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

Yes we know all Blair’s shortcomings & the clandestine accusations. However, if you’ve noticed, I’ve been focusing on the Labour approach to actually getting elected as a government in the first place & trust me, old school Socialism and it’s stronger unions and lurching to the left do not work. We’ve been there & done it and we’ve got the evidence to prove it.

That is not to say it didn’t achieve anything whatsoever in its pomp however.

On Campbell, I agree with Watson. The problem with the Labour left is it is occupied by ideologues. Was 40 years ago & it still is now.

if only Watson had not not spent months banging on about how wrong it was that some new Labour members had voted elsewhere then he might have a point. Are we forgetting the previous NEC leader suspended thousands of members from voting in the leadership election for public statements?

Once again Watson goes where ever the wind blows. This a policy used to expel members under nearly every leader but the NEC does it whilst Corbyn is leader and it's an OUTRAGE!!!
 
The thing is, Labour's current approach and policy base is a world away from the Labour left of the early 80s and doesn't at all resemble Labour gov'ts in the 60s and 70s. Citing the 1983 election as proof that any left-wing Labour party is doomed is revisionism in itself, Labour were on course to smash Thatcher until the SDP defections and even after that they were looking likely to be the largest party at the next election until the Falklands War turned it round for Thatcher. Labour's performance in 1983 had less to do with economic policy than it did to do with internal party politics and foreign policy (I'd argue that foreign policy is Labour's biggest weakness under Corbyn with regards electability). All the evidence suggests that the electorate has few particular qualms about left-wing economic policy; the raft of centre-left policies Corbyn's Labour advocate polls very well. It's not Labour's actual policy platform which turns people off, it's a combination of Labour's perennial image problem of economic incompetence and a very successful campaign from both the Labour right, the Conservatives and right-leaning media to characterise Corbyn's centre-left economic platform as a quasi-Communist one.

Since Corbyn's election there's been a big push by the right-leaning establishment to lay the failures of big-state union-friendly centre-left Labour in the 1970s and mixed-economy business-friendly centre-right Labour in the 2000s at the door of a modern Labour left which had nothing to do with either. The Labour centre/right has to shoulder much of the blame for this; by embracing austerity they allowed the right wing line that the failure of Labour economic policy was due to the loony left spending too much to become accepted fact. In reality the failure of Labour economic policy in the 2000s was that it's sustainability was by design overly reliant on the continued success of a financial sector it had no intention of regulating. New Labour's economic policy was always doomed to failure, firstly because it made us more reliant of the financial sector whilst allowing other industries to fall into decline and secondly because it entirely failed to put in place regulation to prevent the financial industry making self-interested short term decisions which would leave it at the mercy of global market forces. The lesson from the 2000s should have been to encourage a plurality of industries to mitigate the impact of any one industry failing and to regulate industries in order to reduce the chances of them failing. Instead, the lesson mainstream political parties took from it was that investing in public services and the economy is a bad thing; policies based on that reading of events have led us down a pretty ruinous path over the last decade.

There is no way Labour would have won in ‘83 however way you paint it. That is why the SDP and the defections came to be in the first place after Labours lurch to the left.

At least we can say Change UK haven’t made the same impact, so history doesn’t appear as yet to be repeating itself. Make no mistake though the split in Labour is absolutely there now as then.

I also don’t agree with the view the Falklands turned Thatchers fortunes around. That again is something of an oft peddled convenient myth. The falling number of strikes since 1979 had more to do with that & the sense that the government was beginning to wrestle back control from the too powerful unions. Though yes, it clearly didn’t do her any harm.

The electorate has few qualms with left wing economics? Why haven’t we had a proper Socialist government for 40 years then? Pure media bias and nothing else?

Old Labour have got that perennial tag of being economic incompetents because it was richly deserved & for a certain generation, we remember Healey going to the IMF & the Winter of Discontent. It was fecking grim. Which is why the Tories won 4 elections on the bounce afterwards.

That’s what happens when you give too much power to the workers sorry to say. They take the p*ss.

But if you are making the distinction that Corbyn is in fact centre & not hard left (officially maybe) and well just “that was then and this is now” again it begs the question why do we need Labour and the Liberals occupying that centre / left space then? The Liberals seem to just have a lot less grief surrounding them than Labour almost perpetually do. Plus of course they don’t have any connection with the Unions. Another very big plus imo.
 
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There is no way Labour would have won in ‘83 however way you paint it. That is why the SDP and the defections came to be in the first place after Labours lurch to the left.

At least we can say Change UK haven’t made the same impact, so history doesn’t appear as yet to be repeating itself. Make no mistake though the split in Labour is absolutely there now as then.

I also don’t agree with the view the Falklands turned Thatchers fortunes around. That again is something of an oft peddled convenient myth. The falling number of strikes since 1979 had more to do with that & the sense that the government was beginning to wrestle back control from the too powerful unions. Though yes, it clearly didn’t do her any harm.

The electorate has few qualms with left wing economics? Why haven’t we had a proper Socialist government for 40 years then? Pure media bias and nothing else?

Old Labour have got that perennial tag of being economic incompetents because it was richly deserved & for a certain generation, we remember Healey going to the IMF & the Winter of Discontent. It was fecking grim. Which is why the Tories won 4 elections on the bounce afterwards.

That’s what happens when you give too much power to the workers sorry to say. They take the p*ss.

But if you are making the distinction that Corbyn is in fact centre & not hard left (officially maybe) and well just “that was then and this is now” again it begs the question why do we need Labour and the Liberals occupying that centre / left space then? The Liberals seem to just have a lot less grief surrounding them than Labour almost perpetually do. Plus of course they don’t have any connection with the Unions. Another very big plus imo.

No it isn't - look at opinion polling from back then and you'll see that the Tories literally start getting consistent poll leads right after the Falklands War.

After Thatcher was elected Labour dominated the polls for the rest of 1979. Once the SDP came into play they started to gain some leads for a while before Falklands happened and Thatcher took control again. But until then she'd consistently been lagging behind.

When a lot of left-wing policies are put to the public they tend to poll well. A lot of people are willing to potentially pay a bit more if they feel their money will be invested well, and plenty also agree that the rich should have to pay their way to help implement said left-wing policies. Corbyn's the problem is his wider image and his inability to counter the media's portrayal of him as someone who's extremely far to the left. Plus as @jeff_goldblum said on issues like foreign policy he tends to struggle.
 


Campbell probably would have got along well with Harkishan Singh Surjeet :lol:
He was known to be one of the most compromising and ideologically flexible general secretaries, and wanted the CPM to head a national coalition govt (the Politburo disagreed and overruled him).
 
WHY DOESN'T CORBYN GO ON THE PEOPLE MARCH !


Answer -



'Under siege' sounds like a really dramatic way of saying that a political movement is trying to put some pressure on politicians to adopt their own stances. Which is, like, activism 101. If the PV campaign wants people to back a referendum then they are obviously going to apply pressure to politicians in areas where people want to see a second referendum. That's just basic political manoeuvring. The PV movement being annoyingly middle-class and insulated from the rest of the country at times doesn't mean their underlying points concerning the futility and stupidity of Brexit are wrong. It also seems fairly condescending to basically insinuate everyone involved with the PV campaign is rich when there are plenty of ordinary, working-class people who will have been attending the marches in London, all no doubt from a variety of social backgrounds.

When Corbyn's met or associated with some rather unsavoury political figures in the past the go-to excuse has generally been that he's facilitating a dialogue or meeting with them to achieve a larger goal in the long-term - if he can do that then he can function alongside the PV considering we're currently talking about the single biggest issue the country is facing.

Although granted, that graphic is beyond abysmal.
 
'Under siege' sounds like a really dramatic way of saying that a political movement is trying to put some pressure on politicians to adopt their own stances. Which is, like, activism 101. The PV movement being annoyingly middle-class and insulated from the rest of the country at times doesn't mean their underlying points concerning the futility and stupidity of Brexit are wrong.

When Corbyn's met or associated with some rather unsavoury political figures in the past the go-to excuse has generally been that he's facilitating a dialogue or meeting with them to achieve a larger goal in the long-term - if he can do that then he can function alongside the PV considering we're currently talking about the single biggest issue the country is facing.

Although granted, that graphic is beyond abysmal.
I'm saying they don't have the right to put pressure on politicians more than it shouldn't surprise people why a socialist labour leader distance himself from a campaign that goes after working class MPs.


Also the People Vote is far more annoying than Hamas.
 
I'm saying they don't have the right to put pressure on politicians more than it shouldn't surprise people why a socialist labour leader distance himself from a campaign that goes after working class MPs.


Also the People Vote is far more annoying than Hamas.

They're not going after him because he's working-class though - they're going after him because they want a second referendum or for Britain to remain and ideally want him to become more conciliatory to their cause since he's in an area that seemingly has a strong Remain base. That's just standard politics. They'd be a lot less likely to attack Remain MP's had Corbyn and co being willing to back their cause from the start. Ultimately now we're in a position where the country (well, those who care) is polarised between the two extremes of Brexit. And a lot of people don't really think it's tenable for one of the leaders of those main two parties to be someone who's not really had an opinion on the matter for the last three years.
 
They're not going after him because he's working-class though - they're going after him because they want a second referendum or for Britain to remain and ideally want him to become more conciliatory to their cause since he's in an area that seemingly has a strong Remain base. That's just standard politics. They'd be a lot less likely to attack Remain MP's had Corbyn and co being willing to back their cause from the start. Ultimately now we're in a position where the country (well, those who care) is polarised between the two extremes of Brexit. And a lot of people don't really think it's tenable for one of the leaders of those main two parties to be someone who's not really had an opinion on the matter for the last three years.
Unless I've missed it they haven't gone after any other Labour MPs on their twitter time line.
 
It's weird that Lavery is still a public figure pretending to represent the working class considering the his history of self-enrichment from the NUM
 
if only Watson had not not spent months banging on about how wrong it was that some new Labour members had voted elsewhere then he might have a point. Are we forgetting the previous NEC leader suspended thousands of members from voting in the leadership election for public statements?

Once again Watson goes where ever the wind blows. This a policy used to expel members under nearly every leader but the NEC does it whilst Corbyn is leader and it's an OUTRAGE!!!

I’m pretty sure it wasn’t that those members had voted for other parties, it was that they were members of other parties.
 
No it isn't - look at opinion polling from back then and you'll see that the Tories literally start getting consistent poll leads right after the Falklands War.

After Thatcher was elected Labour dominated the polls for the rest of 1979. Once the SDP came into play they started to gain some leads for a while before Falklands happened and Thatcher took control again. But until then she'd consistently been lagging behind.

When a lot of left-wing policies are put to the public they tend to poll well. A lot of people are willing to potentially pay a bit more if they feel their money will be invested well, and plenty also agree that the rich should have to pay their way to help implement said left-wing policies. Corbyn's the problem is his wider image and his inability to counter the media's portrayal of him as someone who's extremely far to the left. Plus as @jeff_goldblum said on issues like foreign policy he tends to struggle.

Ok listen, I’m not denying The Falklands gave Thatcher a jingoistic fillip of sorts. But it wasn’t the only or obvious thing involved as opponents seem to home in on. Are we ignoring facts like her halving inflation from 16.5% in 1980 to half that by 1982 (it had been over 20% under Labour) and the economy (in 1981) starting to improve after a recession doubtlessly made more severe by an emergency Tory budget not long after taking power? Hence her initial unpopularity? If you think the Falklands on its own was enough to swing the polls or indeed the main factor then I can’t agree. A contributory factor? Yeah, sure.

Yes, left wing policies are frequently popular. I know, I’ve voted for more than a few of them myself in my time. The problem is in financing some of those left wing policies in a way that doesn’t make the rich run for the hills, potentially driving wealth out of the country. Thatcher favoured more indirect taxation, hence the rises in VAT under the Tories whilst lowering Income Tax. Old Labour favoured taxing the rich till the pips squeak, to quote Healey. I know what I think was the more clever approach.

But regarding Labour in general, considering no proper socialist government for 40 years & the Unions aren’t what they were and the fact the Liberals were probably more left leaning than Blair was, I really do question why multi-factioned Labour exist & carry on splitting the centre left vote.

They even bottled looking at electoral reform when they had the opportunity to under Blair. Because they are idiots. Proper PR, and a potential a Lib/Lab progressive centre left coalition could have very, very easily become the new established order. But no. Because Labour are wankers and they had a healthy FPTP majority at the time.
 
so what happens if this investigation in to antisemitism in the Labour party comes back as finding no fault then?
The EHRC have a very high bar to go in and start investigating an organisation. They have limited powers that certainly don't include making a speculative investigation like say the Police have the power to do.

They must already have been given lots of prima facia evidence to launch an investigation. Apparently lots of labour staff have been keeping emails and there is a deluge of info still to come out.

This is a story that will cost lots of people their jobs....just wait and see.
 
There is no way Labour would have won in ‘83 however way you paint it. That is why the SDP and the defections came to be in the first place after Labours lurch to the left.

At least we can say Change UK haven’t made the same impact, so history doesn’t appear as yet to be repeating itself. Make no mistake though the split in Labour is absolutely there now as then.

I also don’t agree with the view the Falklands turned Thatchers fortunes around. That again is something of an oft peddled convenient myth. The falling number of strikes since 1979 had more to do with that & the sense that the government was beginning to wrestle back control from the too powerful unions. Though yes, it clearly didn’t do her any harm.

The electorate has few qualms with left wing economics? Why haven’t we had a proper Socialist government for 40 years then? Pure media bias and nothing else?

Old Labour have got that perennial tag of being economic incompetents because it was richly deserved & for a certain generation, we remember Healey going to the IMF & the Winter of Discontent. It was fecking grim. Which is why the Tories won 4 elections on the bounce afterwards.

That’s what happens when you give too much power to the workers sorry to say. They take the p*ss.

But if you are making the distinction that Corbyn is in fact centre & not hard left (officially maybe) and well just “that was then and this is now” again it begs the question why do we need Labour and the Liberals occupying that centre / left space then? The Liberals seem to just have a lot less grief surrounding them than Labour almost perpetually do. Plus of course they don’t have any connection with the Unions. Another very big plus imo.

On the first two bolded sections: If you have a gander at the polling from the time, the SDP split happened at a time when Labour were dominant in the polls. The split didn't occur because Labour's shift to the left was harming it's electoral prospects. Quite the opposite, it happened because the shift to the left hadn't harmed the party's prospects and it was looking increasingly like the left of the party would win the next election. As Cheesy points out, whether you agree with the idea that the Falklands saved Thatcher or not, the polling bears it out; had there been an election on the eve of the Falklands War, a far more left wing Labour than the current one would likely have won it. Thatcher was incredibly unpopular during her first term because her economic policies simply left the majority of people worse off than they had been in 1979. You can talk about reducing inflation, but to trumpet it as a triumph in and of itself shows an ignorance of how economics affects the real world. Her dogmatic adherence to the free market and obsession with smashing unions counteracted any benefits lower inflation might have yielded for the man on the street; all reducing inflation achieved in practice was to make British exports uneconomic and force hundreds to factories to close. Her unwillingness to intervene to support industry (partially out of adherence to laissez-faire economics and partially because letting big factories fail would hurt the unions) caused record unemployment which lasted well into the mid-80s and drove hundreds of thousands into poverty. Before the war she had some of the lowest approval ratings of any PM in history, afterwards she had some of the highest.

You could write a whole book on the 3rd bolded section. Media plays a huge part, most outlets have enormous right-wing bias and a lot of people don't have a head for politics or the time/inclination to do independent research into what they read. Jingoism remains an enormous factor in British politics, in 2019 it's still political suicide to be anything but obsequious to the armed forces, the monarchy etc. or to attempt to deviate from the idea that Britain is always the goodie and the other guy is always the baddie. The British left's biggest problem electorally is that it has little appetite for blind patriotism. The fractious nature of the British left, it's split in tendencies between partisan alignment and factionalism, gerrymandering, low voter turnout amongst the poor, FPTP, the domination of politics, journalism and business by the upper middle classes and dozens of other factors all tie in. Regardless, polling consistently shows that the public are generally to the left economically of the politicians they elect. Hell, polling from the 2000s demonstrated that if people voted purely on the basis of the policies they supported, the Green Party would get the most votes.

Just briefly on the last bolded point; we don't need them both occupying the centre/left space so it's handy that they don't. In terms of their policy commitments Corbyn's Labour occupy the centre-left. The PLP spans from a left to centre-right, the Tory Party spans centre-right through to hard-right and the Lib Dems float hither and yon without letting their feet touch the floor long enough for them to actually grow some ideological roots; they don't have many convictions or ideas and they don't seem to really believe in the ones they have.

Anyway, I feel like you're missing both of my points there. The first is that if you actually look at it, the policy platform of Corbyn's Labour isn't particularly left-wing. Take nationalisation/privatisation as an example: nationalising everything would be the ultra-left position and privatising everything would be the ultra-right position. Current Labour policy is to nationalise key infrastructure and utilities and leave everything else privatised, which is basically the definition of middle-ground. It's undoubtedly a more centrist position than the current state of affairs where almost every utility is privatised, huge swathes of our infrastructure is privatised, private companies run our transport infrastructure (badly) and government departments and the NHS routinely contract the private sector to provide front-line services (again, badly). Across the board, current Labour policy is dipping its toes into Social Democracy, not paddling into Socialism or diving into Communism (which is how many in the Tory Party and the right-wing media would have it).

The second point is that again, when you actually look at it, the policy platform of Corbyn's Labour bears very little resemblance to the "old school Socialism" you mentioned in the post I was responding to. For example if we take nationalisation again, the 2017 manifesto and the surrounding policy documents specifically reject the big-state model of nationalisation which characterised the party in the 1960s and 1970s. It's just a lazy comparison, and one seemingly based solely on the fact that the people involved all identify themselves as 'socialists' rather than on looking at the actual policies.

I’m pretty sure it wasn’t that those members had voted for other parties, it was that they were members of other parties.

Nah, plenty of people got barred on the grounds that they'd tweeted/posted on facebook in support of the Greens prior to joining Labour. One person got barred from the voting for tweeting in support of the Foo Fighters ffs.
 
On the first two bolded sections: If you have a gander at the polling from the time, the SDP split happened at a time when Labour were dominant in the polls. The split didn't occur because Labour's shift to the left was harming it's electoral prospects. Quite the opposite, it happened because the shift to the left hadn't harmed the party's prospects and it was looking increasingly like the left of the party would win the next election. As Cheesy points out, whether you agree with the idea that the Falklands saved Thatcher or not, the polling bears it out; had there been an election on the eve of the Falklands War, a far more left wing Labour than the current one would likely have won it. Thatcher was incredibly unpopular during her first term because her economic policies simply left the majority of people worse off than they had been in 1979. You can talk about reducing inflation, but to trumpet it as a triumph in and of itself shows an ignorance of how economics affects the real world. Her dogmatic adherence to the free market and obsession with smashing unions counteracted any benefits lower inflation might have yielded for the man on the street; all reducing inflation achieved in practice was to make British exports uneconomic and force hundreds to factories to close. Her unwillingness to intervene to support industry (partially out of adherence to laissez-faire economics and partially because letting big factories fail would hurt the unions) caused record unemployment which lasted well into the mid-80s and drove hundreds of thousands into poverty. Before the war she had some of the lowest approval ratings of any PM in history, afterwards she had some of the highest.

You could write a whole book on the 3rd bolded section. Media plays a huge part, most outlets have enormous right-wing bias and a lot of people don't have a head for politics or the time/inclination to do independent research into what they read. Jingoism remains an enormous factor in British politics, in 2019 it's still political suicide to be anything but obsequious to the armed forces, the monarchy etc. or to attempt to deviate from the idea that Britain is always the goodie and the other guy is always the baddie. The British left's biggest problem electorally is that it has little appetite for blind patriotism. The fractious nature of the British left, it's split in tendencies between partisan alignment and factionalism, gerrymandering, low voter turnout amongst the poor, FPTP, the domination of politics, journalism and business by the upper middle classes and dozens of other factors all tie in. Regardless, polling consistently shows that the public are generally to the left economically of the politicians they elect. Hell, polling from the 2000s demonstrated that if people voted purely on the basis of the policies they supported, the Green Party would get the most votes.

Just briefly on the last bolded point; we don't need them both occupying the centre/left space so it's handy that they don't. In terms of their policy commitments Corbyn's Labour occupy the centre-left. The PLP spans from a left to centre-right, the Tory Party spans centre-right through to hard-right and the Lib Dems float hither and yon without letting their feet touch the floor long enough for them to actually grow some ideological roots; they don't have many convictions or ideas and they don't seem to really believe in the ones they have.

Anyway, I feel like you're missing both of my points there. The first is that if you actually look at it, the policy platform of Corbyn's Labour isn't particularly left-wing. Take nationalisation/privatisation as an example: nationalising everything would be the ultra-left position and privatising everything would be the ultra-right position. Current Labour policy is to nationalise key infrastructure and utilities and leave everything else privatised, which is basically the definition of middle-ground. It's undoubtedly a more centrist position than the current state of affairs where almost every utility is privatised, huge swathes of our infrastructure is privatised, private companies run our transport infrastructure (badly) and government departments and the NHS routinely contract the private sector to provide front-line services (again, badly). Across the board, current Labour policy is dipping its toes into Social Democracy, not paddling into Socialism or diving into Communism (which is how many in the Tory Party and the right-wing media would have it).

The second point is that again, when you actually look at it, the policy platform of Corbyn's Labour bears very little resemblance to the "old school Socialism" you mentioned in the post I was responding to. For example if we take nationalisation again, the 2017 manifesto and the surrounding policy documents specifically reject the big-state model of nationalisation which characterised the party in the 1960s and 1970s. It's just a lazy comparison, and one seemingly based solely on the fact that the people involved all identify themselves as 'socialists' rather than on looking at the actual policies.



Nah, plenty of people got barred on the grounds that they'd tweeted/posted on facebook in support of the Greens prior to joining Labour. One person got barred from the voting for tweeting in support of the Foo Fighters ffs.

First two years Thatcher was deeply unpopular because of the fiscal measures she introduced, then she got that grip on inflation, and the economy returned to growth BEFORE the Falklands.

I think you are seriously overestimating the Falklands impact like most of Thatchers opponents tend to do. She actually lost 700k votes in 1983 but still romped home because Labour were a absolute mess because of going to the left. So how you can say Foot’s hard left policies weren’t to blame in anyway I don’t know.

Why did Attlee win a landslide against Churchill in 1945 if winning a war is all people care about? After all, as you say yourself, unemployment was high throughout this period was it not?

We can debate the merits and downsides of Thatcherism all day long. In very brief summary, Labour & the Unions had the country on its knees so Thatcher’s right wing agenda was very painful for some but -overall- it did more good than bad for the country, especially after what was happening before, which is why a lot of the shift in that direction hasn’t been reversed to this day. She changed the Labour Party. They initially tried going to the outer limits in response, it didn’t work under Foot and they then spent 18 long years aiming for the centre ground & reelection as Tory lite.

As for Corbyn, he is only “centre” left because of the success of Thatcherism. The fact that he is even struggling to sell that “centre left” agenda 40 years on should tell you this country has always tended to be conservative with a small “c”. Blaming it all simply on the right wing media isn’t very credible anymore, especially now in the internet era where printed media carries a lot less clout and no Fox News equivalent in the UK. However, we do have the BBC of course. Ha.

As for the disparaging comments about the Lib Dem’s, typical Labour arrogance on display there. I suppose you’ll be telling us they have an ideologically inferior Brexit policy to Corbyn ?
 
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On the first two bolded sections: If you have a gander at the polling from the time, the SDP split happened at a time when Labour were dominant in the polls. The split didn't occur because Labour's shift to the left was harming it's electoral prospects. Quite the opposite, it happened because the shift to the left hadn't harmed the party's prospects and it was looking increasingly like the left of the party would win the next election. .

I tend not to get involved in these debates because the politics and timing of events isnt clean so multiple points of view can all have merit, but I have to point out its not really accurate to say that Labour had shifted to the left as early as 1979. Callaghan had resisted a shift to the left during that time. As far as most of the public were concerned the shift to the left started in November 1980 with the appointment of Michael Foot and was complete by the 1982 Labour Party conference when most of the resolutions that underpinned to the 1983 manifesto were made. Labour had great polling before Foot took over, typically polling between 45 and 50%. However within about a year of Foot taking over, it had fallen to 30% and generally stayed there or there abouts til the 1983 election.

There's way more to Labour's poor performance in 83 than just a shift to the left, not least some very public warring among factions in the party and of couse the SDP, the war and the right wing press eventually getting behind Thatcher. But the history doesn't support the idea that Labour's 1979 & 1980 polling represents support for its later shift to the left.
 
...it's not really accurate to say that Labour had shifted to the left as early as 1979...the history doesn't support the idea that Labour's 1979 & 1980 polling represents support for its later shift to the left.

On the first bits, I think you've misunderstood my post because I've never suggested either of those things. My point was that the evidence doesn't support the claim that the shift to the left in and of itself led to poor polling results. The period between Foot's election and the SDP split saw Labour polling very strongly, often with double figure leads. They took a hit between April and June in the wake of the split but returned to a double figure or thereabouts leads between July and September. The crash in Labour support after that point corresponds directly with the rash of defections in October. From then on there was basically a 3 horse race which Labour was edging until the Falklands when the Tories shot up about 10 points. Labour are down to around 30 consistently at that point, except for right after the 1982 conference where they gained 5 points or so before slumping as more infighting kicked in 1983.
 
On the first bits, I think you've misunderstood my post because I've never suggested either of those things. My point was that the evidence doesn't support the claim that the shift to the left in and of itself led to poor polling results. The period between Foot's election and the SDP split saw Labour polling very strongly, often with double figure leads. They took a hit between April and June in the wake of the split but returned to a double figure or thereabouts leads between July and September. The crash in Labour support after that point corresponds directly with the rash of defections in October. From then on there was basically a 3 horse race which Labour was edging until the Falklands when the Tories shot up about 10 points. Labour are down to around 30 consistently at that point, except for right after the 1982 conference where they gained 5 points or so before slumping as more infighting kicked in 1983.

Even on rereading the line "If you have a gander at the polling from the time, the SDP split happened at a time when Labour were dominant in the polls. The split didn't occur because Labour's shift to the left was harming it's electoral prospects..." I struggle not to see that as you suggesting that the shift to the left had happened at a time when the polling was good. But if thats my error, apols.

On one other point, there was all of 10 weeks between Foot being appointed and the limehouse decleration so I dont think you can draw too many conclusions from good polling for that short period, particularly given that it was consistent with where Labour had been for the previous 18 months.

On your other points, sure those are largely correct, there was a lot going on back then. It wasnt that the public just took a cold eyed look at Labour's manifesto and didnt like it, it has to be seen in the wider context of the politics of the day. However its also worth pointing out that two of the big issues, the SDP and the war, harmed labour in part because of their shift to the left. The SDP was created as a direct result of Labour's shift to the left. That change left more centrally minded Labour types without a home, so they went somewhere else. Likewise the war threw a lot of focus on defense and Labour's position on it, particularly around disarmament, was never going to do well. In both cases the party's position and the publics view of it are tied up with the overall shift to the left. Its not like there was a slease scandal or some other event that isn't really about left/right politics.
 
He's way out in front as the most irrelevant British politician of the decade, that's some achievement in the current climate.

The fact he's somehow managed to basically avoid having an opinion on the biggest issue the country has faced in decades is beyond remarkable. A politician whose entire mantra was built on economic conviction basically deciding to shy away from something hugely important and potentially incredibly detrimental to that very same economy. McDonnell and Thornberry have clearly judged where the wind is moving and have shifted accordingly but Corbyn still doesn't get it.
 
The fact he's somehow managed to basically avoid having an opinion on the biggest issue the country has faced in decades is beyond remarkable. A politician whose entire mantra was built on economic conviction basically deciding to shy away from something hugely important and potentially incredibly detrimental to that very same economy. McDonnell and Thornberry have clearly judged where the wind is moving and have shifted accordingly but Corbyn still doesn't get it.
I can't agree with 'doesn't have an opinion' I'm afraid Cheesy. I think he has a very strong opinion, he's a Brexiter, and he doesn't want a second referendum because Remain might win. He has an opinion alright, he just doesn't want to admit what it is because his own supporters wouldn't like it. I don't know who I have less respect for, him or his supporters with their telescopes firmly glued to their blind eyes.
 
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i guess he's learnt nothing from the european elections then. he needs to go, for the sake of the party.
 
Meh I'll stick my head in the sand and claim that's still just posturing to avoid Tories claiming we're a remain party.

I don't care what he says as long as when the time comes Labour push a public vote which I'm sure they will. There isn't going to be any movement until a new Tory leader is elected anyway.
 
Meh I'll stick my head in the sand and claim that's still just posturing to avoid Tories claiming we're a remain party.


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The fact he's somehow managed to basically avoid having an opinion on the biggest issue the country has faced in decades is beyond remarkable. A politician whose entire mantra was built on economic conviction basically deciding to shy away from something hugely important and potentially incredibly detrimental to that very same economy. McDonnell and Thornberry have clearly judged where the wind is moving and have shifted accordingly but Corbyn still doesn't get it.

He has an opinion but daren't say it. If he suddenly disappeared would anyone notice?
He might get his GE in 2022, good luck to him trying to implement his policies and digging the UK out of an economic disaster at the same time in his mid to late 70s.
 
Ffs, Klopp has an opinion about everything:

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The fact he's somehow managed to basically avoid having an opinion on the biggest issue the country has faced in decades is beyond remarkable. A politician whose entire mantra was built on economic conviction basically deciding to shy away from something hugely important and potentially incredibly detrimental to that very same economy. McDonnell and Thornberry have clearly judged where the wind is moving and have shifted accordingly but Corbyn still doesn't get it.

I can't agree with 'doesn't have an opinion' I'm afraid Cheesy. I think he has a very strong opinion, he's a Brexiter, and he doesn't want a second referendum because Remain might win. He has an opinion alright, he just doesn't want to admit what it is because his own supporters wouldn't like it. I don't know who I have less respect for, him or his supporters with their telescopes firmly glued to their blind eyes.

The problem isn’t so much him not having an opinion as his cowardly reluctance to come out and express it. It’s mealy-mouthed, fence-sitting, insipid bullshit. So scared of offending anyone, he ends up appealing to nobody.

How anyone can think a politician who so clearly lacks the courage of his convictions could ever win a general election is a fecking mystery.
 
The problem isn’t so much him not having an opinion as his cowardly reluctance to come out and express it. It’s mealy-mouthed, fence-sitting, insipid bullshit. So scared of offending anyone, he ends up appealing to nobody.

How anyone can think a politician who so clearly lacks the courage of his convictions could ever win a general election is a fecking mystery.
I don't think he's so much cowardly as quite deliberately dishonest. Regarding the general election the Tory machine will accuse him of saying one thing in his manifesto whilst intending quite another once in power, and given his Brexit performance many will believe that quite possible.

Boris is cowardly, for a comparison.
 
I don't think he's so much cowardly as quite deliberately dishonest. Regarding the general election the Tory machine will accuse him of saying one thing in his manifesto whilst intending quite another once in power, and given his Brexit performance many will believe that quite possible.

Boris is cowardly, for a comparison.

I put his deliberate dishonesty down to a fear that saying what he really thinks might lose him votes. The literal opposite of having the courage of his convictions. It’s just semantics though. I can’t help taking the most insulting interpretation possible because I’m furious at the way he’s facilitated the Brexit Torygeddon.