Then secondly with debates about whether the independent candidate Antony High was actually born in Middlesbrough or not lol. It was funny enough when the Brexit Party candidate Faye Clements was getting accused of being an outsider for being from the incredibly far and distant Thirsk. This is even more comedic. They might as well just decide the election by having a parmo eating contest.
As for who'll win, the local media, and now quite interestingly some of the mainstream media, are starting to paint Middlesbrough central as a straight one-on-one battle between Antony High and Labour's Andy McDonald. The Brexit Party are being completely squeezed out of the picture.
Obviously I'm pro-Brexit and pro-Brexit Party. So I'm still holding on to hopes that things may change in the last few weeks.
Nationalpol.
As for national politics I'm beginning to worry about a Corbyn bounce. The polls are looking bad for Labour and he's getting slated in the media, but my impressions from social media are that his support is very well mobilised. A lot of people just don't like the Tories. Likewise a lot of people have really felt the pinch of austerity and long for a warmer and more sympathetic government. As for the polls they've been very wrong many times before. So much so I'm sick of running through the list.
I hope my impressions are wrong, but I can't help but feel that the debates are being framed in a way that very much suits Labour. The Conservatives are too much on the back foot. They should just be relentlessly attacking Labour on Brexit and immigration, their two real weak spots, but they're terrified of the immigration issue and can't bring themselves to raise and attack it. This is why I feel the lack of an alliance with the Brexit Party is a missed trick. They could've just let the Brexit Party do the dirty work. Now they're having to marginalise Farage instead of letting him ram the issue home.
I caught a bit of Question Time again when I got home today. Again it just seemed to be debates about "racist" language and identity politics. This is great territory for Labour as even if they get criticism themselves it gives them ample opportunity to attack back. It brings every party down to the same level, and it's an issue people on the left love talking about, but that people on the right are more uncomfortable with. So it's just like a noise that everything else gets lost in, with the balance slightly favouring the left.
Plus, though there may be individual incidents of actual racism at times, the fact is our mainstream politicians (on all sides) are simply not racists in any real sense of the word. This is not a racist country. It's actually a pretty great and remarkably tolerant country. Even when politics is heated. So it doesn't really ring true with the public at large when these accusations are made, and again the mud is more likely to stick when thrown at people on the right. As people on the left genuinely believe that "Tories/Farage/Trump/etc are racists", whereas people on the right see people on the left not as racists, but as idiots.
The charges of anti-Semitism levelled at Corbyn are very serious and damaging, but as I've noted on this blog before, his actions (or in-actions) don't stem from a racist place. He's just not a racist guy. They stem from a leftist place. He's pro-Palestine and anti-Israel for the same reasons that he's pro-IRA and anti-British ..because he's very far to the left, and people on the left view the world in a way that leads them to side with whoever is the perceived underdog.
His previous support for terrorist groups is a big concern, but it requires an accurate diagnosis. Framing it as a racial issue allows it to be lost in the identity politics fog. The Tories call Corbyn an anti-Semite, he calls them Islamophobic, and we end up arguing about language and past Facebook posts all day long. Really we should be having a practical debate about the national security implications of having someone in charge who constantly acts on leftist ideology instead of rationale.
I watched the now infamous Andrew Neil interview of Corbyn, and yes Corbyn did get pulverised on many points. However, the interview began with accusations of anti-Semitism, but then finished with questions essentially criticising Corbyn for not being prepared to use the nuclear deterrent or to give the order to extra-legally kill terrorists.
You can't paint someone as being so horrible that they're potentially ushering in Nazism, yet at the same time so nice and moral that they'd never kill or nuke anyone. Those two things together simply make no sense. So I was watching thinking; normal people, if they even watch this, will be left with the impression that he's a decent, principled guy, getting a bit of unfair treatment. Which is essentially true. Again, Jeremy Corbyn simply is not a racist, and to be fair to him he has campaigned his entire life to counter it.
The problem with Corbyn is his policies, ideologies and lack of sound judgement. If you attack him on these things it will be effective and will ring true with people.
I've went on a bit longer than I planned :) ..what a mix, mundane local politics and then serious tracts about racism and foreign policy xD
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