Jezza; Peckham’s answer to Nicola

For all that has been written and said about Jeremy Corbyn bringing a new type of socialism to the ranks of the Labour Party one thing became abundantly clear on his recent tour of Scotland. Jeremy Corbyn is just as much a tory fan as Tony Blair or Gordon Brown.

For the Tories to be defeated at the next election, they must lose seats, that’s just a simple fact!

So where does the blessed Jezza target? Labour reckon they need to take 18 seats in Scotland to win the next election and each and every one of them is held by the SNP! Now just a simple piece of arithmetic tells you that even if the bearded wonder’s dreams come true, taking 18 seats off the SNP does not reduce the tory benches by a single one. Not, for example, Stirling or Ochil which fell to the Tories largely on the back of Kezzia’s “anyone but the SNP” and were held by Labour until 2015.

The Tory grip on the keys of 10 Downing St remains completely unaffected!

It’s blindingly obvious that Corbyn is more concerned with fighting the SNP rather than the tories and for me that makes him a traitor to the working class in all of the UK, not just in Scotland. Workers in Wales, N Ireland and England will be sold out just as much as those in Scotland on the sacrificial altar of Labour’s blind, unthinking ideological hatred of the SNP.

The Spectator said “Much to the upset of the Nats, the 18 seats Corbyn will be targeting on the trip are all held by the SNP – rather than the common enemy of the Tories.”  Read more at: The Spectator

Nothing is clearer than this; Jeremy Corbyn would rather have a Tory MP in Government rather than an SNP MP highlighting the alternatives and that for me makes him a traitor! Sadly the tories are not a “common enemy” for Corbyn’s Labour in Scotland.

Here’s a simple point which you might expect a potential PM to understand. The Tories have 13 seats in Scotland which helps the Tories get to 317, combined with the bigots of the DUP’s 10 seats a total of 327 which is a majority in a House of 650 MPs. Ok a very small majority but still a majority especially since Sinn Fein do not take up their 7 seats. Effectively even with every other MP voting in the same lobby the Government has an effective 327 –  316 majority.

So to defeat the Tories, Labour need to take either some of those DUP seats and they don’t even run candidates in N Ireland far less have a chance of winning some. Or they need to reduce the number of Tories by winning their seats! Replacing 18 SNP MPs with 18 Labour MPs does nothing to reduce the Tories numbers or the Government majority. You might have thought this was electoral arithmetic 101 but it seems to be beyond the capacity of Labour’s ideologues to comprehend.

While I despaired of the SNP’s “only we can stop the tories” message in June’s General Election, it pales into insignificance as I watch this utter futility from Corbyn. Instead of helping to build an effective anti tory majority, he is solely focused on gazing at his own political navel and the people who will pay the price for this selfish stupidity are the ordinary working men and women, the pensioners, and those on benefits who so desperately need political leadership which puts their interests ahead of narrow minded ideology. Corbyn and Labour are selling those people out in favour of their own small interests and ambitions. And all the while ignoring the Labour/Tory collusion across the Council Chambers of Scotland.

In a quite disgraceful speech to the Labour Conference earlier this year, Corbyn said “Scotland would have to join the euro, install checkpoints on the border with England and endure “turbo-charged austerity” if it decides to become independent in the wake of the Brexit vote. Read more at: The Essential Daily Briefing

Corbyn knew this to be a lie on the euro and recent events have shown that if there is no need for a border between N Ireland and Eire then there is no need for one between Scotland and England. And someone really ought to tell him that the Scottish Government under the SNP is doing much more to fight austerity than either his miserable parliamentary party or the Labour controlled Welsh Assembly.

In a sustained, brutal and accurate critique of Corbyn’s tour of Scotland. Progressive Scotland said “In their general election manifesto the SNP pledged to fight for an end to the two child tax credits cap, and for Universal Credit roll-out to be halted to prevent further cuts, and also for the benefits freeze to be lifted. Conversely, Corbyn’s Labour manifesto only committed to ending the rape clause and long wait times for receipt of Universal Credit. Indeed the Resolution Foundation confirmed that Labour’s manifesto would only have reversed a quarter of the cuts from/still to come from these policies. Whereas the SNP’s manifesto pledges would have reversed/prevented 100% of these billions worth of cuts. Incidentally the SNP manifesto also argued for reinstatement of the Work Allowance, and while Labour’s mentioned it, they made no commitment to its reinstatement. Labour’s abysmal timidity in addressing real poverty can only be described as Tory-lite on welfare.”

“Labour in government is worse still. While the SNP has mitigated the bedroom tax, housing benefit cuts for 18-21 year olds, and lifted the public sector pay cap, the Welsh government has mitigated/reversed none of these austerity policies. All while Corbyn accuses the SNP of being a ‘conveyor belt for austerity’ no less (just another example of how Labour rhetoric tends to depart from reality).
The SNP has also managed to implement universal policies such as free tuition fees, while Labour in Wales have instead decided to raise them, and that’s despite saying they would look into scrapping tuition fees before the general election.”

Click to read Corbyn’s Offer to Scotland

If you listen carefully you can just hear the pleading voice saying “Leave it out Rodney, Jezza is nearly the real thing. This time next year Anas Sarwar will be a Socialist”