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

[blandy]

1 hour ago, HanoiVillan said:

I would not have been able to vote for Labour until it had repudiated the Iraq war, no matter what (and indeed I didn't). From my perspective, there's no hypothetical number of SureStart centres that would be able to outweigh an illegal war based on a lie that led to a million premature deaths.

100% agreed.

I went from voting for them, with enthusiasm, as a bid to get rid of the Tories in '97 (was it?), to "not voting for them again because War". Since then I haven't voted for them in a GE. Not that it makes any difference where I live. And while the desire to "punish" them for ever has faded/gone, they've done nothing since to make me switch from voting for others opposing the Tories.

[Chindie]

 

[blandy]

15 minutes ago, Chindie said:

 

Being open minded and wanting to understand more I have some questions:

I believe different parties use different systems to elect their leader. I think the Tories have the MPs whittle down candidates to a final 2 and then put the choice to the members. Currently Labour do a sort of OMOV, but the candidates need to gain the support of a percentage of MPs or Unions or whatever to be able to stand. I think the LDs are similar - candidates have to get a percentage of MPs to support them, and then the members vote.

None of these methods seems particularly perfect do they?

I mean is it like a football club thing - do you want the fans to pick the team, or team captain, or club captain - or do you want the manager or players to do that job?

It's probably a crap question, but kind of the Leader is the leader of the MPs, who are employed to do their jobs by the General public, not by whichever party's members. In the case of Labour the funding for the party comes significantly from Union members, so they ought to have a say, whether directly or through their Union leader. I think that to an extent not all members are equal, really.

Union members who pay the political Levy and party members are pretty level in terms of contributions and MPs are the people doing the actual Government or opposition work, but get paid for it. But the flip side is the Leader isn't just leader of the MPs, they're also leader of the overall party and members. I kind of think the Tory version is almost the best/least bad way to do it, though that's flawed too. The big flaw is that they're (whoever party) picking someone to do a job for an employer who isn't the party or the members, but an employee of the taxpayers. The taxpayers/national voters elect a bunch of people to parliament and need those people to organise in a way to best run the place. Maybe the people who should have the biggest say in the process ought to be their colleagues, also doing jobs paid for by the taxpayers?

Just musing, really.

[darrenm]

Difficult to argue against this

 

[Chindie]

On the plus side at least Starmer's aware that the system that put him in charge is flawed.

It's just he wants a system that makes sure only his ilk get put in charge.

A good thing, apparently.

Edited September 22, 2021 by Chindie

[bickster]

43 minutes ago, darrenm said:

Difficult to argue against this

 

Is it only demonising and disenfranchising its working class members as the tweet seems to suggest? One presumes it's middle class members aren't suffering in the same way

Wasn't really that hard and I didn't even have to mention the false quotation marks around politically illiterate which I don't believe anyone has said nor the bit about making decisions for themselves which is pure projection stated as fact

EDIT: If anything is classist, it's that tweet

[blandy]

45 minutes ago, Chindie said:

On the plus side at least Starmer's aware that the system that put him in charge is flawed.

Agreed. it's definitely flawed, IMO. For example my vote as a Union member who pays the political levy ( I don't, I stopped paying it) and who hasn't voted Labour since the 2nd Iraq war should not count exactly the same as that of (say) John McDonnell or Kier Starmer, or a Labour activist and member who helps and fund raises and canvasses and all the rest, unless the "Leader" is a token appointment, a kind of ceremonial goat, and the Leader in parliament is chosen purely by the Labour MPs. 

Now seems an odd time to try and fix that, even assuming his draft fix is any better.

[HanoiVillan]

Back in 2015, after the Miliband defeat, the Westminster consensus, and the consensus within the parliamentary Labour party, was that Labour had lost because they had not 'embraced austerity'. Harriet Harman whipped the party to vote for welfare cuts, because she wanted the party to regain 'credibility' on the topic. Multiple candidates for Labour leader accepted that framing of the result. It was common to hear people complaining about one of Miliband's conference speeches when he 'didn't say the word 'deficit''.

Now, in 2021, nobody thinks that Labour lost in 2015 because they didn't sufficiently embrace austerity. Even the Conservatives only give a half-assed defence of George Osborne's economic policies. Conventional wisdom changed. Point is that the Parliamentary Labour party are not necessarily better at knowing the electorate than Labour members are; they are ultimately a narrow band of largely grammar- or privately-educated middle-class professionals, often lawyers, and so have opinions and experiences conditioned by their backgrounds. Sometimes that will leave them closer or more in-tune with public opinion on a topic, and sometimes it won't.

However, one thing to note is that they are barely even bothering to defend this change as being about effectiveness anyway. They aren't exactly hiding the factional purpose of the changes.

[Wainy316]

Liking Rayner’s delivery in PMQs

[blandy]

45 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

They aren't exactly hiding the factional purpose of the changes.

I agree with all of your post, completely. With the caveat that it is hindsight re the 2015 election and "austerity". In another 6 years hindsight might have changed back again, or may be an even stronger version of what you outlined.

But anyway, on the quoted bit I think it's necessary (for me) to understand the problem Starmer is seeking to fix.

Some people seem to be saying "the current system got Corbyn voted leader and he was a disaster, change the system to stop it happening again". Others seem to be saying  "the current system got Corbyn voted leader and he was brilliant, but the right are trying change the system to stop it happening again" - I guess that's your point. But that's not necessarily the same as "that is the genuine reason, it's all about Corbyn (or Corbyn 2.0)"

You're right that "the Parliamentary Labour party are not necessarily better at knowing the electorate than Labour members are".  The flip side is that the elected MPs are better placed to assess the merits and effectiveness of their colleagues in their parliamentary work and that is a very important aspect of the PLP. And that's the thing that's (IMO) broken in the current system, (whether it elects a Corbyn or a Starmer).

If you take the Labour party aspect out of it and look at another example - there's a blue party where the membership are perhaps not the ideal judges of who would be the best leader, as we've seen. So I kind of think this OMOV gives too much weight to the membership and Union branches and not enough to the PLP branch, regardless of actual winners and losers.

If that's the core thing that he's trying to fix, then the timing is wrong, but it's probably necessary. If it's really just "no more Corbyns" then...one sector will get it and the others will hate it - more in-fighting. 

[HanoiVillan]

11 minutes ago, blandy said:

Some people seem to be saying "the current system got Corbyn voted leader and he was a disaster, change the system to stop it happening again". Others seem to be saying  "the current system got Corbyn voted leader and he was brilliant, but the right are trying change the system to stop it happening again" - I guess that's your point. But that's not necessarily the same as "that is the genuine reason, it's all about Corbyn (or Corbyn 2.0)"

Two points on this. Firstly, it is not my opinion that Corbyn was 'brilliant' or anything similar. I do, however, think he was right on a number of key issues, austerity primarily amongst them. Being right is less important than being brilliant in politics, but it's not nothing, and his internal opponents were neither. And I don't agree with your point about 'hindsight' in this regard. 'Didn't embrace austerity' didn't come up on the doorstep, and didn't show up on opinion polls, it was a pure creation of Westminster groupthink. Of course it is possible that in five or six years austerity will be genuinely popular, who knows what will happen in the future, but I wouldn't bet on it personally, and it won't have been the reason Labour lost in 2015 at any point, because it wasn't in 2015.

Secondly, there are two types of communication that happen in politics. One is when politicians talk to the media directly, giving quotes, and one is spin and off-the-record briefings. This is being spun factionally; when I say 'they're not trying to hide' that the purpose is factional, I mean from a] the media, and b] the Labour party. The general public as a whole aren't listening and don't give a toss either way. You can see evidence of how it's being briefed behind the scenes in certain journalistic output, eg:

 

[blandy]

24 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Firstly, it is not my opinion that Corbyn was 'brilliant' or anything similar. I do, however, think he was right on a number of key issues, austerity primarily amongst them

Understood - I didn't mean to imply that, if that's how you read my post. I thought he was **** useless but agree he was right on a number of key issues (and wrong on a whole bunch more) - I meant to try and summarise the left v centre comments in a short made up phrase, not imply that either of those were your personal view.

[darrenm]

5 hours ago, bickster said:

One presumes it's middle class members

*its

[blandy]

47 minutes ago, darrenm said:

*its

I gues's Bick's copie'd the error' from the twe'et

disenfranchising it’s working class membership for being “politically illiterate”

[darrenm]

3 hours ago, blandy said:

I gues's Bick's copie'd the error' from the twe'et

disenfranchising it’s working class membership for being “politically illiterate”

Yep, 2-1 to Malick in mistakes

[Ingram85]

I’m just as angry at Labour as I am at the Tories and the cretins who vote Tory with the state of this forsaken **** country. Never has such a wide open goal been offered before but we have the most ineffectual limp dick opposition in all of UK political history. It’s embarrassing. 

Edited September 22, 2021 by Ingram85

[ml1dch]

Early reviews are in of Starmer's magnum opus...

 

 

[bickster]

1 hour ago, Ingram85 said:

I’m just as angry at Labour as I am at the Tories and the cretins who vote Tory with the state of this forsaken **** country. Never has such a wide open goal been offered before but we have the most ineffectual limp dick opposition in all of UK political history. It’s embarrassing. 

The problem with Labour right now is that a) they have to stop fighting themselvs (or split) and b) the Tories have a massive majority.

Lots of time, energy and crucially media space is taken up by Labour infighting, if they stopped fighting themselves journalists would have to start writing stories about them opposing the government.

In parliament they are actually doing their job as opposition reasonably well given the imbalance of power but that isn't what is grabbing the headlines

Just type Labour Party into Google and select news, you'll see what I mean. On that first page page you will not find the story about Angela Rayner telling Demonic Raab to get back to his sunlounger and lambasting the Tories over the forthcoming "Cost of Living Crisis" (She performed very well)

The ineffective opposition line is being run with by both Starmers opponents in his own party and the media. It's an unholy alliance between the Left Wing and the Libertarian main stream media. As an outsider but keen observer it's absolutely bonkers

[dont_do_it_doug.]

Is this Keith fella for real? I mean who the hell voted for this chump?

The levels of delusion are off the chart. Mate, literally nobody without a deep interest in politics or keeping their sanity in check wants to read a 14,000 word essay on how you don’t have any actual ideas, just vibes. 

[dont_do_it_doug.]

2 hours ago, bickster said:

The ineffective opposition line is being run with by both Starmers opponents in his own party and the media. It's an unholy alliance between the Left Wing and the Libertarian main stream media. As an outsider but keen observer it's absolutely bonkers

Ah yeah sorry, it’s the left’s fault for not bending over, parting its own cheeks and allowing itself to be shafted all the way back to the stone ages. Again.

The opportunity was there for compromise. Yes there are nutters in every wing of the party but I can tell you for a fact that all the vast majority of people on the left of it want is some semblance of progressive policy and not to be purged for daring to hold the man to his own pledges. At this stage that clearly isn’t going to happen, so any **** policy at all would be a start.