Rayvin

I dunno. It's funny though This isn't a centrepiece of the debate ewerk, don't worry.

The Sun has theorised that they're going to be taken over by a Chinese consortium who will immediately sack Moyes and bring back Allardyce for the second coming, to finish the great and noble project he started last year.

Cynical but true. If it's Clinton, she has suggested drone striking Assange, so that's an option as well.

True. Although the PLP did put up someone to challenge him with nearly identical policies, which does make me wonder if they'd be prepared to adopt the same views, as long as it can be on their terms. Obviously you wouldn't trust them to do this, but a few years ago it might have done the trick.

Ah that does sound about right actually. Villa ffs...

Well played.

Ok, I'm going to ignore the second one as I found too many poll related articles to do with his leadership election and can't be bothered to sort through it. On the other one, it looks to me as though he's been caught bang to rights on that one. So yes, that'd mean at the hustings, he lied. He should have just owned the mistake. I'm not withdrawing my support though Largely because that would be, for me, a personal reason to have issue with him. Not a policy one. I also have an issue with his stance on the EU, his lack of firm leadership, and his inability to sort the party out (even taking into consideration the utter shambles the PLP presented him with). But none of that is as important to me as his message and policies. Hillary also has my support in this contest, despite being a liar. I would prefer her to Trump. So as you can see, my friend, I am consistent.

Oh FFS I've not seen either of those. Let me google it, hang on.

I've only seen the mackems say that. Surely no one with any sense could possibly think that this was the case to any degree of relevance?

I read enough people coming forward claiming that the train was packed that it muddied it for me. Sorry, I'm offering him the benefit of the doubt on that one. In the small window of time where it seemed clear cut that he had lied, I condemned it (on here). That said, Corbyn is actually right about overcrowding on trains. What political point did 'landing in Bosnia under sniper fire' serve to support, other than her own personal interests? On Wall Street, yep, they probably do believe that. There are bits of slightly concerning information out there, like about how she's refused to release the details of speeches she gave at Goldman Sachs, but generally you're probably right. What is in the interests of the elites on wall street though, is maximising their wealth. This very likely means minimising the wealth of others. What is interesting, is that the average wage of Trump supporters is higher than that of Hillary's voters. I suspect that BAME communities cover this to a degree, given his rhetoric, but it does rather refute the idea that Trump is the voice of the normal man any more than she is.

I was having this debate with my old man last night. He made the same point - he's definitely on your side of the political spectrum. You can't put it back in the bottle, but you have to be seen to be doing something to demonstrate to the people who feel they've been put to one side that actually, you're on their side. That you're making choices that benefit them. This means the establishment/elites/whatever have to be seen to be feeling the pain. In fairness to the working classes, Brexit has achieved that and then some. Even if they're going to feel it worse, in the long run.

I agree. Although it does make me wonder what we're going to get instead. I just don't see how this 'fizzles out'.

She's not lied about anything serious to my knowledge. She's lied though. So it seems fitting to call her a liar (Bosnia, sniper fire). No? I'm not voting for her remember, I'm just setting out my views. I've thought she was a total pillock since that lie came out, small though it may be, because it's exactly the sort of bullshit that a 'typical politician' might say. Except, not a very smart one. Renton asked what I personally have against her and I've said previously 'not much', but since we're putting so fine a point on it, this is one of those things. Nothing she's done with wall street 'worries' me. It's just that they are a very wealthy and controlling influence with a vested interest in the status quo, and they support her - they support her because of all candidates on offer (including when she was up against Sanders), she was deemed to be the candidate who most had their interests at heart: http://www.wsj.com/articles/financial-sector-gives-hillary-clinton-a-boost-1462750725

I definitely agree that the electorate are fundamentally stupid. I'm not sure that the direction we've taken is entirely down to that though. Your view sort of suggests that the Tories, UKIP, Labour have policies, that people vote for without understanding what they're asking for. I would suggest that political parties look at the public mood, shift public debate through the media and establish narratives that they then call gospel through selective statistical analysis (e.g. Labour ruined the economy). The public swallow this up. The problem before, was that both Labour and the Tories represented the status quo - just the 'choice' to make voters feel like they actually had some control, as long as they voted for normal. The problem that the establishment has now is exactly what you say. It has one party and no establishment opposition. It has fringe parties and those too small to make a difference. This means people now have to choose the establishment or something different, rather than the establishment or the establishment. The US seems different though. I have to say that Howay's post the other day was eye opening on how futile change might be over there. I suspect that makes it more likely to be susceptible to serious political unrest, but perhaps in this day and age that's no longer possible.

I'm clearly not putting over my views very well if this is the position you've ended up on, so I apologise for that. Hillary Clinton is a proven liar and has an incredibly dubious relationship with Wall Street; apparently, although I've not paid much attention to this area, she's also likely to continue failed US foreign policy objectives (interventionism). That makes her a poor candidate in my view, based on my principles. But yes, my general issue is that she's not going to improve people's lives. Yes I've read her policies. Let's see how many of them go through. FFS I'm prepared to be pleasantly surprised, I'm not wedded to this idea that she *must* be a poor president who achieves nothing and doesn't allay concerns about the representation of ordinary people in the halls of power... but after Obama, I'm just not convinced that that 'hope' offered by mainstream candidates is something that gets us anywhere. Yes, I would agree that her policies, like the policies put forward in every political party manifesto I've ever read, would improve people's lives. That should say it all.

Well exactly. Me too. Why am I the only one who sees this as a failure of our political system though? Neo Liberalism brought us to this point in its ceaselessly pursuit of the selling of state assets and maximising of profits. And yet we vote for...more Neo-Liberalism!

Didn't people realise the power of their vote with Brexit though? And presumably that's what's happening with Trump. Voter apathy could keep the fringe opinions out, I'd agree there. I'm just no longer convinced that those fringe opinions are a) as poorly supported as we all think they are and b ) as undermotivated to vote as they once were.

I find it incredible that anyone is even listening to him now. He seems to be saying literally anything at this point. Does he want a violent coup if he isn't elected? I suspect he probably does tbh. Let's hope we all just trundle along towards the status quo as usual.

Where do you think we're heading then? I reckon the longer this goes on, the more extreme the eventual swing to power will be. Why not stop it now, early, when the people we're talking about are people like Corbyn - relatively harmless. I can see that there would be an alternative view of course, that nothing ever materialises in terms of a populist movement and people just resume the standard position of bending over and taking it. I just don't know how likely that is to be the outcome...

I'll believe that when it's over but I hope you're right. I thought he'd be doing a lot worse after the recent few weeks than it looks like he is. I think I read he was 7 points behind... that doesn't sound like a lot? Is that a lot in the US?

I question the extent to which one could consider people like Osborne to be qualified to run the country's economy with his history degree and career as a politician. Also not sure who Green is? That said, I don't care if they're politicians or not. Look, my position on this isn't actually one that would benefit me personally. I'm more than happy for the status quo to remain in place on a personal level. I struggle on principle, but I don't lose out if they succeed. I do think we should take more seriously the consequences of their stay in power though. Our refusal to listen and to encourage improvements in people's lives is coming back to haunt us...

Anything that isn't immediately interested in the perpetuating of the 'norm' and status quo that we live under and which is now serving up backlashes like Brexit and Trump. It doesn't need to be anarchy, but it needs to be something that causes those in power to feel some pain due to losses in their own, up until now very well protected, personal interests. I genuinely don't think I have an extreme definition, and to be honest I use it as an easy go to phrase for my general sentiments. But we have 600k people supporting a man with little to no charisma in the UK just because he represents change. We have 51% of the country committing economic suicide on behalf of the rest of us because they want change. The yanks have Trump, Europe has the rise of the hard right (and in places the hard left). How much more of a battering does the centreground need to take before someone else gets a turn? And the thing is, I don't think the hard left or right will make anything better. And I personally do well out of the centre. But there needs to be a demonstration, on apparently quite large a scale, that people at the top are actually listening to people at the bottom. The establishment has been caught cold. I'm alarmed by how pathetic the establishment response has been, in truth.

I'm not sure how 'vague' a notion it is... Do you expect anything meaningful to change in people's day to day lives under Hillary, or will we see a continuation of an ever yawning wealth gap and a general continuance in the fall of the standard of living? I dunno, maybe she can improve things for the better. Nothing she has said suggests to me that she can, because, whatever positive intentions she might have, she's deeply embedded in the system that has failed to respond to such challenges for years now. The fact that it may simply not be possible to address this is unfortunate (Howay made the point yesterday about how the States simply doesn't allow for change just because you voted in a certain president due to the power of the two houses). Maybe I just need to accept that the system is impenetrable and that there's nothing that can be done to achieve real change. I do worry though, that the continuing failure to address this, to be seen to be listening to the ordinary people, will result in more Trump style horror shows in the future. That said, I suppose I should be genuinely glad that we've dodged the bullet on this one.

We deserve a far better anti-establishment candidate than Trump. Such a shame, it's a real missed opportunity.