Next Saturday.
next labour leader
- Thread starter sun_tzu
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Well, regardless of outcome, this election can at least claim credit for inspiring an excellent Redcafe thread. Some very good contributions from bishblaize, jeff_goldblum and many others. Without giving a monkeys who leads the Labour Party, I thought the discussion was very informative about the current state of British politics.
Who'da thought people on the Cafe actually know stuff?
Who'da thought people on the Cafe actually know stuff?
Well, regardless of outcome, this election can at least claim credit for inspiring an excellent Redcafe thread. Some very good contributions from bishblaize, jeff_goldblum and many others. Without giving a monkeys who leads the Labour Party, I thought the discussion was very informative about the current state of British politics.
Who'da thought people on the Cafe actually know stuff?
Let's vote corbyn as Labour leader so the 2020 general election thread can be just as good.
The first pmq's after that is going to be very interesting... I suspect the swarm comment to be thrown at Cameron
I'd second this - it's been very interesting to drop by this thread.Well, regardless of outcome, this election can at least claim credit for inspiring an excellent Redcafe thread. Some very good contributions from bishblaize, jeff_goldblum and many others. Without giving a monkeys who leads the Labour Party, I thought the discussion was very informative about the current state of British politics.
Who'da thought people on the Cafe actually know stuff?
Yeah I imagine it is self-selecting to an extent, but not to a degree where the statistic can be entirely dismissed.
I don't really get your point regarding the Tory voters though, given that half this thread is people saying that the next Labour leader has to win Tory voters. Are you similarly worried about 31% of the Tories backing Kendall?
The 'Tories for Corbyn' thing has been hugely overblown because of some high-profile trolls like Toby Young. No sensible person who believes in and benefits from right wing policies would actively push for Corbyn to be leader. From their perspective they'd rather see Kendall win, because then even the worst case scenario of the Tory Party collapsing and Labour winning in 2020 wouldn't really be that much of a disaster to them, in the same way Major giving way to Blair wasn't a huge disaster to the likes Murdoch or the big banks because, whilst they didn't agree with Labour's politics, Blair's policies never posed a serious threat to their interests.
The right-wing media have been slamming Corbyn precisely because they don't want him to win. The right's interests have been better served in this country than those of working people over the last 18 years because its champions created a situation where they'll thrive regardless of which party was in power. Corbyn getting in as leader would be no reason for them to celebrate because, even if they don't think he could win a general election in normal circumstances, they'd be one Tory Party split or scandal away from having to deal with a government which would actually take them to task in a way that Cameron, Brown, Blair, Major and Thatcher never had the inclination or the political will to do.
They're slamming him now to define him early on, that's about it. They're going to be delighted when he's leader. Even in the face of a Tory meltdown, they'd still be highly likely to win a general election, giving the electoral maths. And there's probably not going to be a Tory meltdown, so instead they're looking forward to increasing their majority.
My point about the Tory statistic being eyebrow-raising is essentially what you're saying in the rest of your post - people that backed the Tories last time round are fairly unlikely to do an about face and declare for the very leftwing candidate in such numbers. I'd say it shows that Corbyn is more than likely leading the race, which we all agree with anyway. He's certainly not getting 80% of the vote, he's probably getting about 55% according to the most recent YouGov. So to that extent, I'd say it's a fairly worthless poll.
An article that sums up sums of the points myself and a few others have been making about the real reasons Labour lost the 1983 election.
The framing of the '83 election is basically the textbook example of history being written by the victors. People still bang on about 1983 despite the right of the party going on to lose two successive elections on centrist platforms in '87 and '92. The Tory party which Blair beat in 1997 had left the country a mess, was full of people like Terry Dicks whose views belonged in the 19th century, not the 21st and been completely torn apart by scandal and policy differences to the extent that it took a decade to recover. Whilst obviously it's great that Labour got back into power rather than more Tories and, as in football, you can only beat what's in front of you, the self-congratulatory triumphalism amongst Blairites when they talk about 1997 is ludicrous.
Labour didn’t lose in 1983 because it was too left wing; rather, Thatcher won because of the Falklands War. The ‘Falklands factor’ could not be clearer from opinion polls. Prior to the war of April-June 1982, the Conservative Party was slumped at a consistent 27 per cent throughout late 1981, with a slight recovery in early 1982. But the Tories’ popularity shot up spectacularly with the war, hitting 51 per cent in May and remaining above 40 per cent right through to the general election. Labour under Michael Foot supported the government’s Falklands action; the Tory boost was not because Labour was anti-war.
Thatcher wrote in her memoirs: ‘It is no exaggeration to say that the outcome of the Falklands War transformed the British political scene… The so-called “Falklands factor”… was real enough. I could feel the impact of the victory wherever I went.’
A fawning media began to build a ‘Maggie’ personality cult. She dominated the 1983 election campaign – ‘The issue is Thatcher,’ declared the Economist; ‘Now is the hour. Maggie is the man,’ said the Express.
The Falklands War took place against the background of an economy that had begun to recover from a sharp, self-inflicted recession. Although the effects of Thatcher’s disastrous early economic policy were still being felt, the Conservatives were clever in linking the statistical upturn and the war as part of a grand narrative claiming that Thatcher had reversed Britain’s national and imperial decline. ‘The years of retreat are over,’ said Nigel Lawson, commenting on the Falklands. ‘And exactly the same is true in the economic and industrial sphere.’
Thatcher wrote in her memoirs: ‘It is no exaggeration to say that the outcome of the Falklands War transformed the British political scene… The so-called “Falklands factor”… was real enough. I could feel the impact of the victory wherever I went.’
A fawning media began to build a ‘Maggie’ personality cult. She dominated the 1983 election campaign – ‘The issue is Thatcher,’ declared the Economist; ‘Now is the hour. Maggie is the man,’ said the Express.
The Falklands War took place against the background of an economy that had begun to recover from a sharp, self-inflicted recession. Although the effects of Thatcher’s disastrous early economic policy were still being felt, the Conservatives were clever in linking the statistical upturn and the war as part of a grand narrative claiming that Thatcher had reversed Britain’s national and imperial decline. ‘The years of retreat are over,’ said Nigel Lawson, commenting on the Falklands. ‘And exactly the same is true in the economic and industrial sphere.’
Labour faces the wrath of the media and the establishment whenever it moves an inch leftwards. Inevitably that scares some voters away. So here’s a surprising result: the high water mark for the Labour left – the point by which it had apparently rendered the party ‘completely unelectable’ – was the October 1980 party conference. At that time, amid a press onslaught against Benn, Labour’s poll lead was a massive 50 per cent to the Tories’ 36.
Labour still enjoyed an advantage of 42 per cent to 28 a year later when Benn narrowly lost a deputy leadership contest to Denis Healey. But from then on the left was in decline – along with Labour’s poll ratings.
Of course a correlation between the wane of the left and the party’s fall in the polls doesn’t mean the two were linked. The public was not avidly following the twists and turns of Labour’s internal democracy. But if left supremacy alone is supposed to make Labour less popular, this chronology provides no evidence for it.
It might be objected that Labour’s 1983 manifesto contained many left policies, and that Labour lost support between its publication and the ballot. But it’s unlikely that the manifesto – which, as always, few people actually read – had more impact in those final weeks than hostile press coverage, a shambolically run election campaign, and the fact that Michael Foot had a popularity rating of just 24 per cent, apparently due to his choice of jacket.
Labour still enjoyed an advantage of 42 per cent to 28 a year later when Benn narrowly lost a deputy leadership contest to Denis Healey. But from then on the left was in decline – along with Labour’s poll ratings.
Of course a correlation between the wane of the left and the party’s fall in the polls doesn’t mean the two were linked. The public was not avidly following the twists and turns of Labour’s internal democracy. But if left supremacy alone is supposed to make Labour less popular, this chronology provides no evidence for it.
It might be objected that Labour’s 1983 manifesto contained many left policies, and that Labour lost support between its publication and the ballot. But it’s unlikely that the manifesto – which, as always, few people actually read – had more impact in those final weeks than hostile press coverage, a shambolically run election campaign, and the fact that Michael Foot had a popularity rating of just 24 per cent, apparently due to his choice of jacket.
The framing of the '83 election is basically the textbook example of history being written by the victors. People still bang on about 1983 despite the right of the party going on to lose two successive elections on centrist platforms in '87 and '92. The Tory party which Blair beat in 1997 had left the country a mess, was full of people like Terry Dicks whose views belonged in the 19th century, not the 21st and been completely torn apart by scandal and policy differences to the extent that it took a decade to recover. Whilst obviously it's great that Labour got back into power rather than more Tories and, as in football, you can only beat what's in front of you, the self-congratulatory triumphalism amongst Blairites when they talk about 1997 is ludicrous.
When the left of Labour loses, it was always someone else's fault. When the right of Labour wins, it's because any numbnut could've won against those clowns. Yawn.
The left of Labour hasn't contested a general election since 1983 so your soundbite is a little out-of-date. In the modern era it works a little more like 'When the right of Labour loses, it claims it was because it was too left-wing, when the right of Labour wins, it spends tax money ineffectively, privatises things Thatcher didn't even dare to touch and lets The City run the economy into the ground'
As demonstrated in both of our examples, soundbites never really wholly capture the truth. I'd never seriously say that Blair's Labour was as bad as the Tory governments that preceded it, either in intention or in outcome, despite the fact that I disagree with much of what New Labour did (lack of regulation of the financial sector, PFI, Iraq etc. etc.)
By the same token, I don't think any sensible Blairite can seriously pretend that the Tories in '97, '01 or '05 were formidable opponents who only Lord Tony could have vanquished. The Tories were at an incredibly low-ebb after Black Friday and Smith would have walked into Downing Street in 1997 at the head of a far more united Labour Party (without the consternation from the left of the PLP, who the more moderate Smith got along well with, and without the disruptive rivalry between Blair and Brown) which probably wouldn't have hemorrhaged members like Blair's Labour did during his years in office.
'The Blair Factor' and 'the third way' was a good story for the papers but wasn't ultimately what won the election. None of this is some leftist alternative history by the way, John McTernan said as much in his piece on John Smith in the Guardian last year.
Harsh on Chief Blairite @Ubik.
You didn't really answer his points which were backed by evidence. I'm curious to know if it was true, I remember it was debated a lot when Thatcher died that Falklands got her permanent power.
EDIT:
In India, after Nehru who was PM from 1947-64(he died in 64) winning 3 consecutive elections with >45% of the vote and 70+% seats, we had Shastri (from the same Congress party) for a brief while (64-66, he died mysteriously while negotiating a treaty with Pakistan)
Now (to get to the point), Indira Gandhi, Nehru's daughter, took over, supported by the party rank-and-file but not senior leaders. She did badly in the 1967 elections (41% votes, 54% seats), played politics (and got played too), finally, the Congress party split between the traditional leaders and Indira's supporters.
Then came the 1971 war (Bangladesh), with a decisive victory for India, and she got voted back on a landslide (45% votes, 68% seats). So I just thought the parallel was interesting: the first women leaders of both countries, opposed within their parties, initial unpopularity, a war changes everything, and they emerge as stereotypical "iron ladies".
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If the left were even able to meet people halfway, they might have some credibility. But the left doesn’t want to take any responsibility for what happened. Its never their fault. Remember, Labour fell to their worst ever defeat, losing a quarter of their vote. 3 million people stopped voting for the party. Only the Tory meltdown in 97 has bettered that in the post war era.
The Falklands made Thatcher popular and raised patriotic pro-military sentiments in the country. What did Labour do in response? Campaigned for unilateral disarmament and a cut in defence spending less then 12 months later. It sank like a stone.
The SDP formed, giving centre left voters a decision to make about voting intentions. What did Labour do in response? Drive to the left and leave the centre ground vacant for the SDP. Labour lost 3M votes.
The PLP was being divided by tensions over the party's shift to the left. What did the left do? Threaten deselections of those who didn’t agree with them. A couple of dozen MPs left for the SDP.
You don’t get to pick and choose what happens to you in politics. Such is politics. But you do get to choose how to respond. Labour made poor errors of judgement every time they faced a tough decision. But those leading the party back then still won't accept any responsibility for any of them.
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Another poll. Nothing new to report. Don't think polls will be interesting for another month or two now.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...ly-to-win-next-general-election-10490294.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...ly-to-win-next-general-election-10490294.html
What people forget when they talk about the split is that it had been on the cards for 7 years by the time it actually happened. It's not accurate to blame the split on the left of the party, unless you want to extend the meaning of 'the left' to mean Callaghan and Wilson as well.
As for the policy decisions afterwards - whether you agree with them or not, Labour was never going to win in '83 anyway because of external factors. The reason it lost so drastically wasn't because its policies were reviled, if opinion polls suggest anything its that the party was most popular at its most left-wing, it was because the split both smashed the party's credibility and split the anti-Tory vote and the combined effect of that in a FPTP system was to hand the marginals to Thatcher on a silver platter.
As for the policy decisions afterwards - whether you agree with them or not, Labour was never going to win in '83 anyway because of external factors. The reason it lost so drastically wasn't because its policies were reviled, if opinion polls suggest anything its that the party was most popular at its most left-wing, it was because the split both smashed the party's credibility and split the anti-Tory vote and the combined effect of that in a FPTP system was to hand the marginals to Thatcher on a silver platter.
The party was at its most popular pre-Falklands because we had an unpopular prime minister, a recession and unemployment reaching 20% in some parts of the country. Or do external events only count when they support your argument?
The split was always going to happen. but it was the lefts aggressive actions to its own MPs that pushed it from 4 MPs to 28. And they didn't need to abandon centre ground voters. That was labours sole choice and they paid for it at the polls.
Labours opinion polling went down by a whopping quarter between releasing its manifesto and voting day. The left reckon that was just because of Michael Foot and nothing to do with the manifesto.
Labour faced an uphill struggle of course. But it crashed to easily its worst ever result by a country mile. Again, it lost a quarter of its voters. Three million. It only lost a million after Iraq, less than that after the global crash of 07-08.
That the left takes not a shred of blame for any of that, while simultaneously blaming "centrist" policies for not being able to overturn a mountainous majority during an economic boom in 87, is so one-eyed that it undermines any credibility behind the claim.
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Voting as closed.Result on Saturday.
Anyone think there is doubt that Corbyn has won?
Hard to trust the validity of these polls after the GE, and he's going to need very close to 50% of first preferences... but it does look very likely, yeah.
Are there any other examples of someone entering a race, with the sole intention of influencing the debate, and ending up winning?
He'd better win, or Labour are going to lose many voters. For instance, if I suspect that the fix is in, I won't vote in a GE for the 'winning' candidate...and I've voted Labour all my adult life.
A Corbyn win would be fecking brilliant. I never thought he had a chance at the start.
Nor did he, in fairness. Hopefully he's adjusted to the idea and his victory speech won't involve him curling up in to the foetal position, repeating "What have I done?".
Well, there'll be no easing him into the job, the migrant crisis and broader debate on Syria will both present challenges for the unity of the PLP.
Lets be straight, Nick - at present, a Rubik's Cube with only red squares would offer a challenge to the PLP.
At least the colour would be popular. Although you'd probably have Twitter trolls saying that Kendall was campaigning for the addition of a Tory blue square.
'Commie Corbyn in Red Square Connection'
Well, a white Republican called Dave Wilson managed to get elected in a Texas district that was predominantly made up of black Democrat voters. However, he did it by being very economical with the truth, it appears.
http://www.diversityinc.com/news/wilson-white-candidate-wins-texas-election-by-pretending-hes-black/
Don't think so. The only issue would be if he fails to get close to 50% on the first round, since second votes from Kendall then Cooper supporters are likely to go to Cooper and Burnham respectively. A burnham victory on the strength of second & third votes would probably be the worst possible outcome for the party though.
People are saying the turnout looks to be about 60%, with very low turnout from the Unions. Bad news for Labour funding if that's the degree of engagement we're getting from the Unions, but we'll wait and see.
On the plus side I think it'll help Corbyn (assuming he wins). Early on, one in six eligible voters was a member of Unite, which would no doubt be used against him if he'd won on the basis of that support. I think votes from the registered entrants and Labour members are a safer way to get elected, politically speaking.
That's brilliant.
Anyone read Lord Ashcroft’s poll? Another study of Labour defectors.
http://www.conservativehome.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Lord-Ashcroft-Polls-PROJECT-RED-DAWN.pdf
Accepting that he’s not exactly got a great track record in polls, what jumps out is that people leaving the party seem to be doing so for conflicting reasons.
For instance 71% of defectors to UKIP thought austerity had gone too far, while almost 70% of defectors to the Tories thought further cuts were needed.
UKIP defectors felt that the main problem was that Labour no longer represented them. However those voters saw immigration as being central to the way that Labour had failed them. And they were split almost in half between thinking benefits were too generous or too tight.
Some real tough questions for the party at the moment. How to meet the needs of one set of voters without losing another? Maybe that's not an option any more.
One further interesting point - loyalists and defectors all agreed that Blair was the best Labour leader of the last 30 years (see page 20).
http://www.conservativehome.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Lord-Ashcroft-Polls-PROJECT-RED-DAWN.pdf
Accepting that he’s not exactly got a great track record in polls, what jumps out is that people leaving the party seem to be doing so for conflicting reasons.
For instance 71% of defectors to UKIP thought austerity had gone too far, while almost 70% of defectors to the Tories thought further cuts were needed.
UKIP defectors felt that the main problem was that Labour no longer represented them. However those voters saw immigration as being central to the way that Labour had failed them. And they were split almost in half between thinking benefits were too generous or too tight.
Some real tough questions for the party at the moment. How to meet the needs of one set of voters without losing another? Maybe that's not an option any more.
One further interesting point - loyalists and defectors all agreed that Blair was the best Labour leader of the last 30 years (see page 20).
Liz Kendall concedes that her campaign has failed and says Jeremy Corbyn has energised a party crying out for change:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics...ndall-urges-party-accept-result-voting-closes
http://www.theguardian.com/politics...ndall-urges-party-accept-result-voting-closes
Hopefully he'll win and this will get rid of "New Labour". No-one ever had much idea of what they stood for.
Liz Kendall could have conceded weeks ago.Her point about Corbyn was interesting though.
I fecking forgot to vote.
After 29 posts in this thread... Actually, I wonder who has the most posts in here, and didn't vote. Maybe ignoring @Nick 0208 Ldn.