next labour leader

This idea of "Tory-lite" is an entirely suicidal notion set up by the far left. All it tries to do is to poison the centre ground and make it impossible for the party to ever be there with the force of its rhetoric.

Of course, the message it sends to outsiders is clear - if you think Governments should be sensible and prudent, vote Tory, Labour's not for you. I can't think of a more ludicrous message to give people.
Here's a more ludicrous message "We don't give a shit what you think". Great vote winner you're going for right there.
 
Voters in Shropshire aren't the establishment.

Never said they were. It just highlights the delusional nature of Corbyn's supporters regarding the splash that they feel he is making.

The establishment is not just the Tories. And the tory press, such as the Daily Mail and The Daily Telegraph, have daily been spending a lot of column space on the anti-Corbyn wagon.

Not an excessive amount by any means. There is only a mention of him in relation to Bernie Sanders on The Telegraphs front web page today.

I have a friend who is a former Tory councillor and activist for them. The Tories are genuinely delighted by his success as they genuinely believe that he is unelectable and guarantees them winning the next election. He believes that only Liz Kendall has what it takes to cause them any sort of problem in the next election.
 
Is that just your guess or is that evidenced?

Its obviously a guess on my part, but considering how the polls currently look it tells us one or both of two things:

a) Corbyn is immensely popular amongst the Labour core voting base

and/or

b) The other candidates are considered highly uninspiring and unpopular.


Either way Corbyn losing will probably create a sense of disillusionment and apathy, which means folks will either flock to the fringes (as we've sign with UKIP's recent surge) or just not bother voting. Either way it'll spell disaster and likely another whitewash in 2020.
 
The most disheartening this about this isn't even Labour losing the next election, it's the fact that so many labour voters seem to have bought into conservative propaganda. At least with Corbyn, you'll get a shift in narratives and a chance to move the conversation.
 
Not an excessive amount by any means. There is only a mention of him in relation to Bernie Sanders on The Telegraphs front web page today.

I have a friend who is a former Tory councillor and activist for them. The Tories are genuinely delighted by his success as they genuinely believe that he is unelectable and guarantees them winning the next election. He believes that only Liz Kendall has what it takes to cause them any sort of problem in the next election.

The Daily Torygraph and Daily Heil have been spending far more time on Corbyn than any of the other leadership candidates.

I can understand your Tory cancillor because Corbyn probably won't be much threat to the traditional Tory voters as for example a Blairite leader would be. However, I think Corbyn will be a big threat to the SNP and UKIP so in that sense indirectly Corbyn does pose a significant problem to the Tories.
 
So just seen this from the Labour leadership election candidate code of conduct:
labour-election-653x368.jpg


Looks like the other three have already violated point 3 :lol:
 
The Daily Torygraph and Daily Heil have been spending far more time on Corbyn than any of the other leadership candidates.

I can understand your Tory cancillor because Corbyn probably won't be much threat to the traditional Tory voters as for example a Blairite leader would be. However, I think Corbyn will be a big threat to the SNP and UKIP so in that sense indirectly Corbyn does pose a significant problem to the Tories.

Honestly I think you are kidding yourself. The establishment, the right and the pragmatic/centre left genuinely think he is unelectable I believe.
 
Observing from a far (well, observing from across the North Sea anyhow) it seems to me that the establishment is doing a lot of scare mongering by frightening everybody off Corbyn. It seems to me that the establishment has actually been alarmed by the thought of Corbyn winning, they must be scared of something. Only more reason to want Corbyn to win.

Indeed. This Tory boy campaigner writing in the Telegraph says quite openly what he is so scared of.

“Corbyn would still have six questions at PMQs. His frontbench would still have a representative on Question Time and Newsnight. His party’s policy announcements and press releases would get just as much news coverage as a credible opposition.

“In short, Labour being Labour, they’ll still have the same platform … The only difference is Corbyn’s views will be more left-wing, so will shift the entire political debate to the left. Long-term, so long as Labour and the Conservatives remain the two major parties in the UK, the only way to make progress is to persuade Labour to accept our position. Our ideas don’t win just when our party does, but when the other party advocates our ideas, too.

“Instead, a Corbyn victory would lend credibility to the far-left … giving a megaphone to their [politics]. Inevitably, this would skew the discourse, letting Corbyn’s ideas become the default alternative to the Conservatives. Corbyn’s brand of socialism would poison the groundwater of British politics for a generation: influencing people, particularly young people, across the political spectrum.

“All of the above applies if he loses the general election. … [But that’s] not a foregone conclusion. Indeed, in 1975, Margaret Thatcher was widely portrayed as ‘unelectable’. Her election as party leader was cheered by Labour as playing to the Conservative base and guaranteeing yet another Conservative defeat. Three general election landslides later, nobody was left worrying about her electability.

“… as Harold Macmillan said, governments can always be undermined by “Events, dear boy, events.” And if he were leader, it would take just one event – from the collapse of the Eurozone to a domestic political scandal – to put Jeremy Corbyn into Number 10. For the sake of the country and for the innumerable Conservative achievements he’d unwind, it is important that that option be taken off the table.

“I don’t think Jeremy Corbyn would win the 2020 election – but then I don’t Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper, or Liz Kendall would either. … But there’s always that risk of the unexpected. So while Corbyn doesn’t reduce the risk of Labour winning, he does raise the stakes. And the danger of bringing socialism back to the UK under Jeremy Corbyn is all too real a threat for #ToriesAgainstCorbyn to risk.”

He is quite right.

He also explains why they would actually love any of the other three candidates; "our idea don't win just when our party does, but when the other party advocates our ideas, too". Just like they all love Blair.

You will struggle to find more devout supporters of Tony Blair than those at the top of the Conservative leadership. "I can't hold it back any more; I love Tony!" Michael Gove once exclaimed. David Cameron famously described himself as "the heir to Blair", and senior Tories refer to him as "The Master". "His influence is very firmly felt," a senior Tory told The Times. "He's like the footballer Cristiano Ronaldo – gone but still greatly admired."

In so far as I’m sympathetic to Tory politicians, and their arguments, it’s because as a right-wing polemicist I find them persuasive. And as a right-wing polemicist, all I can say looking at Mr Blair now is, what’s not to like?

The Prime Minister has been right, and brave, to introduce market pressures into higher education by pushing through university top-up fees in the teeth of opposition from his egalitarian Chancellor. He’s been correct in conceding, to the annoyance of his wife I’m sure, that the European Convention on Human Rights gets in the way of a sane asylum policy. In dealing with the firefighters, and their absurdly selfish strike, he’s been satisfactorily resolute.

It is not, however, on the domestic agenda that Mr Blair is facing his biggest challenge at the moment. It is over Iraq that he is in greatest difficulty politically. All because, as a Labour Prime Minister, he’s behaving like a true Thatcherite.

Indeed, he’s braver in some respects than Maggie was. The Falklands war took courage. But Thatcher had most of the country, and her party, behind her. In dealing with the Iraq crisis, Mr Blair has neither.

The Thatcherite approach to foreign policy isn’t to every Tory taste. The belief that dictators should be confronted, not coddled, America is there to be supported, not patronised, and the national interest includes maintaining our honour not just calculating narrow advantage, is deprecated by some Conservatives.

- Gove.

I could go on, but I think I've made my point.
 
So.. 60s and 70s. Or, a completely different electoral pool.

Now, let's consider 2020, a better economy, a EU referendum probably won by the tories and their pals in the media and, even more importantly, redrawn constituency boundaries to favour them. How is Labour going to win? In any guise whatsoever, left wing or otherwise.

Not even taking into consideration the mass exodus if labour actually goes ahead and fecks over the left wing one more time.
Why are you ignoring the point of the actual numbers involved? A government's number of seats tend to shrink even in times of economic prosperity, and the Tories have a very slight majority. They aren't hugely popular (and both Blair and Thatcher were, once upon a time). But if they're allowed to dominate the centre ground then they'll repeat their 2015 trick with some ease. A Labour party, which the public already trusts more on public service delivery and shares the same socially liberal attitude in many respects, that is deemed credible economically along with a leader the public believe is a capable Prime Minster, is a strong prospect electorally.

I imagine a lot of Corbyn supporters here also thought the last Labour government was Tory lite. Good luck getting the Tory party of the 90s and 00s to have delivered the minimum wage, increased spending in public services, lifted children and pensioners out of poverty, brought in a massive redistributive program in the form of tax credits, furthered LGBT rights, welcomed multiculturalism, achieved peace in Northern Ireland and devolved power outside of England. But yeah the Iraq war happened so they must've been cnuts all along. And they run a surplus for a few years too, so they were definitely Tories.
I have a friend who is a former Tory councillor and activist for them. The Tories are genuinely delighted by his success as they genuinely believe that he is unelectable and guarantees them winning the next election. He believes that only Liz Kendall has what it takes to cause them any sort of problem in the next election.
It's because they don't realise just how much of a historical great Jeremy Corbyn is yet. He's going to unite the socialist majority of people that have never voted, Green voters, sections of the Liberal Democrats and members of the anti-Zionist movement to bring about the spirit of '45 again. Never mind that the left wing in the 30s and 40s thought Attlee may as well have been a Tory anyway. And they obviously only like Kendall because she's just the reanimated corpse of Thatcher, only more right wing. They're just facts mate.
 
Why are you ignoring the point of the actual numbers involved? A government's number of seats tend to shrink even in times of economic prosperity, and the Tories have a very slight majority. They aren't hugely popular (and both Blair and Thatcher were, once upon a time). But if they're allowed to dominate the centre ground then they'll repeat their 2015 trick with some ease. A Labour party, which the public already trusts more on public service delivery and shares the same socially liberal attitude in many respects, that is deemed credible economically along with a leader the public believe is a capable Prime Minster, is a strong prospect electorally.

I imagine a lot of Corbyn supporters here also thought the last Labour government was Tory lite. Good luck getting the Tory party of the 90s and 00s to have delivered the minimum wage, increased spending in public services, lifted children and pensioners out of poverty, brought in a massive redistributive program in the form of tax credits, furthered LGBT rights, welcomed multiculturalism, achieved peace in Northern Ireland and devolved power outside of England. But yeah the Iraq war happened so they must've been cnuts all along. And they run a surplus for a few years too, so they were definitely Tories.

It's because they don't realise just how much of a historical great Jeremy Corbyn is yet. He's going to unite the socialist majority of people that have never voted, Green voters, sections of the Liberal Democrats and members of the anti-Zionist movement to bring about the spirit of '45 again. Never mind that the left wing in the 30s and 40s thought Attlee may as well have been a Tory anyway. And they obviously only like Kendall because she's just the reanimated corpse of Thatcher, only more right wing. They're just facts mate.
When the conservatives are raising the minimum wage higher than labour would have, you have to wonder if lite is even the right word for it.

Same sex marriage got through despite the conservatives.
 
The most disheartening this about this isn't even Labour losing the next election, it's the fact that so many labour voters seem to have bought into conservative propaganda. At least with Corbyn, you'll get a shift in narratives and a chance to move the conversation.
True instead of can labour win in 2020 it will be how much of a hammering will they take
 
When the conservatives are raising the minimum wage higher than labour would have, you have to wonder if lite is even the right word for it.

Same sex marriage got through despite the conservatives.
:lol: Yeah, after 13 years of Labour dominance forced their leadership to stop focusing solely on Europe and immigration, and move to a more socially liberal position. You probably had people on the Tory right calling Cameron a socialist for the kinds of stuff he was doing back then. That's what being a true party of government means - you force the other party to change by being an electoral force, and change yourself when the public demands it. If you're unelectable, they do whatever the hell they like.
 
@Ubik @bishblaize curious, will you two be leaving the Labour Party if Corbyn becomes leader and isn't ousted?
I'll be leaving as a member (I'd also leave if he was ousted straight away by the way, I may be a closet fascist but I'm still against deposing a democratically elected leader) as I'd need to show some dissent against what I regard is a suicidal direction to take and a desertion of the people that actually need a Labour government, but I'll still be a Labour voter. Flirted with the Greens in the past but I'm over that now.
 
Rather take a hammering promoting something you believe in than going with the same old shit.
Yeah because that's how you help the poor?
I mean what did Blair ever achieve... Other than tax credits, introduction of the minimum wage. Doubling pupil funding, getting 1.5m people back to work... 85,000 nurses, 32,000 doctors, paternity leave, 1 million social houses brought up to standard, 600,000 children lifted out of poverty, 1 million pensioners lifted out of poverty, NHS waiting lists halved, free nursery places, civil partnerships...
Yeah far better just to mouth off from the sidelines than do stuff like that????
 
What about changing as a party when the overwhelming majority of party members demand it?
It depends what your end goal is really. Personally mine is for the Labour party to be in power in order to enact progressive change on the country for the better. If the overwhelming majority of party members demand change that prevents that from happening (as I expect to be the case here), then I have no choice but to fundamentally disagree with that majority. I don't regard the positions Labour takes in opposition as the end in itself, they should always be the means through which change can be brought.

Yeah because that's how you help the poor?
I mean what did Blair ever achieve... Other than tax credits, introduction of the minimum wage. Doubling pupil funding, getting 1.5m people back to work... 85,000 nurses, 32,000 doctors, paternity leave, 1 million social houses brought up to standard, 600,000 children lifted out of poverty, 1 million pensioners lifted out of poverty, NHS waiting lists halved, free nursery places, civil partnerships...
Yeah far better just to mouth off from the sidelines than do stuff like that????
Tories would've done all that but better apparently. Tories were actually the socially democratic party of the time, Bliar just hoodwinked us into thinking otherwise so he could annihilate the middle east.
 
Why is it that all we are hearing is all this negativity about Corbyn and his idea's rather then hearing what is positive things about the idea's of the other candidates?
It seems to me that the powers to be, who ever they are, are sadly missing the point yet again. I think the general public is tired of politics being all about name calling, spin and slagging off another's idea's. What the public want is politics based upon truth and vision, positive politics.
 
Why is it that all we are hearing is all this negativity about Corbyn and his idea's rather then hearing what is positive things about the idea's of the other candidates?
Exactly. The only thing we're told about the other candidates is that they're more electable... So electable, in fact, that they might not get half the labour membership to vote for them combined.
 
I find Corbyn refreshing, as he seems to be about what he believes in, rather than what he thinks will get him elected.
 
Yeah because that's how you help the poor?
I mean what did Blair ever achieve... Other than tax credits, introduction of the minimum wage. Doubling pupil funding, getting 1.5m people back to work... 85,000 nurses, 32,000 doctors, paternity leave, 1 million social houses brought up to standard, 600,000 children lifted out of poverty, 1 million pensioners lifted out of poverty, NHS waiting lists halved, free nursery places, civil partnerships...
Yeah far better just to mouth off from the sidelines than do stuff like that????
In the meanwhile, letting corporations walk us into a financial meltdown that undid most of it. They let housing become unaffordable for an entire generation, good job helping the poor right there.
 
Exactly. The only thing we're told about the other candidates is that they're more electable... So electable, in fact, that they might not get half the labour membership to vote for them combined.

A "leftist" membership that supported David Miliband last time around.
 
It depends what your end goal is really. Personally mine is for the Labour party to be in power in order to enact progressive change on the country for the better. If the overwhelming majority of party members demand change that prevents that from happening (as I expect to be the case here), then I have no choice but to fundamentally disagree with that majority. I don't regard the positions Labour takes in opposition as the end in itself, they should always be the means through which change can be brought.

Fair enough, I do respect your position which is (I think) that it's better to be in power and make some changes than be in opposition with noble intentions and make none. But for me, and many others, I'd prefer a Corbyn leadership which manages to shift the discourse and highlight the sort of issues that need highlighting. I don't think Burnham or Cooper have a prayer of winning an election, so the "Well, he's unelectable" gibes are redundant in my opinion. The Tories will win the next election regardless; it's about 2025, not 2020 -- as unpalatable as that may seem.

The question is whether we want an opposition that runs to the middle in an attempt to win, but loses anyway, or an opposition that battles the Tories on all of the key issues.
 
Exactly. The only thing we're told about the other candidates is that they're more electable... So electable, in fact, that they might not get half the labour membership to vote for them combined.

'Electable' in the sense they might nick a few Tory votes here and there, while losing the support of the core base. How that leads to an electoral victory I do not know.
 
'Electable' in the sense they might nick a few Tory votes here and there, while losing the support of the core base. How that leads to an electoral victory I do not know.
As someone who symathises with both sides on Corbyn versus the rest, this is the bit that's made me a supporter of his. The core support has already been lost in Scotland. If it's lost in England, the party is dead and the Greens are nowhere near ready to be the main party of the left in England.
 
Fair enough, I do respect your position which is (I think) that it's better to be in power and make some changes than be in opposition with noble intentions and make none. But for me, and many others, I'd prefer a Corbyn leadership which manages to shift the discourse and highlight the sort of issues that need highlighting. I don't think Burnham or Cooper have a prayer of winning an election, so the "Well, he's unelectable" gibes are redundant in my opinion. The Tories will win the next election regardless; it's about 2025, not 2020 -- as unpalatable as that may seem.

The question is whether we want an opposition that runs to the middle in an attempt to win, but loses anyway, or an opposition that battles the Tories on all of the key issues.
2025 is lost as well if Corbyn wins and stays around until the next election. Many will simply dismiss that as me scaremongering with the "establishment", but given the look of the electoral landscape and the position Labour are currently in, I'd see it as an inevitability. If 25 seats went Tory from Labour, which would need only a ~3% swing to achieve, they'd have increased their lead in seats over Labour from 100 to 150, which would be all but impossible to come back from in 2025 (and maybe even 2030). Conversely, with a fairly muted 2.5% swing to Labour from the Tories if they had a credible leader and programme, would gain them about 20 Tory seats and leave a gap of about 60 for 2025, hard but doable. A more optimistic 5% swing would get them to where they were predicted to get in May, about level pegging with the Tories in seats. I'm not saying this because I hate socialism and think Jeremy Corbyn is a Trot that needs a good ice-picking, it's because I'm looking at the evidence and failing to see how strongly leftwing ideas are going to appeal to a public that is currently highly sceptical towards public spending and the welfare state in particular, particularly in the seats Labour needs to win.

And to emphasise the folly of prioritising the SNP as a target - a 10% swing from them would get Labour 16 seats. A 10% swing from the Tories would get about 100.
 
As someone who symathises with both sides on Corbyn versus the rest, this is the bit that's made me a supporter of his. The core support has already been lost in Scotland. If it's lost in England, the party is dead and the Greens are nowhere near ready to be the main party of the left in England.

I feel like this is really important to consider. The Scottish result allowed us to see what can happen when a party automatically assumes that they'll continue to get voted in a certain area because they always have done.

In 2015, we saw UKIP making severe inroads in certain areas, almost becoming the 2nd party in certain Northern places, with a decent increase in the number of Green voters despite them having a fairly awful leader.

If Labour don't significantly improve, then they'll eventually lose their main areas, who will simply become fed up with the parties indecisiveness and lack of solid, set beliefs. It may be to UKIP or the Greens, or it might be to another option altogether, but it's something that could feasibly happen, even if it'll take a while.

That doesn't even have to be an endorsement of Corbyn as such, but it's more that if Labour continue going for whoever merely appears to be the most "electable", as opposed to who is genuinely the best candidate, they'll just fade away since they'll lose whatever small amount of purpose they currently have.
 
In the meanwhile, letting corporations walk us into a financial meltdown that undid most of it. They let housing become unaffordable for an entire generation, good job helping the poor right there.
Right so you will dismiss any good Blair etc did and remember the bad... So presumably those who did not stand against him were culpable as well?
Yes corbyn was an elected member of the party that did that... Tell me, how many times did he vote against the budget in that period?
 
I don't really pay much concern to the mainland parties but I have to say, I would find it extremely insulting to have all the other candidates labelling anyone who votes Corbyn as 'morons' (or anything like that).

If I cared about it personally, that would make me want to vote for him just to spite those cnuts.

I know very little about the candidates truthfully but Andy Burnham comes across as a right two-faced wanker.
 
Do the electorate want radical shifts in direction or moderate force which attempt to introduce the best of both worlds? What could better represent a productive legacy for Labour, than a Tory chancellor attempting to out-do the opposition with regard to the minimum wage, or a PM pledging to 8bn in additional NHS funding (to name but two). This works goes both ways of course, yet i don't see any significant areas of convergence with a Corbyn-led party.




How can people clamour for the empty suits? He's just better.


A platitudinous interview in which Corbyn was allowed to say whatever he he pleased, whether it lacked for relevance or consistency. Most if not all of the sentiments he raised are shared by numerous other politicians on both sides of the chamber, although he probably the one with the least chance of bringing them into being.
 
What is your preoccupation with Kendell? Every time someone points out that another national paper has run an evident smear against Corbyn, you retort with "Well, similar has been said about Kendell". Answer me this, when has Jeremy Corbyn said a single word which could be construed as a personal attack against Kendell? I'm going to guess never.

I question the claim of nastiness with the critiques of Corbyn. Sure, his policies have been attacked, but what is to be faulted that anyway. Can you really claim that he has suffered the same sort of spiteful and hurtful abuse as Kendall?


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...of-his-labour-leadership-rivals-10457055.html

Jeremy Corbyn warns his supporters that he will not tolerate personal abuse of his Labour leadership rivals

There you have it. Just a shame that his rivals are still more focused in slandering him instead of discussiong their own policies.

I am pleased to see him say so, however i would imagine that it has been predominantly his supporters engaging in such. That is except for on the MP level, where i would acknowledge that either the Burnham or Cooper campaigns have the greater capacity for underhand tactics.
 
I am pleased to see him say so, however i would imagine that it has been predominantly his supporters engaging in such. That is except for on the MP level, where i would acknowledge that either the Burnham or Cooper campaigns have the greater capacity for underhand tactics.

Well there isn't much he can do regarding his supporters' behaviour beyond asking to keep it impersonal, which he's done (and his rivals haven't).

Not that I'm excusing the more vitriolic attacks towards the other candidates, but considering the condescending and swarmy response the Corbyn supporters have received from the Blairites in recent weeks, its hardly a surprise that some of them may feel somewhat irate. You'd think a huge bump in party membership would be reciprocated with positive sentiments instead of Blairites queuing up to call us heartless morons.
 
Labour members seemingly the former
General populous most probably the latter
Which is the problem

Labour members also make up the general population.

Furthermore, as discussed before Corbyn's ideas aren't as radical as the media and his rivals have depicted him to be. They're typical centre-left social democratic principles which have been successfully implemented in other countries. They're radical in the sense that they'd perhaps de-rail the gravy train which would upset the establishment but nothing beyond that.
 
I question the claim of nastiness with the critiques of Corbyn. Sure, his policies have been attacked, but what is to be faulted that anyway. Can you really claim that he has suffered the same sort of spiteful and hurtful abuse as Kendall?

Just today he has been called an anti-Semite.