Yes Prime Minister On Trident

Still amazingly relevant.

That's misdirection. What you mean there is "if you are concerned about fanatics and nutters - and nothing else"
After all, school detention for bullies doesn't deter ISIS, but we still have it.
ISIS also considers itself to be above such trivia as county court judgements, and they pay almost no attention to the opinions of the insurance ombudsmen either. Those evil swine don't even pay their parking tickets.
It's almost like they don't care at all.

Before you can use the ambivalence of Al Qaida as an argument against nukes, you first need to establish that the potency of nukes has anything to do with those guys.

Perhaps deterring Iran is enough justification for Trident. And possibly we don't want a new Trident in order to control school bullies or Al Shabab because neither group really qualifies as a nuclear threat deserving the full thermonuclear response.

Shadow chancellor makes last-minute U-turn on fiscal responsibility vote | Politics | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... et-surplus

Hedge your bets much? Corbyn's team need a fcuking good sit down together.

It does seem that at the moment they "couldn't organise a Drinks parts in a brewing establishment"

There is nobody in British politics who can point the finger on U-turns. Not one person. They've ALL done it, every party. Every MP has stood up and justified it when their party was the ones doing it. Student fees, The northern powerhouse, NHS privatisation/PPI... No, I'm sorry, pointing at someone else and shouting about them doing a U turn is the most rank hypocrisy for any MP who has been in any previous government. I suspect even Saint Jeremy may be less than spotless in this regard, although to be honest life's too short to go over his entire voting record to check (I imagine some poor sod at The Daily Telegraph is now being told to do so though).

We can say they shouldn't do it - although I have a feeling it would be almost canute-esque to do so - but they have no right to complain about each other doing it. Just none.

The question is : would the people who voted in the labour leadership election have voted any different if he'd said what he just said before the election? I suspect he really doesn't give a toss what the Torys or the papers think about it (and frankly neither do I) but if people voted did so partly or entirely on the basis of the policy he's just reversed, they do have a right to feel aggrieved.

And by the way 'Fiscal responsibility'? That phrase can [LIFTED] off. It's a marketing phrase dreamt up by Conservative central office and has nothing to do with proper fiscal management of a state. We can decide to run at a deficit or not but the idea doing so is somehow by definition wrong or reckless is the worst sort of politicised bull[LIFTED].

UPDATE: reading a few of the 'experts' being interviewed this morning, it seems the consensus is roughly this : The 'new' position is much more in tune with labour principles and Corbyn's ethos and nobody quite understands why McDonnell said he would stick to Osborne's policy in the first place, as it's patently a politically motivated policy designed simply as a stick to beat Labour with. So McDonnell looks a bit daft but the 'U turn' is actually the right thing t do i.e. it's correcting a previous mistake. hmm.

The problem is that in many peoples minds the Labour party are to blame for the crash and recession - any Labour have admitted that they didn't help things
By not signing up to the Fiscal Responsibility they are leaving themselves open to the conservatives being able to say "See told you so they will keep on borrowing until we are totally bankrupt"

Given recent events, I think we've reached the point where the Conservatives can say pretty much whatever the heck they like, regardless of truth or even sense, and a large chunk of the press will nod obediently and say 'Yes, yes, of course that's right'. Obviously, getting the press onside would be a smart thing to do but I think right now there is pretty much nothing that Corbyn and Watson are actually capable of doing that would cause that to happen. They'd be titling at windmills to try. The only way they could counter conservative rhetoric in this environment would be to adopt conservative policies. This may be a bit of explanation of why the PLP ended up so far from the party body, they became obsessed with doing or saying things to 'get the press onside' and ended up basically adopting tory ideology to do so. A bit Stockholm syndrome, basically. if Corbyn and Watson ever did that they'd be signing a political suicide pact.

Their best option is to try to ignore the press where ever they can and go direct to the voter via social media and the like. That's how they won the labour leadership election against every effort of the mainstream press. Because frankly, there's nothing that they can realistically say or do that the like of the Telegraph and the Sun won't pick the most disadvantageous spin upon. He could stand up and say it was a lovely sunny day and the headline in the Sun would be 'Corbyn wants to give you skin cancer'.

Norman Warner resigns whip, saying Labour is 'no longer credible' | Politics | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... signs-whip

"Labour will only win another election with a policy approach that wins back people who have moved to voting Conservative and Ukip, as well as to Greens and SNP. "
The man's a blithering idiot. How exactly are they supposed to marry those diametrically opposite propositions? And he says Labour isn't credible?

He forgot the Lib Dems, where he apparently got his glasses.

Some details on this apparently now former Labour peer



Doesn't actually sound very 'Labour', does he?

Well, pretty New Labour - but not good old Labour (Bugger - I almost typed “Hipster Labour”. Imagine that.).

Guardian journalist Seumas Milne appointed Labour head of communications | Politics | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... unications

They'd have him back like a shot. If you've even been near a story recently the paper will give you a column
...

Labour MPs demand answers over views of Jeremy Corbyn's new policy chief | Politics | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... rew-fisher

Oh, I like him

Neither Jack Straw or Ed Balls were a loss to Labour.

Looks like Andrew Fisher is generally against corruption and ineptitude in public office - I doubt many MPs are fond of him.