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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Jeremy Corbyn out?
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
This is very interesting, the record of the Blair governments, but is it meant to be an argument for voting for Smith?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
One argument against the PLP, Blair, and everyone to the Right of Corbyn is that they are Tory-lite and one might as well not bother. I think it's pretty clear that isn't true. Whether that's enough to send you careering into a warm embrace in Owen Smith's arms is another matter of course.
Personally I think it is very hard to ignore the accounts of Corbyn's managerial skills in the party and if one takes those seriously I do think "anyone but Corbyn" becomes a plausible position. Those who don't take these stories seriously either don't believe them or think that a PM can work by being a big ideas guy and an inspiring example but it doesn't matter if they can't run stuff.
It is a terrifying dilemma to consider from my point of view - the track record of being right on Iraq vs wrong on management. If we could go back 15 years would one exchange the funding of the NHS, minimum wage and revitalizing public services for 0.5M lives?
But that isn't the current dilemma. The current dilemma is much worse because it introduces the unknown. Would the current PLP be stupid enough to take us back into a war? The record on Syria is that many of them would. Hillary Benn was ever so statemanly as he eloquently advocated piling on another military solution to a political problem created by ill-thought and venal military solutions. Corbyn clearly wouldn't do that and can be relied on to stand against it, but he can't be relied on to get the PLP to back him in standing against it so perhaps voting for him isn't even a vote for near-pacifism.
And that encapsulates the problem with Corbyn for me. He can't deliver anything.
[ 03. September 2016, 09:11: Message edited by: mdijon ]
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
Yes, quetzecoatl, because it shows Blair and Brown to have been competent, whereas we know that Corbyn is incompetent. Owen Smith has been in the public eye for several weeks now and has not looked incompetent, and shows some signs of being competent. We may reasonably assume that he is competent and that therefore he would be good at government. Hopefully the electorate will make the same assumption. Incompetence, which Michael Foot also had, obviously makes you bad at government but more importantly leads to unelectability.
Incompetence, remember, is a quality of persons. If you are incompetent now, so you will always be. It's not a judgement on your decisions or performance over a period, it's an unchangeable property, an Aristotelian essence. If you suffer from it, there's no point surrounding yourself with the highly competent: everything you touch will still go wrong.
New Labour's extremely high competence quotient was not down to the civil service or the cabinet or those spin doctors or advisors, nor was it a mere appearance down to the general sympathy if the Murdoch press, it was real and it was entirely due to Blair, and after him, Brown. Well, not Brown so much, but he benefited from the ghostly continuation of Blair's competence for a while until it dried up.
If you can't just look at a politician and just know somehow whether or not they are competent or incompetent, I'm not sure you should really have a vote.
[ 03. September 2016, 09:15: Message edited by: hatless ]
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
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.
I'm not denying that, I hope. It may be that my memory is eliding a gap between when the artificial brakes came off and the disaster that is PFI was wished on the NHS and the nation. But surely, you can't deny that PFI is a disaster, and a fundamentally wrong thing for a Labour government to have relied on, given the way in which it subjugates public services to private profit? I suppose that being in the catchment of he Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital makes me particularly sensitive to this issue.
There was, however, something fundamentally wrong with the way in which NuLabour went about constructing its policy, especially in the 2nd and 3rd terms of office. They had a habit of breaking off little lumps of established Labour policies and values into what they hoped were attractive soundbites, and then implementing them without reference to anything else. For example, in order to avoid being called a tax-and-spend government, they spent but didn't tax, and went through the entire resultant boom without addressing the need to pay for it. That boom was to a significant extent financed by perfectly prudent public investment: one of the effects of using private companies to deliver public policy is that funds flow from the one into the other. That is, of course, how Keynesian economics is supposed to work, but again, if you don't siphon back some of the gain to pay for that work and future work, the result is a Ponzi scheme that eventually collapses under its own weight.
PFI was relied on to a significant extent as an attempt to lighten that load, but to my mind it is both a betrayal of Labour values (because it rubbishes the whole idea of public provision of public services) and hugely excessively expensive to the public purse, creating a burden on the future vastly in excess of the easement to the burden on the (then) present. Ironically, it would have been far cheaper to absorb the cost into the Public Sector Borrowing Requirement, but that would have required political courage, and an explanation as to how this was not going to cause the whole economy to overbalance. I'm pretty confident that this would have been possible, if anyone had tried it at the time.
It's very difficult to have that debate now, because the financial crash happened in 2008, changing the entire climate and priorities completely. This, of course, is what caused the already somewhat upward curve of borrowing to steepen significantly, and this is not a point that anyone in Labour has ever made with sufficient force. The vast bulk, in fact, of post-2008 borrowing was caused by the crash, and trying precisely to bail out those parts of the economy which were most hostile to Labour and its project: after all, whoever heard of a bank that was interested in redistribution of wealth or provision of public services that are truly adequate to public need?
My fundamental problem with the Blairite way of governing was precisely that it was not governing - and this is probably his most poisonous legacy. It took the freedom of opposition to focus on parts of issues of its own choosing, whilst ignoring the rest, and thus to shape the reality it is choosing to address rather than being responsible for addressing the whole situation, inconvenient elements and all. This was a huge feature of the Cameron government, of course, but I first became aware of it under Blair.
It is not possible just to do politics and power in separate tracks, and leave others to work out the implementation - or at least not without creating a truly appalling mess. The only way anyone has ever come up with of dealing with this fact is by pumping more and more helium into the political atmosphere, leaving debate (such as it is) floating higher and higher over reality. That, for me, is the process that Blair normalised.
As time goes on, I'm less convinced that Corbyn himself is the way out of this. He seems to have embraced the right to create his own bubble and live within it with equal fervour: the initial excitement came out of the fact that his bubble is different from Blair's and includes aspects of reality that have been ignored by political "debate" in this country for far too long. The problem with it is that it is still a bubble, and still fails to provide an adequate account of how he would deal with reality in its totality. But I remain convinced that more Blairism is not the answer to anything other that how to make the mess worse, and how to continue the underlying drift of this country inexorably to the right.
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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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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
If you can't just look at a politician and just know somehow whether or not they are competent or incompetent, I'm not sure you should really have a vote.
I'm not sure about that but I can spot an unfair and inaccurate characterization of an argument just by looking at one.
I really want to back Corbyn as well, but I can't when I look at his record and the first-hand accounts of his competence. Granted competence is situational and changeable, just like intelligence is. One could misjudge based on a few examples, and could generalize to other domains without justification. But those sound like weak defences given the first-hand accounts of Corbyn running the opposition that we have.
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Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Frankly My Dear
Shipmate
# 18072
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
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.
I truly think you're over-complicating this. Corbyn had no leadership experience to speak of before, so was bound to make some blunders. But a substantial chunk of the PLP were passively-agressively resistant to him making any kind of success out of it, from the start. Lets knock some heads together, and move on ..
Posts: 108 | From: Telford, Shropshire, UK | Registered: Apr 2014
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Frankly My Dear
Shipmate
# 18072
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
... Owen Smith has been in the public eye for several weeks now and has not looked incompetent, and shows some signs of being competent...
Say whaahhtt ??!! Have you been looking at the same stuff as I have ?? A fixation with the special properties of his own penis; and a causal commitment to the re-running of not one, but two referendums, spring to mind ...
Posts: 108 | From: Telford, Shropshire, UK | Registered: Apr 2014
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
If you suffer from it, there's no point surrounding yourself with the highly competent:
Yes, he could have done that. Or he could have appointed John McDonnell, Seamas Milne and Diane Abbott.
Actually he did make an attempt with his advisory committee of economists. Which met about once and was ignored, and many of whose members have already given up Mr Corbyn as a bad job - a point which the Corbynistas have so far failed even to acknoweldge, let alone address.
Why, if you are serious about ending the economics of austerity, would you support a guy whom even anti-austerity economists have lost confidence in?
quote:
If you can't just look at a politician and just know somehow whether or not they are competent or incompetent, I'm not sure you should really have a vote.
So this is what Corbynistas call 'discussing the issues', is it?
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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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Rocinante
Shipmate
# 18541
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Posted
That's a thoughtful post, Thunderbunk, and I agree with much of it. Yes, Blair & Brown should have had more political courage in the matter of raising takes in a fair way; they should have said to the electorate "if you want all this stuff, which the nation actually needs, you going to have to actually pay for it rather than putting it on the PFI credit card."
We view the 1997 victory through the filter of history; at the time, to those involved, it felt like a fragile thing that could easily be broken. They proceeded with extreme caution (Blair admits he was far too cautious in the first term), and bear in mind that Blair's government had very little ministerial experience. It took them a long time to learn how to spend money and make things happen. No sooner had they properly found their feet, than the catastrophic decision to invade Iraq pushed everything else into the background.
The meteoric rise of Jeremy Corbyn is largely due to the current dearth of talent in the Labour Party, and that is something which I think can legitimately be laid at Blair's & Brown's doors. They didn't do enough to bring on the next generation of Labour leaders; indeed Brown would try to squash anyone he regarded as a threat to him. The result is that the membership turn to someone who seems to be untainted by all the compromises and mistakes that inevitably go with a long period in government.
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 had no leadership experience to speak of before, so was bound to make some blunders. But a substantial chunk of the PLP were passively-agressively resistant to him making any kind of success out of it, from the start. Lets knock some heads together, and move on ..
That's not how it works in selecting a PM. You don't make excuses and say they have no previous leadership experience and therefore give them a by on their demonstrated inability to run a party. This isn't about fair contests with an even playing field to start with, it's about winning an election then running a country.
It is results and outcomes that count. If he'd found a way of covering for his managerial inability like appointing someone to do it all for him that would be fine. If he'd found a way of getting his shadow cabinet to cover for him either by bribery, persuasion or just finding a way of giving them space and access to the right people in his office that would have been another way around it.
But he doesn't seem to have any insight into his inabilities to manage or negotiate in his party and just bowls on. It's equally true that the press are against him, he hasn't been given a fair crack of the whip in all sorts of ways but that isn't the point. If one reads the accounts linked to on this thread it is hard to see any other outcome apart from disorder in dysfunction unless Corbyn shows some signs of getting it together.
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Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Frankly My Dear
Shipmate
# 18072
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by Frankly My Dear:
Corbyn had no leadership experience to speak of before, so was bound to make some blunders. But a substantial chunk of the PLP were passively-agressively resistant to him making any kind of success out of it, from the start. Lets knock some heads together, and move on ..
That's not how it works in selecting a PM ... he doesn't seem to have any insight into his inabilities to manage or negotiate in his party and just bowls on... it is hard to see any other outcome apart from disorder in dysfunction unless Corbyn shows some signs of getting it together.
So again I ask - what would 'getting it together' look like ??
Posts: 108 | From: Telford, Shropshire, UK | Registered: Apr 2014
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hatless
Shipmate
# 3365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
If you suffer from it, there's no point surrounding yourself with the highly competent:
Yes, he could have done that. Or he could have appointed John McDonnell, Seamas Milne and Diane Abbott.
Actually he did make an attempt with his advisory committee of economists. Which met about once and was ignored, and many of whose members have already given up Mr Corbyn as a bad job - a point which the Corbynistas have so far failed even to acknoweldge, let alone address.
Why, if you are serious about ending the economics of austerity, would you support a guy whom even anti-austerity economists have lost confidence in?
quote:
If you can't just look at a politician and just know somehow whether or not they are competent or incompetent, I'm not sure you should really have a vote.
So this is what Corbynistas call 'discussing the issues', is it?
I'm not a Corbynista. I don't think he has done a good job, and only partly because of the appalling media reaction and the sabotaging by many in the PLP. I think that failing to work with those economists was probably a major error.
But I don't think the charge of incompetence is a smart one. There's no such thing as incompetence. The fruitfulness of a person's skill set and character depends on the situation. Politics, like all of life, is full of examples of people who perform brilliantly for a season, then suddenly look painfully out of touch, baffled and inept.
Fixating on personalities and leaders is stupid, like football's Girardian obsession with managers and sacking them.
We need new policies. We need a new style of politics. We need a new Left. We need it to have a new self-confidence. Remember, competence is traditionally what the Right is believed to have and the Left to lack. The Left generally has the more popular policies, people just fear they won't work. For 20 years the Left has tried to appear competent by concealing its intentions. This must now change.
Meanwhile the opposition to Capitalism's abuse of society and the environment will have to come from within the Conservative Party, and from all those in and out of politics who can keep May to the aspirations she expressed in her Downing Street speech.
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My crazy theology in novel form
Posts: 4531 | From: Stinkers | Registered: Sep 2002
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Frankly My Dear:
Corbyn had no leadership experience to speak of before, so was bound to make some blunders. But a substantial chunk of the PLP were passively-agressively resistant to him making any kind of success out of it, from the start. Lets knock some heads together, and move on ..
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
That's not how it works in selecting a PM ... he doesn't seem to have any insight into his inabilities to manage or negotiate in his party and just bowls on... it is hard to see any other outcome apart from disorder in dysfunction unless Corbyn shows some signs of getting it together.
quote:
Originally posted by Frankly My Dear:
So again I ask - what would 'getting it together' look like ??
Here's what I said before.
Some people outside his clique need to find that they can work with him and get timely responses from his office.
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Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I don't think he has done a good job, and only partly because of the appalling media reaction and the sabotaging by many in the PLP. I think that failing to work with those economists was probably a major error.
I agree with what you say about competence in a sense, but there's only a small jump between what you say here and the label of incompetence.
Competence I suppose is a bit like intelligence. It is impossible to quantify and is completely situational. Someone can be brilliant musically but appalling at military strategy. Or a fabulous mathematician but not great at spelling. Which parameter contributes more to intelligence and how can it be measured in a non-culturally specific way.
Like competence, the concept of intelligence has been abused and ideas of innate properties of intelligence were included in the theories of racist pseudo-biologists and fascists.
However we need a short-hand simplification for what we mean. "He struggles learning new things and doesn't really seem to understand what one is trying to get across without a lot of help" is less prone to misunderstanding and probably kinder than "He is not very intelligent" but the latter is useful in speech.
Likewise one can say "I don't think he has done a good job... failing to work with those economists was probably a major error." or "I don't think he has been competent."
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Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Frankly My Dear
Shipmate
# 18072
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Some people outside his clique need to find that they can work with him and get timely responses from his office.
Ok, lets go with that, and see what happens ...
Posts: 108 | From: Telford, Shropshire, UK | Registered: Apr 2014
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Pottage
Shipmate
# 9529
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Frankly My Dear:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Some people outside his clique need to find that they can work with him and get timely responses from his office.
Ok, lets go with that, and see what happens ...
But that isn't entirely down to them, is it. We've seen endless links on this thread to people who have sincerely tried to work with Jeremy Corbyn, as economic advisers, as members of his Parliamentary team, or in whatever capacity. Time and again (and even though there is often little to connect them and no reason to suppose they are colluding) they tell materially the same story: they have been ignored, rebuffed, marginalised or undermined until - often after persevering for months on end - they have given up in despair.
I've no doubt that Jeremy Corbyn has many areas of great competence. He has been an indefatigable campaigner for several issues close to his heart for instance. But the requirements of Leader of the Opposition (or Prime Minister in Waiting, if you like) are not the same, and he has shown every indication here that he lacks the core skills to do that even passably well. Seemingly he does not even have a very clear perception of just how profoundly he falls short in these areas.
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Frankly My Dear
Shipmate
# 18072
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:
quote:
Originally posted by Frankly My Dear:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Some people outside his clique need to find that they can work with him and get timely responses from his office.
Ok, lets go with that, and see what happens ...
But that isn't entirely down to them, is it. We've seen endless links on this thread to people who have sincerely tried to work with Jeremy Corbyn, as economic advisers, as members of his Parliamentary team, or in whatever capacity. Time and again (and even though there is often little to connect them and no reason to suppose they are colluding) they tell materially the same story: they have been ignored, rebuffed, marginalised or undermined until - often after persevering for months on end - they have given up in despair.
I've no doubt that Jeremy Corbyn has many areas of great competence. He has been an indefatigable campaigner for several issues close to his heart for instance. But the requirements of Leader of the Opposition (or Prime Minister in Waiting, if you like) are not the same, and he has shown every indication here that he lacks the core skills to do that even passably well. Seemingly he does not even have a very clear perception of just how profoundly he falls short in these areas.
To which the bulk of the party membership replies - 'Try again'. So lets try again ...
Posts: 108 | From: Telford, Shropshire, UK | Registered: Apr 2014
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Frankly My Dear:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
... Owen Smith has been in the public eye for several weeks now and has not looked incompetent, and shows some signs of being competent...
Say whaahhtt ??!! Have you been looking at the same stuff as I have ?? A fixation with the special properties of his own penis; and a causal commitment to the re-running of not one, but two referendums, spring to mind ...
I must have missed the fixation bit.
As regards referendums:
The Scottish referendum two years ago was explicitly fought by both sides on the assumption that Scotland wished to remain in the EU. England has pulled the carpet out from under that assumption. Smith recognises that fact. That's incompetent in the same way Corbyn is a hard-line Thatcherite.
As regards Brexit, due to Cameron's incompetence the UK has not been offered a referendum on the terms of any agreement. If you think Brexit is an almighty balls-up, please explain how you think it can be rectified without either a) a referendum; or b) the appearance of riding rough shod over the wishes of the people. If you think it's not an almighty balls-up, well, I'd personally rather be called Tory-lite than be UKIP-lite.
[ 03. September 2016, 19:46: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
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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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Frankly My Dear
Shipmate
# 18072
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Posted
I am a Labour Party member who does not think that Brexit is an almighty balls-up. And there was no mention of 'unless the UK leaves the EU' in all that 'once in a generation' talk around the Scottish referendum.
Posts: 108 | From: Telford, Shropshire, UK | Registered: Apr 2014
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Ronald Binge
Shipmate
# 9002
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Frankly My Dear:
I am a Labour Party member who does not think that Brexit is an almighty balls-up. And there was no mention of 'unless the UK leaves the EU' in all that 'once in a generation' talk around the Scottish referendum.
I live on the Irish border. This is not just a balls up, it has the potential to be a lot more than that.
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Older, bearded (but no wiser)
Posts: 477 | From: Brexit's frontline | Registered: Jan 2005
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
As regards Brexit, due to Cameron's incompetence the UK has not been offered a referendum on the terms of any agreement.
I'm curious as to how you think that might have worked, given the EU's clear intentions to not negotiate exit terms before article 50 is invoked.
Yes, it would have been lovely to have negotiated an exit deal first, and then present the British public a choice between remaining in the EU in the current terms or the negotiated exit deal. I have no idea why you think the EU would be interested in accommodating that.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
Unless you haven't noticed the SNP don't appear to have signed up to the 'once in a generation' bit. And if you don't think that Brexit is an almighty balls up, can I remind you that the vote was won on a claim that we could have access to the Single Market with reduced immigration - presumably the plan is to make the diplomatic corps familiar with the phrase "fuck off" in several European languages - and that the ministers responsible for implementing this will be David 'Prima Donna' Davis, once and future disgraced former Cabinet minister Liam Fox and Boris Johnson. Like Omar, the balls up will be coming, and we might want to resile from it when it arrives.
[x-post.]
[ 03. September 2016, 21:23: Message edited by: Callan ]
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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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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Frankly My Dear:
To which the bulk of the party membership replies - 'Try again'. So lets try again ...
Your question to me was what would competence look like. I gave the answer, what the party membership makes of the failed test is another issue.
So there's an Einstein quote that comes to mind about the definition of insanity here. To make it worth trying again there would need to be some sign from Corbyn that he recognized his mistakes and was going to get help/ be different/ do something different.
This isn't just a personalized disagreement where being polite might lead to a different outcome, he just can't organize stuff, is office is in chaos and people can't develop a policy with him unable to walk in a straight line as soon as a microphone is available.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
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Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Frankly My Dear:
Say whaahhtt ??!! Have you been looking at the same stuff as I have ??
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I must have missed the fixation bit.
Likewise. Of course if one was relying on media reports to form an impression of a candidate's competence then one could easily get that impression. That might be an unfair representation, but on the other hand candidates who can't handle the media aren't a good bet. Oh wait...
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
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Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Luigi
Shipmate
# 4031
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Frankly My Dear:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Some people outside his clique need to find that they can work with him and get timely responses from his office.
Ok, lets go with that, and see what happens ...
I think that one of the likely outcomes is that many MPs who have put their head above the parapet to criticise Corbyn, or who are suspected of being against him, will be looking at getting another job in 2020. A lot will have had enough.
This may be Corbyn supporters dream but I think it will merely reinforce the impression that he is extreme - the public will look at how his supporters behave more than his policies. The party will be perceived as a narrow party of zealous believers. It will also mean that even if Labour do well in the next election it will have many totally inexperienced MPs.
I find it interesting that many JC supporters think that a JC bigger mandate will be something to celebrate, they are not noticing... yet... just how much of a poisoned chalice they have won.
After all if his mandate is larger, Corbyn and his supporters then have greater power / responsibility. It is what they do next that matters. Will they make massive efforts to get the unconvinced on board. Will they make if clear how much they disapprove of the attack dog approach that so many Corbyn supporters have used? If they do then maybe, just maybe, there will be a positive way forward.
[ 04. September 2016, 07:37: Message edited by: Luigi ]
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Ricardus
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# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
But I don't think the charge of incompetence is a smart one. There's no such thing as incompetence. The fruitfulness of a person's skill set and character depends on the situation.
mdijon has pretty much said all I want to say here.
I agree that competence is situational. The particular situation in which Mr Corbyn finds himself is Leader of the Opposition, and his skillset and character really don't match the job description. On the other hand, the same skillset and character made him, to my mind, an excellent backbencher. The backbenches need independent-minded people to guard against the tyranny of the majority (or of the plurality as it is in reality). But that same independence is a liability when your job entails developing some kind of collective position.
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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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Luigi
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# 4031
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Frankly My Dear:
quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:
quote:
Originally posted by Frankly My Dear:
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Some people outside his clique need to find that they can work with him and get timely responses from his office.
Ok, lets go with that, and see what happens ...
But that isn't entirely down to them, is it. We've seen endless links on this thread to people who have sincerely tried to work with Jeremy Corbyn, as economic advisers, as members of his Parliamentary team, or in whatever capacity. Time and again (and even though there is often little to connect them and no reason to suppose they are colluding) they tell materially the same story: they have been ignored, rebuffed, marginalised or undermined until - often after persevering for months on end - they have given up in despair.
I've no doubt that Jeremy Corbyn has many areas of great competence. He has been an indefatigable campaigner for several issues close to his heart for instance. But the requirements of Leader of the Opposition (or Prime Minister in Waiting, if you like) are not the same, and he has shown every indication here that he lacks the core skills to do that even passably well. Seemingly he does not even have a very clear perception of just how profoundly he falls short in these areas.
To which the bulk of the party membership replies - 'Try again'. So lets try again ...
Do you honestly think that mastery of detail, which appears to be the area where he is weakest, is something that can be mastered in at most a couple of years?
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Enoch
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# 14322
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Posted
Look Frankly My Dear, this man is 67. He's fully formed. He's got his personality with all its strengths and weaknesses, and the suitabilities and unsuitabilities that follow from it. He isn't suddenly going to become someone else now.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Arethosemyfeet
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# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Look Frankly My Dear, this man is 67. He's fully formed. He's got his personality with all its strengths and weaknesses, and the suitabilities and unsuitabilities that follow from it. He isn't suddenly going to become someone else now.
I disagree. You put someone in a new situation then they can develop new skills, whatever their age.
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
I can't remember if anyone has discussed the future inclinations of the PLP, assuming Corbyn wins. I suppose a section will remain opposed to Corbyn, and refuse to work with him, another section will reluctantly work with him, and some will remain neutral. I don't know if any will feel so strongly that they will quit, possibly some will say to themselves, another 4 years, and I'm out. And, Strictly will be looking for more dad-dancers.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Frankly My Dear
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# 18072
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Posted
'Draw me a tree'
[Other person starts to draw tree - First person then knocks his elbow so pencil slides all over page]
'Ha - see - I knew you wouldn't be able to draw a tree!'
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Enoch
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# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
I disagree. You put someone in a new situation then they can develop new skills, whatever their age.
Speaking as someone of the same sort of age, one can learn new skills. You can't become a different personality.
One of the things that becomes clearer as one gets older is that you really shouldn't try to.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Arethosemyfeet
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# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
I disagree. You put someone in a new situation then they can develop new skills, whatever their age.
Speaking as someone of the same sort of age, one can learn new skills. You can't become a different personality.
One of the things that becomes clearer as one gets older is that you really shouldn't try to.
The key area of criticism is managerial skill. Up until recently, when they got desperate, Corbyn's opponents were falling over themselves to say what a good guy he was and how polite and supportive he was. There's no doubt that there is a steep learning curve in going from the backbenches and running single-issue campaigns to party leader. What's at issue is whether Corbyn, given time and the support or at least neutrality of most of his parliamentary colleagues, could develop the necessary skills. I want to give him that chance, because the alternative is to hope that Owen Smith will turn into a man of conviction with solid, socialist principles. In that I agree with you - skills can be learned, but I don't see personality changing.
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
As regards Brexit, due to Cameron's incompetence the UK has not been offered a referendum on the terms of any agreement.
I'm curious as to how you think that might have worked, given the EU's clear intentions to not negotiate exit terms before article 50 is invoked.
A referendum could at least have established a negotiating position and an order of priorities in bargaining.
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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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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Frankly My Dear:
And there was no mention of 'unless the UK leaves the EU' in all that 'once in a generation' talk around the Scottish referendum.
It was kind of implicit in the Unionist's argument that leaving the UK meant that Scotland might not be able to stay in the EU.
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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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mdijon
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# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Frankly My Dear:
'Draw me a tree'
[Other person starts to draw tree - First person then knocks his elbow so pencil slides all over page]
'Ha - see - I knew you wouldn't be able to draw a tree!'
We're not talking about drawing a tree though, we've specifically discussed and linked to stories about the chaos of Corbyn's office failing to deal with correspondence for several months, shadow ministers unable to get a steer on policy or an appointment, Corbyn talking of the cuff and undermining policies that colleagues are working up, failing to attend the economics policy committee that he initiated, giving no steer to the shadow DEFRA minister and being fuzzy about hedge funds and loan sharks.
In my own area what he said about the MRC and pharmaceutical companies made no sense. The recent story of McDonnell talking about withdrawing honours from Branson comes across as poorly handled and petty and is hardly a forced error by the PLP.
It's hard to see how non-cooperation of the PLP can account for the full list of managerial difficulties, and while many were clearly itching to see him fail there are accounts that look like honest attempts to work with him failing to bear fruit.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
I disagree. You put someone in a new situation then they can develop new skills, whatever their age.
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Speaking as someone of the same sort of age, one can learn new skills. You can't become a different personality.
I wouldn't write off the possibility of adapting to a new situation at any age. Some old people do get set in their ways, some young people lack the experience to cope with different situations. Many senior politicians acquire new posts in later life and cope very well with the new challenges.
The specific issue here is that I'd want to see some signs of this starting to happen before putting my trust in it happening. At present there seems to be complete denial of any problem by the Corbyn team and so one can hardly expect any changes.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
quote:
Originally posted by Frankly My Dear:
'Draw me a tree'
[Other person starts to draw tree - First person then knocks his elbow so pencil slides all over page]
'Ha - see - I knew you wouldn't be able to draw a tree!'
We're not talking about drawing a tree though, we've specifically discussed and linked to stories about the chaos of Corbyn's office failing to deal with correspondence for several months, shadow ministers unable to get a steer on policy or an appointment, Corbyn talking of the cuff and undermining policies that colleagues are working up, failing to attend the economics policy committee that he initiated, giving no steer to the shadow DEFRA minister and being fuzzy about hedge funds and loan sharks.
In my own area what he said about the MRC and pharmaceutical companies made no sense. The recent story of McDonnell talking about withdrawing honours from Branson comes across as poorly handled and petty and is hardly a forced error by the PLP.
It's hard to see how non-cooperation of the PLP can account for the full list of managerial difficulties, and while many were clearly itching to see him fail there are accounts that look like honest attempts to work with him failing to bear fruit.
The problem is that we have no point of comparison - we've no idea how many times previous opposition leaders made errors in their first few months that were kept quiet by parliamentary colleagues or rectified by advisors. We're in a unique situation where any errors made are being blown up into major crises for the political ends of Corbyn's opponents in the PLP. There has been, since before he was elected leader, a coordinated effort to smear him, and like all the best smears they start with some small things that's true and then twist and expand it into something horrible and enormous.
You only have to look at Balls' recent attacks on Miliband to know that rarely is all rosy within the shadow cabinet, but Balls' kept quiet until Miliband was gone.
[ 04. September 2016, 16:39: Message edited by: Arethosemyfeet ]
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mdijon
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# 8520
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Posted
I don't think all the stories linked to here can be dismissed as smears. Many come across as people who really tried. The failings are also not simply a matter of falling out with certain individuals, or getting the mood music of a shadow cabinet meeting wrong, they are about organization and clarity of thought.
And some were deliberately aired by Corbyn and McDonnell. The comments about Branson and about the MRC were things they deliberately went to the press over.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
Let's talk about Seumas Milne. Milne used to write a regular column for the Guardian.
Is anyone going to stand up and say that Milne is doing a good job as Director of Strategy and Communications? Given all of the alleged briefings against Corbyn by Blairite MPs, what is Milne doing about it?
The thing is Milne was a good and persuasive left-wing voice for the Guardian. You don't get to be an associate editor at a daily newspaper by being unable to file copy to a deadline. Yet apparently Milne has almost entirely lost the ability to send off stories by newspapers deadlines.
I used to think that despite a track record of competence at the Guardian Milne was at fault and Corbyn should sack him. I'm now reconsidering that. Milne's apparent incompetence fits entirely with the stories about Corbyn lack of management style that are circulating.
But perhaps Milne is a secret Blairite jogging Corbyn's elbow every time Corbyn tries to draw a tree.
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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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Frankly My Dear
Shipmate
# 18072
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Posted
If you're privvy to detailed information about the conversations between Corbyn and Milne, then do let us know ....
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
The problem is that we have no point of comparison - we've no idea how many times previous opposition leaders made errors in their first few months that were kept quiet by parliamentary colleagues or rectified by advisors.
The problem with this theory is that most of the examples of incompetence raised on this thread are caused by him acting on his own initiative, talking directly to the press, and/or bypassing his advisors.
Of the specific examples raised, how do you propose the PLP should have hushed them up? Should they have fitted a parental advisory control to his microphone that cuts out as soon as he tells the press something like 'I think the UK should trigger Article 50 immediately!' or bleeps out dangerous words like 'Islamic State' and 'Israel'?
Should they have provided cardboard cutouts of Mr Corbyn to appear on the EU referendum trail and disguise his decision to go on holiday at a crucial stage of the campaign?
Should they station a hit-squad outside Merton College, ready to bind and gag Professor Wren-Lewis as soon as he suggests he might have lost confidence in Mr Corbyn?
I suppose it's arguable that people like Ms Debbonaire shouldn't have gone public with their complaints - but if she hadn't, then certain other posters on this thread would be complaining they saw no evidence of Mr Corbyn's incompetence.
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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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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The thing is Milne was a good and persuasive left-wing voice for the Guardian.
Was he? I'm not a regular Guardian reader so I only know his journalism by reputation, and his reputation is as of a loony-lefty Stalinist. Which on the one hand is probably an unfair representation of his views, but, on the other hand, suggests he is not very good at communicating his views to a non-Guardian audience. Which doesn't mark him out as a good choice if you are intending to poach voters off the Tories.
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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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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The thing is Milne was a good and persuasive left-wing voice for the Guardian.
Was he? I'm not a regular Guardian reader so I only know his journalism by reputation, and his reputation is as of a loony-lefty Stalinist.
It is true that 'good and persuasive left-wing voice' does probably mean something different to Guardian readers than it does to almost everyone else.
Regardless, he appeared moderately competent at the time, and I'm not seeing anyone standing up to say he's doing the job Corbyn needs done now.
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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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Frankly My Dear
Shipmate
# 18072
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
The problem is that we have no point of comparison - we've no idea how many times previous opposition leaders made errors in their first few months that were kept quiet by parliamentary colleagues or rectified by advisors.
The problem with this theory is that most of the examples of incompetence raised on this thread are caused by him acting on his own initiative, talking directly to the press, and/or bypassing his advisors.
Of the specific examples raised, how do you propose the PLP should have hushed them up? Should they have fitted a parental advisory control to his microphone that cuts out as soon as he tells the press something like 'I think the UK should trigger Article 50 immediately!' or bleeps out dangerous words like 'Islamic State' and 'Israel'?
Should they have provided cardboard cutouts of Mr Corbyn to appear on the EU referendum trail and disguise his decision to go on holiday at a crucial stage of the campaign?
Should they station a hit-squad outside Merton College, ready to bind and gag Professor Wren-Lewis as soon as he suggests he might have lost confidence in Mr Corbyn?
I suppose it's arguable that people like Ms Debbonaire shouldn't have gone public with their complaints - but if she hadn't, then certain other posters on this thread would be complaining they saw no evidence of Mr Corbyn's incompetence.
If the bulk of the 'problems' are caused by Corbyn's own actions, then let them stand on their own merits/ demerits. Why is nobody making a song & a dance over Mrs May's walking holiday, when there was so much to be done ???
Here's what an unhappy PLP member might have said on record: "I have some concerns over Jeremy's policy positions and strategy in opposition. There is of course much more that unites us than divides us. Our job is to find a way of putting together - and communicating clearly - a positive, persuasive alternative to Tory rule. I will listen carefully to the views of my CLP and wider electorate on how this can best be done. No further comment".
Here's an example of what was actually said: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxlFXlYIefw
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
Frankly My Dear wrote: quote:
Why is nobody making a song & a dance over Mrs May's walking holiday, when there was so much to be done ???
She took her holiday a couple of weeks after sorting out her new ministerial team. There is indeed loads to do, but at this stage her ministers need to get fully briefed, sort out new departments and a load of similar stuff. If she pesters them at this stage it will delay things. It's probably the best time to go away TBH. But if she takes off once substantive Brexit negotiations kick in, I'll join you in criticising.
quote:
Here's what an unhappy PLP member might have said on record: "I have some concerns over Jeremy's policy positions and strategy in opposition. There is of course much more that unites us than divides us. Our job is to find a way of putting together - and communicating clearly - a positive, persuasive alternative to Tory rule. I will listen carefully to the views of my CLP and wider electorate on how this can best be done. No further comment".
For all I know, some of them may have said something like that. If you have ever had any meeja training, you'll know that that sort of thing is what you say to kill a topic. Make it anodyne and obvious. So if they did you won't have heard about it. It's sad but that's the way it works I'm afraid.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
Maybe they thought things were so bad that they had passed that point. The sort of statement you suggest above is one that might come out of a quiet disagreement over some policy detail that has come to light in the press and one wants to kill speculation, not the statement one makes if one feels there is a fundamental breakdown in ability to manage a party and decisive action to change is required.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
One problem I have is crying wolf. There have been smears against Corbyn, and stories about him, which may not be smears. How the hell do you tell the difference?
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
By retaining a critical facility. Many of these accounts come from trustworthy people, the facts seem believable, and the facts haven't really been challenged by Corbyn's office.
The same argument about crying wolf has been made about climate change science, the health risks of smoking and many other babies mixed up with varying degrees of bathwater. But one can't give a guy a by on every accusation because they were falsely accused elsewhere.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Anglican't
Shipmate
# 15292
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Posted
As Corbyn's leadership has gone on, I've started to think that for some people the word 'smear' means 'any news story I don't like'.
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