Rayvin

Also: Momentum is not Militant, and they can run a lively, successful conference. One of the highlights of Liverpool has been Momentum’s The World Transformed alternative conference (or festival, as they prefer to call it) taking place about half a mile away. Anyone turning up expecting a Militant re-enactment will have been disappointed. Outside there were older, hard-core lefties selling “deselect your MP” literature. But as journalists like Andrew Grice(here) and Paul Mason (here) report, inside it was full of young, earnest, welcoming activists seemingly with no interest in becoming the next Derek Hatton. In the long run it is till not clear what impact Momentum will have on Labour, but this week its reputation has gone up.

Just reading through the talking points from Labour conference, this one seems quite interesting: Labour is split over how to interpret the Brexit vote. Many MPs believe that immigration was a key factor and increasingly there are calls for the party to abandon its commitment to the free movement of labour. But Corbyn sees the Brexit vote as primarily a vote against the economic status quo and, as he confirmed this morning, he is opposed to immigration controls. Interestingly, this is one issue where Labour’s old right, which is sceptical about immigration, disagrees with the pro-free movement Blairite right. On this topic Corbyn is a Blairite. Again, I'd naturally agree with Corbyn on this - and by extension, Blair.

As an aside, to everyone's great surprise no doubt, MH17 was shot down by Russian equipment: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/28/flight-mh17-shot-down-by-missile-brought-in-from-russia-ukraine-malaysia-airlines

I think they should go for Wenger, personally. He's had it at Arsenal now anyway, may as well move on at last.

I'm clearly going to yo-yo on this issue so I'll just say I don't approve of anti-semitism anywhere near Labour, and hope that if it exists, it can be stamped out.

Fair enough. As another stat, from reading Villa Talk one guy just mentioned that they've won 4 games in 16 months, and haven't won away from home since August 2015. That's incredible. EDIT - although I daresay we managed something similar.

Encouraging! Happy Face saving the day as usual.

That's brilliant.

I meant that if they're getting to the 80th minute of games in winning positions and then throwing them away, their issue is defending.

I'll agree with you on that. De-toxifying the whole thing would send a very positive message.

That is rather dismal. This anti-semitism stuff is getting very annoying now, it's a total distraction from the main issues. It needs stamping out so what we can move on to actual policies. It'd be interesting to hear this woman explain her views when she's not on the spot but I don't think it leaves much left to say. I'm especially interested in whatever is meant by 'not found a definition of anti-semitism that I can work with'.

Fair point.

Can't see Di Matteo coming back from this, but all they really need is to be able to fucking defend, surely. They're scoring enough.

I guess you're right. And I suppose the same thing is also true of Brexit. I think he's offering a more positive message overall than Clinton though, at least in the small bits and pieces that seem to be reaching me. And I read the Guardian...

Is his message one of fear, or is it one of optimism? I'm not advocating for the guy, but isn't his language positive and about 'making America great' and so on? Isn't he offering false hope? Much like Brexit?

Yeah all true to be honest - I think that further sells my overall point though, that despite someone like Obama (i.e. very similar to Hillary) coming in with a wave of such policies, we're still on the brink of electing a right wing lunatic because of widespread discontent with centrist politics. Alex put it best further up.

I said I would vote for Clinton. Would you vote for Corbyn? Besides, in the US race there was no better choice than Sanders. If there had been a more progressive option, I would have gone for that. Somewhat different to your Corbyn scenario. And it's an issue now, yet again, because Neo-Liberalism is failing. Because, geo-politically, people are being polarised. And that is dangerous. That sort of thing, eventually, leads to someone like Trump. It may already have done so. That's the risk of sticking to the centre, too many people are heading to the fringes, and more of the status quo is not going to fix that.

Did you check their relative net worth, out of interest? But yes, they aren't that far apart. Except that Sanders isn't the establishment. And doesn't have all of these 'crooked' issues surrounding him. I've already posted why I'm inclined to believe that there's no smoke without fire on those. And yes, she probably is suffering from association with Bill there.

Why didn't Obama change enough people's lives? Maybe I'm wrong, perhaps we'll all look back on Hillary as this great reformist who, despite her immense wealth, put those on lower incomes first and effectively gave away what she had. But I just don't think it's likely we'll see that.

A much more level-headed way of setting out what I was trying to convey. Thanks.

Which is another good reason why Trump shouldn't win. I think my argument here is that we're at best kicking the can further down the road with Hillary. She isn't going to improve people's lives enough, she isn't going to stop the rot that appears to be the widespread failure of Neo-Liberalism. So people will continue to be polarised, and people like Renton will have to continue despairing at the political choices of people like me. Either the left or the right can reverse this, IMO, but I'd far rather it was the left.

Alright so first off, that was a bit of a rant - apologies. Yes I dislike her because she's an establishment stooge. Yes that would apply to Obama as well, who I think we can all agree didn't achieve anywhere near as much, for a variety of reasons, as we hoped he would. The circumstances surrounding his elections were different though. I don't think widespread disillusionment had set in by that point. In fact, I'd say that's the whole issue right there - the *current* geo-political trend is that the middle of the road political stance is failing. She represents it. That said, if everything we think we know about her dodgy dealings is incorrect, and other presidential candidates haven't, historically, been subjected to a similar level of scrutiny, then she's being hard done by. I think for me, it all becomes quite easy to believe after this: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1582795/Hillary-Clintons-Bosnia-sniper-story-exposed.html That was basically the first time Hillary Clinton showed up on my radar as someone who was taking politics seriously, and it left a rather poor impression.

I think it'll blow over and he'll return to football at the end of the season; he'll refuse to take questions on this, the media will lose interest and that'll be that. Unless of course this does turn into a bigger issue and more managers become embroiled in it.

Depressingly, I feel compelled to add that with the choice between the two - I would vote for Clinton as well. I'd hate myself for it though.