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

bishblaize said:
Unfortunately for people like me in Labour, we have a problem. The Corbyistas have been so successful in poisoning the centre ground that any school of thought that sits there is Tory-lite and therefore not even as good as the Tories. I'm still firmly from the Anthony Giddens school of political thinking, which is the dominant ideology of the right of the Labour Party, but has been so denigrated by the left that it now apparently doesn't even count as an ideology at all!

Of course the irony is that Corbyn is far from a deep thinker himself. If you read or listen to Tony Benn, he was genuinely reimagining the left of the party as his thinking progressed during the 70s. Corbyn on the other hand merely repeats received wisdom, with no real personal insight added.

Anyway, the regular changing of policy was only the fault of Ed Miliband, not any wing of the party. He took the decision to go for one last heave in 2010 and try and quickly get back in power. Not unreasonable given the unpopularity of the coalition, but wrong in retrospect. He should have taken that moment to develop Labour thinking, but missed the opportunity. It was also his fault to leave so soon before our policy work was completed, which meant that when people like Cruddas came out with superb pieces of work about understanding Labour's long term problems and separation from its core vote, it was too late to take them into account.



Here's the problem with that argument.

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http://www.newstatesman.com/politic...ing-data-shows-challenge-facing-jeremy-corbyn
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I get that there are a lot of attacks on the more right-leaning members of the party, but the problem is that there's a substantial portion of the membership who clearly still see Labour as a party who should be leaning towards a more socialist outlook, and are pissed off at the extent to which the party has largely changed.

I think you make a good point that a lot of people are projecting what they want Corbyn to be onto him - he's clearly a decent, honest man, but I do think he's a little bit uninspiring and looks a bit lost in the leadership position. Still, you could argue it'd be helpful if those who weren't sold on him actually gave him a chance, instead of constantly leering for an opportunity to get rid.

I feel like you're a little bit harsh on Miliband. As much as Labour had been successful before him, the Blair era was clearly over and had a bit of a bad taste to it. The party had to be reinvigorated, but there was no real sense of what had to be done - Miliband made an effort, but was a fairly weak leader. I'm not sure a lot of others from his sort of position would've done a much better job at changing the party, though.

I think the figures on Corbyn supporters vs other Labour supporters just further highlight the berth within the party. This is a party with massive ideological differences, and I struggle to see how it can function as one. If the argument to just plodding along is that, "Yeah, but everyone sticking together is the best way to get rid of the Tories.", then that only further highlights my point that Labour basically exists as a party to oppose the Tories, instead of in their own right.
 
Shamwow said:
I swear if an opinion poll told you to walk off a cliff you'd do it.

I'm well aware that the general public does not currently seem to be aligned with Corbyn's views. We currently have a Conservative majority government.

That doesn't mean that those in Labour who don't consider themselves left wing can look to marginalise 60% of the membership. Especially not with underhand tactics as we have seen.

My point was - use the 60% as a starting point. If it can't respect its own members who voted for it then frankly I don't see how the public should be expected to trust it. Then the party should look at where it should compromise in order to make its platform more desirable to the general public. Some of this will be changing policies, some simply how those policies are marketed.

It just seems like many in the PLP are sticking their fingers in their ears, screaming, and refusing to play along. It's not constructive in any way, shape, or form.
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Yeah, evidence, who needs it, right? Anyway, I'd have thought the point fairly obvious. Labour needs around 10M votes at the next election. Building the party around 250,000 people who are unrepresentative of that group of people is unlikely to be successful.

Cheesy said:
If the argument to just plodding along is that, "Yeah, but everyone sticking together is the best way to get rid of the Tories.", then that only further highlights my point that Labour basically exists as a party to oppose the Tories, instead of in their own right.
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This gets down to the nub of it of course. There are broadly speaking two points of view here. That the party should represent its people regardless of whether that makes them popular enough to get into Government or not. Or that the party is a vehicle for putting a left wing Government into place and if it could never do that it may as well not exist.

That said, I would point to the origins of the Labour Party here. The party coalesced out of all sorts of different groups - Unions, Fabians, Liberals, methodist christian socialists, (proper) socialists and various other community groups. They had a wide range of views between them and there were areas of distinct disagreement. But they came together because there was no other way to get their views heard in Government.

I see no reason that the party should split simply because they have contrasting motivations for their actions, if their goals are the same. Of course if groups within the party end up with different ends, not just means, then cooperation perhaps becomes impossible.
 
bishblaize said:
Yeah, evidence, who needs it, right? Anyway, I'd have thought the point fairly obvious. Labour needs around 10M votes at the next election. Building the party around 250,000 people who are unrepresentative of that group of people is unlikely to be successful.
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You can't not build the party around its membership. Without the membership there is no Labour party and the membership made a decision in September that should be respected by the PLP. You especially shouldn't feck them around with underhand tactics.
 
If those opposed to Corbyn within the membership and PLP stopped stamping their feet like a moody teenager they might release they've only been distracting from the suffering caused by the Tories.

There's a lot of common ground but they don't want Corbyn in 2020 so they're not willing to find it.
 
Smores said:
If those opposed to Corbyn within the membership and PLP stopped stamping their feet like a moody teenager they might release they've only been distracting from the suffering caused by the Tories.

There's a lot of common ground but they don't want Corbyn in 2020 so they're not willing to find it.
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Exactly. Many are behaving like spoiled children and it doesn't reflect well on anyone within Labour.
 
Shamwow said:
Exactly. Many are behaving like spoiled children and it doesn't reflect well on anyone within Labour.
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Well Corbyn is unelectable apparently, so the only solution is to undermine him and antagonise the 60% of Labour members who voted him in, because THAT's going to win them the election.

If only they still had that wizard Mandelson.
 
Smores said:
If those opposed to Corbyn within the membership and PLP stopped stamping their feet like a moody teenager they might release they've only been distracting from the suffering caused by the Tories.

There's a lot of common ground but they don't want Corbyn in 2020 so they're not willing to find it.
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Some of us spend all day mopping up the shit that the tories drop on society. I see every day the godawful impact of their policies. And it's precisely because of that that I want corbyn replaced with someone who can win an election and get them out.
 
bishblaize said:
Some of us spend all day mopping up the shit that the tories drop on society. I see every day the godawful impact of their policies. And it's precisely because of that that I want corbyn replaced with someone who can win an election and get them out.
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By any means necessary it seems.
 
Cheesy said:
You've got a point, but the problem is that a lot of these are sort of general ideas that even parties outside of Labour generally follow. Any government will generally pride itself in strong public services (even the Tories will at least try to create the perception they care), the links between the trade union and upper echelons of the party seem quite tenuous when you consider the variance in views on Corbyn, and equality of opportunity is generally going to be promoted by any party who realistically wants to be in government.

Of course the electorate have to like policy - otherwise a party isn't going to get elected. But at the same time, a party should be able to convince the electorate that their policies are the best, and that they're the most worthy of being voted for. Not just change them about every time it looks like they're vaguely unpopular, as Labour have often been doing in recent times. That doesn't mean a party can't change policy. Views evolve, and I'm not expecting that the Labour party be an exact replica of their old socialist ones. But I do expect it to be one which has a core ideology, and that core ideology comes across primarily. If a party is saying, "Who's the most electable?", as opposed to, "Who is genuinely the leader that best suits the party?", then they can end up becoming an irrelevance because they merely exist to be in government ahead of whoever they're against, instead of actually being a party who want to get into power because they feel their policies best suit the nation.

Of course, I do get that you and many others did believe in candidates other than Corbyn, but one of the central problems I saw with Labour was that many simply didn't like Corbyn because they didn't feel he'd get into power. For some, it wasn't about policy, but instead about who's just the most likely to get elected. And that can work occasionally in a pragmatic sense, but it eventually becomes tiring because the electorate see right through it.
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Of course other parties can follow them too, I regard that as a mark of a successful party ideology. Just like Tories aren't the only ones that stake claims in a strong economy and strong defence. That the Tories now have to impress their egalitarian and public service credentials is testament to the power of the public and also Labour's ability to force change.

My fear with Corbyn wasn't that he'd simply fail to get into power, it's that he would guarantee a further 15 years of a Tory government by doing so badly. Others may vary, but I found that a fairly stomach churning idea.

As Bish said above, the so called "third way" became as popular as it did for a reason - it worked. Across the globe.
 
Milne is one of the Guardian's better columnists. His work over the years dwarfs the tripe that the Torygraph have been spewing out in recent months.
 
bishblaize said:
Some of us spend all day mopping up the shit that the tories drop on society. I see every day the godawful impact of their policies. And it's precisely because of that that I want corbyn replaced with someone who can win an election and get them out.
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And you had your vote on who the best person for that was, the membership disagreed.

I find it funny that those who have been preaching electability the most are the ones doing their best to make sure Corbyn isn't seen as electable.

The truth is some still think there's time to get their chosen candidate and they're happy to taint the water to get it regardless of how that effects the Labour party. I'm not sure how anyone can so easily side with that and still have the reasoning to call for electability.

If the centrists focused on working with Corbyn reigning him into a more electable position they'd have someone with a front of authenticity at least
 
Smores said:
And you had your vote on who the best person for that was, the membership disagreed.

I find it funny that those who have been preaching electability the most are the ones doing their best to make sure Corbyn isn't seen as electable.

The truth is some still think there's time to get their chosen candidate and they're happy to taint the water to get it regardless of how that effects the Labour party. I'm not sure how anyone can so easily side with that and still have the reasoning to call for electability.

If the centrists focused on working with Corbyn reigning him into a more electable position they'd have someone with a front of authenticity at least
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And this is why we need two separate, honest, parties.
 
Agree. I think the split is necessary and have done since it became clear how much support Corbyn was getting, in the leadership contest. There is too little in common between the membership of the party and the MP's.

Personally, what I would want to happen is a lot of the leftist membership turning to the Greens. Resulting in them becoming a more serious party that actually tries to come up with serious plans, rather than just being a vocal opposition to government policy.
 
Is there a Pmq's today
Will be interesting to see if Corbyn addresses Hinckley / nuclear / Chinese funding... Swampy wants know why keeping the lights on warrants moving a family of badgers?
 
712 said:
And this is why we need two separate, honest, parties.
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Personally I think even under PR that would be a disaster.

The party should be capable of being inclusive to a wide range of views to unite against the tories. However at the moment some only see that as possible under a plastic centrist leader.

What I don't have any time for is the thinking that the party should be an empty vessel parroting public opinion. That relies far too heavily on the Tory party electability rather than any kind of vision from the Labour party itself. Sod the balancing act with the daily mail crowd. If you buy into it you're just reinforcing the narrative and they've already made that mistake with the economy.
 
DiseaseOfTheAge said:
Agree. I think the split is necessary and have done since it became clear how much support Corbyn was getting, in the leadership contest. There is too little in common between the membership of the party and the MP's.

Personally, what I would want to happen is a lot of the leftist membership turning to the Greens. Resulting in them becoming a more serious party that actually tries to come up with serious plans, rather than just being a vocal opposition to government policy.
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I think there's a few factors which make the Greens unsuitable as a vehicle for the left.

Whilst they are de facto a socialist party, their roots aren't in the labour movement. That map which overlays the coal fields and Labour constits at the 2015 election demonstrates how important the association with unionism still is to Labour's core vote. Whilst some active members might switch over to the Greens, the bulk of the party's vote will likely stay Labour as it has over the last 30 years.

It may seem superficial, but there's a lot in a name. Personally I'm all for my socialism being environmentally-friendly, but social and economic justice come first, and that's not the message calling your party the Green Party sends. On the doorstep in traditional Labour communities the Greens are either mistaken for Greenpeace or seen as a bunch of well meaning but out-of-touch middle class folks and hippies, not as a serious party which offers something to the worker. Whether that's fair or not (I can see arguments for both points of view, having once interned for the Greens and attended conference), it's an association which I'm not sure can be broken.
 
Smores said:
Personally I think even under PR that would be a disaster.

The party should be capable of being inclusive to a wide range of views to unite against the tories. However at the moment some only see that as possible under a plastic centrist leader.

What I don't have any time for is the thinking that the party should be an empty vessel parroting public opinion. That relies far too heavily on the Tory party electability rather than any kind of vision from the Labour party itself. Sod the balancing act with the daily mail crowd. If you buy into it you're just reinforcing the narrative and they've already made that mistake with the economy.
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I get that Corbyn et al need the votes of the Labour right, and indeed centrists outside Labour, but you're not going to get them by name-calling. The plastic, daily mail and tory-lite jibes are only reinforcing the divisions within Labour, not helping to remove them.
 
This the Rooney thread of the CE; full of wishful thinking. For 'Any minute now, Wayne's going to return to being world-class...' read 'Any minute now, Corbyn's going to be ousted'.
 
Drifter said:
Another no mark peer resigns.
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Unless Corbyn can get his act together it'll be "another no-mark leader resigns".

I was just listening to this week's Politics Weekly epi, and even its panel didn't feel that Corbyn was deserving of much acclaim for the present tax credit situation. Rather, it is the Sun newspaper's work which should be recognised in this instance.
 
Yes, The Sun is always on the side of working people.



:D
 
SteveJ said:
This the Rooney thread of the CE; full of wishful thinking. For 'Any minute now, Wayne's going to return to being world-class...' read 'Any minute now, Corbyn's going to be ousted'.
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Isn't the equivalent school of thought that 'any minute now, Corbyn's going to gain electoral legitimacy'? :(
 
ThierryHenry said:
Isn't the equivalent school of thought that 'any minute now, Corbyn's going to gain electoral legitimacy'? :(
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:lol: Or 'Any minute now, Ruthless van Gaal is going to drop Waned Rooney...'
 
Just looked up this peer and he as not voted since 2013 and as not spoken in the house since 2011 but still picks up a cool cheque of 1.3 m for expenses. Good riddance.
 
Drifter said:
Just looked up this peer and he as not voted since 2013 and as not spoken in the house since 2011 but still picks up a cool cheque of 1.3 m for expenses. Good riddance.
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He's still (not) doing all of those things, he's just resigned the Labour whip, which means very very little.
 
Drifter said:
Just looked up this peer and he as not voted since 2013 and as not spoken in the house since 2011 but still picks up a cool cheque of 1.3 m for expenses. Good riddance.
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1.3 million expenses??? How is that even possible?
 
Might as well be an article in the Onion: 'Unelected, unaccountable peer denounces elected MP as "unelectable"'
 
Drifter said:
Just looked up this peer and he as not voted since 2013 and as not spoken in the house since 2011 but still picks up a cool cheque of 1.3 m for expenses. Good riddance.
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£1.3M was the total cost of peers that didnt speak in the house last year, not for each peer.
 
It's not so much the individuals I worry about, it's that they might represent the feeling of actual voters. A big concern is that when Milne starts having an effect on what Labour comes out with, these drips will turn into a bit of a flood.
 
Oh well, that's my faith in Jeremy reaffirmed:


Corbyn's a humourless joke, says writer Martin Amis

Martin Amis has described Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as "a joke" and said he would leave Labour "undeserving of a single vote".

In a highly critical article for the Sunday Times, Money author Amis said the Islington North MP was a "fluky beneficiary of a drastic elevation".

His intervention comes as Mr Corbyn faces challenges from within his party, as a Labour MP said he would try to oust him as leader if the party flopped in May's devolved and local elections.

Amis, who said he spent his 20s "close to the epicentre of the Corbyn milieu" while at the New Statesman, also called Mr Corbyn "humourless".

The 66 year old, son of late author Sir Kingsley Amis, said: "Many journalists have remarked on this, usually in a tone of wry indulgence. In fact it is an extremely grave accusation, imputing as it does a want of elementary nous. To put it crassly, the humourless man is a joke - and a joke he will never get."

"He is undereducated. Which is one way of putting it. His schooling dried up when he was 18, at which point he had two E-grade A-levels to his name; he started a course at North London Polytechnic, true, where he immersed himself in trade union studies, but dropped out after a year. And that was that.

"In general, his intellectual CV gives an impression of slow-minded rigidity; and he seems essentially incurious about anything beyond his immediate sphere."

Mr Corbyn was "without the slightest grasp of the national character", he added, saying the opposition leader's proposal to leave Nato would "paralyse" the special relationship between the UK and US.

The Booker Prize winner* also said Mr Corbyn was "obviously unelectable" and predicted Labour could become a "leftist equivalent to the American GOP (Republican Party): hopelessly retrograde, self-absorbed, self-pitying and self-righteous, quite unembarrassed by its (years-long) tantrum, necessarily and increasingly hostile to democracy, and in any sane view undeserving of a single vote".

Meanwhile, Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk - one of the left-winger's most vocal internal critics - told the Mail on Sunday: "If the results for Labour in May are as dire as we all fear, then yes I would be prepared to stand as a stalking horse against Jeremy Corbyn."

*Amis has never won the Booker Prize.
 
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