Rayvin

You just know he's tempted

We opted not to do a prize pool largely because no one said anything in support of the suggestion. I'm up for it in subsequent seasons though.

I think this is probably why they don't do audience phone ins on this sort of thing. They'd all be calling out the pundits.

Steak and Tomato Sauce A Trump steak presumably?

The prediction league has been pretty successful tbf. A decent core of us have kept at it. The fact that there's so little between most of us suggests that we're all a fairly consistent level of accuracy though. Maybe next year we should do 3 points for an exact score rather than 2? Not sure how much that would change anything in fairness.

Who is the woman...?

Yeah, cynical in the extreme. Doubt he gave her a second thought once it was over.

Actually, no. Somewhat predictably, it's the incredibly rich.

True.

Genuinely don't think Corbyn will see out the year, think we're seeing death throes of his movement at the moment. Maybe if Brexit swallows up a lot of the desire to 'lash out' at the system, people will go back to choosing between two nigh on identical parties again, I guess. If it turns out that Brexit and Trump are just coincidences, at least.

Just to be clear, I don't think they'd vote for either. And I also believe Corbyn should go. My belief is that Labour should be allowed to die.

As I said, we're going to be able to see this point being 'proven'. As I said, I hope you're right. And if you ignore all wider context of what's happening both in the UK and the world in general, you probably would be. But unfortunately we can't ignore that wider context. There's no point in me repeating my views on this since you know them anyway, but the only way the centreground succeeds here is if you believe that widespread discontent is just going to go back in its box again and that people will get over it. Maybe that will be the way it goes. It'd suit me. Can't see it myself though, and so I can't see what returning to Blairism, which is culpable for bringing us to this point, is going to grant us.

...I really hope you're right. You aren't, but I hope you are.

Has it? I dunno. Everyone doing minimum wage jobs, zero hours contracts, unable to buy homes, unemployed, etc. Maybe we need a better word for it but the 'class' is still there. Everyone who voted for Brexit who isn't racist?

Well, fair enough. We're inevitably going to get the chance for this to be proven so we'll see, ultimately. Not sure why you think it'll go any differently to the last two attempts though, especially considering the dearth of talent in the party. I actually think the political landscape has been extremely predictable after the wake up call of Brexit, certainly in terms of the headline issues. While I didn't think we'd get a 'Trump' in the US now, I said repeatedly that one was in the post. Similar things will happen through Europe unless the centreground actually starts paying attention - but all evidence is that it's doubling down. Which is fine if I'm wrong about what's happening.

I never said you could do it without middle England. But where we are at the moment is that left leaning Middle England can't win without the working class.

acrossthepond definitely in with an outside chance though. The Huddersfield of the prediction league.

Actually that's fair, because I would say that Labour's entire collapse was predicated upon losing the austerity argument to the Tories. So yes, narratives count for a great deal. I suppose I should rephrase and say that I don't see how they can make any compelling narrative by treading on the toes of the Tories. I don't think there's even a compelling case to be made over Brexit now, the moment has passed - and even if they could, they'd just be alienating their core support further. Corbyn is a hiccup in the general collapse of Labour, the terminal issues have been building for years.

Enjoyed the ending to this and not much else. If we can muster a win from the Huddersfield game then we're over the line IMO. We'll have broken our two closest challengers.

Labour had that advantage in the two previous GEs and still lost.

Miliband senior is a Blairite, and if memory serves, weren't the Blairites backing the Tories on austerity? This is kind of what I mean. Centrist, overlapping policies. The Tories have already captured the centreground as Corbyn pulled Labour to the left. There's no room for Labour to position themselves there.

The Corbynite wing in Labour appear to be on the offensive at the moment to shore up support behind him. Pointless IMO, the whole thing has run its course now. While the Guardian has opposed Corbyn for the whole time he's been leader (no idea about the Mirror) I don't think singling them out now makes any sense. The Guardian has wider issues in this field anyway, it's hard to know who they're actually speaking to or for these days. Corbyn needs to be ousted, the party needs to fall apart and something new needs to be built. This won't happen though, so we'll get corbyn being ousted and then more ineffectual centrist policies that only seem to overlap with what the Tories are saying, but which are somehow better because they're coming from Labour. The Miliband model.

Infowars again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl8q3Y2JASs

Fair comment.