Jeremy Corbyn - Not Not Labour Party(?), not a Communist (BBC)

Labour have fecked up, pure and simple. No amount of positive PR in the next few years is going to get rid of their image as a bunch of moaning Guardian* posters who no longer have to shout into a megaphone on a soapbox because someone has given them a tie clip microphone to wear on Newsnight instead. They'll become completely unelectable if their ministers continue to spout shite like this in a preachy manner.

We all know that David Cameron and George Osborne are two of the biggest wankers on the planet who would piss on a poor man when he was on fire because it's funny, then promptly set them back on fire again before privatising the fire and selling it to a rich mate who ultimately sends the grieving family a bill for said fire. But do you know why they get elected? Because they're not stupid when it comes to public image. They know that if they were to shout "feck the proles" they wouldn't stand a chance in the next election, so they keep their mouths shut.

Labour's problem with Ed was that they were too weak and too quiet. As soon as the Tories started with their "the mess we inherited" and talking up their own economic competence the Labour Party should have been all over that shit trying to put the record straight. They should have held up the increasing debt under Osborne and called him a fecking liar, but they didn't say anything because they were too afraid to even mention the economy. Instead the played the safe game and only talked about thing that the polls said they looked strong on already and it killed them. Now they've gone to a completely different extreme and I'm worried that it's going to end much in the same way that it did for Ed. They need to find the balance between tackling the issues and keeping their personal opinions to a minimum.

* I'm a Guardian poster so I can confirm that we are a bunch of preachy wankers.
 
Unfortunately the ship might have sailed on the perceived responsibility for the UK's performance in the recession, as it's ingrained into the public's perception now.

There was some economic blog I was reading a while back that illustrated this with a video of Question Time or something similar where a Labour representative that was asked to admit responsibility for the recession or something similarly ludicrous, and when he responded in the negative there was an audible gasp across the studio audience. That is the narrative now and it may be too late to change.
 
Ubik said:
Exactly what was said about Ed. For five years. It's fantasy.
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I'm not saying with confidence it'll improve, only that it's absurd to look at those figures now given the nature of the media reporting and that's all that the public at large know of him.

Ed had no backbone and conviction to his ideas so it wasn't suprising no one was convinced.

I expect it'll be a mixed bag with Corbyn with some of his policies gaining a suprising amount of public support and some biting him in the arse for being too unpalatable to the media.
 
Let's just hope Jeremy can eat a sandwich gracefully.
 
Mr Pigeon said:
* I'm a Guardian poster so I can confirm that we are a bunch of preachy wankers.
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I'm a Guardian poster too, and I don't feel there are enough women represented in your post.
 
Guy said:
Unfortunately the ship might have sailed on the perceived responsibility for the UK's performance in the recession, as it's ingrained into the public's perception now.

There was some economic blog I was reading a while back that illustrated this with a video of Question Time or something similar where a Labour representative that was asked to admit responsibility for the recession or something similarly ludicrous, and when he responded in the negative there was an audible gasp across the studio audience. That is the narrative now and it may be too late to change.
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I hate any political play that makes the public less informed. Too many tory MPs and tory voters happily spouted this nonsense in full knowledge of it being so.

While Labour were too nice and scared of causing offense. If these questiins had been challenged early then the narrative wouldn't have been set. The question should have been turned back around and justifications for such beliefs asked and I don't think it's too late to do so at all.
 
Smores said:
I'm not saying with confidence it'll improve, only that it's absurd to look at those figures now given the nature of the media reporting and that's all that the public at large know of him.

Ed had no backbone and conviction to his ideas so it wasn't suprising no one was convinced.

I expect it'll be a mixed bag with Corbyn with some of his policies gaining a suprising amount of public support and some biting him in the arse for being too unpalatable to the media.
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Why's it always the media's fault when the public don't like his ideas? That or Labour MPs that don't like him, they seem to be the two most common reasons given. Never seems to be Corbyn potentially being wrong.
 
Shamwow said:
That's unexpected been positivity and popularity among Labour members. A lot of people outside of those circles don't know who he is or what he stands for outside of newspaper front page headlines.
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But given that the traditional media is the way the vast majority of people learn about politicians and their policies, if Corbyn isn't able to gain support among the press, how will he ever make headway?

After all Corbyn isnt just trying to tell people the party has changed. He's trying to turn their minds 180 degrees on strongly held opinions like the benefits, immigration, public spending etc. You need a vehicle for doing that. It's evident that the majority of the papers hate him, and the feelings mutual.

Imo you need to be a really strong communicator with the ability to get sympathy from key parts of the right wing press to even get your foot in the door in this country. Then when it's in, you can make the argument. I don't think Corbyn has that in his locker so I struggle to see how he'll get his arguments heard, never mind actually winning them.
 
Ubik said:
Why's it always the media's fault when the public don't like his ideas? That or Labour MPs that don't like him, they seem to be the two most common reasons given. Never seems to be Corbyn potentially being wrong.
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If you want to believe the public are fully informed of his policies and are in no way led by media reporting feel free.

Not much debate to be had here .
 
bishblaize said:
But given that the traditional media is the way the vast majority of people learn about politicians and their policies, if Corbyn isn't able to gain support among the press, how will he ever make headway?

After all Corbyn isnt just trying to tell people the party has changed. He's trying to turn their minds 180 degrees on strongly held opinions like the benefits, immigration, public spending etc. You need a vehicle for doing that. It's evident that the majority of the papers hate him, and the feelings mutual.

Imo you need to be a really strong communicator with the ability to get sympathy from key parts of the right wing press to even get your foot in the door in this country. Then when it's in, you can make the argument. I don't think Corbyn has that in his locker so I struggle to see how he'll get his arguments heard, never mind actually winning them.
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I agree. You need to win the people over before you start trying to get them to completely u-turn.

Sadly Labour don't seem to have it in them and won't for the foreseeable future.
 
Guy said:
Unfortunately the ship might have sailed on the perceived responsibility for the UK's performance in the recession, as it's ingrained into the public's perception now.

There was some economic blog I was reading a while back that illustrated this with a video of Question Time or something similar where a Labour representative that was asked to admit responsibility for the recession or something similarly ludicrous, and when he responded in the negative there was an audible gasp across the studio audience. That is the narrative now and it may be too late to change.
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That happened in the leadership debate with MilliE, I could see what he was trying to do but he didn't communicate his point well at all, and he'd left it too late.

Finding ways to encourage people to eat less meat is
Mr Pigeon said:
We all know that David Cameron and George Osborne are two of the biggest wankers on the planet who would piss on a poor man when he was on fire because it's funny, then promptly set them back on fire again before privatising the fire and selling it to a rich mate who ultimately sends the grieving family a bill for said fire.
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Now THAT sounds like a good way to earn a living.
 
Nick 0208 Ldn said:
The telegraph article on the vegan shadow minister
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She should never have said it out loud. It's a huge driver of climate change and responsible for a lot of antibiotic resistance but the farmers lobby, the press, and most importantly, public unpopularity means this cannot ever be discussed by a serious political party.

IMO the way to do anything about this this is covertly- increase red tape and inspections (I don't think it will be hard to find violations in meat farming), increase taxes as part of a wider carbon tax, and ask doctors to front a campaign about antibiotic resistance. Of course any of those things can only be done once you're in power.
 
Adebesi said:
That happened in the leadership debate with MilliE, I could see what he was trying to do but he didn't communicate his point well at all, and he'd left it too late.

Finding ways to encourage people to eat less meat is

Now THAT sounds like a good way to earn a living.
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Ed's answer there was when he was asked if Labour had spent too much whilst in office from memory. The problem Labour had was in coupling that question with blame for the crash. You can say yes to the spending question whilst still also mounting a robust (and correct) denial that your actions had anything to do with a global crash. The public had made its mind up that Labour had spent too much - you're never going to convince them otherwise on this. The trouble now is they've spent so long denying it, to an aghast general public, that the denial of culpability for the crash is now looked upon with suspicion too, and that was an argument much easier to win. Corbyn is going to make this worse.
 
I think that poll is pretty good for Corbyn, better than I was expecting. Hardly a damning indictment or anything -- Cameron looks like he's on soft ground.
 
Sir Matt said:
In the way that Corbyn can literally do no wrong for some and it's all just the media's fault! He'll come good.
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And the media can do no wrong for others.

Somewhere in the middle lies the truth.
 
SteveJ said:
Interesting stuff:

The Corbyn earthquake – how Labour was shaken to its foundations
The inside story – from the candidates and advisers – of how Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership campaign delivered the political shock of a generation ~

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/sep/25/jeremy-corbyn-earthquake-labour-party
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Just shouting ever louder at his supporters ‘Are you mad?’ was not going to win votes.”
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That sums it up really.
 
Mandelson probably got it right today when he said it's going to have to be a practical demonstration of that madness to set things straight again, as well as a fairly speedy renewal in both ideas and arguments from the moderates.
 
Mciahel Goodman said:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/pol...ever-to-score-negative-debut-poll-rating.html

Take a look at the comparison graph between Cameron and Corbyn. Cameron wins on Being good in a crisis, and Capable leader (wins both by virtue of being PM, fwiw). Corbyn either wins the rest or it's tied. Those are pretty good numbers.
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To re-use the chart I posted earlier, they're essentially the same numbers that Ed had:

CPqxdg4WgAAY1LN.png


So to be blunt, they're pretty terrible numbers.
 
Ubik said:
To re-use the chart I posted earlier, they're essentially the same numbers that Ed had:

CPqxdg4WgAAY1LN.png


So to be blunt, they're pretty terrible numbers.
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I disagree, there are key differences. The personality statistics for a start, happens to be a very important one. Corbyn beats Miliband by twice as much and ties the PM. The numbers could obviously be better, but after the press onslaught I was really expecting far worse. I think his numbers will improve over the next few months.
 
Mciahel Goodman said:
I disagree, there are key differences. The personality statistics for a start, happens to be a very important one. Corbyn beats Miliband by twice as much and ties the PM. The numbers could obviously be better, but after the press onslaught I was really expecting far worse. I think his numbers will improve over the next few months.
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I admire your optimism bud :D
 
Ubik said:
I admire your optimism bud :D
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:lol:

Seriously though, a lot can happen in politics. Piggate was a sideshow but a controversy with proper legs on it, like cash for honours or something like that, and things can change very quickly.
 
SteveJ said:
Interesting stuff:

The Corbyn earthquake – how Labour was shaken to its foundations
The inside story – from the candidates and advisers – of how Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership campaign delivered the political shock of a generation ~

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/sep/25/jeremy-corbyn-earthquake-labour-party
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Good read that. Seems like all of them were more concerned with how they could scheme and manoeuvre themselves into a winning position and you get the impression that they'd have said or done anything to make that happen. Say what you want about Corbyn but at least he seems to believe in something unlike the rest of them.
 
To those who know the actual issues better than me, how left wing are the more ' established' Labour MPs?
From what I've seen, it almost seems as if any left wing party in Britain has to be basically be Conservative-lite as British people (Guardian aside) are innately conservative. That's mildly depressing.
 
Sadly, Labour were unelectable under Milliband and have now done the seemingly impossible and replaced him with a Leader who is even more unelectable. Tories must be laughing themselves to sleep at the moment.
 
Tyrion said:
To those who know the actual issues better than me, how left wing are the more ' established' Labour MPs?
From what I've seen, it almost seems as if any left wing party in Britain has to be basically be Conservative-lite as British people (Guardian aside) are innately conservative. That's mildly depressing.
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The established Labour MPs, as in the Blairites, are centrist. The most right wing Labour MPs are the likes of Kendall and Umunna.
 
Tyrion said:
To those who know the actual issues better than me, how left wing are the more ' established' Labour MPs?
From what I've seen, it almost seems as if any left wing party in Britain has to be basically be Conservative-lite as British people (Guardian aside) are innately conservative. That's mildly depressing.
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Depends entirely how you define "leftwing" and "established". You can probably count on two hands the number of MPs who would like mass-renationalisations, unilateral disarmament and 70%+ tax rates. The problem with defining "established" is that that hard-left are now in control of the party, so it's hard not to call them established. The vast bulk of the parliamentary party though is centre-left, pro-redistribution but also pro-market.

And the Guardian are now classed as Tories, because they don't like Corbyn.
 
Sparky Rhiwabon said:
Sadly, Labour were unelectable under Milliband and have now done the seemingly impossible and replaced him with a Leader who is even more unelectable. Tories must be laughing themselves to sleep at the moment.
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Care to expand upon the meaningless daily mail headline. Do you think he himself is unellectable or one or his policies will be unpopular?

In the short term Corbyn will pose the Tories far more issue than Milliband ever did in opposition.

Long term will depend on the economy and by that I mean public perception of the economy. Osborne won't be anywhere near as popular as Cameron either so it won't be a walk over. Corbyn and Osborne wouldn't be a great prospect to chose between for the centrists.
 
Sparky Rhiwabon said:
Sadly, Labour were unelectable under Milliband and have now done the seemingly impossible and replaced him with a Leader who is even more unelectable. Tories must be laughing themselves to sleep at the moment.
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Hope they are.Because they could be in for a rude awakening.
 
Smores said:
In the short term Corbyn will pose the Tories far more issue than Milliband ever did in opposition.
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I heard this a lot during the election, but I still don't follow why people think this. In what way will Corbyn be a more difficult leader to deal with than Miliband was?
 
bishblaize said:
I heard this a lot during the election, but I still don't follow why people think this. In what way will Corbyn be a more difficult leader to deal with than Miliband was?
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Milliband looked about 12 years old and had a silly voice whereas Corbyn looks about 72 years old and has a less silly voice.
 
bishblaize said:
I heard this a lot during the election, but I still don't follow why people think this. In what way will Corbyn be a more difficult leader to deal with than Miliband was?
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In fairness I can see the seeds of the argument - that Corbyn is likelier to stick true to his ideals rather than water them down, and may therefore seem more genuine and forceful in his arguments. Where it falls down of course is that the arguments he'll forcefully put forward will go down like a lead balloon. I can see his popularity raising whilst the public think his straightforward, unspun style is refreshing, before quickly diving down when they hear what he's saying.
 
Ubik said:
In fairness I can see the seeds of the argument - that Corbyn is likelier to stick true to his ideals rather than water them down, and may therefore seem more genuine and forceful in his arguments. Where it falls down of course is that the arguments he'll forcefully put forward will go down like a lead balloon. I can see his popularity raising whilst the public think his straightforward, unspun style is refreshing, before quickly diving down when they hear what he's saying.
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I'm sure things like housing investment and rent controls will go down quite well people, the question is weather policies like that will appeal to many constituencies. Could easily be that policies like that will be more popular in another election when there's even more people in dire housing situations.
 
Smores said:
Care to expand upon the meaningless daily mail headline. Do you think he himself is unellectable or one or his policies will be unpopular?

In the short term Corbyn will pose the Tories far more issue than Milliband ever did in opposition.

Long term will depend on the economy and by that I mean public perception of the economy. Osborne won't be anywhere near as popular as Cameron either so it won't be a walk over. Corbyn and Osborne wouldn't be a great prospect to chose between for the centrists.
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He himself. Not a "trendy" enough person like Obama, Blair, Cameron, etc and too left wing politics-wise. Shame cos the Tories are hateful.
 
Silva said:
I'm sure things like housing investment and rent controls will go down quite well people, the question is weather policies like that will appeal to many constituencies. Could easily be that policies like that will be more popular in another election when there's even more people in dire housing situations.
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Whilst we've heard some details about rent controls, there's been very little in the way of radical changes to general housing policy. Any politician can say they would like to build more homes (all of them do just that), implementation is the wrinkle. And with his preference for mass unmanaged immigration, there is i would suggest a certain inconsistency to his argument.
 
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