"Listen up sweet child o' mine have I got news for you."

What do you reckon of Obama's posturing towards Cuba, then?

Erm... of course I know that that, but cheers for your patronising sentiment.

Beady’s Here Now - I don't mind Obama's position, but to dig deeper and that post is supposed to convey massive hypocrisy from Corbyn. I do believe in the need for diplomacy and trade deals (NOT arms deals) as that is often an inadvertent route to liberalising countries through incremental process as it has been proven to undermine the relative power of illegitimate government, but you get sanctimonious movements like the Corbynites banging on about Iraq and talking up Blair as a war criminal, then you see the flip side to all this with regards to Corbyn's relations with other unscrupulous characters.

Corbyn is actively seeking to prop up Cuba regime by refuting the need for trade (as that opens up the market and for an anti-capitalist like Corbyn, is a very bad thing indeed) but this is a man, who along with his grassroots movement, calls for Blair and Bush's head yet kow-tows with Stop The War coalition (which urged jihadists to kill British soldiers in 2004), and shamelessly gets paid to appear on an Iranian state television channel that filmed the torture of an Iranian journalist and acts as a mouthpiece for the execution of gays. He also has plenty of time for his anti-semite pals Raed Salah - imprisoned for inciting anti-Jewish hatred, a vicar called Stephen Sizar who wrote a blog blaming the Jews for 9/11 and Paul Eiser who is a Holocaust denier. And who can forget his public appraisal of his 'friends from Hamas and Hezbollah'?

For sure, I didn't agree with the Iraq War (but that's not to say there wasn't a case for removing Saddam through a genuine internationalist route) and governments like ours that prop up the Saudi regime by selling weapons is as bad as the attitudes that Corbyn and co display. But the moral bandwagoning by Corbyn and co is astonishing in its hypocrisy. It is a general problem of the left that 'my enemy's enemy is my friend'.

Aye, May has just called one for June.

Tory landslide, canna wait.

This is going to end badly....

But surely it cannot be as straightforward as the government arrogantly thinks? The Fixed Parliament Act that was introduced in the last government meaning that this must go to a vote in the Commons. If there is unanimous opposition agreement against, and with a few Tory MPs terrified of losing their seats to the Lib Dems in massively pro-EU constituencies, then there is hopefully a very slight chance of a general election campaign being overturned. Clutching at straws here I am.

It will be damage limitation at best - certainly now that Labour and Lib Dem will be supporting the election vote when it goes to parliament tomorrow. Best case scenario I can hope for is that I can't see much change in Scotland, Labour will definitely lose seats but not as much as feared by retaining their heartlands, and Lib Dems will maybe grab a few marginal pro-EU seats.

While a lot of us don't agree on many things but are probably on the same side of line, I think this could be a depressing few months.

I agree with this tom, political stances have been a bugbear between us (and understandably hot headed when you see what the Conservatives are doing) but the bottom line is there are shared ideals. I'm really worried that no matter who is leading what party (whether its mine or yours), the voices just won't be heard - the political climate in Europe where reactionary attitudes are the norm and the centre left/left are being annihilated suggests a dire state of affairs where even the best individual politicians on the left will struggle. No sense left in the running of this country.

Dear God.....

Westminster voting intention:

CON: 50% (+4)
LAB: 25% (-)
LDEM: 11% (-)
UKIP: 7% (-2)

(via ComRes)

Labour are doing crap in the polls atm. She's taking advantage of that by calling a general election whilst it's still easy to win, If she does win, it results in getting her an extra couple of years in power, likely more seats for the Tories, and stops people being able to call her out on the fact that no one voted for her as Prime Minister.

Low risk, decent sized reward; from a political perspective you can get why she's doing it, and there's no legal reason why she can't. Imo though, she's just taking the piss out of democracy. Elections are meant to fairly gauge peoples' opinions by who they elect to represent them, I don't they shouldn't be allowed to used as a blatant cynical power grab like this.

And as the economy start to tank as announced today. Nothing stable about May, she's a train wreck willingly leading the UK to a hard Brexit and a giant recession. I'm convinced most of the general public don't watch the news or read about the economy or politics etc. It's fucked up.