UK and Europe World • Page 6

I love this so much, I hope the Left wing press doesn't let this one go

 

Fair to say May and Corbyn both got flattened equally by that smug turd Andrew Neil.

 

Nah, I think Corbyn held up much better. Weird too, cos I think Andrew Neil went much harder on Corbyn than he did May. Yet May utterly crumbled.

 

I don't even know where to begin with this tweet. It's bad in so many ways.

 

Actually, Matt Zarb's response is spot on

 

I knew you'd enjoy that one.

 

You seriously think we'd be in a better position if Smith was leader?

 

No I thought he was rubbish

 

So which Labour MP could do better than Corbyn? Corbyn has cut the Tory lead in half in just a matter of weeks. One poll showed that there's only 5 points between Labour and the Tories. Corbyn's personal ratings have gone up dramatically while May's have fallen. How is that not making "mincemeat" of May? She should've won this election easily, but it looks like it's gonna be much closer than previously predicted.

 

I wouldn't say a 5 point deficit is making "mincemeat" of May, but I guess standards have been lowered. I always really liked Alan Johnson, but I'm not sure if he ever wanted to do it. There's just no leadership talent in Labour, it's sad. Blair?

 

But seriously, Alan Johnson is awful

 

I think that interview was tough on Corbyn but fair. I don't think he came off spotless but a country yard better than May. I'll be interested to see how the polls look after this.

 

Well, I don't know everything about UK politics, but I know Blair should be in the Hague, so the idea of him being better than Corbyn by any metric is very Funny To Me

 

Yeah, even if all the stuff with Iraq and Afghanistan didn't happen I still don't think he'd be a popular leader now. The world has moved on and the neoliberalism boom has passed.

 

I'm not sure the interviews were that fair. Neil spent most of the interview this evening going through Corbyn's past, which I have no problem with, but why didn't he do the same with May? There's a lot of material- May has a really bad track record on gay rights, the Yarl's Wood controversy, the racist vans she sanctioned, etc etc and yet none of that was even brought up by Neil.

Same. Also, this is the reality:

Tony Blair would win fewer votes than Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader, new poll reveals

I can't stand the "Corbyn is bad" crowd. They literally have no answers to any of Labour's woes other than "Blair", which isn't even a real answer. They're perpetually stuck in 1997.

 

Jeez it was a joke guys

 

I agree she has a past that should be properly scrutinised, but I see Neil as working as a mouthpiece for the public. If you were to ask me what questions were most pressing to the public on Corbyn and his leadership, I probably would've said his view on defence, and stuff related to the IRA. I personally am all for his positions on these points, but they're what get brought up the most. With May, certainly the biggest issue in relation to the public at the time of the interview was social care policy and costings, which is why Neil brought those up then. The public does definitely deserve to see May have to answer to those policies but to bring it up when it's not in the public eye directly would feel like a hit piece.

 

I don't think Andrew Neil/the BBC is a mouthpiece for the public in any shape or form, as much of the time they seemingly follow the agenda set by the right wing media. The only reason those issues you mentioned about Corbyn are constantly brought up is because they distract from the real problems facing the country- e.g. housing, cuts to public services, jobs, wealth inequality, etc. It's a shame that Neil spent so much time grilling Corbyn on the IRA and nuclear weapons when, at this point, his stance on those issues is very well documented, even for people who have only been paying attention since the election was called.

This sums it up well imo:

Tim Mills' The BBC: Myth of a Public Service is well worth a read: "Throughout its existence, the BBC has been in thrall to those in power. This was true in 1926 when it stood against the workers during the General Strike, and since then the Corporation has continued to mute the voices of those who oppose the status quo: miners in 1984; anti-war protesters in 2003; those who offer alternatives to austerity economics since 2008."

 

So I can kind of see the point you and him are both making there, but I see it as there not being anything in those sectors as having much to scrutinise. They're good policies, and Neil doesn't really have a lot to pick up on there. The whole point of the interview isn't to make the politicians look good, it's to grill them on areas the public might be interested in. Whether the BBC acts in the interest of the right wing or not in general is another story, but when May receives an equally brutal interview from Neil, I find it difficult to say that the interviews being given out in a vacuum are unfair against Corbyn. What I would say is an issue is that it equates issues with Corbyn with regards to his position on nuclear weapons being as big of a deal as May's lack of costings and disastrous social care position by giving them both equal coverage, but I don't really think that can be helped without creating an interview that showers him with praise and looks disingenuous.

 

I just disagree that the IRA and nuclear weapons are the main issues that ordinary people are worried about, as polling from not so long ago indicates that the NHS is actually the biggest area of concern to the general public. In that set of data I just linked to, the IRA and nuclear weapons don't come up at all. I don't recall Neil asking Corbyn a single question about the NHS, so I just don't think it's true that his questioning is designed to correlate with the public interest. The BBC are simply following the line of the establishment, as they always have done. I never said that these interviews are meant to make the politicians look good, I just think they should actually talk about the issues that are important. There's no reason why you can't challenge the interviewees while doing so.