The Chairman Mao resembling, Monarchy hating, threat to Britain, Labour Party thread

[bickster]

56 minutes ago, Wainy316 said:

Problem is, Labour are under real pressure to elect a female leader next time round.

From where? Internally maybe but thats their own fault as usual

23 minutes ago, djdabush said:

I would have thought that Diane Abbott is a shoo in...

In all seriousness, it wouldn't shock me if she was diagnosed with early onset altzhiemers

1 hour ago, Davkaus said:

This time I held my nose and voted Labour pragmatically. They have a chance to win me back as actually enthusiastically supporting them if there's a competent leader, otherwise I'm sticking to the greens.

Same here but I currently doubt they are capable of it. They'll elect an idiot like Long-Bailey

[Jareth]

It's going to have to be someone from the current shadow cabinet - the membership will not vote for anyone else, certainly not the likes of Jess Phillips who spent the election tweeting about herself and her family (as usual). I think it's got to be Starmer, but personally I think Angela Rayner is the ideal female candidate to win back Northerners - and also a perfect antidote to posh boy Bojo. 

[bickster]

3 minutes ago, Jareth said:

I think Angela Rayner is the ideal female candidate to win back Northerners

She really isn't. Anti-intellectual inverted snob Angela isn't going to win many voters back

[bickster]

59 minutes ago, Awol said:

Dan Jarvis would’ve been perfect to calm the nerves of centrist voters & neutralize Tory attack lines. Very capable bloke too, great pity he called it a day. 

He didn't, he was re-elected last night

[Risso]

1 hour ago, Awol said:

Dan Jarvis would’ve been perfect to calm the nerves of centrist voters & neutralize Tory attack lines. Very capable bloke too, great pity he called it a day. 

Houston, we have a problem.

"Jarvis is a member of the Labour Friends of Israel."

[Awol]

8 minutes ago, bickster said:

He didn't, he was re-elected last night

Really, I thought he’d gone off to be a Mayor?!! 

That’s yer man then. Old school Labour patriot, commanded a company of Paras in Afghan, very bright and would reduce Johnson to jelly. 

[Awol]

2 minutes ago, Risso said:

Houston, we have a problem.

"Jarvis is a member of the Labour Friends of Israel."

Oh. Momentum will love him then? 

[Brumstopdogs]

2 hours ago, djdabush said:

I would have thought that Diane Abbott is a shoo in...

No, she's two left.

Edited December 13, 2019 by Brumstopdogs

[hippo]

A depressing thought is that drawn out labour leadership elections always seem to produce the worse leader

Ed Milliband rather than David

Corbyn rather than Andy Burnham

Were the leadership election to get underway quickly Keir Starmer may well win it - the longer it goes on Rayner or Long Bailey come into the frame - although I don't believe both will stand.

[Awol]

#BackBurgon trending on Twitter. 

You’d need a heart of stone not to laugh. 

[blandy]

Probably that Emily Thornbury will win? Personally, the people who've most impressed me don't seem to get mentioned. Clive Lewis, is it? He appears highly competent and "normal". I like Stella Creasy, Jess Phillips, Rowena Khan and quite a few others, though I'm not sure they have leadership potential - but they've all done stuff - genuinely made a difference, not just career politicians. People you can believe.

Benn, Cooper, Starmer are all capable, Dan Jarvis is another.

If they pick a Corbyn disciple, the same problems will occur again. It's not the left or centre thing that's the problem, it's the cult aspect to the Corbynites. The "us against the world, we're true and of virtue and anyone who's not one of us is evil" as well as some of the more "niche" policies and views.

[markavfc40]

Hearing a lot that it was the media that did for Labour and whilst they played a part, as they always do, to blame outside influences and not look inward now for Labour would be a huge mistake.

We all knew Labour would get a rough ride with much of the media but armed with that knowledge you don't elect a leader with as much baggage as Corbyn and make the medias job easy. You don't antagonise those who are likely to come at you further by blatantly saying they are the enemy and you will be going after them if you get into power. You have to be cute.

Early days still but I don't sense that Labour have learned from their mistakes. The Labour leadership have taken no blame for what has happened. Corbyn, Lansman, Lavery have all waffled on about Brexit and the main stream media doing for them. Like they never knew these things would be an issue before the election.  Not one of them has acknowledged that Corbyn himself was a huge issue and that some of their policies were too radical. 

I still can't get my head around how Labour has 3 times since 2010 failed to take out such a dire Tory government. Not even got close. They waffle on about 2017 being a success. At that time the Tories had been in power for 7 years and the country as it is now was in a right state after years of cuts. They were led by a dire Theresa May. Labour finished 55 seats behind the Tories and reacted as though they had won. That is how low the bar had been set.

Going into this election, 9 and half years into Tory rule, most sane people felt the best we could hope for was a hung Parliament. How is that even possible that Labour almost 10 years in opposition, opposing a government that has inflicted so much pain on so many, had zero chance of getting into power. That isn't the medias fault or the fault of Brexit that is squarely on those pulling the strings within the Labour party.

If the same wing of the Labour party continues to dominate then Labour will remain a party with some decent policies but forever in opposition. They need to wise up and that can start by moving back into the centre ground, electing a leader that doesn't just appeal to the hard left of the party but will appeal to those who matter, the electorate, and a leader that is more media friendly. They need to play the game.

We'll know in the next few weeks where Labour is heading when they elect their new leader. If it is a Starmer, Jarvis, Nandy, Phillips they are back on track. A Long Bailey, Burgon, Rayner then they have learned nothing and we are looking at another decade at least of Tory rule. 

It is time for them to get their head out their arses, look beyond their movement bubble and realise that the only way they can help the millions of people who desperately need it is by being in power and to do that they need to look inward and change.

Edited December 14, 2019 by markavfc40

[Rodders]

If Labour do go for another Corbynista type character then it's jackpot for the tories, and thatcher's 11 years in charge could easily be broken by this horrifying buffoon. You aren't going to persuade people who are happy to vote tory, that doubling down on the labour manifesto out of some stubborn dream 3 million people will just helpfully change their mind across the country. 

[HanoiVillan]

36 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

We'll know in the next few weeks where Labour is heading when they elect their new leader. If it is a Starmer, Jarvis, Nandy, Phillips they are back on track. A Long Bailey, Burgon, Rayner then they have learned nothing and we are looking at another decade at least of Tory rule.

Think I disagree with a large part of your analysis here, but especially the quoted bit. The next election is at least four years away, if not five, and you absolutely cannot predict, in any way, shape or form, how a particular person will perform as leader over that period, or what the conditions in the country will be when the election is held.

[hippo]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

Think I disagree with a large part of your analysis here, but especially the quoted bit. The next election is at least four years away, if not five, and you absolutely cannot predict, in any way, shape or form, how a particular person will perform as leader over that period, or what the conditions in the country will be when the election is held.

I think you can predict what won't work. People who have elected a right wing government - won't suddenly elect a left wing one - Labour has to come to the centre if it wants to be elected  - and thats a big 'if' momentum is formed mainly of people for whom politics is a hobby - that hobby becomes less fun if they are in office and accountable.

Today there are a lot of anti capitalist and anti racism  demo's going on - you can bet momentum will be there recruiting labour party members. 

[HanoiVillan]

11 minutes ago, hippo said:

I think you can predict what won't work. 

Well, I guess if the next leader talks to the media in French, or wears clown make up, or insists on baring their genitals, we can probably predict that wouldn't work. But you absolutely can't predict what the best option will be tactically or ideologically. It's just absurd to pretend otherwise. 

[hippo]

1 minute ago, HanoiVillan said:

Well, I guess if the next leader talks to the media in French, or wears clown make up, or insists on baring their genitals, we can probably predict that wouldn't work. But you absolutely can't predict what the best option will be tactically or ideologically. It's just absurd to pretend otherwise. 

You can't 100% predict - but looking when Labour last won elections with majorities might give some idea how its done

[chrisp65]

I’m not sure ‘the people’ really look too much at left and right. Certainly not as much as they look at the Presidential offer they are made by the media.

The potential presidents on offer this time were Corbyn or Johnson, and they decided Johnson was less bad. That he happens to have a whole bunch of right wing nutters behind him goading him on to reintroduce serfdom was largely irrelevant.

Unfortunately, I think to get elected, Labour need a middle aged white person that looks comfortable and confident in their own skin that can react suitably when someone says they are currently the worlds biggest threat to Jews. By suitably, I don’t mean wait 6 months and then announce they can’t do anything about it as there will be an independent process. ‘The people’ don’t want a duly considered process, they want you to sound more convincing than the other guy.

If people only considered their local candidate, we’d have a very different bunch of arses sitting on those benches.

 

 

[a m ole]

4 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I’m not sure ‘the people’ really look too much at left and right. Certainly not as much as they look at the Presidential offer they are made by the media.

The potential presidents on offer this time were Corbyn or Johnson, and they decided Johnson was less bad. That he happens to have a whole bunch of right wing nutters behind him goading him on to reintroduce serfdom was largely irrelevant.

Unfortunately, I think to get elected, Labour need a middle aged white person that looks comfortable and confident in their own skin that can react suitably when someone says they are currently the worlds biggest threat to Jews. By suitably, I don’t mean wait 6 months and then announce they can’t do anything about it as there will be an independent process. ‘The people’ don’t want a duly considered process, they want you to sound more convincing than the other guy.

If people only considered their local candidate, we’d have a very different bunch of arses sitting on those benches.

 

 

Starmer. He looks like a Tory which appears to be what’s most important.

[HanoiVillan]

23 minutes ago, hippo said:

You can't 100% predict - but looking when Labour last won elections with majorities might give some idea how its done

The last time Labour won a majority was 2005, which is basically 15 years ago. I do think we can learn somthing from this period, but the main thing we can learn is that 'the electorate has changed a lot since then'.

I think we need a little bit of humility about what we can know five years in advance. Five years ago, in December 2014, the Labour party under Ed Miliband had about a ten point lead in opinion polls, and the terms 'remainer' and 'leaver' would have left people scratching their heads. The last two elections were in many ways repeats of the 2016 referendum in another format; the next election won't be, but we don't know what the main dividing lines will be. 'Europe' might not even be an issue.

If I were advising Labour members, I would recommend choosing a leader who is calm, good at talking to the media, and seems to take advice well and from a variety of groups. Choose based on temperament not which groupuscule they belong to. But people will choose whoever they want, whatever I think about it, and unless they're truly horrific they will probably have better policies for the country in 2024 than Boris Johnson will.