Jeremy Corbyn's intellectual credentials... or lack of.

Abstract intelligence is required for the textbook version of running of a country but societies and people aren't statistics to be played with.

This is why Cameron's type of intelligence is bad in British politics. You need to have emotional and social intelligence, understand what it's like to be a single mother and need tax credits to survive, understand what it's like to work on the front line of the NHS, and understand what it's like when you are too disabled to work. These are all attributes that I believe are necessary to run modern Britain and are required in conjunction with academic understanding of political and economic systems.

Cameron perhaps is too heavy on the academic intelligence and lacking on emotional/social and Corbyn Vice-versa. But I don't think that academic intelligence makes you a better leader, especially considering they have advisors and tons of behind the scenes people to do that leg work. The charisma and personality is arguably most important and Cameron's ability to BS and his persona are far more vital in his electability than his multi disciplined degree from Oxford.

Listen to yourself. What on earth is "the left-wing economics?" And how exactly is Cameron's economics left-wing?

Abstract intelligence is required for the textbook version of running of a country but societies and people aren't statistics to be played with.

This is why Cameron's type of intelligence is bad in British politics. You need to have emotional and social intelligence, understand what it's like to be a single mother and need tax credits to survive, understand what it's like to work on the front line of the NHS, and understand what it's like when you are too disabled to work. These are all attributes that I believe are necessary to run modern Britain and are required in conjunction with academic understanding of political and economic systems.

Cameron perhaps is too heavy on the academic intelligence and lacking on emotional/social and Corbyn Vice-versa. But I don't think that academic intelligence makes you a better leader, especially considering they have advisors and tons of behind the scenes people to do that leg work. The charisma and personality is arguably most important and Cameron's ability to BS and his persona are far more vital in his electability than his multi disciplined degree from Oxford.

Well said. I'd also add he has way more backing by the media, so they won't cover the negative side of his policies as much as his opponents.


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Abstract intelligence is required for the textbook version of running of a country but societies and people aren't statistics to be played with.

Cameron is highly socially intelligent, it's Osborne who's the cold robot. Corbyn doesn’t come across to me like he particularly understands people either, God knows he's said and done enough awkward things since his election.

Cameron was mainly taught Keynesian economics as opposed to the more right wing Chicago and Austrian School of economics which are practically ignored by Oxbridge.


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Maybe it's more about empathy than social intelligence idk. The ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes. I don't think Eton boys in the Bullingdon Club at Oxford are particularly good at doing that but it's not their fault; they just have never really experienced what poverty and misfortune are like in reality. It's just a statistic to them. An opportunity to reduce the deficit against. Which yes makes economic sense. But people die.

Well the Austrian school at least is literally a load of ********, I'm sorry but it is. It's not some big conspiracy why they don't get places at university and instead have to pump out essays from think tanks funded by Objectivist nutjob businessmen. It's just because they're talking *******s, usually in aid of said funder's financial interests.

And Cameron carries on the policies of the Chicago school today, no matter what he learnt.

By the way Keynes was all about surpluses, so in that sense nothing is more "left-wing" than Tory austerity...

I'm not going to debate you here, but start a thread at http://www.ronpaulforums.com/forumdisplay.php?63-Austrian-Economics-Economic-Theory If you have any worthy arguments instead of name calling maybe you would consider.


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Maybe it's more about empathy than social intelligence idk. The ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes. I don't think Eton boys in the Bullingdon Club at Oxford are particularly good at doing that but it's not their fault; they just have never really experienced what poverty and misfortune are like in reality. It's just a statistic to them. An opportunity to reduce the deficit against. Which yes makes economic sense. But people die.

The evil cultural Marxist swear filter made me look angrier than I was, sorry about that. However the Austrian school is markedly cultish, if you have ever come across one of their shills I think you will know what I mean.

I don't think it's really worth trying to convince people on the "Ron Paul forums" that libertarianism is stupid...

With regard to what is and isn't implied by Oxford PPE, with regard to claims of breadth or dilettantism or expertise in specifically economics: it is unusual for a person to pursue all three branches beyond the first year, and at some colleges doing so is not allowed as a matter of policy.

I've argued on here before that this should mean that the degree is awarded in the two branches pursued for honours. We know from the fact of Vernon Bogdanor's commenting that DC did the Politics papers, as we might anyway have supposed. But I don't know (or not know) that he did more than give a third of his first year to Economics.

This is exactly the case really, left wingers usually come from poverty for two reasons, a) they have risen into their position through the very left wing academic system b) they have worked extremely hard and are annoyed at people getting by with just privilege

In my experience the former tend to be your Marxist idealist types who haven't really experienced poverty that badly because they drifted through school and inbred with the middle classes. The second type are usually your more pragmatic revisionist types who have experienced poverty first class, they don't romanticise the workers because they know they are not some master race, but they don't like inequality either due to their experiences and empathy.

Oh but they are. Considering individually each of sixty five million cases is impossible, so cold detachment and statistical treatment is necessary. However, only a small minority of people are really capable of thinking this way, i.e. highly intelligent people.

I recently discovered something rather interesting, something which I'm surprised isn't more widely publicised by anti-Corbyn activists (which, for the record, I would not include myself among).

Jeremy Corbyn pursued a degree in Trade Union Studies at London Metropolitan University (then called North London Polytechnic), but he dropped out after his first year.

London Metropolitan University is currently placed at 126th in the university league tables. That makes it the lowest ranked university in the whole of the UK.

So... Jeremy Corbyn didn't graduate from the worst university in the UK.

As I said, I'm very surprised that this fact isn't more widely publicised, as it does seem a rather effective anti-Corbyn weapon, insofar as it inevitably prompts doubts about his intellectual suitability to be leader of a major political party, let alone Prime Minister.

Now, I realise that what university you go to isn't the sole determinant of how intellectually clever you are, but it's certainly symptomatic. Especially when you compare Jeremy Corbyn with David Cameron, who graduated with a first from Oxford. That contrast between the two really does suggest a wide gulf in terms of their intellectual abilities.

So, for anyone whose is a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn, did you know about all this? Do you care? Does it really mean anything?

For those who don't support him, do you care? Does this lower your opinion of Jeremy Corbyn? Do you think it could damage his reputation?

I look forward to a lively discussion.

You really don't have to be highly intelligent to grasp that.

I completely agree with him and reject the concept of nuclear deterrence. Taking a global view, nuclear war is an existential risk to humanity - not because I think a world war is likely to arise through tensions, but more because particularly with the rise of terrorism, there's a very real risk of conflict being instigated by accident or by non-state actors - and as long as nuclear weapons exist, this risk remains. I think this risk is significantly greater than the risk posed by not having any nuclear weapons in the first place.

This might be a stupid question but could the gun situation in America be extended to this kind of thing? As in, allowing and endorsing the use and ownership of weaponry is a direct cause of misuse of that weaponry?

It's kind of like the excuse Americans use that they need guns for self defence (a la what we say about trident) but actually if someone is going to kill you then whether or not you have a gun in the safe isn't really going to make any difference but the system that allows you to have the gun in the safe is what led to you being killed.

Not quite understanding, it seems, that average left-wing voters are neither clever nor ambitious, resulting eventually in the election of Corbyn, who has (admittedly without much competition) the largest and broadest mandate for any political leader ever.