Farron is clearly not homophobic. He might be religious, and he may have a weird religiously informed morality. But he’s also a passionate liberal, and you can see by his actions that he has been campaigning and voting for LGBT rights.
That’s what being a liberal means in the UK: you can have a personal life (including a religious one) that is independent of the state and its policies. I don’t see why that principle shouldn’t extent to Farron as much as it extends to the minorities he has been campaigning for.
Edit: I also don’t know what you should expect a Liberal party to look like if it were not to include people like Farron. It is supposed to include people of all sorts of all religions, who understand that we need not all have the same religious views in order to fight for each others rights to equality and liberty.
So, Momentum, Corbyn’s pet cult and entryist vehicle sent out a newsletter saying to help Corbyn win they need to put lots of bets on Corbyn winning and this would shorten the odds and change reality and now #TennerOnJezza is actually a thing and the Trots are throwing money at the capitalist bookmakers. It’s a Stalinistidiocracy.
[quote=“Fifth_Fret, post:21, topic:129430, full:true”] I also don’t know what you should expect a Liberal party to look like if it were not to include people like Farron.
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I guess that’s why neo-liberalism is a ghastly concept to me.
I’m not seeing anything there unaddressed in his interview with Pink News a while ago.
I agree that one could maintain a consistent position that Farron is a liar and a homophobe cleverly hiding his homophobia behind voting and campaigning for pro-LGBT issues. But there are a lot of strange positions you can hold when you don’t believe what someone says, or their voting record in light of those statements.
Some of the left getting het up about Farrons record when Corbyn is working for Press TV and many are firmly allied with some of the most brutal anti-LGBT Islamist organisations on the planet is laughable anyway. I don’t see any other so called “he’s been fighting for gay rights all his life” activists doing paid gigs on Westboro Church’s TV Channel and Westboro are actually less homophobic than Corbyns employers because unlike the Iranian government, they haven’t executed hundreds of gay men.
Labour’s manifesto is most interesting, with some excellent ideas. Under any other leader i’d be very confident.
Summary here.
Tax the right bits, spend it in the right places. The tax bit (increased at 80k and 120k) disarms any Tory attacks, as they’ll be raising taxes on all brackets. Nationalise bits I agree with, and bits i disagree with, emulating how utilities and transport are done on the continent and US municipals. Various sensible things about NHS and education.
We’re still going to get wiped, but perhaps by not so much.
Corbyn is a way better campaigner, but is mired by so much negative press and poor media relations (and a poor cabinet) that it will be hard to turn around. But maybe we won’t see those 100+ seat majorities we expected.
Sometimes you get elections where you watch two masters of the political craft duke it out. This is not one of them.
It’s amazing how poorly the Tories are managing the campaign but I think they thought that they could simply roll in anything they wanted due to their lead in the polls. They’ve suddenly been caught out with this reaction.
Treeeeza may be trying to portray herself as the direct descendent of Maggie but she’s not showing any of the campaigning of even little Johnnie Major.
Just imagine what could be done if Labour had a decent leader.
Jezza may be fighting against a hostile press but he’s equally fighting his total lack of leadership of the Parliamentary Labour Party. He may also have been able to anticipate some of the awkward questions he has got like ‘Would you use nuclear weapons?’ which really wouldn’t come as a surprise. If didn’t look like he wanted to return to the 1970s post Brexit rather than the Tories desire to go back to the 1950s
There are many Blairites/Brownites who obviously object to him in principle but if he had actually demonstrated any qualities of leadership he may be in with a shout of actually winning.
As it is he still appears to be fatally flawed with regard to actually gaining power. Instead, as the number of people using foodbanks increases, as people die after they’re told they are fit to work and as more the NHS continues to be privatised by stealth, he’ll be able to be self-satisfied that he was ‘right’ while not helping any of them.
The more I see of May’s campaign, the more I’m inclined to agree. Who knows though? I’m just glad this isn’t the slow motion train wreck I was expecting for Labour. Corbyn seems in his element and their manifesto is a breath of fresh air. For the first time in a long time I’ve felt energised and hopeful. Still, I’m expecting the worst.
Corbyn is a campaigner! He knows how to campaign! He has no clue how to be party leader or do PMQs, but he knows how to talk to people on the street and not sound like a robot repeating soundbites. I expect he has eaten chips before.
I was surprised at how much to like there was in the manifesto, and how… unextreme it was. I expected much more of a dramatic turn.
Aye, that’s something that didn’t surprise me to be honest, based on what I’ve read about and heard from Corbyn. He’s been uncompromising, which hasn’t worked well for his leadership, sure, but I think that quality’s been key in delivering the manifesto. I was so happy to see those policies coming from Labour. Our MP is Dennis Skinner and it’s nice to have the party reflecting his views as a socialist for a change.
I’m still utterly opposed to Corbyn and his faction on certain issues. I still support the party and local PPC, and have even delivered leaflets. I like many of the policies and much of the manifesto. I’ll probably vote LibDem due to candidate is neighbour + I’m really not happy about Brexit + it’s a tactical vote. I want the Tories out and will be glad of a Labour victory. I will still oppose PM Corbyn if we win. Being a left centre radical in todays post Brexit tankie lead Labour is complicated.
The fact that such a thing as a left center radical has meaning today is astounding (and mind you, I have found myself falling into a very similar definition lately, the far left having abandoned all sense, measure and objectivity for empty rhetoric).
Left center radical, huh. I’m not a socialist, but sometimes I really feel in tune with their disdain for everyone else :) (Of course true socialists reserve their hatred for other slightly different strains of socialism.)
