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

I do think it's important politicians on either side of the divide are able to at least partly get along with each other, and for as much as Corbyn's a world away from the centrists of the party I'd assume he'll have plenty of Tories who he's on friendly terms with. Indeed, I've heard that in parliament you'll often see cases of politicians on completely opposite sides getting along well; often they already know their divisions and can air them publicly, whereas bad blood fosters between people within the same party because divisions are a lot more concealed and accentuate over time.

But I can see why people are pissed off here at Labour MP's defending Rudd. This isn't a case of a Tory minister standing down due to personal reasons, or ill-health, or because she's stood up valiantly against her party on an issue of principle. She's been forced to resign because she mislead parliament on an issue that has caused misery for a number of people who're in Britain just so that the very same minister can look slightly better to the public. And while the buck should ultimately stop with May at the very top, Rudd's got some culpability, and Labour MP's shouldn't be fawning over her on social media, irrespective of how decent she may come across behind the scenes. There's a time and a place for it, and as has been evidenced cooperation can often work wonders. But I'm not sure there's much need for defending/arguing in favour of a Tory minister who's resigned in disgrace here.
I agree that Rudd's deception is completely unpalatable. But are woodock on the others actually defending her? In other words, are they supporting her on this specific issue?
 
I agree that Rudd's deception is completely unpalatable. But are woodock on the others actually defending her? In other words, are they supporting her on this specific issue?

They're not openly defending her per se - they are nevertheless kind of singing her virtues at a time when she should be receiving widespread condemnation alongside her party.

And it's not even as if this is that bad for her, from a personal point of view. She's still a well-established MP who will be on a generous salary, who will no doubt be back on the front benches before long, and who's from a fairly rich background anyway and will be comfortably fine if she's unseated at the next election, provided she doesn't step down before that to avoid embarrassment.
 
Ah yeah, looks like he got me.
Not sure about that either. On the one hand Angell's twitter features lots of (re)tweets favouring trans rights, anti-racism, protection of immigrants & refugees, criticizing anti-Islam populism, Trumpism and so on. On the other hand:
Right Wing

(...)

Blairites(neoliberal)

There aren't actually the many in the party, it's mostly just the think tank/pressure group Progress(Richard angel) and a few MP's. They have very little power in the party and are constantly losing whatever power the have left. What they do have is good media connections.
So who knows if the brackets thing got lumped together with that (over the Labour antisemitism row or whatever). So I'm still confused over that post, I'll just wait if there'll be an answer to my question.
 
Wenger's a lot like the Blairites to be fair - successful between 1997 and 2004 with an increasing downward spiral since then.

If Wenger left in 2007 and they had three managers since then who hadn't won a thing, sure.
 
Not sure about that either. On the one hand Angell's twitter features lots of (re)tweets favouring trans rights, anti-racism, protection of immigrants & refugees, criticizing anti-Islam populism, Trumpism and so on. On the other hand:

So who knows if the brackets thing got lumped together with that (over the Labour antisemitism row or whatever). So I'm still confused over that post, I'll just wait if there'll be an answer to my question.
Why are you quoting me ?
 
Corbyn will consider Tory MPs his friends, past and present. Because Corbyn isn't a child. That's kind of how life works. You enrich your experiences by associating with those different to you. You become a better person and as @Pogue Mahone says, you avoid the echo chamber. Arguably it's one of the flaws currently of the hard left that there isn't much debate beyond 'everyone who disagrees is a Tory and should leave the party'. Full echo chamber embracing and that's not healthy and damaging to the party and ultimately helps the Tories.

Saw an opinion poll today where it's 41/40 in their favour. Others will be couple of points either way but I want to stop pretending that that's good enough. This government should be 15-20 points behind in every poll. Easily. If someone is concerned that the Tories are doing well in the polls despite everything, such thing doesn't make them a Tory.
 
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Corbyn will consider Tory MPs his friends, past and present. Because Corbyn isn't a child. That's kind of how life works. You enrich your experiences by associating with those different to you. You become a better person and as @Pogue Mahone says, you avoid the echo chamber. Arguably it's one of the flaws currently of the hard left that there isn't much debate beyond 'everyone who disagrees is a Tory and should leave the party'. Full echo chamber embracing and that's not healthy and damaging to the party and ultimately helps the Tories.

Saw an opinion poll today where it's 41/40 in their favour. Others will be couple of points either way but I want to stop pretending that that's good enough. This government should be 15-20 points behind in every poll. Easily. If someone is concerned that the Tories are doing well in the polls despite everything, such thing doesn't make them a Tory.

This will be partly true, and I'd find anyone who excludes someone from their social circle because of divergences in politics a bit suspect so long as those divergences aren't extreme, but echo chambers aren't really exclusive to the left or hard-left. You'll find those echo chambers in just about every political group that's ever existed. Old, Brexit-supporting Tories will mostly associated with other old, Brexit-supporting Tories. Centrist/moderate Labour members and voices will mostly associated with other centrist, moderate Labour voices, and probably aren't really spending all that much more time engaging with solidly right-wing Tories than Corbyn's lot are.

Indeed, see the 2015 election up in Scotland for an example of the centrist Labour MP's and activists hilariously failing to engage with a disillusioned electorate by basically insisting they were in the right until people told them to feck off.

So yes - there are people entrenched in their own viewpoints, but that's exclusive for everyone who is involved in a political organisation. Or people in general.

On the last point - yes, Labour need to be doing better in the polls, but (I know we're going in circles here) a shift to the centre isn't going to facilitate that.
 
It isn't so much even the polls, frustrating as they are, it's how the government is able to get away with so much and Labour's front bench seem completely unable to capitalise. The party are a near irrelevance when it comes to Brexit, for example. If the front bench exerted as much pressure on the government as it could then they'd have won far more concessions and maybe we wouldn't be going down the 'hold your nose, jump and hope for the best' Brexit we seem to be.

There is no media strategy. The party is awful at communicating its message and the argument for why seems to be both that the right wing media are scum and not worth bothering with - and also that they're tremendously influential. It really can't be both, but somehow it is.

This government get away with so much that would have had any other government at any other time in history on its knees and yet because it looks over at the Labour party and sees all the attention focused on the fact Jess Phillips should quit because she is friends with a Tory, it's able to get away with it. Even the last election was only a good result if you start off from the base of ridiculously low expectations. A party that just took a country through a divisive and unnecessary election - and lost - had no real business retaining power, let alone win 55 more seats than the biggest opposition party.

I guess where my frustration lies is that the response should be: Yeah that isn't good enough, what can we do better? Instead it's: This is good enough, shut up Tory!

The irony being that if I was a Tory I'd be absolutely delighted with that.
 
It isn't so much even the polls, frustrating as they are, it's how the government is able to get away with so much and Labour's front bench seem completely unable to capitalise. The party are a near irrelevance when it comes to Brexit, for example. If the front bench exerted as much pressure on the government as it could then they'd have won far more concessions and maybe we wouldn't be going down the 'hold your nose, jump and hope for the best' Brexit we seem to be.

There is no media strategy. The party is awful at communicating its message and the argument for why seems to be both that the right wing media are scum and not worth bothering with - and also that they're tremendously influential. It really can't be both, but somehow it is.

This government get away with so much that would have had any other government at any other time in history on its knees and yet because it looks over at the Labour party and sees all the attention focused on the fact Jess Phillips should quit because she is friends with a Tory, it's able to get away with it. Even the last election was only a good result if you start off from the base of ridiculously low expectations. A party that just took a country through a divisive and unnecessary election - and lost - had no real business retaining power, let alone win 55 more seats than the biggest opposition party.

I guess where my frustration lies is that the response should be: Yeah that isn't good enough, what can we do better? Instead it's: This is good enough, shut up Tory!

The irony being that if I was a Tory I'd be absolutely delighted with that.
Literally the best result since 1997 and the reason there was such low expectations was because the PLP tried a coup on the leader. Christ almighty talk about selective memory loss.

Also you didn't vote Labour in the last election :wenger:
 
Literally the best result since 1997 and the reason there was such low expectations was because the PLP tried a coup on the leader. Christ almighty talk about selective memory loss.

Also you didn't vote Labour in the last election :wenger:

Err...much as it was a better vote share, ultimately in a system where seats matter it wasn't better than 2001 or 2005.
 
Some serious delusion in this thread.

The whole reason people are criticial or at least a bit judgemental about the Labour movement is because it really doesn't seem like they're doing enough to be stand-out alternatives to the Tories (for the masses).
 
The 2015 leadership contents field was absolutely dire. The guy who never even could admit he even wanted the job ended up winning. I think stronger candidates viewed that as the poisoned chalice. Imagine the expectation was that whoever won that race would lose the next election at which point then there would be calls for a new leader and the party would be ripe for 'renewal'.

By 2016 when Smith challenged Corbyn the atmosphere had become absolutely toxic that nobody would have stood unless they wanted their letterbox firebombed. Suspect Smith regretted standing fairly quickly after he did. My fear is that when Corbyn does stand down as leader there'll be good candidates who simply won't stand fearing the aggressive and highly personalised campaign that's pretty much guaranteed to take place.

2015 was only 3 years ago and yet the party feels completely different. The idea of Cooper supporters making death threats to Kendall cheerleaders would have seemed absolutely absurd. As would Burnham and Corbyn fans exchanging insults on social media. But if a contest took place now, for whatever reason, nobody would deny that sort of thing would be taking place. If tomorrow Corbyn decided he wanted to spend more time with his allotment the subsequent leadership race would be conducted to a backdrop of bitter, acrimonious, factional warfare, hatred and abuse. Not sure it's credible to deny that. Something else that makes me a bit sad, really.
 
Richard Angell surrounds his twitter handle in brackets. He’s pretty right wing.
Wait whaaat? I'm hopefully missing a joke here as I've only skimmed the thread after being away a few days.
 
Is now a good time to remind people of Corbyn’s broader unelectability?
 
O'Brien hitting the nail again. I voted labour as usual but tbh, it was out of habit as with the last GE. I know a lot of people who voted for him at the primary, unhappy with how he's handled Brexit.
 
O'Brien hitting the nail again. I voted labour as usual but tbh, it was out of habit as with the last GE. I know a lot of people who voted for him at the primary, unhappy with how he's handled Brexit.

Didn't last night just show(For the millionth time) that there really is no case for Labour to adopt a Remain case. Yes their position on brexit is rubbish but if anything they somehow need to be more pro leaving.
 
Didn't last night just show(For the millionth time) that there really is no case for Labour to adopt a Remain case. Yes their position on brexit is rubbish but if anything they somehow need to be more pro leaving.
I'm not so sure. It's widely viewed 60%+ of the party voted remain. I voted labour at the end of the day but I know quite a few Corbyn and passionate labour voters who did not bother turning up. Coupled with the unable to pick up centrist votes, it's easy to see why things are the way they are.
Some people say the people who voted leave are going to vote Conservative anyway and in the same breath say Labour should back leave to the hilt.
Doesn't make sense to me.
 
Feck me. How low does May need to go to lose an election to Labour? Start biting the heads off babies on the front steps of 10 Downing Street?

I think so.

Sadly for Corbyn, this should spell the end. I like a lot of things about the man but as you say, if he can't make a dent in the tories after Windrush, Brexit etc, the party and his leadership is fecking pointless.
 
I'm not so sure. It's widely viewed 60%+ of the party voted remain.
But it's not enough to win a election, they need the Labour voters who voted out. I think the strategy(If you can even call it that)is to offer a very left wing brexit in a hope it will appeal to the more lefty city areas while the Labour leave voters see the party is ''respecting the referendum'', again it's not a great plan but I've yet to see anyone come up with a better one.

I voted labour at the end of the day but I know quite a few Corbyn and passionate labour voters who did not bother turning up.
But does that have anything to do with Labour supporting Brexit or it being local elections and people not being that arsed ?

Coupled with the unable to pick up centrist votes,
These votes just don't exist or if they do it's such such a low percentage that it's not worth making concessions to.
 
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It's definitely pointless now the Lib Dems have secured enough council seats to cancel Brexit.
It's easy all Corbyn has to do is wrap himself in a EU flag and give a speech on top of a fighter jet(Presumably a Eurofighter)and then all the nasty bad Brexit people will disappear and we can remain in the EU.

I understand the frustrations many pro remain liberals have but also it's so clear that had Labour picked their position and got destroyed in last election they wouldn't have thought oh maybe we where wrong for being so pro remain, it would of been the problem was Corbyn being too left wing.
 
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If you can’t win big against this Tory lot, you’re not going to do shit in the long term.
 
Think it needs to be remembered that the local results last year were genuinely abominable for Labour, and still saw a massive surge in the GE. Might rely on that kind of home-run campaign again, but perfectly plausible.
 
Think it needs to be remembered that the local results last year were genuinely abominable for Labour, and still saw a massive surge in the GE. Might rely on that kind of home-run campaign again, but perfectly plausible.
Don't think the cons will have such a disaster of a campaign again.
Anyway, hope we don't have to go to the polls again for a while.
Everything has gone to the dogs.
 
I think so.

Sadly for Corbyn, this should spell the end. I like a lot of things about the man but as you say, if he can't make a dent in the tories after Windrush, Brexit etc, the party and his leadership is fecking pointless.

With most Tory voters being unwilling to move to anyone due to Brexit, nobody else could do any better. Peak Blair would have struggled.