wait until we have proof before rushing into a course of action we might deeply regret is being utterly destroyed by the press, and the Tory government who are so blatantly up to their eyeballs in dirty Russian money are getting a complete free pass. You only have to look at how differently it was reported in the Daily Mail when May recently stole one of Ed Milliband's old policies to see the kind of media bias I'm talking about. There isn’t a single aspect of Corbyn’s statements to parliament or in his Guardian article which can be construed as anything other than just common f*cking sense when it comes to diplomatic relations with a nuclear-armed superpower. Everything he has said, and the way he has conducted himself, are EXACTLY how any decent person should want their politicians to behave in such potentially serious circumstances.

 

Like I've said throughout this thread, I realise that Corbyn is far from the perfect opposition leader, but once again the media is having to invent synthetic outrage to attack him with because they don't have anything concrete. Why do they constantly have to do this? If he really is as bad and terrible as you lot all make him out to be, then why can't the actual truth speak for itself?

[Sheaf Saint]

The BBC is denying the image was photoshopped...

 

 

Of course, BBC - anything you say

[CB Fry]

The BBC is denying the image was photoshopped...

 

 

Of course, BBC - anything you say

Two people in critical condition and the Squawkbox Corbynista fuc kwits want to make it all about a freaking hat. Let's remember who the real victim here is, Saint Jeremy.

 

Corbyn, Seamus Milne and the rest are just student campaigners who have never grown up and will continue to fawn over Russia and Iran regardless of whatever they do because at least they're not, like, the evil west who are well bad.

[Sheaf Saint]

Two people in critical condition and the Squawkbox Corbynista fuc kwits want to make it all about a freaking hat. Let's remember who the real victim here is, Saint Jeremy.

 

Corbyn, Seamus Milne and the rest are just student campaigners who have never grown up and will continue to fawn over Russia and Iran regardless of whatever they do because at least they're not, like, the evil west who are well bad.

 

Fawning over Russia?

 

"As I said in parliament, the Russian authorities must be held to account on the basis of the evidence, and our response must be both decisive and proportionate. But let us not manufacture a division over Russia where none exists. Labour is of course no supporter of the Putin regime, its conservative authoritarianism, abuse of human rights or political and economic corruption."

 

"our capacity to deal with outrages from Russia is compromised by the tidal wave of ill-gotten cash that Russian oligarchs – both allied with and opposed to the Russian government – have laundered through London over the past two decades. We must stop servicing Russian crony capitalism in Britain, and the corrupt billionaires who use London to protect their wealth."

 

"So I will not step back from demanding that Russian money be excluded from our political system. We will be holding the government’s feet to the fire to fully back Labour’s proposed Magnitsky-style sanctions against human rights abusers, along with a wider crackdown on money laundering and tax avoidance."

 

"We agree with the government’s action in relation to Russian diplomats, but measures to tackle the oligarchs and their loot would have a far greater impact on Russia’s elite than limited tit-for-tat expulsions. We are willing to back further sanctions as and when the investigation into the Salisbury attack produces results."

 

Please tell me which part of that qualifies as "fawning over Russia"?

[aintforever]

Meanwhile, Alastair Hay, an environmental toxicologist at the University of Leeds who investigated the use of chemical weapons against Iraqi Kurds in Halabja in 1988 thinks the novichok agent can be created by any country.

 

“The chemical structures of the main weaponised novichok agents were made public in 2008 by Vil Mirzayanov, a former Russian scientist living in the US, but the structures have never been publicly confirmed. It is thought that they can be made in different forms, including a dust aerosol that would be easy to disperse.

 

The novichoks are known as binary agents because they become lethal only after two relatively harmless components are mixed together. This means that labs do not have to build stockpiles of ready-made nerve agents but can mix them up from unrestricted chemicals as and when needed. According to Mirzayanov, the most potent of the agents are 10 to 100 times more toxic than the conventional nerve agents.

 

The fact that so little is known about the novichoks may explain why Porton Down scientists took several days to identify the compound used in the attack against the Skripals. And while the agents were invented in the Soviet Union, other labs with access to the chemical structures would be able to manufacture them too.”

 

I guess there must be more evidence yet to come to light if it is already proven beyond doubt that it is Russia though.

[CB Fry]

Fawning over Russia?

 

"As I said in parliament, the Russian authorities must be held to account on the basis of the evidence, and our response must be both decisive and proportionate. But let us not manufacture a division over Russia where none exists. Labour is of course no supporter of the Putin regime, its conservative authoritarianism, abuse of human rights or political and economic corruption."

 

"our capacity to deal with outrages from Russia is compromised by the tidal wave of ill-gotten cash that Russian oligarchs – both allied with and opposed to the Russian government – have laundered through London over the past two decades. We must stop servicing Russian crony capitalism in Britain, and the corrupt billionaires who use London to protect their wealth."

 

"So I will not step back from demanding that Russian money be excluded from our political system. We will be holding the government’s feet to the fire to fully back Labour’s proposed Magnitsky-style sanctions against human rights abusers, along with a wider crackdown on money laundering and tax avoidance."

 

"We agree with the government’s action in relation to Russian diplomats, but measures to tackle the oligarchs and their loot would have a far greater impact on Russia’s elite than limited tit-for-tat expulsions. We are willing to back further sanctions as and when the investigation into the Salisbury attack produces results."

 

Please tell me which part of that qualifies as "fawning over Russia"?

That had to be dragged out of him.

 

[Lord Duckhunter]

Newsnight used the same background in a picture of Gavin Williamson a few weeks back. Don't recall little Owen Jones and the other lefties complaining about that. Funny enough neither did the Tories, they probably thought a grown up audience was perfectly capable of deciding it's just a ****ing picture not a political slur

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Jonnyboy]

That had to be dragged out of him.

 

 

You know Russia is a capitalist country now right?

[Jonnyboy]

Newsnight used the same background in a picture of Gavin Williamson a few weeks back. Don't recall little Owen Jones and the other lefties complaining about that. Funny enough neither did the Tories, they probably thought a grown up audience was perfectly capable of deciding it's just a ****ing picture not a political slur

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Where's the photoshopped hat?

[CB Fry]

You know Russia is a capitalist country now right?

Why are people getting upset about Corbyn against a red background with a furry hat on then?

[hypochondriac]

Why are people getting upset about Corbyn against a red background with a furry hat on then?

It's almost like they don't want any sort of association between corbyn and communists. I wonder why that is?

[Sheaf Saint]

Newsnight used the same background in a picture of Gavin Williamson a few weeks back. Don't recall little Owen Jones and the other lefties complaining about that. Funny enough neither did the Tories, they probably thought a grown up audience was perfectly capable of deciding it's just a ****ing picture not a political slur

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Oh for the love of...

 

LD you and I may disagree on just about everything, but despite that you usually seem intelligent enough to come up with some decent arguments to defend your position on things.

 

But are you really such a f*cking simpleton that you can't see the difference between the editing of the images and the sooooo blatantly obvious intention behind the Corbyn one?

 

Are you happy that the BBC has essentially transformed into the British equivalent of Russia Today?

[aintforever]

Where's the photoshopped hat?

 

To be fair, I work a lot in photoshop - both those pics look like they have had the same hard light layer effect applied which in Corbyn’s case has lost the detail in the hat making it look different. Corbyn may have had the red tweaked further but It’s hard to say, If the original had slightly more red the same effect can make it more pronounced.

 

Having said that, the end results do look very different - Corbyn looks like a Russian dictator and the Tory looks like he’s been cut out and dumped on a Russian background so the designer should have used a different picture of Corbyn. The BBC is supposed to be impartial and those images obviously have different connotations.

Edited 18 March, 2018 by aintforever

[hypochondriac]

I can see why Owen Jones would be annoyed at the people he supports being labelled as commies

 

[Verbal]

Why are people getting upset about Corbyn against a red background with a furry hat on then?

 

It's just the Corbynista scream teens - a really silly attempt at distraction. If they were even halfway sensible, they'd be defending Corbyn's essentially sensible argument that it probably was the Russian state but that we should wait for the hard and confirmed evidence.

 

Corbyn himself screwed it up by offering other theories - eg the Russian mafia. But his cretinous acolytes have outdone him by 'putting their money' (although that apparently means no money at all) on, to them, the most credible scenario of all, that British intelligence services carried out a chemical warfare attack on its own soil against its own assets and threatening the lives of its own citizens.

 

Classic 'false flag' bull****, swallowed whole by gullible fools.

[Batman]

I see the Italian tank is reversing.

Now labour say that Putin is definitely culpable and measures against him/Russia have to be made. They also firmly agree with the Prime Minister.

According to Mcdonnell

[CB Fry]

 

Classic 'false flag' bull****, swallowed whole by gullible fools.

 

Indeed. For example....

 

 

Are you happy that the BBC has essentially transformed into the British equivalent of Russia Today?

 

Jesus wept. Jesus fu cking wept.

[aintforever]

I see the Italian tank is reversing.

Now labour say that Putin is definitely culpable and measures against him/Russia have to be made. They also firmly agree with the Prime Minister.

According to Mcdonnell

 

They don’t have much choice to be fair, with the media circus twisting “wait for all the evidence” to “siding with Russia” - the sort of stuff lapped up by gullible mongs on here.

 

It says “made in Russia” on the murder weapon so case closed, no point digging any further. It really is that simple.

 

Just like Iraq obviously had WMDs.

[Sheaf Saint]

Indeed. For example....

 

 

 

Jesus wept. Jesus fu cking wept.

 

WTF!? I'm really not sure how you have managed to take what I posted as evidence that I have swallowed a load of false flag bullsh!t. I haven't made any such suggestion, and I agree it was almost certainly the Russians that carried out the attack. But I like to keep an open mind and wait until the evidence is conclusive on such things before rushing to agree wholeheartedly with the claims of the most toxic, incompetent, corrupt and deceitful government this country has ever known. It's called healthy skepticism.

 

I am, however, deeply concerned that the supposedly impartial BBC is being used as a government propaganda mouthpiece, as we all should be. Their framing of this issue and their insistence of painting JC out to be the bad guy in the current situation is nothing short of disgraceful. If you're so blinded by your pre-existing prejudice that you can't see the level of baseless anti-Corbyn propaganda that is being pushed by the mainstream media at the moment, then I would suggest it is you who are the gullible fool here.

[Lord Duckhunter]

The Corbyn supporters seem to miss the point that Russia wanted to make it obvious they did it. They wanted to send out a message. Corbyn knows full well they did it, but his lifetime obsession with going against the West and siding with our opponents overrides anything. Had the suspicion been it was a Mossad operation, would Jezza be asking the same questions ? Course he wouldn’t.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Seaford Saint]

The Corbyn supporters seem to miss the point that Russia wanted to make it obvious they did it. They wanted to send out a message. Corbyn knows full well they did it, but his lifetime obsession with going against the West and siding with our opponents overrides anything. Had the suspicion been it was a Mossad operation, would Jezza be asking the same questions ? Course he wouldn’t.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

And you know all this as fact.....with the world cup coming up....complete ******** if you ask me.

[Sheaf Saint]

The Corbyn supporters seem to miss the point that Russia wanted to make it obvious they did it. They wanted to send out a message. Corbyn knows full well they did it, but his lifetime obsession with going against the West and siding with our opponents overrides anything. Had the suspicion been it was a Mossad operation, would Jezza be asking the same questions ? Course he wouldn’t.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

Oh FFS Lord D. You're still completely blinded by your bias and swallowing the bullsh!t hook, line and sinker aren't you.

 

There is not a single shred of evidence to suggest that Corbyn is siding with Russia. He has already signalled that all the evidence so far

points to Russian culpability for the Salisbury poisoning, and he agrees to the sanctions imposed and supports calls for further steps once the evidence is conclusive. He has consistently criticised the Putin regime since at least 2010. He has been openly supportive of the dissident movements campaigning for increased human rights. Recently he has been very vocal about his desire to introduce new legislation to cap the flow of dirty Russian money into Britain.

 

Why the buggering hell would he support the de facto dictator (what a surprise Putin has won in a landslide again today eh?) of an authoritarian crony capitalist country? It makes no sense whatsoever, and the suggestion completely contradicts your ongoing insistence that he is a dangerous commie.

 

Now let's contrast that to BoJo's cringeworthy TV appearance earlier today where he tried his very best to squirm out of answering a question about his acceptance of a £160,000 donation from the wife of a former Putin minister in return for a game of tennis with him, before finally, sheepishly having to admit it.

 

But yeah, let's just ignore inconvenient things like facts and keep slating Corbyn instead eh?

[Jonnyboy]

Oh FFS Lord D. You're still completely blinded by your bias and swallowing the bullsh!t hook, line and sinker aren't you.

 

There is not a single shred of evidence to suggest that Corbyn is siding with Russia. He has already signalled that all the evidence so far

points to Russian culpability for the Salisbury poisoning, and he agrees to the sanctions imposed and supports calls for further steps once the evidence is conclusive. He has consistently criticised the Putin regime since at least 2010. He has been openly supportive of the dissident movements campaigning for increased human rights. Recently he has been very vocal about his desire to introduce new legislation to cap the flow of dirty Russian money into Britain.

 

Why the buggering hell would he support the de facto dictator (what a surprise Putin has won in a landslide again today eh?) of an authoritarian crony capitalist country? It makes no sense whatsoever, and the suggestion completely contradicts your ongoing insistence that he is a dangerous commie.

 

Now let's contrast that to BoJo's cringeworthy TV appearance earlier today where he tried his very best to squirm out of answering a question about his acceptance of a £160,000 donation from the wife of a former Putin minister in return for a game of tennis with him, before finally, sheepishly having to admit it.

 

But yeah, let's just ignore inconvenient things like facts and keep slating Corbyn instead eh?

 

Disgusting from Boris Johnson.

[CB Fry]

WTF!? I'm really not sure how you have managed to take what I posted as evidence that I have swallowed a load of false flag bullsh!t. I haven't made any such suggestion, and I agree it was almost certainly the Russians that carried out the attack. But I like to keep an open mind and wait until the evidence is conclusive on such things before rushing to agree wholeheartedly with the claims of the most toxic, incompetent, corrupt and deceitful government this country has ever known. It's called healthy skepticism.

 

I am, however, deeply concerned that the supposedly impartial BBC is being used as a government propaganda mouthpiece, as we all should be. Their framing of this issue and their insistence of painting JC out to be the bad guy in the current situation is nothing short of disgraceful. If you're so blinded by your pre-existing prejudice that you can't see the level of baseless anti-Corbyn propaganda that is being pushed by the mainstream media at the moment, then I would suggest it is you who are the gullible fool here.

Corbyn surrounds himself with unreconstructed Stalin apologists and full on communist sh ithouses like Seamus Milne and Andrew Murray, John McDonnell waves the Little Red Book on the floor of our parliment and you're blubbering about the BBC daring to suggest he may have sympathy for mother Russia.

 

Corbyn is against anything that is against the Imperialist West, there's decades of words and deed to show that. He's just a trumped up six form protestor who has become a hero to a very special kind of idiot.

 

The kind of idiot whining about how horrible the BBC is, when just as many people on the right think the BBC is a den of pinko lefties?

 

Have you not for one minute read the Sun or the Mail repeatedly tearing strips off the BBC are are you spoonfed all your information from The Canary these days?

[Jonnyboy]

Corbyn surrounds himself with unreconstructed Stalin apologists and full on communist sh ithouses like Seamus Milne and Andrew Murray, John McDonnell waves the Little Red Book on the floor of our parliment and you're blubbering about the BBC daring to suggest he may have sympathy for mother Russia.

 

Corbyn is against anything that is against the Imperialist West, there's decades of words and deed to show that. He's just a trumped up six form protestor who has become a hero to a very special kind of idiot.

 

The kind of idiot whining about how horrible the BBC is, when just as many people on the right think the BBC is a den of pinko lefties?

 

Have you not for one minute read the Sun or the Mail repeatedly tearing strips off the BBC are are you spoonfed all your information from The Canary these days?

 

"Corbyn is against anything that is against the Imperialist West,"

 

Not sure you meant that. If Corbyn is Sixth Form, you're clearly O-level.

[Sheaf Saint]

Corbyn surrounds himself with unreconstructed Stalin apologists and full on communist sh ithouses like Seamus Milne and Andrew Murray, John McDonnell waves the Little Red Book on the floor of our parliment and you're blubbering about the BBC daring to suggest he may have sympathy for mother Russia.

 

Corbyn is against anything that is against the Imperialist West, there's decades of words and deed to show that. He's just a trumped up six form protestor who has become a hero to a very special kind of idiot.

 

The kind of idiot whining about how horrible the BBC is, when just as many people on the right think the BBC is a den of pinko lefties?

 

Have you not for one minute read the Sun or the Mail repeatedly tearing strips off the BBC are are you spoonfed all your information from The Canary these days?

 

Mother Russia? You do realise that this is the year 2018 and that Russia hasn't been a communist country for nearly three decades, don't you?

 

Yes, of course Corbyn has never made any secret of his socialist principles. It's what he is. So why in the name of god would he be a supporter of Putin? Seriously, why? For those of you who love to stick the boot in to him for being in favour of socialism to now be somehow using that as a way of defending the accusation that he is a Putin stooge is so laughably contradictory. All of his words and actions in relation to Russia in recent years portray a man who is strongly opposed to their authoritarian regime and who is deeply concerned (and rightly so) about the influence that Russian oligarchs have in the British economy.

 

I will concede that the BBC may have slightly redeemed itself this morning, with Andrew Marr actually giving a Tory minister a difficult time for once rather than the usual sycophantic free ride I have come to expect. Johnson's interview with him was like watching a car crash in slow motion. If the matter wasn't so serious it would be hilarious.

 

And for the record, no I don't read the Mail or the Sun, because I don't have the IQ of a jellyfish.

 

This whole media smear on Corbyn for daring to suggest we proceed with due prudence on a potentially very serious matter has just been a deliberately orchestrated distraction to divert attention from the dreadful government handling of the situation and the revelations about the Tories being in the pockets of Russian billionaires. It's so f*cking obvious.

[CB Fry]

 

And for the record, no I don't read the Mail or the Sun, because I don't have the IQ of a jellyfish.

.

 

I wouldn't crow about your IQ when you come out with this horsesh it.

 

 

Are you happy that the BBC has essentially transformed into the British equivalent of Russia Today?

 

You keep reading Squawkbox you open minded free-thinker you.

Edited 18 March, 2018 by CB Fry

[Verbal]

While Corbynistas, spoonfed ******** by the Canary and Squawkbox, debate the incredibly important issue of whether Newsnight crushed the blacks on their idol's hat, here's an excellent interview by Newsnight's Emily Maitlis, with some truly alarming implications.

 

[buctootim]

While Corbynistas, spoonfed ******** by the Canary and Squawkbox, debate the incredibly important issue of whether Newsnight crushed the blacks on their idol's hat, here's an excellent interview by Newsnight's Emily Maitlis, with some truly alarming implications.

 

 

Did you see 'Putin the New Czar'? Very good programme.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09vb7m3/putin-the-new-tsar#

[Batman]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/18/jeremy-corbyn-vladimir-putin-russia

[Verbal]

Did you see 'Putin the New Czar'? Very good programme.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09vb7m3/putin-the-new-tsar#

 

Indeed - very good. But there's surely some mistake. The link says it was made by the BBC, but aren't they just a British version of Russia Today, and therefore incapable of anything like the well researched and well resourced journalism on display here?

[Sheaf Saint]

I wouldn't crow about your IQ when you come out with this horsesh it.

 

 

 

You keep reading Squawkbox you open minded free-thinker you.

 

Careful CB, you look like you are attempting to take Batman's crown as king of the strawmen here. I do not, nor have I ever, read the Squawkbox. I did, for a short while, follow the Canary because I thought it was important to read news and views which run counter to the mainstream narrative, but I soon became acutely aware of how sensationalist and clickbaity their content is and I stopped. Because, you see, I am capable of using critical thinking and recognising when news is being delivered in such a way as to attempt to influence the view of the reader in a certain direction.

 

So for you to recommend that I read the Sun or the Mail to get an insightful view on political issues is utterly laughable. There would be more balance in a room full of drunk toddlers than you will find in the pages of those two sh!t rags.

 

I will ask again... Why on earth would a man who has spent his entire political career standing up to authoritarianism be a supporter of Putin's Russia?

[Sheaf Saint]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/18/jeremy-corbyn-vladimir-putin-russia

 

So according to this opinion piece, Theresa May's recent performance has been impressive because she is planning on introducing new measures to crack down on criminally acquired Russian wealth laundered in London, which is EXACTLY what Corbyn has been advocating for years. But, apparently, when he quite rightly raises the very important point that it is largely members of her own party that have their snouts in that particular trough, he is just trying to score cheap political points.

 

And I suppose May wasn't just trying to score cheap political points when she deliberately withheld crucial evidence from Corbyn, yeah?

[Verbal]

And I suppose May wasn't just trying to score cheap political points when she deliberately withheld crucial evidence from Corbyn, yeah?

 

Yes, May scored a cheap political point. She revealed to Corbyn only secret-level information made available to all privy councillors, rather than top-secret information made available to foreign leaders.

 

She did this to lead Corbyn into the most obvious of traps - make the case look less convincing so that he would launch a self-immolating virtue signal about lack of evidence that it was the Russian state and that we should all just get along and talk to one another. It was an act of the lowest politics on May's part; like Brexit, she played an issue of huge national importance for political positioning within her own party.

 

That Corbyn fell for it hook, line and sinker speaks volumes about his hopeless inadequacy as a political leader.

[hypochondriac]

So according to this opinion piece, Theresa May's recent performance has been impressive because she is planning on introducing new measures to crack down on criminally acquired Russian wealth laundered in London, which is EXACTLY what Corbyn has been advocating for years. But, apparently, when he quite rightly raises the very important point that it is largely members of her own party that have their snouts in that particular trough, he is just trying to score cheap political points.

 

And I suppose May wasn't just trying to score cheap political points when she deliberately withheld crucial evidence from Corbyn, yeah?

 

I think the article itself highlights why it was a poor thing to say at the time:

 

In the immediate aftermath of a nerve agent’s deployment on British soil, was party funding really the issue for the self-proclaimed prime minister-in-waiting to put front and centre?

 

Most within his party were able to put aside party politics on a matter of this seriousness and back the Prime Minister. Corbyn seemed unable to do so until he realised that he had to sort of get on board so he doesn't look like he is just anti- West again and now we have some sort of mixed message fudge (like we do with most Labour issues nowadays) where you have the shadow chancellor now deciding that they do back the Prime Minister after all. He displays absolutely woeful leadership and lets remember he is part of the privvy council and would have been party to undisclosed evidence that was seemingly enough for others in the labour Party leadership.

[Sheaf Saint]

I think the article itself highlights why it was a poor thing to say at the time:

 

 

 

Most within his party were able to put aside party politics on a matter of this seriousness and back the Prime Minister. Corbyn seemed unable to do so until he realised that he had to sort of get on board so he doesn't look like he is just anti- West again and now we have some sort of mixed message fudge (like we do with most Labour issues nowadays) where you have the shadow chancellor now deciding that they do back the Prime Minister after all. He displays absolutely woeful leadership and lets remember he is part of the privvy council and would have been party to undisclosed evidence that was seemingly enough for others in the labour Party leadership.

 

Taken out of context, yes it seems very crude to be talking about party funding in the aftermath of such circumstances. But when the party funding in question is seemingly coming from the exact same source that the government are pointing the finger of blame at for the atrocity, then yes he was absolutely right to raise it. To try and claim that he shouldn't have because of the timing is reminiscent of how the Republicans in the US like to deflect attention away from their love-in with the NRA by saying "now isn't the time to be debating our gun laws" every time there is a mass school shooting.

 

But if that is all people are concerned about, then why on earth did he find himself the subject of such an orchestrated hatchet job in the media when all the attention should have been on the incident itself and the governments response to it? Do you think it is right that the biggest newspapers in the country, and even the BBC, dedicated so much of their output in the following days to slaughtering the leader of the opposition for some comments that were poorly timed at worst? When the government themselves have been caught with potentially their hands in the pockets of the perpetrators?

 

This is my beef with the whole situation. I agree about Corbyn's failings and lack of suitability for the position of Labour leader, so I'm not defending him out of some blind sense of loyalty here. The issue is that we have a hopelessly corrupt government, about whom there is some actual evidence of ties to the Putin regime, yet the main narrative being put out by the MSM is that it is Corbyn who is the Russian puppet and the real threat, when this is so blatantly the opposite of reality. I find it just incredibly depressing that so many people are gullible enough to swallow it.

[Sheaf Saint]

Yes, May scored a cheap political point. She revealed to Corbyn only secret-level information made available to all privy councillors, rather than top-secret information made available to foreign leaders.

 

She did this to lead Corbyn into the most obvious of traps - make the case look less convincing so that he would launch a self-immolating virtue signal about lack of evidence that it was the Russian state and that we should all just get along and talk to one another. It was an act of the lowest politics on May's part; like Brexit, she played an issue of huge national importance for political positioning within her own party.

 

That Corbyn fell for it hook, line and sinker speaks volumes about his hopeless inadequacy as a political leader.

 

I think that's a very fair assessment, yes.

[Sheaf Saint]

I can't take credit for this, it's from a satirical page on Facebook, but it's a really good read...

 

 

I see you, Gavin Williamson.

 

I see you puffing out your chest, concentrating super hard on squinting out your meanest possible stare, clenching your fists and tightening your bumhole right up in an attempt to make your face turn red. You’re absolutely bloody livid, aren’t you, Gavin Williamson? Those horrible Russians have come over here and taken your lunch money and your dad’s definitely harder than their dad so they’re going to be super bloody sorry. This could be your Darkest Hour moment, couldn’t it? An indignant shaking of the fist to bloody the nose of the evil interloper, a rattling of sabres for the ages. It’s your big chance to intimidate and impress, to silence the naysayers who think you’re too politically immature for your new position. You’ll show them, won’t you, Gavin Williamson? You’re a big boy and you’ve got your big boy pants on and it’s time to kick some olig-arse.

 

What a ****ing embarrassment you are.

 

I mean, seriously, who can’t even get “shut up and go away” in the right order? You looked like a schoolboy panicking after he accidentally called the teacher ‘mum.’ You’re supposed to be the hard man, the steely-eyed maverick who once kept a tarantula in his office just to intimidate his enemies. Instead you’ve come across like a bumbling dork on the verge of wetting his pants. At least Michael Fallon would’ve given Russia a verbal spanking on a par with the literal ones he gave his creeped-out interns.

 

After another week of Spygate 2: The Re-Murdering, just about every player in the game has been trying to work it to their advantage. Theresa May’s doing her damnedest to turn it into her Falklands moment, even though she’s less Iron Lady and more a bundle of off-brand Twiglets crumpled into a scarecrow. After weeks of the catastrophic ****storm of Brexit she finally gets to impersonate a leader, hammering Corbyn on his perceived weakness. In a national security crisis JC’s softly-softly approach is never going to play well with a huge chunk of the electorate, even if caution in a ****-storm is a far more prudent approach than opening your mouth above the parapet. If it turns out to be true that the Tories deliberately shut him out of the highest level of intelligence briefing regarding the attack, he’s walked straight into their trap. If there’s evidence he wasn’t privy to that indicates Russian state involvement more clearly, then it’s one of the most nauseatingly Machiavellian plays we’ve seen from May and her clutch of ******s; to use his own integrity against him, knowing full well that he wouldn’t blindly support condemnation of Russia without seeing enough evidence.

 

So now we’re back to Corbyn being a communist and a stooge for a foreign power, even though his politics have about as much in common with Russia’s post-Soviet corporate oligarchy as Kim Kardashian has with Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The Tories can put red flags in voters’ minds just by suggesting that they’re red in the first place, even though their own party has far more links to suspicious Russian money than Labour. When the wife of a Putin loyalist can pay £160,000 to play tennis with Boris Johnson the only rackets involved aren’t going to be strung with catgut. If it wasn’t about influencing policy and extending Russian influence she could’ve saved the money by staying at home and slapping a few balls into a racist haystack.

 

This can’t be much fun for you, Gavin Williamson. A diplomatic face-off with an emboldened and brazen Russia is about one of the most complicated defence situations I can imagine and you’ve barely been in the post five minutes. Five years ago your official job was to nod your head and carry other people’s notes about, to the point where John Bercow was actively taking the **** out of you for it when you piped up in the Commons. Now you’re representing Britain on the world stage, standing up to threats for all of us, and how on Earth are you supposed to intimidate a man like Putin?

 

If it worked back then it can work again, right?

 

I see you, Gavin Williamson, your hands shaking as you smooth your hair in the mirror and fuss at the knot of your tie. I see you walk around the desk of your office, carefully turning the terrarium to the optimum angle. Now the first thing he sees when he walks in will be Cronus the tarantula and who wouldn’t be scared of that? You’ve got to be dead hard to have a pet spider. You’re Gavin Williamson, dead hard absolute legend, and when the Russian ambassador walks in to your office you’re going to scare the **** out of him and tell him what for.

 

I hear the buzzer sound as an external door opens, Gavin Williamson. I see you rush to your chair, sitting yourself down, swallowing hard and practising your meanest scowl. It’s time for the big show, isn’t it? You and Cronus are fearless and ready for him.

 

I see the wooden doors burst open, Gavin Williamson, and I hear you yelp as the frame splinters, the hinges flying free and clanging against the floor. I see the shadow envelop you as you shrink into your chair, the bare-chested figure looming over you. It’s not the ambassador, is it?

 

I see you cover your face with your arms, wrapping yourself up into a foetal position. I hear the draw of a zipper and the shattering of glass as something huge and meaty is slammed into the terrarium. I see a spurt of spider innards splash across your shrieking body.

 

This is why it’s all happening, Gavin Williamson. This is why it all makes sense. Putin’s reinforced his position by playing the narrative that only he can secure Russia against its enemies. Only he can prevent another collapse like the nineties. Only he has what it takes to represent Russia on the world stage and stand against the mud-raking West, determined as they are to paint his entire country as the villains.

 

This is Salisbury in a nutshell, really.

 

Putin’s slapped his **** down on your desk for no other reason than to prove he can. And your ****y little spider doesn’t frighten him one bit.

 

Just look at his margin, Gavin Williamson. He’s got even more girth than in 2012.

 

I see you, Gavin Williamson. I ****ing see you.

[Verbal]

That hole Jezza keeps digging is getting awfully big.

 

Now he's saying it's vital Russia is sent a sample of the nerve agent as soon as possible so that they can say 'categorically' whether it was them or not.

 

You can imagine the conversation in Kremlin Towers: 'Whoopsie, that death chemical really was ours after all! Sorry, Brits!!'

 

I bet May can't believe her luck.