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

[blandy]

25 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

people on this site make a big deal about electability. Well, you can lose votes in more than one way - they don't only go to the Tories. Labour won't win if there's a big swing toward Green or Lib Dem in the next election (in fact, about half of the roughly 8 point swing away from Labour went to the Lib Dems this time), and since, as you say, the Tories will not deal adequately with this issue, it would be better for the environment if Labour actually won next time. 

Electability is what politicians must seek. It's what's so wrong (or one of the things) with Corbyn and his cult. He/they don't have it.

Now, looking at sums and maths. There are a finite number of voters. There is one right win voting option (baby eaters) and multiple left options - LDs, Labour, Green, SNP,  Plaid. There are more left voters than right, but being split as they are results (under FPTP) in tory Governments (except in Scotland, where you get SNP Gov't). Until or unless the left options work together, the situation of mostly tory rule will continue. "Taking votes off the Greens", or off Lib Dems - just off each other whichever way - it means tory Gov't and that's bad for the environment.

Labour is wrongly playing the tories game - because they won a long time ago, they think their best chance is to fight everyone else and try and win again. Those days are gone.  Now if they elect a competent leader (big if) they will increase their chances or winning the next election from nil to unlikely if they carry on fighting everyone. That's got to stop. They've got to work with other parties (and the other parties with them). Never mind saying nice things about hospitals or immigrants or Unions or housing...whoever is leader needs to actively and genuinely want to and be capable of working with others. That wasn't Corbyn, the next one needs to not be a Corbyn. none of them are as bad as him, which is a small step, but I suspect that Labour isn't as a party going to do what it needs to. They'll spend more time arguing among themselves about purity or whatever. 

[HanoiVillan]

8 minutes ago, bickster said:

Strange you use the words of the "posh" GMB interviewer (Soz no idea who she is) rather than the words that JP said she used, JP actually says about the threat of leaving the Labour Party that the interviewer was misquoting her and then goes on to say what she actually said. Not sure why thats cringey at all.

Hell I wonder what would have happened had Corbyn been asked that question during his leadership? The question is utter tripe, lets be honest. How many MPs do we think are out there that don't 100% believe in the policies of the party (on any side), I hope rather a lot or they're all self serving automatons. Poor journalism is all I hear in that clip

I don't think 'He has crossed red lines and I will find it very hard to fall in line with a further Jeremy Corbyn Labour party' is unfairly glossed as a threat to leave the Labour party. However, even if you disagree, my point is that she absolutely did not 'not answer questions she didn't like' or 'insist on talking about something else', per Chris's criteria. She attempted to answer what I agree was a poor question, stumbled, and ended up looking like she doesn't have the courage of her convictions. 

The big picture here is that Chris asks what the media can 'get her' on. The answer is we don't know yet, because she has never really been asked many critical questions before, but between stumbling here and having to backtrack on potentially rejoining the EU, she hasn't had a very promising start at handling media scrutiny. 

[StefanAVFC]

 

[Phil Silvers]

RLB is a patsy, hoping to make the others look not so bad.

[blandy]

26 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I don't think 'He has crossed red lines and I will find it very hard to fall in line with a further Jeremy Corbyn Labour party' is unfairly glossed as a threat to leave the Labour party. However, even if you disagree, my point is that she absolutely did not 'not answer questions she didn't like' or 'insist on talking about something else', per Chris's criteria. She attempted to answer what I agree was a poor question, stumbled, and ended up looking like she doesn't have the courage of her convictions. 

The big picture here is that Chris asks what the media can 'get her' on. The answer is we don't know yet, because she has never really been asked many critical questions before, but between stumbling here and having to backtrack on potentially rejoining the EU, she hasn't had a very promising start at handling media scrutiny. 

I'm with Bicks on that interview.

The question was (as you say) just about a fair one and she dealt with it OK in my view. It's clear that she (like many members of parties) is/was conflicted about her leader. It turns out she was right to be. But whether it's the tories that left their party because of Johnson, or Labour MPs and Corbyn, when someone has a long relationship in or with a party and then it elects a complete plum as a leader they will be torn. Do I leave my job and my livelihood because of this bell, or do I stay and hope the leader goes, or do I raise my head above the parapet and criticise...

She was, as events have shown, completely right about Corbyn, she was IMO right to stay in the Labour party, she was clearly torn and says it was a hard thing to do - there are a lot like that. She comes across as being honest, IMO. 

[Seat68]

40 minutes ago, StefanAVFC said:

 

3/10 WNB

[Xela]

As someone said in the comments, Boris would give Corbyn 10/10 as well!

[KentVillan]

3 hours ago, bickster said:

I said it because it echo's all the misogynistic crap that's been chucked at her since the weekend (and well before that). Fishwife, clueless, rentagob etc.

Fishwife is inherently misogynistic.

Clueless and rentagob are just insults. Unless you only throw them at women (note I also called Gary Neville and Tim Sherwood rent a gobs...), I’m not sure how they display misogyny. I’d have thought at least 99% of politicians have been described as clueless at some point!

[bickster]

12 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

Fishwife is inherently misogynistic.

Clueless and rentagob are just insults. Unless you only throw them at women (note I also called Gary Neville and Tim Sherwood rent a gobs...), I’m not sure how they display misogyny. I’d have thought at least 99% of politicians have been described as clueless at some point!

perhaps not the best examples of what I read at the weekend, fishwife stood out, there were plenty of others thrown in, but the combo of clueless and fishwife etc were all there. I think I may have seen harridan chucked in there a few times too

[PompeyVillan]

9 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

From my very uninformed, layman point of view, not knowing much about any of the candidates really apart from Jess Phillips, I like the look of Nandy

From my obsessive following of this campaign so far, Lisa Nandy is by far the only candidate that truly understands the significance of their loss and the change in their electoral demographic. 

I like her talk about devolution and social Conservatism. As a social liberal who lives around social conservatives I get it too. 

If Labour don't broaden their church again and do it quick, they're in real danger of become a footnote in history. 

I'm not sure that the 'the far left' of the party really get her though, she voted in favour of Brexit which to many ignorant members makes her a 'Tory plant' or 'Red Tory'. Brexit history is neither here nor there for me now, considering that debate is over. 

Anyway, I'm not sure who my order of preference is yet, but Kier Starmer and Lisa Nandy are standing out for me.

[Wainy316]

3 hours ago, Xela said:

As someone said in the comments, Boris would give Corbyn 10/10 as well!

Definitely would bang?

[bickster]

13 minutes ago, PompeyVillan said:

she voted in favour of Brexit which to many ignorant members makes her a 'Tory plant' or 'Red Tory'.

In my book it makes her an idiot but what did that make Corbyn? A Tory Plant too? (there's a big argument for yes here btw)

13 minutes ago, PompeyVillan said:

Brexit history is neither here nor there for me now, considering that debate is over. 

Is it? Not convinced personally. I want a party leader prepared to take us back in and more to the point so will many of the demogrphic Labour need to get elected. They never understood this then and they still don't

[PompeyVillan]

9 hours ago, bickster said:

In my book it makes her an idiot but what did that make Corbyn? A Tory Plant too? (there's a big argument for yes here btw)

Is it? Not convinced personally. I want a party leader prepared to take us back in and more to the point so will many of the demogrphic Labour need to get elected. They never understood this then and they still don't

I don't think rejoin will be the priority of many to be honest, and I say that as part of the now core Labour demographic who voted for remain

In fact, as an ardent remainer, I would swerve any candidate that advocates rejoining at this stage. It would indicate an accute lack of political savvy. 

Brexit has proved to be an issue that Labour cannot win on. Trying to replay the arguements of the last 4 years after losing the argument twice would just serve to further entrench the losses Labour made in traditional homelands and annoy remainers (such as myself!) that accept begrudgingly that the Conservatives have a mandate to go through with Brexit. 

The arguement now moves to, what sort of post-Brexit country do we want? 

Certainly not the shit show that we're about to see. 

Rejoin won't be palatable until it all goes wrong. Even then, leavers will want us to see it through. 

[bickster]

26 minutes ago, PompeyVillan said:

In fact, as an ardent remainer, I would swerve any candidate that advocates rejoining at this stage. It would indicate an accute lack of political savvy. 

I really don't think so, in fact the longer us being out goes on, the louder that call will be. I also fully expect that hard core working class former Labour voting "northern" demographic to start changing their minds rather rapidly once the shit hits the fan.

[HanoiVillan]

I doubt there will be many calls to rejoin the EU at all, and if there are I don't expect them to get any real traction. In an FPTP system, you would need at least one of the two main parties to firmly commit to it as a project, and clearly neither will. 

Elections have consequences. 

[blandy]

13 hours ago, bickster said:

I want a party leader prepared to take us back in

Not gonna happen, and not wise anyway, IMO - at least not for a decade or more. The argument you identify, in the later post is right - but it's more about (once the clusterpork effects start biting), having been ahead of the game in terms of being as close as possible, without being in. The idea of any party proposing "let's pay them billions a year, maybe adopt the Euro, open the borders to free movement, let them determine rules we set for ourselves, now" is just not going to fly, plus I doubt anyone will want a re-run of the last 3 years. You've also got to consider whether the EU nations would want to let us back in, given the trouble we've caused. Non-starter IMO.

[HanoiVillan]

Some Labour leader nominations info coming out:

As was suggested by the YouGov poll of members, Starmer is out on his own in front at this stage of the race. It's not *impossible* for someone else to win, but I really think he would have to gaffe pretty hard at this point. He has the highest name recognition of any of the candidates (of course, that leaves others with more room to grow, but it's definitely an advantage), won a poll last year ranking how much Labour members liked individual MP's, and doesn't have large numbers of people who hate him.

The nomination lists also confirm the 'lanes' that candidates are running in:

RLB's support clearly coming from the left of the party, many of them new arrivals in 2019 who were considered strongly Corbynite candidates (Begum, Whitley, Barker, Sultana). Phillips is being supported by the some of the most vocal Corbyn critics left in the party (Coyle, McDonagh, Streeting). Starmer drawing support from the mass of MPs in the middle. 

[chrisp65]

Starmer could very quickly both ‘good’ on his own merits and the go to choice of the stop RLB / Continuity Corbyn votes.

 

[HanoiVillan]

3 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Starmer could very quickly both ‘good’ on his own merits and the go to choice of the stop RLB / Continuity Corbyn votes.

As I say, he could still lose, but he couldn't be better positioned at this stage of the race, in basically every respect. It will be a real Jacobellis job to lose from here. 

[chrisp65]

I haven’t noticed any criticism of him pop up on my twitter.

There’s a lot of dislike for JP and RLB, I’ve seen Thornberry get some crit. But I haven’t noticed it for Starmer. Interestingly, he was sort of quiet / sidelined during the election, making the occasional sensible intervention but not exactly wall to wall coverage. Which probably works very much in his favour.