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

Whilst I supported Corbyn at both elections the situation is incredibly worrying. He clearly isn't popular and although I'd argue that a lot of that isn't his fault (disproportionate and disingenuous media attacks on him and his positions put a lot of voters (as well as the non-voters who he was aiming to lure to Labour's side) off from the start and was hugely exacerbated by how inexperienced his team was), that doesn't change the fact that it's a problem.

But the more worrying thing for Labour in the long-term, and something that can't be fixed by simply getting rid of Corbyn, is that the electoral coalition that made up Labour's core support throughout their last period of success no longer exists. Floating voters were lost in the New Labour-era through scandals, wars and the financial crash and both 'traditional' working class and liberal metropolitan support which was decaying throughout the Blair/Brown years has been split down the middle by the EU issue. Corbyn gets a lot of stick for his input on Brexit but frankly I'm not sure if there was a way to play it that wouldn't alienate the working classes by being too pro-EU or the metropolitan/young crowd by being too-Brexit. In that respect as strange as it sounds the quicker we leave the EU (or do a complete u-turn and decide to stay) the better for Labour, only when it's resolved will it stop being such a divisive issue.
 
For a guy this fecking terrible at a job, there sure seems to be a delay in people naming replacements, let alone them actually coming forward. Admittedly the whole process has been made much harder without Owen Smith and his 29 inch area of expertise, but come on.
 
Looks like Mandelson has the birds singing again.

Apparently Momentum want to secure the lefts voice in the party, the heresy. You'd never see the Blairites form groups and openly talk about influencing the party...oh wait
 
Smores said:
Looks like Mandelson has the birds singing again.

Apparently Momentum want to secure the lefts voice in the party, the heresy. You'd never see the Blairites form groups and openly talk about influencing the party...oh wait
Click to expand...

And if Momentum were an internal grouping like Compass it wouldn't be a problem. The difference with Momentum is that it has people who are banned from Labour for being members of proscribed groups involved at both senior and grassroots level.
 
Unmutual said:
And if Momentum were an internal grouping like Compass it wouldn't be a problem. The difference with Momentum is that it has people who are banned from Labour for being members of proscribed groups involved at both senior and grassroots level.
Click to expand...

As far as i know you have to be a Labour member to join Momentum these days???

I'm not a Momentum member and don't plan on being, they're a bit of a shambles but i don't think they're attempting to takeover the party and i find such claims ridiculous. Its just a control battle, if the Blairites came up with their own methods of involving the left and members then it would diminish the need for such groups.
 
Unmutual said:
And if Momentum were an internal grouping like Compass it wouldn't be a problem. The difference with Momentum is that it has people who are banned from Labour for being members of proscribed groups involved at both senior and grassroots level.
Click to expand...

progress is funded by the man who financed the SDP breakup of the labour front bench. Sainsbury would also be banned from the party for that if he was anyone but a moneyman who has given £2 million to blairs disciples.

Mandelsson has explicitly stated he is trying to destroy the party, but no banning for him either.

I don't think much of momentum myself, but the idea they are the bad guys and watson (£500k this year from max mosely alone) is fighting the good fight for ordinary people is risible.

For the most part, momentum are pretty much what grass routes labour were before blairs reorganisation. Progress is pretty much what the one nation tories used to be.
 
Unmutual said:
And if Momentum were an internal grouping like Compass it wouldn't be a problem. The difference with Momentum is that it has people who are banned from Labour for being members of proscribed groups involved at both senior and grassroots level.
Click to expand...
Does that list of people also include people suspended for liking the Foo Fighters or thinking a Green Party policy isn't terrible?

I've already been beaten to the punch when it comes to commenting on Watson's utter hypocrisy on this issue.
 
Smores said:
As far as i know you have to be a Labour member to join Momentum these days???

I'm not a Momentum member and don't plan on being, they're a bit of a shambles but i don't think they're attempting to takeover the party and i find such claims ridiculous. Its just a control battle, if the Blairites came up with their own methods of involving the left and members then it would diminish the need for such groups.
Click to expand...

Shawcroft has said that people like Wrack & Mountford won't be expelled even after the change and Lansman makes clear there won't be enforcement of the rule. Besides you dont have to be a Momentum member to organise local campaigns, that was always the point. The rule change was just so that Lansman had a mechanism to maintain control of Momentum, for which I can hardly blame him, but it does nothing to avoid the inherent problem.

What it creates is a mess of blurred lines. You have local Momentum groups being created where proscribed members can be leading influential figures, and then members from the group get to cast votes about who should be leader or sit on the NEC or whether to implement a policy or not. If you accept the basic principle that there are some on the left who should be kept out from Labour then you have to have some sort of impermeable barrier between those people and Labour. Momentum creates an enormous and obvious hole in that particular barrier.

If you don't think people on the left should be barred, because you think there are no enemies to our left or whatever, then that's different. However in that case it's Labour's various rules on proscription that should be up for debate. There's no point accepting a rule but then supporting a mechanism for getting around it, better to debate the rule itself.
 
Unmutual said:
Shawcroft has said that people like Wrack & Mountford won't be expelled even after the change and Lansman makes clear there won't be enforcement of the rule. Besides you dont have to be a Momentum member to organise local campaigns, that was always the point. The rule change was just so that Lansman had a mechanism to maintain control of Momentum, for which I can hardly blame him, but it does nothing to avoid the inherent problem.

What it creates is a mess of blurred lines. You have local Momentum groups being created where proscribed members can be leading influential figures, and then members from the group get to cast votes about who should be leader or sit on the NEC or whether to implement a policy or not. If you accept the basic principle that there are some on the left who should be kept out from Labour then you have to have some sort of impermeable barrier between those people and Labour. Momentum creates an enormous and obvious hole in that particular barrier.

If you don't think people on the left should be barred, because you think there are no enemies to our left or whatever, then that's different. However in that case it's Labour's various rules on proscription that should be up for debate. There's no point accepting a rule but then supporting a mechanism for getting around it, better to debate the rule itself.
Click to expand...

A very fair point, it is a parallel organisation that Labour can't control. Watson purposefully skews that argument towards something else though.

If Labour wants to reconcile they have to recognise that the left and members need their voice heard. Labour has the power to make Momentum irrelevant but the way to do that isn't to fight over influence and paint the left as the enemy.

Won't happen though as progress has its own pay masters who don't want their influence diminished. Also lets face it im sure MPs hate any bottom up influence, they'll consider themselves more informed and having been elected they'll also wonder why they have listen to people who aren't.
 
Nick 0208 Ldn said:
'One rule for them and another for everybody else': Nick Robinson skewers Angela Rayner over Labour shadow cabinet sending their children to selective schools

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...-everybody-else-nick-robinson-skewers-angela/
Click to expand...

There's no such hypocrisy here at all. One can use the advantages available to them whilst disagreeing that they should exist. Is the suggestion that Labour politicians should purposefully diminish their offsprings education because they believe spending should go towards making state schools excel and not a rollout of grammer schools?

Every report from the BBC on Labour is essentially an attack peice whilst Tory policy goes unquestioned. Brexit as an issue bucks that trend mind you.
 
Last edited:
Smores said:
There's no such hypocrisy here at all. One can use the advantages available to them whilst disagreeing that they should exist. Is the suggestion that Labour politicians should purposefully diminish their offsprings education because they believe spending should go towards making state schools excel and not a rollout of grammer schools?

Every report from the BBC on Labour is essentially an attack peice whilst Tory policy goes unquestioned. Brexit as an issue bucks that trend mind you.
Click to expand...

The question is whether they can make them excel. Throwing money at it will help but that alone won't solve many of the problems in education. I'd like to hear policies other than financial. One of the schools near me is states it's an unsafe environment and I don't think there are actually any good secondary schools in Bradford.

My partner before she went on maternity taught at both a failing and an outstanding both in deprived areas. The problem the failing schools have in deprived areas is lack of behavioural management. Throwing money at these schools won't solve the behaviour problems. It's something no one acknowledges in politics as an issue. But in schools a teacher can't actually teach because they continually have to 'perform crowd control'. The only way the outstanding school is functioning is because of bollockings of any child from day 1.

The other problem is poor head teachers who can't be demoted or got rid of easily and they can completely ruin schools and lives of 1000s of teachers and pupils. The other problem is the amount of time teachers need to spend doing paperwork. It easily becomes an 80 hour job so overworked teachers on mass leave the profession.
 
WackyWengerWorld said:
The question is whether they can make them excel. Throwing money at it will help but that alone won't solve many of the problems in education. I'd like to hear policies other than financial. One of the schools near me is states it's an unsafe environment and I don't think there are actually any good secondary schools in Bradford.

My partner before she went on maternity taught at both a failing and an outstanding both in deprived areas. The problem the failing schools have in deprived areas is lack of behavioural management. Throwing money at these schools won't solve the behaviour problems. It's something no one acknowledges in politics as an issue. But in schools a teacher can't actually teach because they continually have to 'perform crowd control'. The only way the outstanding school is functioning is because of bollockings of any child from day 1.

The other problem is poor head teachers who can't be demoted or got rid of easily and they can completely ruin schools and lives of 1000s of teachers and pupils. The other problem is the amount of time teachers need to spend doing paperwork. It easily becomes an 80 hour job so overworked teachers on mass leave the profession.
Click to expand...

I went to one of those Bradford secondaries so i know.

Throwing money at something is a very specific choice of words this goverment tends to use to imply waste and over funding. Of course its not just about money but the prevalence of other issues does not negate the need for wise investment projects that could make a difference.
 
Smores said:
I went to one of those Bradford secondaries so i know.

Throwing money at something is a very specific choice of words this goverment tends to use to imply waste and over funding. Of course its not just about money but the prevalence of other issues does not negate the need for wise investment projects that could make a difference.
Click to expand...

I definitely agree that more money is needed but more policies are needed too.
 
Smores said:
There's no such hypocrisy here at all. One can use the advantages available to them whilst disagreeing that they should exist. Is the suggestion that Labour politicians should purposefully diminish their offsprings education because they believe spending should go towards making state schools excel and not a rollout of grammer schools?
Click to expand...

And yet, Labour has sought to diminish the education of voters' offspring, most recently with the school meals proposal. These politicians will be able to absorb the VAT rise with relative ease, can the same be said for the JAMs?
 
I'm sure this will be reported in full on the BBC and elsewhere...



...or maybe not.
 
Lets just hope once this saga has ended, Labour can elect a decent politician that has a chance of getting elected in an general election.

Lets just hope the likes of Momentum don't hijack the next leadership election.
 
Fergies Gum said:
Lets just hope once this saga has ended, Labour can elect a decent politician that has a chance of getting elected in an general election.

Lets just hope the likes of Momentum don't hijack the next leadership election.
Click to expand...
There was talk of Jeremy only holding on until he could change the 15% MP support rule. Anyone know what's happened there? Is that a possibility?
 
ThierryHenry said:
There was talk of Jeremy only holding on until he could change the 15% MP support rule. Anyone know what's happened there? Is that a possibility?
Click to expand...
I think it's getting voted on at conference, supposedly unlikely to pass but you never know.
 
Fergies Gum said:
Lets just hope once this saga has ended, Labour can elect a decent politician that has a chance of getting elected in an general election.

Lets just hope the likes of Momentum don't hijack the next leadership election.
Click to expand...

What are your worries about Momentum specifically?

In my constituency, the Labour councillors are Blairite and Tory-lite, whilst the Momentum operation are banging the drum on true Labour working class policies. Of course that's only my area, but just because they support Corbyn doesn't mean they don't have Labour's interests at heart and will support the wrong candidate.

Now is a time for traditional Labour voters and those disconnected with the party of late to come together.
 
Who would theoretically succeed Corbyn, no willing or decent candidates have revealed themselves in the 2 leadership elections.
 
Fergies Gum said:
Lets just hope once this saga has ended, Labour can elect a decent politician that has a chance of getting elected in an general election.

Lets just hope the likes of Momentum don't hijack the next leadership election.
Click to expand...
God it must be great to be this ignorant.


Anyway I think we are fecked.
 
Corbyn has such a little chance of winning but his purpose is intended to shift debate back to the centre (supposedly).

Labour needs a charismatic figure next. Confidence has been lost so they need messages to be delivered and values to be reasserted before they can seriously pursue governing again.

After all, at the heart of most of our daily political concerns are mainly core Labour issues.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.