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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Jeremy Corbyn out?
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
Interestingly Owen Smith is winning by a country mile among people who were members of the Labour Party prior to May 2015 but is being tonked among those who either joined during the first leadership election or subsequently.
You're just quoting "Saving Labour" here. I can't find any actual polling data to back that up. What would be interesting is if you could.
I live to serve...
That's relatively conclusive. What a shame for Smith that most of the new full members (as opposed to PaulTH's '£3 Trots') went and backed Corbyn.
It's almost as if the right leader attracts people to join a political party... ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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Forward the New Republic
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Yes indeed. People used to talk about Umunna as a British Obama. That's precisely why I don't like him.
Because you don't like Obama? Either way it sounds odd not to like someone because of who other people liken them to.
It's not because people liken him to Obama, it's because I think he is like Obama. Slick and plausible and superficial and rather right-wing in the wrong (i.e. liberal, in the European rather than US sense) kind of way.
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I have slightly mixed feelings about Alan Johnson but would have been delighted with Chukka Umuna.
That's interesting. Why do you think that? Since they're both on the right of the party I would've thought most people would've gone for the ex-postman over the smarmy lawyer?
IIRC though, Alan Johnson stood down as Shadow Chancellor because he knew he was out of his depth. Granted the bar for leader is currently very low ...
I thought it was because his personal life was going tits up because his wife was shagging someone else? Or was that another time?
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
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Pottage
Shipmate
# 9529
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by An die Freude:
In my eyes, he has never gotten a single chance to prove his leadership because the cronyist, nimbyist prevailing order wouldn't allow him.
That cronyist cabal presumably includes every Labour leader from Michael Foot onwards, none of whom has ever thought it would be wise to ask Jeremy Corbyn to take up any position of responsibility whether in government or opposition.
Posts: 701 | From: middle England | Registered: May 2005
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
Yes indeed. People used to talk about Umunna as a British Obama. That's precisely why I don't like him.
Because you don't like Obama? Either way it sounds odd not to like someone because of who other people liken them to.
It's not because people liken him to Obama, it's because I think he is like Obama. Slick and plausible and superficial and rather right-wing in the wrong (i.e. liberal, in the European rather than US sense) kind of way.
My objection to Chuka is that he doesn't have what it takes to play in the big leagues. They guy was in Ed Miliband's Shadow Cabinet for the better part of an entire parliament. He ought to have spotted that the job of the Leader of the Opposition was to have a bucket of shit poured over his head on a daily basis before putting himself forward for the Labour Leadership. As it happens, I'm a fan of Obama, but even if I wasn't I'd have to acknowledge that, in a political sense, he's got ice water running through them veins. As a more general point, this does demonstrate one of the key weaknesses of the Blairites. They were, as a faction, forged in a political summer and when winter came lacked the durability to hold their line. If Ed Miliband had lost in 2010 he would doubtless have served as Shadow Home Secretary, or some such. David buggered off to the US in a fit of pique. Alan Johnson is a writer of charming memoirs but didn't cut it as a Shadow Minister, Chuka bottled the leadership election and Tristan couldn't even get the nominations. Things have come to a pretty pass when your factions top representative has held no office more senior than Shadow Minister of State for Health. Perhaps it was an appropriate coda. Blair and Kendall, for all their faults, have guts but many of their faction ought to be filed under Miles Gloriosus.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:
quote:
Originally posted by An die Freude:
In my eyes, he has never gotten a single chance to prove his leadership because the cronyist, nimbyist prevailing order wouldn't allow him.
That cronyist cabal presumably includes every Labour leader from Michael Foot onwards, none of whom has ever thought it would be wise to ask Jeremy Corbyn to take up any position of responsibility whether in government or opposition.
Be fair. Corbyn was elected in the 1983 election, after which Michael Foot resigned. So it's only every Labour leader from Neil Kinnock onwards. Of course, holding a front bench position in the Labour Party does generally oblige one to vote against the Tory Party in Parliamentary divisions so I can see why it might not have been Jeremy's thang, given his record.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
Of course, holding a front bench position in the Labour Party does generally oblige one to vote against the Tory Party in Parliamentary divisions
A shame many of the recent front bench hadn't realised this...
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Forward the New Republic
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Quite right Callan. But this is a post-fact debate. Jeremy has been and still is an individualist and a loner, an outsider in Parliament. And I think he does not really know how these patterns of thought and behaviour have damaged his ability to lead any diverse group. And, historically, the Labour Party has always been a diverse group, a rowdy coalition. Maybe it will change? But the more monolithic it becomes the less electable it will be.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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An die Freude
Shipmate
# 14794
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:
quote:
Originally posted by An die Freude:
In my eyes, he has never gotten a single chance to prove his leadership because the cronyist, nimbyist prevailing order wouldn't allow him.
That cronyist cabal presumably includes every Labour leader from Michael Foot onwards, none of whom has ever thought it would be wise to ask Jeremy Corbyn to take up any position of responsibility whether in government or opposition.
I refer to the time after his election. I don't believe it's a cabal, but I do believe it's a tendency that goes far back in the UK, albeit spun harder and harder over the last decades.
I do not see Corbyn as an individual as the leader for the party. I see him as a representative for many things, things I think were lost in the Thick of It era and its self-centred, power-hungry "leaders". A figurehead, if you like - something that strangely seems to have completely bypassed those accusing him of excessive republicanism.
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
But the more monolithic it becomes the less electable it will be.
I thought the argument against Corbyn was that he did not conform enough to the united opinions of the MP's.
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I have yet to see a believable empirical case for that Corbyn and an alternative Labour politics (alternative to the one that lost in 2010 and 2015) is actually unelectable, and that the centrist/Torylite/electionwinning politics that lost in 2010 and 2015 is going to win more elections. What we have seen is a meltdown in the party leadership, long before we got the chance to see the actual outcome of Corbyn's leadership. I don't think that is fair and I do think that the MP's are shooting themselves in the neck in the aim of shooting the party in the foot to prove that the party is incapacitated by Corbyn's leadership.
I do think that an electoral win was possible if everyone actually gathered around Corbyn from the start. If we ever believed that Gordon "We are now beyond boom/bust economy" or Ed "Hell yes" could win elections with a sound party machine behind them, why not Corbyn?
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"I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable."
Walt Whitman
Formerly JFH
Posts: 851 | From: Proud Socialist Monarchy of Sweden | Registered: May 2009
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
It seems to me to be an odd argument for certain Labour activists to use to say that Corbyn shouldn't win because under him Labour would never gain power.
This assumes that "winning an election" is the only possible positive outcome - even if it is on a platform that the majority of the party believe in put forward by a leader the majority support.
Indeed in the British system it is only Labour that could come out with this kind of rubbish and who could claim that a not-Corbyn candidate is the only thing which could stop Thatcherite Tory governments for the next 20 years.
How about standing for something you actually believe in rather than watering it down to meet the standards of the Tory centerists who might be persuadable to jump ship if the Blairist future agenda gives them enough sweeties? How about standing on a platform which the majority of the country may not agree with but which actually reflects the views of those who vote for you? How about the age-old belief in persuasion, debate etc?
I mean, really.
[ 01. September 2016, 08:35: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
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arse
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
Sorry I messed up some negatives there. I should have said:
This assumes that "winning an election" is the only possible positive outcome - even if it is on a platform that only a minority of the party believe in having rejected the one put forward by a leader the majority support.
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arse
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
Yes. There is an assumption that Labour can only get into power if it takes a centrist policy; conversely, that a more rigorous left-wing approach will necessarily put people off. And that possibly goes back to the disastrous Foot (or perhaps Militant Tendency) years.
Where is the proven evidence? What if precisely the opposite is true? What if people are tired of the status quo and want a brand of "conviction" politics? Labour don't seem to want to risk that.
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
Where is the proven evidence? What if precisely the opposite is true? What if people are tired of the status quo and want a brand of "conviction" politics? Labour don't seem to want to risk that.
What if, shock horror, standing up for the interests of members and those who vote for you means that you don't get a parliamentary majority, but you do it anyway because that's kinda the point of politics.
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arse
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
Yes. There is an assumption that Labour can only get into power if it takes a centrist policy; conversely, that a more rigorous left-wing approach will necessarily put people off.
But presumably not an assumption shared by the people who back Mr Smith's manifesto, unless you are arguing that it is Blairite and centrist.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
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Rocinante
Shipmate
# 18541
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
Yes. There is an assumption that Labour can only get into power if it takes a centrist policy; conversely, that a more rigorous left-wing approach will necessarily put people off. And that possibly goes back to the disastrous Foot (or perhaps Militant Tendency) years.
Where is the proven evidence? What if precisely the opposite is true? What if people are tired of the status quo and want a brand of "conviction" politics? Labour don't seem to want to risk that.
Labour moved a little to the left under Brown, and narrowly lost to the Tories. They then moved further left under Milliband and lost to the Tories by more. So I think you're on shakey logical ground if you claim that Labour needs to move much further left in order to win. Not saying it couldn't work for us (personally I think it could if we had a leader who could find his/her arse with both hands), but the recent evidence is somewhat against it.
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
Yes. There is an assumption that Labour can only get into power if it takes a centrist policy; conversely, that a more rigorous left-wing approach will necessarily put people off.
But presumably not an assumption shared by the people who back Mr Smith's manifesto
Smith's manifesto is a grab bag of various things. I'm not sure to what extent the people who are supporting Smith in the current round actually back his manifesto - as only 12% of those eligible to vote actually think he could win an election.
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
What if, shock horror, standing up for the interests of members and those who vote for you means that you don't get a parliamentary majority, but you do it anyway because that's kinda the point of politics.
Under the present winner-take-all political system, you can stand up for the interests of your members without a parliamentary majority, but having raised your bum all you can do is sit back down again.
If you want to actually do something for the interests of those who voted for you other than virtue signal you need to be able to get a parliamentary majority to back their interests.
(And politics should not be standing up for the interests solely of the people who voted for you. It should be working for the common interest. I happen to think the common interest coincides with the interests of the people Corbyn wants to support; but framing it as the interests of Corbyn supporters is playing into the kind of politics that the Left should be trying to reject.)
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Rocinante:
I think you're on shakey logical ground if you claim that Labour needs to move much further left in order to win.
Yes, I realise that. But, of course, the corollary to what you have said is that Labour failed to win because it did not move far enough to the Left. Of course that again is ultimately unproveable.
Where I think there is a real problem is in devising and promoting a "contemporary" left-wing agenda which excises the memory of rampant Trade Unionism and of old-style heavy industries. Some time ago a leftist Labour MP spoke at our church (in the context of an EU Referendum debate) and the difficulty with his discourse was that it seemed to be taking us back to an idealised 1950s rather than forwards. You can't do that; both the world and individuals have changed vastly since then.
Blair's genius was to present a sparkling new vision of Labour to the nation (one that in my view was fundamentally hollow); what we need is a substantial, modern and truly Socialist view on things. Now this may in fact be impossible: Socialism per se may be inextricably thralled to a 19th/early 20th century pattern of industrialised society. Perhaps we need an entirely new vision. (IMO Miliband actually had something of this, but couldn't translate high-flown abstract political theory into real live policies "on the ground").
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
(IMO Miliband actually had something of this, but couldn't translate high-flown abstract political theory into real live policies "on the ground").
I'd agree with that, problem was he failed utterly on the "personality" side of things, which shouldn't matter, but does.
Given how much of that was compatible with the Tory left, and the extent to which Mrs May has been going out of her way to pinch Miliband's clothes since Jeremy left the space vacant, there is always the fascinating possibility that the Tories are going to get there first.
I'm not saying it's likely, but the goal's open...
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And is it true? For if it is....
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Rocinante
Shipmate
# 18541
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Posted
I too thought that Milliband was onto something. It's worth remembering that he also had a rough ride from labour MPs in his first year (they made it very clear they wanted his brother not him) and the press never really gave him a chance: Red Ed seems to be about the only thing that most people remember about him, along with the ridiculous Edstone and the bacon sandwich incident.
[ 01. September 2016, 10:22: Message edited by: Rocinante ]
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
Baptist Trainfan: quote:
Blair's genius was to present a sparkling new vision of Labour to the nation (one that in my view was fundamentally hollow); what we need is a substantial, modern and truly Socialist view on things.
Agreed. I have some friends who are fed up with Corbyn because he's "unelectable"; one has actually left the Labour Party and joined the Liberals. They may have a point, but they fail to address the issue that nuLabour lacked substance. No one, even at the time, knew what it stood for and it now looks increasingly vacuous. Corbyn has conviction, which is why so many people do support him, and party membership has rocketed. As many have said, this does not automatically lead to General Election victory but a candidate without conviction isn't going to get anywhere.
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
As it happens I am a LibDem voter myself (though not a party member), however I have a great deal of time for a more Socialist position.
[ 01. September 2016, 11:52: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
(And politics should not be standing up for the interests solely of the people who voted for you. It should be working for the common interest. I happen to think the common interest coincides with the interests of the people Corbyn wants to support; but framing it as the interests of Corbyn supporters is playing into the kind of politics that the Left should be trying to reject.)
And herein is the reason why politics are in the mess that they're in.
The way it is supposed to work is that parties put out their agenda, people vote for it (or not) and then the elected representatives attempt to get it through parliament. There is absolutely no sense in saying that "oh hang on, we're not just for the people who voted for us, we're for the common interest of everyone" because (a) that's a meaningless phrase and (b) that undermines the whole idea of having manifestos, party policies, whips and the current Westminster system.
On most issues there is no obvious "common interest" consensus which everyone can sign up for. One might think that a well-funded NHS would have wide support, but it is fairly clear that there is a sizeable group of politicians - if not the voting public - who don't want to pay the current level of government spending on healthcare and I dare say a sizeable number who do not want an NHS at all.
In fact the only possible way do decide on almost any issue is to state what it is that you stand for and allow people to vote one way or another.
Second, I utterly reject the idea that an opposition backbench MP is a pointless position to be in. I was once in a local meeting where my MP said this, and I very nearly got up to thump him. My relatives did not struggle for more than 100 years to get the suffrage just for some prick with a duckhouse to tell me that there was nothing he could do at Westminster than drink subsidised beer. If you really think that, piss off and let someone else do the job who actually thinks it has a point beyond the status.
The reality is that there are a large number of debates in parliament where the government does not get its own way, there are a large number of occasions when individual MPs can vote on their conscience. Personally, I'd much prefer a system where politicians actually voted on their conscience (which, after all, is how the Westminster system is actually intended to work) even if I don't agree with them.
And for the record, I've never voted Labour although I increasingly associate myself with socialist principles. I wouldn't vote for the very reason outlined by others: the party is such a mess that even when they get into power they enact policies which are little different to the Tories anyway.
In the past I've voted Green, I'll now be PC all the way.
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arse
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
The reality is that there are a large number of debates in parliament where the government does not get its own way, there are a large number of occasions when individual MPs can vote on their conscience.
There are also things such as Select Committees which are, I believe, all-Party and constitute much of the 'real' business of Parliament.
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
The reality is that there are a large number of debates in parliament where the government does not get its own way, there are a large number of occasions when individual MPs can vote on their conscience.
There are also things such as Select Committees which are, I believe, all-Party and constitute much of the 'real' business of Parliament.
Don't forget the House of Lords. I'm not a fan of unelected bodies as a rule, but in practice this has given every government some bloody noses over the years, especially in the Committee stages.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
Let me get this straight: the plan is now indefinite Tory rule, tempered by backbench interventions, stern words for ministers at parliamentary committees and the occasional defeat in the House of Lords, subsequently over-ruled by the Parliament Act?
I'll be all right but it's a bit fucking harsh on anyone whose life might, conceivably, be made better by a Labour government.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
(And politics should not be standing up for the interests solely of the people who voted for you. It should be working for the common interest. I happen to think the common interest coincides with the interests of the people Corbyn wants to support; but framing it as the interests of Corbyn supporters is playing into the kind of politics that the Left should be trying to reject.)
And herein is the reason why politics are in the mess that they're in.
The way it is supposed to work is that parties put out their agenda, people vote for it (or not) and then the elected representatives attempt to get it through parliament. There is absolutely no sense in saying that "oh hang on, we're not just for the people who voted for us, we're for the common interest of everyone" because (a) that's a meaningless phrase and (b) that undermines the whole idea of having manifestos, party policies, whips and the current Westminster system.
If rather than manifestos, party policies, and whips, you would prefer to have politicians voting on their consciences, I think the objections you line up against me also apply to the idea of politicians voting on their consciences. Assuming that the legislation doesn't involve human rights violations, if there's no such thing as the common interest then there's nothing for a politician to have a conscience about.
The point at which politicians aim for the common interest is the point at which they try to write their manifestos. At the crudest the politician whose manifesto represents the most people gets elected. The system is set up to benefit the politicians whose manifestos benefit the most people.
quote:
The reality is that there are a large number of debates in parliament where the government does not get its own way, there are a large number of occasions when individual MPs can vote on their conscience. Personally, I'd much prefer a system where politicians actually voted on their conscience (which, after all, is how the Westminster system is actually intended to work) even if I don't agree with them.
Just because you want to punch someone who says something, it doesn't follow that they don't have a point.
The government doesn't get its own way when it doesn't have a majority, and it's more likely to have a majority if it won by a landslide than if it didn't.
Really, if you think all there is to politics is to determine whose interests predominate, you ought to be a libertarian. The justification for government under liberal political theory is that there are activities which benefit the whole community or most of the community, which cannot be achieved unless the whole of the community cooperate and contribute. The best way of determining what those activities are, or the least worst way, is to get everyone to vote for them. The assumption is that even if everyone votes selfishly the outcome will benefit the most people and therefore be most likely to reflect the common interest.
If there's no such thing as the common interest, then there's no justification for any one section of the community coopting other sections' contributions to their own interest.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Change the shape of society? Is it actually fear of competence that lies behind the charge of incompetence?
On the theme of Jeremy Corbyn might actually be really good but he's cleverly hiding his genius, this piece by Kerry McCarthy is interesting. And I don't think she could be described as 'Blairite'. I especially like the bit where Corbyn seemingly doesn't know the difference between a hedge fund and a loan shark.
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
On the theme of Jeremy Corbyn might actually be really good but he's cleverly hiding his genius, this piece by Kerry McCarthy is interesting. And I don't think she could be described as 'Blairite'. I especially like the bit where Corbyn seemingly doesn't know the difference between a hedge fund and a loan shark.
Thank you for that link. Kerry McCarthy may well not be well known nationally but she definitely isn't a Blairite. I'd go further than that, and say that it says an enormous amount about the man, all negative, that Corbyn has failed to hold her loyalty.
Swap VegFest for Corbyn's own pet causes over the last 40+ years and the first of the two paragraphs below does describe how a lot of non-Corbyn supporters, me among them, do see him - a man who thinks real politics is going on demos, proclaiming the cause at meetings, and soaking up applause, rather than getting somewhere where you can actually do something.
quote:
"But I didn’t come into politics to just say things. I want to do things. It would be easy for me to spend my time speaking at rallies and events like VegFest, addressing animal welfare campaigners and conservationists, telling people how much I agree with them, and soaking up the applause. I would feel good about myself, and they would feel good about me.
But what counts is who is sitting at that desk in Defra, giving the go ahead for badger culling to start next week. My fear is that unless Labour starts to get serious about getting back into government that will never be us."
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Change the shape of society? Is it actually fear of competence that lies behind the charge of incompetence?
On the theme of Jeremy Corbyn might actually be really good but he's cleverly hiding his genius, this piece by Kerry McCarthy is interesting. And I don't think she could be described as 'Blairite'. I especially like the bit where Corbyn seemingly doesn't know the difference between a hedge fund and a loan shark.
Yes, that is an interesting and persuasive article. It rings true to me. It's making me think that the answer to my rhetorical question might best be expressed as 'No'.
There's lots going on here, and analysis is difficult when so many politicians are playing politics, but I take this article as evidence of multiple errors by Corbyn and his team. Clearly there are many Labour MPs who oppose Corbyn for political reasons, and many claims of incompetence have not convinced me (you can always make them about anybody), but these claims would embarrass me if I was Corbyn.
And incompetence is not so terrible. Others should be able to largely cover for it. It's not comparable with being thuggish or untrustworthy like Donald Trump or Hilary Clinton. Osborne was economically incompetent and got away with it. Cameron made perhaps the greatest post-War political miscalculation the UK has seen.
But Corbyn is a disappointment. I wish he had more sparkle, that he was a listener, that he energised those around him. I'm afraid that he is simply so out of date that he looks different and that we've mistaken his oddness for originality and strength of purpose.
But what can we do? We need an alternative to a violent foreign policy, to exclusion and inequality, to wilfully feeble government, to xenophobia and that internalised xenophobia that views the sick and disabled as an intolerable threat. Until Corbyn we had heard nothing from Labour to set against the Tory programme for years.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Sorry I messed up some negatives there. I should have said:
This assumes that "winning an election" is the only possible positive outcome - even if it is on a platform that only a minority of the party believe in having rejected the one put forward by a leader the majority support.
But being prepared to assume power is part of the job description of HM Loyal Opposition.
Labour isn't a special-interest party like Plaid Cymru or UKIP. It is, currently, supposed to be a potential government. You are right that parties that don't claim to be potential parties of government have had some spectacular successes on their own terms in the past few years, without winning elections. UKIP in particular, but also the SNP got the Scottish independence referendum, and Plaid Cymru got Welsh devolution.
However, ISTM these successes were possible because they had parties of government to frighten. That is, UKIP's success wouldn't have happened if there hadn't been a Conservative party with members broadly sympathetic to their aims. Turning Labour into a pressure group for socialism won't work if the only viable party of government is the Conservatives.
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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)
Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Sarah G
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# 11669
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
They may have a point, but they fail to address the issue that nuLabour lacked substance. No one, even at the time, knew what it stood for and it now looks increasingly vacuous.
I think it stood for running the country in a competent, fair way. Some of us quite like that.
quote:
Corbyn has conviction, which is why so many people do support him, and party membership has rocketed.
From people who voted Labour anyway. While
quote:
one has actually left the Labour Party and joined the Liberals
other Labour voters have stopped voting Labour.
quote:
As many have said, this does not automatically lead to General Election victory but a candidate without conviction isn't going to get anywhere.
??Blair's apparent lack of conviction won him three thumpingly big majorities.
Posts: 514 | Registered: Jul 2006
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Russ
Old salt
# 120
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sarah G:
Blair's apparent lack of conviction won him three thumpingly big majorities.
It can work both ways round.
As people have said (better than I can) on other threads, where there's a 2 party system - a leftish party and a rightish party and a whole lot of swing voters in the centre - whichever party better appeals to that centre will get elected.
That may seem unfair to the committed people on the two wings who will contribute money and time and effort to their party. Who get taken for granted.
But that seems to me a healthier dynamic than the one where the centre has been so hollowed-out that there are no undecideds, and the party which better motivates its own supporters to get out and vote will get elected. In that situation you want a leader who inspires the party faithful rather than one who appeals to the agnostic...
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Wish everyone well; the enemy is not people, the enemy is wrong ideas
Posts: 3169 | From: rural Ireland | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
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# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
Change the shape of society? Is it actually fear of competence that lies behind the charge of incompetence?
On the theme of Jeremy Corbyn might actually be really good but he's cleverly hiding his genius, this piece by Kerry McCarthy is interesting. And I don't think she could be described as 'Blairite'. I especially like the bit where Corbyn seemingly doesn't know the difference between a hedge fund and a loan shark.
OK. He ain't sharp. He should be open to correction on these matters in the immediate context. Because his heart is still in the right place. His policies are. I can actually see the loan shark, hedge fund parapraxis: the dispossessed being driven to the margins, living under hedges. McCarthy is an environmentalist and right to pursue that, but it is NOT at the top of the socialist i.e. egalitarian agenda by a country mile.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Anglican't
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# 15292
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
Because his heart is still in the right place.
Caracas? Moscow? Tehran?
Posts: 3613 | From: London, England | Registered: Nov 2009
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
![[Smile]](smile.gif) you forgot Raqqa.
[ 02. September 2016, 09:42: Message edited by: Martin60 ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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mdijon
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# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martin60:
He should be open to correction on these matters in the immediate context.
But he doesn't seem to be. There isn't any hint of an acknowledgement that he hasn't managed the PLP well, or has any difficulty grasping policy details.
McCarthy's account rings very true and fits very well with the other stories of incompetent managing of shadow ministers. Translate this into running a country would be a disaster and the end of Labour for a generation.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Frankly My Dear
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# 18072
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Posted
What kind of development would prove you wrong?
Posts: 108 | From: Telford, Shropshire, UK | Registered: Apr 2014
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Frankly My Dear:
What kind of development would prove you wrong?
For those who are not already infatuated with their projected vision of the dream person they'd like Corbyn to be, rather than the real one that is, it's way, way too late for that. The chance he had, he's blown.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Frankly My Dear
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# 18072
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Frankly My Dear:
What kind of development would prove you wrong?
For those who are not already infatuated with their projected vision of the dream person they'd like Corbyn to be, rather than the real one that is, it's way, way too late for that. The chance he had, he's blown.
Now I'm really confused. How is winning two leadership elections a blown chance ??
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
Winning a leadership election gave him a chance. This is a blown chance.
What would prove me wrong would be non-Corbyn fans coming forward and saying "We gave him a chance, and these stories turned out not to be true. He chaired meetings effectively, consulted appropriately on policy, and steered us to a clear position which we used to hold the government to account."
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Enoch
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# 14322
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Posted
Frankly my Dear I was going to respond, because I wondered at first that you'd misunderstood what I was saying, but mdijon has said what I would have said.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Frankly My Dear
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# 18072
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Posted
Corbyn's made a few howlers in his managerial capacity, and the PLP have signally failed to put up a convincing alternative. I make that one blown chance each. Clean slate.
Posts: 108 | From: Telford, Shropshire, UK | Registered: Apr 2014
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
Baptist Trainfan: quote:
Blair's genius was to present a sparkling new vision of Labour to the nation (one that in my view was fundamentally hollow); what we need is a substantial, modern and truly Socialist view on things.
Agreed. I have some friends who are fed up with Corbyn because he's "unelectable"; one has actually left the Labour Party and joined the Liberals. They may have a point, but they fail to address the issue that nuLabour lacked substance. No one, even at the time, knew what it stood for and it now looks increasingly vacuous. Corbyn has conviction, which is why so many people do support him, and party membership has rocketed. As many have said, this does not automatically lead to General Election victory but a candidate without conviction isn't going to get anywhere.
Actually, I think that part of the problem was that large numbers of middle class lefties didn't really notice the achievements of New Labour and, therefore, assumed it wasn't important. For those who may remember my posts on the subject, back in the day, I include myself in that category. Mea Maxima Culpa.
New Labour, like Gaul, could be divided into three parts. It was one part reinvention of social democracy and one part response to globalisation, one part foreign policy. The social democratic bit was common or garden redistribution. Famously, New Labour was relaxed about people getting seriously rich but everyone forgets the caveat "as long as they pay their taxes". The proceeds of growth were spent on schools and hospitals and on the reduction of child and pensioner poverty.
The globalisation bit was based on the rejection of two responses to the phenomenon. Old Labour and UKIP, in their different ways, are averse to globalisation in the manner of King Canute. The free market right are very keen on the idea and are quite happy to see the weakest go to the wall. New Labour thought that globalisation was inevitable and that the best thing to do was to equip people to flourish in it hence the mantra: "education, education, education". How successful they were can be questioned, but the attempt was honourable.
The third plank of New Labour was the whole ethical foreign policy bit. This is the bit that crashed and died after 9/11, mainly because the invasion of Iraq was a catastrophe. Earlier interventions such as the intervention in Kosovo and Sierra Leone were successful and whilst the intervention in Afghanistan was an impasse it is hard to argue that the west should have done nothing after 9/11. But it was a fairly conspicuous failure and it's hard to say "well, on the one hand, sure start centres, on the other Iraq".
So most middle class leftists tended to focus on the Iraq War and, as things like child poverty and pensioner poverty were things they came across in the pages of the New Statesman and Guardian, they tended to neglect Blair and Brown's actual achievements and to bitch about the lack of middle class subsidies like cheap rail fairs and student grants.
Hence the conviction that - at last! - Jeremy is focusing on real isshoos, whilst maintaining that New Labour won three elections because glitz and stardust and spin. But it's bollocks. Blair and Brown, for all their faults, were substantial and modern. Corbyn is, frankly, neither.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
Callan, you have something of a case as far as the first administration is concerned. A ghost of one re. the second. The third destroyed all of that - such as it ever was.
They did not tear up the tory spending plans when they came into office, because they wanted a "reputation for prudence", even so this meant further crippling public services. So no sooner was some level of investment started than the disaster that is the PFI was wished on the nation. So no credit for that I'm afraid.
Ethical foreign policy - excellent idea, utterly destroyed by their utterly ridiculous toadying to Dubya.
There were no halcyon days under new labour. A bright dawn, yes, but it fizzled too quickly into what had become wearily familiar BAU, i.e. tory policies with the edges better sanded.
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
Posts: 2208 | From: Norwich | Registered: Apr 2010
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Rocinante
Shipmate
# 18541
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ThunderBunk:
There were no halcyon days under new labour. A bright dawn, yes, but it fizzled too quickly into what had become wearily familiar BAU, i.e. tory policies with the edges better sanded.
Sorry, but this is rewriting history. The first Blair government stuck to Tory spending plans for the first two years because this was a manifesto pledge. An unnecessary one, to be sure, even Ken Clarke said he wouldn't have kept to them. But the spending didn't really start until the second term.
As I recall, one issue in the 2001 election campaign was that the government wasn't spending enough - now conveniently forgotten by the "Labour caused the recession by spending too much" crowd. But after 2001 Brown really turned on the taps and schools, the NHS and low-paid workers all benefitted immensely. To say that this was all "Tory-lite" is just lazy. If Major had remained in power, public services would have continued to be run down as per the long-term plan.
Posts: 384 | From: UK | Registered: Jan 2016
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Frankly My Dear:
Corbyn's made a few howlers in his managerial capacity, and the PLP have signally failed to put up a convincing alternative. I make that one blown chance each. Clean slate.
To conceive of this as PLP vs Corbyn and tot up one point for managerial incompetence on one side and one point for failing to identify a convincing challenger on the other and therefore concluding that one sticks with the incompetent manager seems not to be a helpful model.
Corbyn's managerial incompetence shows he can't run a country and he lost the confidence of his shadow cabinet and the PLP as a result. Corbyn is a single entity and should be excluded as a future prime minister as a result.
The PLP has indeed failed in response, but personally I wouldn't give up on it at this point because it isn't a single entity. It is possible that they will get their act together and we'll have a competent opposition.
But if we do accept that the PLP has blown it in a fundamental and irredeemable way then we are left looking for a new party as the alternative to Tory rule.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Rocinante:
But after 2001 Brown really turned on the taps and schools, the NHS and low-paid workers all benefitted immensely. To say that this was all "Tory-lite" is just lazy. If Major had remained in power, public services would have continued to be run down as per the long-term plan.
I agree. I was working in the NHS at the time and remember a real transformation in terms of the aspirations and the quality of the NHS. This was only possible with proper funding. That surely wouldn't have happened under the Tories.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
I post on this thread as the electoral equivalent of a cross bencher. I'm not Labour and make my comments to try to get across how it appears from outside the self feeding Facebook fervour of the Corbyn-infatuated. That's one of the reasons why I bother to post at all.
However, I can say very categorically, from personal experience, that there was a marked change in ethos and improvement in the quality of public administration in May 1997. Objectively, the Blair administration did rather well until it made the big mistake of going into Iraq.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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