PT wrote:swampysaddler wrote:PT wrote:The problem of the Corbyn/IRA connection as a subject for concentrated smear by the Conservatives is that a lot of people in England and Wales never got the nature of the conflict in Northern Ireland at the time and therefore are unlikely to be emotionally led by it over twenty years on. That Corbyn welcomed characters into the heart of the British establishment twenty years before the British establishment welcomed the same characters into the heart of the British establishment makes it an even more blurry issue to go for the jugular on.
Fifteen minutes before the telly debate ( not that it is a debate) and I reckon one candidate will be bricking it and the other relishing it.
I'm looking forward to it.
I get the nature of the conflict in Northern Ireland.
Try 8 times putting my life on hold, telling my partner I was going there again.
And then sitting there ,regular as clockwork, on a Saturday night in South Armagh whilst one the local scum from the council estate would ride by on his moped taking shots at our tanks of aircraft fuel.
Hence my contempt towards Jeremy Corbyn.
This is a man who called IRA killers "freedom fighters".
I know you do. And I know all those who served do. And I get the contempt for someone who was at best sympathetic to the Republican cause. I spent a lot of time there during the Troubles too for different reasons. Which is why I feel qualified to state that "a lot" of people in England and Wales didn't get it at the time and less so now.
I know South Armagh well. It is a beautiful place with an ugly history. And when I visit there these days thankfully its beauty prevails. In the towns, the flags on the lamp posts and the colours of the kerbstones remain reminders of which tribal territory I'm in but it feels nothing like the war zone it once did. Similarly in the bigger cities when I walked up The Falls or through the Bogside 25 years ago I felt that a misplaced word could be my last, these days you can't move for tour buses with folk taking pictures of the murals.
All that aside, my point in this thread is that there are a very small minority of people in England, Wales and Scotland who were directly affected by The Troubles in the way you were. With Northern Ireland getting close to normalised, for most it is a historic conflict that they never really understood in the first place. So for the Tories to hone in on Corbyn's take on that conflict feels like a play in the margins rather than talking to issues that most find relevant today.
Anyway - you'll be glad to see that May is actually faring well on the telly thing so far. Better than I thought she would anyway.
It's not about where the terrorists are from ni or Palestine
Terrorism is bad
What just happened in Manchester has left us all raw
All terrorists should be condemned
He won't condemn them
The picture of him smiling away with Gerry Adams seriously hurts many people
Gerry Adams did the same as the loser in Manchester
