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message 1651:
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Will
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Sep 12, 2015 11:35AM
The closet Tories are distraught that the membership has resoundingly rejected them.
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it's a curious thing that the (tradiitonal?) Left of the Party have been disparaging the Islington Labour Lovies of the Right and yet Corbyn in a way not only represents an Islington constituency, but is entirely carved out of Islington & Camden local politics of the 1980s GLC (of the Ken Livingstone variety). So on a superficial level he represents both aspects.
Will wrote: "The closet Tories are distraught that the membership has resoundingly rejected them."Just had to get Dave to explain to me what you meant by that.
Thing is, we got the NDP into power in Canada back in the day because we were fed up with labour and they ended up so far right they may as well have been Tory.
I hope it doesn't happen in the UK.
he's actually a very moderate and collegiate leader. it's not the 'Luvvies' that aren't liked, it's the Blairite/tory-lite wing who have just lost 2 elections on the trot.I've had an email already: he's letting the members choose the subject of a question for him to put to Cameron at PMQ's.
that's what I meant by Labour Lovies, those professional politicians who've never had a real job
BTW wasn't Andy Burnham odious throughout the campaign. He blew with whichever wind was blowing issue-wise and is the only defeated candidate not to rule himself out of a shadow cabinet post
Will wrote: "The closet Tories are distraught that the membership has resoundingly rejected them."You'll need to explain that to me Will, as I genuinely don't have a f*cking clue what you are trying to say.
Will wrote: "he's actually a very moderate and collegiate leader. it's not the 'Luvvies' that aren't liked, it's the Blairite/tory-lite wing who have just lost 2 elections on the trot."After winning three on the trot, if I remember correctly. something that no left-wing Labour leader ever achieved.
Geoff (G. Robbins) (The noisy passionfruit) wrote: "Will wrote: "The closet Tories are distraught that the membership has resoundingly rejected them."You'll need to explain that to me Will, as I genuinely don't have a f*cking clue what you are try..."
closet Tories being the Blairites like Liz Kendall.
There seems little doubt to my mind that Labour trying to be Tory Lite, that is trying to manage capitalism better than the Tories, will never convince the majority of the electorate. labour may be trusted on the NHS, but the Tories are more trusted on the economy. That's why I don't think it really matters who won the Labour leadership, a Blairite candidate won't oust the Tories for the reason above; a Left-Wing candidate certainly won't be let anywhere near running the economy. Miliband represented the contradictions at the heart of the 21st century Labour Party, being seen by many as Left-Wing and many others as still trying to out-Tory the Tories.
I didn't understand a word of that Marc.
Marc wrote: "You're no bad judge Patti."Ummmm
Thank you?
Like many Labour members and voters Geoff, I have been disillusioned that the Blairite wing have moved so far to the right that, like Liz Kendall, their actual policies are indistinguishable from the centre right policies. Hence Tory-lite.This is a major reason for the collapse in traditional Labour vote - many of us have left the party over it. After all, why vote for pretend Tories when you can vote for the real thing if you feel that way inclined?
Now I have heard it argued that you should pretend to be right wing and then once elected do something else, but I find that argument wrong - it's a con on everyone.
What will now be interesting will be PMQ;s a clash between Corbyn's substance over style and Cameron's style without substance
Will, without a major economic meltdown in the next 5 years, can you honestly see the electorate going for Corbyn? They thought Miliband was too left-wing for their tastes...
Miliband was Milquetoast. Let's hope that Jez has more substance,
he was but he still scared enough of Southern England to reject him
Marc wrote: "he was but he still scared enough of Southern England to reject him"You what now?
Politics is largely about presentation. If Corbyn gets a team behind him to challenge the current thinking on a sound basis then yes.Miliband lost because he lacked authenticity in my view. he was saying things without any belief or conviction, and had no ability to challenge conservative thinking.
In a few weeks, Corbyn has suddenly motivated several hundred thousand people. What can he do given a few years?
And why do you think there will NOT be an economic meltdown? The current policies have left us with an unbalanced economy that is very vunerable and twice now has teetered on the edge of a complete depression. One more shockwave from China and Osborne's house of cards will fall about our ears.
What do you think is about to happen to our retail sector when his changes to the Tax Credit system hit the poorest in society and millions are sucked out of the economy as a result?
And how long, Marc, will Southern England stay Tory as housing costs continue to spiral both out of control and out of sensible proportion to wages, as private landlords increase rents to a level beyond the benefit caps and people in the protected South become increasingly forced to choose between food and rent as they are in other parts of the country?
I'm not saying I don't believe there won't be a meltdown.But re the numbers, just because Corbyn has increased the Labour membership, doesn't mean it will translate to securing the votes of people who are not members of any party. Party membership for all the national parties is risible. Labour had more members than the Tories last election for all the good it did them. It was still under 1 million when 30 million voted in 2015
Will wrote: "And how long, Marc, will Southern England stay Tory as housing costs continue to spiral both out of control and out of sensible proportion to wages, as private landlords increase rents to a level ..."London is already a virtual city state. Like Paris, NYC & Tokyo, no one will be able to buy a property there if they don't already own one. As for the rest of the South, people will cling on to their property there for dear life. I don't see either of those trends harming the Tories, besides London is already a Labour city.
Look globally and see how markets are crumbling.I reckon we're teetering on the edge of great political and economic change.
Let's make sure we're supporting leaders who have the vision to see the planet and not just their own pocket.
in such times of crisis, people retrench and look out for themselves and not unifying leaders. They allow politicians to play the blame game. In greece they went for a radical alternative, but that doesn't seem to have turned out too well
I'll bet Blair is preparing to emigrate tonight. Corbyn won't protect him against what I'll bet Chilcott says. And rightly so.If Corbyn stands hard against Syrian airstrikes, as I expect him to, I rather think he'll catch the public mood.
yes, but it will still come down to the economy in 5 years
This time though there will be a choice, won't there? What choice was there at the last time? Osborne's deliberate assault on the poorest under the guise of austerity, or a labour party saying 'We'll do exactly the same, just perhaps not quite as much?' Where's the incentive to vote for that?Propose a proper alternative and then see what happens.
Will wrote: "If Corbyn stands hard against Syrian airstrikes, as I expect him to,I rather think he'll catch the public mood. ..."Whether airstrikes are right or wrong, I'm not sure the public mood is against them. Certainly round here I heard no groundswell of opinion saying that drone strikes in Syria killing British Jihadists was wrong.
Most people seemed to feel that these people had declared war on us so what did they expect.
Also babies washed up on the beach are seen by many as the fault of Syrian factions more than they're the fault of European politicians.
Looking at it dispassionately, I genuinely couldn't say how standing against airstrikes will go.
I just think the majority of people who vote aren't sufficiently motivated by austerity unless it happens to them (Occupy's roots in the UK). They are motivated by selfish reasons and that means maintaining their standard of living. Those hit hardest by austerity are likely to be disproportionately non-voters, probably because they are disenfranchised.Politics will be more interesting under Corbyn, but come to the election and people revert to type and return to the Tories. As did many UKIP supporters in May, terrified by the prospect of a Lab-SNP pact, formal or otherwise.
we all know airstrikes are irrelevant to solving the situation in Iraq and Syria. It will be the question of whether we send troops that will be the real tester.
There's no point in 'air strikes'. There's nothing left to destroy.Delve deeper than what you're being fed by mainstream media.
Or I'll start posting links to the daily mail, dammit!
Above all else you need to ask yourselves; when was the last time that a left wing government got elected to power in Britain? Atlee? Want another World War to get another left wing government? That's what it will take. Wilson and Callaghan were both what you would consider Tory-lite.
I wouldn't disagree and they were and at a time when the Trade Union movement was far more confrontational and I think the sense of class identity stronger. Mrs Thatcher not only took the Unions on, she broke up class definitions, by offering the upper working classes the chance to own shares and buy their own homes. But in doing so, she created a lumpenproletariat of those left behind; the unemployed, those on sink estates, their children in sink state schools and these are the lost generations to this country as many of their offspring are in similar situations to their parents and grandparents, on the same sink estates, the same sink schools and some of them would have rioted in 2011 in the same areas as their parents, such as Tottenham & Salford.
Your memory is playing tricks, Marc. The sink estates were there thirty years before Thatcher came to power. These were the estates built after the war, first to get housing to those that were homeless because they were bombed out, then extended by socialist planners who demolished the old two-up two-downs, thus destroying the community and stuffing them in tower blocks and concrete jungles.
I'm not blaming her for erecting them, I'm blaming her for cutting their communities wholly adrift from the rest of the country who were making hay in the 1980s
Marc wrote: "I'm not blaming her for erecting them, I'm blaming her for cutting their communities wholly adrift from the rest of the country who were making hay in the 1980s"They were adrift when they were built, Marc. They were completely disenfranchised by the Urban Renewal Programme put in place by the 1945 Labour government. The communities were chopped up and separated into ghettos, where no one knew anyone and were too separated to create a new community.
that is true, but economically they were cut adrift in the 1980s and educationally many of their schools were regarded as little more than holding pens as a matter of Tory policy. labour certainly set up the conditions for condemning these communities to misery, but the Tories followed it through to its culmination, through an ideological drive to enrich those in the next economic strata up. Don't forget, this was the first Tory assault on the Welfare State, which whether one credits has significant economic aims, undoubtedly also has ideological ones. I don't expect you to agree for one moment with George Monbiot's piece and even I would say it is a little blinkered as to omitting other currents and developments, but there is also some truth to it.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisf...
I think one thing which did cut the sink estates adrift was the abolition of the grammar school. I went to the traditional red brick northern grammar school and it took a lot of lads from financially poor backgrounds and gave them a chance they would never have had.I think another problem which has increased during my lifetime is that there just aren't the jobs for those who aren't the brightest.
I can remember the bin lorry coming round. It had four or five lads on the back who were varying stages of ESN, a driver and a foreman who were there to keep things moving. But they all earned a wage, maintained a home and were proudly independent.
I can also remember an attitude that prevailed in teachers that agriculture was the dumping ground for those who weren't up to education. It might have been in the 1920s but that stopped in the 1950s
I can't let some things go without comment but don't you think the change in people's attitudes have a lot to do with it. 'I want - so it's my right to have' is the attitude of so many. I must have been brought up in an inner city slum. I didn't know that at the time as everyone I knew lived there and no one banged on about being deprived. Both my parents worked as did all the neighbours, child care being sorted between families on a casual basis. I had an aunt next door and a great aunt next door but one. We had an outside toilet, tin bath, coal fires etc. the house was rented. My mother would have thought she'd have died and gone to heaven if she'd had an indoor bathroom, hot and cold running water etc, and a new build like the sink estates take for granted. She had pride and a sense of duty and our home was clean, tidy and well kept. I went to grammar school, it's only now as an adult I realise that I was so fortunate. It's not the housing and conditions that make places a sink estate, it's the people. My parents house was condemned in the 1970s just after I'd left home and married. They were rehoused in a brand new council estate which was lovely for about twenty years. Now it's bandit country.
And there you have it in a nutshell, Lynne. Destroy the social cohesion and the resulting loss of community means that there is no check on antisocial behaviour.The left wing drove out grammar schools because their dogma said that everyone should have the same education, but instead of bringing all schools up to grammar school standards it was easier to bring schools down to the lowest common denominator.
As a result, those living on these destroyed estates lost the escape route that a good education gave. Some, of course, were always destined to escape, but many lost that lifeline.
JC's speech. It explains why we so need him as PM. We may now bring some decency back into the Uk after Blair and Cameron.http://www.theguardian.com/commentisf...
Sounds all very well and good, Will. Throw money at all the problems we have without any regard for paying back, including the interest. PFI alone will swallow huge amounts of money that has built up since Gordon Brown devised it as a way of hiding expenditure. The only way PFI will go away is if the companies who are profiting have their mouths stuffed with gold. If the UK signs up to the DPIT agreement, something I'm vehemently against, then foreign companies will be able to sue the UK government if they feel they haven't been sufficiently compensated.
At the moment the discussion round here is about our MP, John Woodcock. He was Liz Kendall's campaign manager and back in his constituency, he managed to cling on to his seat by promising that he'd fight for Trident, and should he get ministerial office, he'd resign rather than be forced to vote to scrap it.People are wondering whether he'll wait to see if boundary changes mean he has to go for another seat
Will we see another night of the rubber knives? A shambolic plot to oust Corbyn from the Blairite elements? It would be funny if it happened.
They'll try for sure. Maybe not for a couple of weeks
The problem they have, and they didn't expect, was the overwhelming majority he got. It kind of scuppers the coup idea stone dead.Had he won by a slim majority, or had to rely solely on the £3 voters, there might, just might, have been grounds for crying foul, but there's no chance now.
in the naked lust for power that is politics, or the fear of oblivion that can also drive it, never underestimate the craven attitudes of political animals to act in their own interests and fly in the face of any democratic mandate.Did Heseltine have a popular mandate to stab Thatcher in the back? Did Owen & Williams have a popular mandate to leave the Labour Party and set up their own new one?
As I was driving home on Friday afternoon I heard some of the radio programme 'More or Less' They were discussing whether it was possible for a left wing party to win just by mobilising the non-voters.
They looked at various examples, (Obama for example.) In the US you can do it if you target districts and use their votes to swing larger areas.
In the UK the problem for somebody like Corbyn is that firstly, the opinions of non-voters and voters when asked various questions about NHS or war in Syria or whatever, are pretty much the same. There are few burning issues that will bring non-voters out.
The second major problem for Corbyn is that potentially labour non-voters live in Labour seats anyway. (Which might be why they don't bother to vote. Their chap gets in with a 20,000 majority as it it.)
So the feeling was that whilst Corbyn should be pretty good at stopping any further labour losses because he'll bring them all out (and had he been leader they might not have lost Scotland, indeed it'll be interesting seeing what does happen in Scotland with Corbyn as Labour leader. Will he drive the SNP to the left? Or will they shift to the centre ground, or wil he split the vote and let the other parties in?) he isn't going to bring out the vote in the predominantly middle class swing seats.
Now it might be that he will galvanise the middle classes against austerity, but frankly talking to people in this town, austerity is something every working class family can understand If you haven't got it, you don't spend it. Also, if you want it, work for it. So just being against austerity isn't going to be enough. He's going to have to tap into their aspirations. They want their kids to have decent homes, and having been brought up in council housing, they tend to want their kids to own their own homes.
They want their kids to have decent education but talking to people, they don't demand that this decent education is delivered in council schools. For example in this area the Labour party is remembered for the way it (allied to the libdems) forced us into an academy system so they could sell off land for housing
So I think Corbyn's biggest problem is going to be connecting to the electorate and getting them enthusiastic about his programme.
"So the feeling was that whilst Corbyn should be pretty good at stopping any further labour losses because he'll bring them all out (and had he been leader they might not have lost Scotland, indeed it'll be interesting seeing what does happen in Scotland with Corbyn as Labour leader. Will he drive the SNP to the left? Or will they shift to the centre ground, or wil he split the vote and let the other parties in?) he isn't going to bring out the vote in the predominantly middle class swing seats."Corbyn's support for extra devolution is non-existent, his knowledge of Scotland, by his own admission, is threadbare, and Labour's leader in Scotland is somebody who thought that Corbyn's selection as leader would be a disaster...
The Labour party machine in Scotland is on life-support, and short term, it's a dead cert for another SNP landslide in May 2016.
Long term? Will Corbyn even get a long term?
Marc wrote: "They'll try for sure. Maybe not for a couple of weeks"You always laugh at my football predictions, but I'll lay long odds that even as I type this, some sort of anti-Corbyn group is being organised in Liz Kendall's kitchen!
Blairites will know that Corbyn is popular at the moment, and thus untouchable, but they will begin the slow drip drip of leaks to the right-wing press, and counter-briefings to undermine him.
They probably plan on making him look weak, paint him as a leader unable to control the party, and will look to oust him in 18-24 months, thus giving them time to plan for the 2020 GE.
If I were a Blairite, that's the strategy I would adopt.
Liz Kendall needs 2 kitchens as any aspirant PM does as shown in the last election campaign. Besides she'll need more space to fit all those backstabbers into Corbyn as they line up.Labour is pretty much finished as a serious electable force. Corbyn or any of the other 3 wouldn't have changed that. As jim says, without scotland, Labour can never have a majority again and they will remain without Scotland, be it through independence, or a continual SNP majority until independence is secured.
BTW RMF when Scotland does go independent, England will be charging you Scots double to watch some decent football be it Championship or Premiership. That's just business, no mates-rates
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