Would you give Labour a chance in 2020?

But the thing is, we need an ally in the middle east. No one thinks the way saudi arabia is governed is good, but the middle east is a shitstorm right now. Having a stable country in the middle east, allied to the western powers, is hugely important to our attempts to try and ride out this mess. And Israel is of little and less use as all the other middle eastern countries hate them.

Is SA a viable long term partner? I'm not so sure it is. If we were looking at the ME from a realist perspective I think it makes more strategic sense with the Shia Muslims rather than the Arabs.

From an ethical perspective, our dalliance with SA and increasingly Turkey is unpalatable.

But the thing is, we need an ally in the middle east. No one thinks the way saudi arabia is governed is good, but the middle east is a shitstorm right now. Having a stable country in the middle east, allied to the western powers, is hugely important to our attempts to try and ride out this mess. And Israel is of little and less use as all the other middle eastern countries hate them.

the same Komrade Korbyn who wants to gut our Military ...

Why do we need allies over there? Better to just leave them to drown in their own piss.

Well it's as stable as any country in the middle east and is quite happy to work with the west,


so it's the most viable long term partner I can think of. I mean, who else would be willing to buddy up with us? I feel like any other bridges have long since been burnt.

Ethically speaking, I quite agree. But as nice as it'd be to act in the most ethical ways at all times, situations like the middle east call for pragmatism above all else. And pragmatically speaking, doing anything to weaken our ties with saudi arabia at a time of such instability in the middle east - especially when you consider how middle eastern oil affects the world economy - would be lunacy. The region is at a tipping point already; I wouldn't much fancy giving it a good poke to boot.

I agree, I'd sell what I can to who I can without breaking laws and to hell with anything else.
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Perhaps his policies on - you guessed it - expanding and strengthening our armed forces with a minimum of £2 bn a year, by taking the money spent on Trident and putting into troops on the ground. As a member of NATO, and an additional treaty with the US, we have hundreds of nuclear missiles already acting as a deterrent in the UK's favour. Cameron wants to spend £100 billion on new nukes when we effectively have more than enough anyway. Corbyn wants to spend £100 billion on strengthening the real armed forces. Not a last resort apocalypse-bringer big red button (because that's all it is - as soon as we start sending nukes out, you can pretty much kiss your arse beddy bye bye time!), but an immediate, measurable strength, an actual show of force and expansion of our military.

I like Corbyn as a person, and I think Labour is the only realistic government that will even be able to challenge Conservative. However, I think Labour are out of it until 2025. Labour aren't backing their leader as much as they should, and although i think this is important in democracy for the lesser of two evils Labour needs to be united by COrbyn in any major issue 90/10 split minimum. Bite your tongue, get support behind you as a party with vision, then general election result will more likely come your way. At the moment, Labour seem to divided and is going to make me think twice as to whether I want to vote Labour again.

My honest prediction: Cameron serves until 2020, steps down as he said, George Osborne becomes prime minister, either resigns in 2023 or is voted out for a Labour government in 2025. Incompetent shadow of a man....

Who exactly is supporting Corbyn? Membership of Labour has vastly increased since the general election and 59% of party members voted for Corbyn.

Who exactly is supporting Corbyn? Membership of Labour has vastly increased since the general election and 59% of party members voted for Corbyn.

I suspect that the anti-Corbyn faction in Labour is biding their time and waiting for the results of public elections as that would be the acid test of the degree of support of Corbyn, and where is and isn't voting Labour. The situation will be clearer after elections have taken place.

If Corbyn is kicked out as leader then it could result in a severe drop off in the number of grassroots members of Labour because it will be the final confirmation that Old Labour in Labour is dead, buried, and never to return. If Corbyn and his comrades decide to join the Greens then things might get interesting. I suspect that he has this as a contingency plan.

A fai number of people joined Labour so they could vote Corbyn in, giving them a useless leader.

Things are a lot worse for Labour than people think. At this point your only real hope is for the Tories to tear themselves apart or a recession to come (no convincing evidence yet for a recession outside media scare stories).

Except for the mini banking crisis at the moment. It's entirely possible that Deutsche Bank could be the Lehman Bros of 2017.

There's not a chance that the ECB will allow it to fail. Worst case scenario is the German government nationalises it, there's a stock market shock with minimal effect on the real economy and we plod along as we are.

There's little to suggest strong growth but with the Chinese and US service sectors looking reasonable there's little reason to expect recession either.

And yet Chinese imports are falling dramatically and the economic data surrounding the country still seems a little shaky accuracy-wise. Plus a recession isn't always (usually?) predictable.