Labour Leadership Contest

[Tyler Durden]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=17&v=nlADe9yrrWA

It's like a video off The Apprentice, all they need is her getting out a Rolls Royce and some London skyline

[AngryOfTuebrook]

As if I needed any more persuasion...

 

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/10/anyone-but-jeremy-corbyn-labour-leader-alastair-campbell

 

Labour could be finished if Jeremy Corbyn wins the leadership, Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former chief spin doctor, has said.

In a lengthy blogpost, the former Downing Street head of communications and strategy urged the party to choose “anyone but Corbyn”, despite having previously said he would not intervene in the contest.

He changed his mind about intervening because he believes the party would head for a “car crash, and more” under the Islington MP’s leadership.

“Whatever the niceness and the current warm glow, Corbyn will be a leader of the hard left, for the hard left, and espousing both general politics and specific positions that the public just are not going to accept in many of the seats that Labour is going to have to win to get back in power,” Campbell wrote.

In stark terms, he said that Labour’s consideration of Corbyn must stop if it wants to be a serious party of power rather than just a “party of protest that marches, campaigns, backs strikes, calls for ministerial resignations, more money for every cause going, shouts and bawls and fingerjabs”.

“Whilst I accept that I cannot survey the post-electoral scene and say with any certainty that a Labour party led by Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper or Liz Kendall will win the next election, I think I can say with absolute certainty that a Corbyn-Tom Watson led Labour party will not.

“For that reason alone, I agree with Alan Johnson that what he called the madness of flirting with the idea of Corbyn as leader has to stop. That means no first preferences, no second preferences, no any preferences. It frankly means ABC: Anyone But Corbyn.”

Campbell also sought to remind Labour activists of occasions on which former leaders – Ed Miliband and Michael Foot – have convinced themselves that thousands of passionate supporters amount to the overall public support of the electorate.

He acknowledged that Corbyn is an “OK guy, a good MP, and his stance clearly chimes with many people’s views of anti-austerity”.

However, he warned: “Everything I have seen both of leadership, and of Labour, tells me Corbyn’s ability to lead and hold the party together is likely to be low; his ability to reach those parts of the country we have been losing, whether to the Tories, to Ukip or the SNP, will be even lower.”

Campbell ended with a call to Burnham, Cooper and Kendall to step up to the challenge and save the party by “showing that they too know how to make the weather in a campaign”.

Senior figures within the Labour establishment from the Blair and Brown era have been increasingly panicked in recent weeks about the prospect of a Corbyn victory.

Politicians including Alan Johnson have sounded the alarm about the electability of a leader from the left of the Labour party but the warnings do not appear to have dampened the momentum behind Corbyn’s campaign.

Others, including Labour MP Barry Sheerman, have called for a pause in the contest to stop “entryists” signing up to vote for Corbyn despite not being true party supporters.

However, Diane Abbott, who supported Corbyn’s nomination, said this was “ridiculous”.

She told the BBC’s World at One: “It would be absurd if you just halted an election because you were worried your side was going to lose. This election is being fought under rules that were agreed by the whole party last year. These people had the opportunity to object to them then. They’re only complaining because they’re worried they’ll lose.”

[Jairzinho]

[Anubis]

The only thing slightly less worse than an endorsement from Tony Blair is the endorsement of the man who helped him take the country to war on the back of a dodgy dossier.

 

Don't force us to bring out the pictures of you, a middle-aged man, attending a Britney Spears concert by yourself, Alastair. Don't push us.

[lifetime fan]

Swallowed my pride, paid the three quid and will vote Corbyn.

[Dr Nowt]

[Tyler Durden]

It's incredible that he looks like he is going to win via a democratic process after moaning last time with how Ed got in. The fact they are complaining about it should tell them how fucking out of touch they are, so fucking condescending some of the shite they are coming out with

[Gnasher]

Hello my names Groucho Marx, i have ideals, if you don't like them i have others.

[Anubis]

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/shortcuts/2015/aug/10/liz-kendall-andy-burnham-labour-leadership-video-worst

 

Art is always experienced through a personal prism of mood and experience that varies from moment to moment. So, really, it is impossible to say whether the Labour leadership video that Liz Kendall has uploaded to YouTube is any better or worse than the one that Andy Burnham has uploaded to YouTube. Although, admittedly, this is mainly because they are both quite bad.

 

At least Burnham’s looks like a leadership video. It is a textbook “man of the people” profile piece. There’s our Andy, being a brother and a son and a husband and a dad. There’s our Andy, eating shop-bought sandwiches and doing keepy-uppies. There’s our Andy, being played at university by Monica from Friends. There’s our Andy, talking about himself next to a suspiciously pristine white leather sofa while his buddy Charlie Falconer yammers on about what a good bloke he is. I wonder who this “Charlie Falconer” character is, anyway? Maybe he’s a greengrocer. Or a chimney sweep. Perhaps we’ll never know – surely he’s not related to long-standing Labour peer Lord Falconer?

 

The take-home message from the Burnham video is that Andy is just like us. He’s a man you can trust. So long as you want him to be a man you can trust, that is. If you don’t, just say the word. He can change. He can be whatever you want him to be, so long as he ends up in power. That’s the most important thing. Beautiful, sweet power.

 

The Kendall video is something else entirely. She is the only star. We don’t discover anything about her life. We don’t learn about her family, or her background, or her regrets or ambitions. The only thing we learn about Liz Kendall is that she doesn’t know what a delete key is.

 

That is the only possible explanation for her bewildering approach to writing, at least. The video shows the process by which Kendall came to create her own narration for the video we’re watching. First she writes the whole thing out on a notepad. Then she gingerly types it up on to a computer. There can be no mistakes. Last time she tried typing a speech on to a computer from scratch, and she misspelled the word “aspirational” and couldn’t work out how to undo it, and she had to throw the entire computer in the bin.

 

At times, Kendall gets up and paces around. The lamp is on. She is the last person in the office. This is what a Kendall leadership would look like. If you want your leader to take three times longer than necessary to complete a simple task, she’s your woman. If you want someone who will squint at technology as if it’s trying to sell her a dodgy timeshare, she’s your woman. If you want a leader who lives in an abandoned MFI home office that could be floating through space for all anybody bloody knows, the choice is clear. You must vote Kendall.

[Jairzinho]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBmMIH5PAWc

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Rotpeter]

I do find it bizarre that in a contest in which Kendall has been criticised for offering sound bytes instead of policies or ideas, she releases a video offering only sound bytes instead of policies or ideas.

Sound bits, I think you meant. Not even a nybble in that lot. pkzip that thing and it would come out at 0 bytes.

[Gnasher]

The best outcome for the Labour Party would be for Liz Kendall to win. They'd get trounced in the next election as nobody in England would bother to stroll to a polling station to vote and if she set foot in Scotland blithering on about offering hope to hard working middle class people she'd suffer the same fate as Joan of Arc.

 

The bluff that only a right winger can lead the Labour Party to victory would be over for good. The labour party couldn't find anyone more right wing, unless they dug up Gengis Khan.

[Creator Supreme]

My union have been trying to contact me to get me to sign up to vote, but I'm not falling for it, I'm sticking with the greens.

 

I admire Corbyn, I want him to win, but I know he's going to win and then they'll usurp or kill him, probably kill him!

 

Alastair Campbell can go and fuck himself with Nelsons column the alcy cunt!

[Dr Nowt]

My union have been trying to contact me to get me to sign up to vote, but I'm not falling for it, I'm sticking with the greens.

 

I admire Corbyn, I want him to win, but I know he's going to win and then they'll usurp or kill him, probably kill him!

 

Alastair Campbell can go and fuck himself with Nelsons column the alcy cunt!

 

Plenty to hit the poisonous twat with without that one, mate.

[Mad Erik]

I'm not much of a political mind and I am a bit bemused by the whole Corbyn-mania. Genuine question and I'd be interested to know your answers:

 

Surely it is extremely hard to conceive a country that wouldn't elect Foot, Kinnock, Brown and Miliband, ostensibly because they were to the left of where the country was, would elect someone who's significantly to their left?

 

I totally understand that many people share Corbyn's views and want their party leader to share their views, ideally as closely as possible. I also completely get that people want to make Britain a fairer society that looks after the poor, the vulenerable, the NHS, etc.

 

However is it not the case that this can best (and perhaps only) be done in power, as the Government. With Corbyn, wouldn't Labour's chances of getting into power be miniscule? Certainly smaller than under a more centrist candidate?

 

Would these people - or you, depending on who's eyes this falls - rather have a Labour leader who's perhaps more electable, who can win power, who can get things done. Perhaps such as Blair getting elected and implementing the minimum wage, extending maternity leave, cutting NHS waiting lists, etc along with perhaps some things that you don't agree with - the Iraq war or tuition fees; or somebody such as Corbyn whose views might be closer to certain left wing ideals, but has a smaller chance of getting elected and in turn implementing those ideals?

[Creator Supreme]

Maybe so mate, but fuck him!

 

I've had family members drink themselves to death, and I know how hard it is to get off the booze, but as its him, fuck it!!

[Rotpeter]

I'm not much of a political mind and I am a bit bemused by the whole Corbyn-mania. Genuine question and I'd be interested to know your answers:

Being electable is only one issue. Before that the left need to wrest control of the political agenda, they need to reshape the prevailing narratives so that social responsibility is something other than sops and platitudes. Unless they do that neo-liberals will be elected forever. Like you I don't think Corbyn is electable, but he has already made strides, pluralism is being restored incrementally. If he can drag the dialog left, then maybe someone with vision and an ability to execute comes along later. If the leftward drag blunts neo-liberals thrusts even a tad, that is some sort of victory.

[Sugar Ape]

Latest YouGov poll.

 

[Jairzinho]

That second pref voting really surprises me.

[Red_or_Dead]

It's fucking YouGov.  Run by Tories.

 

Haven't we learned to fuck off all 'polls' in the last couple of years?

[AngryOfTuebrook]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBmMIH5PAWc

 

 

 

 

Do my eyes and ears deceive me?  Did she really just succeed in making something even more vacuous than the Kendall one?

[AngryOfTuebrook]

I'm not much of a political mind and I am a bit bemused by the whole Corbyn-mania. Genuine question and I'd be interested to know your answers:

 

Surely it is extremely hard to conceive a country that wouldn't elect Foot, Kinnock, Brown and Miliband, ostensibly because they were to the left of where the country was, would elect someone who's significantly to their left?

 

I totally understand that many people share Corbyn's views and want their party leader to share their views, ideally as closely as possible. I also completely get that people want to make Britain a fairer society that looks after the poor, the vulenerable, the NHS, etc.

 

The word "ostensibly" is key there.

 

We are told that Ed Milliband was "Red Ed" although he did the square root of fuck all for five years when the Tories and there enablers were wrecking the joint.  Like the previous Labour leader, he ran an election on compromised principles and he lost.  Far from "being to the left of where the country was" he failed to seize on popular issues such as renationalising rail, nationalising energy supplies, rolling back the fragmentation and privatisation of the NHS, regulating banks, higher taxes for the wealthy, greater support for essential public services, etc.  Milliband was to the right of the national mood - and he lost.

 

We are told that New Labour is "centrist" - as if retaining Thatcher's trade union restrictions, overseeing increasing inequality, continuing privatisations, fighting illegal wars and introducing draconian assaults on civil liberties were somehow modern and moderate.   The people telling us this are the ones who have most to lose from Corbyn's brand of democratic socialism; the zombies of New Labour, the tax-dodging press barons, the gazillionaire CEOs, parasitically exploiting their underpaid workers, etc.  

 

We are told that an anti-austerity party could not win enough popular support to translate into seats - as if nothing of note has happened in Scotland lately.  We are told that an anti-austerity party could not win in England, as if the English are so fundamentally different from the Scots.  We are told that "the English heartlands" (wherever they are) would never be persuaded to vote for an anti-austerity party, as if any major party has even tried to build a case against the grand-scale robbery we call "austerity".

 

I'm far from convinced that a Corbyn-led Labour Party would be unelectable.

 

I am convinced that a Labour Party led by any of the other deeply-unattractive and instantly-forgettable platitude-engines would certainly be unelectable.

[Stu Monty]

I'm not much of a political mind and I am a bit bemused by the whole Corbyn-mania. Genuine question and I'd be interested to know your answers:

 

Surely it is extremely hard to conceive a country that wouldn't elect Foot, Kinnock, Brown and Miliband, ostensibly because they were to the left of where the country was, would elect someone who's significantly to their left?

 

I totally understand that many people share Corbyn's views and want their party leader to share their views, ideally as closely as possible. I also completely get that people want to make Britain a fairer society that looks after the poor, the vulenerable, the NHS, etc.

 

However is it not the case that this can best (and perhaps only) be done in power, as the Government. With Corbyn, wouldn't Labour's chances of getting into power be miniscule? Certainly smaller than under a more centrist candidate?

 

Would these people - or you, depending on who's eyes this falls - rather have a Labour leader who's perhaps more electable, who can win power, who can get things done. Perhaps such as Blair getting elected and implementing the minimum wage, extending maternity leave, cutting NHS waiting lists, etc along with perhaps some things that you don't agree with - the Iraq war or tuition fees; or somebody such as Corbyn whose views might be closer to certain left wing ideals, but has a smaller chance of getting elected and in turn implementing those ideals?

This idea that the other contenders have a better chance of winning a general election doesn't stand up, for me.

 

Labour didn't lose the election because they were too left wing, they lost it because they did not successfully challenge the right wing narratives about the economy and the country as a whole.

 

Only one of the candidates seems to see that as a problem.

 

Only one of them seems to recognise that the facts are on their side but that it will require the will to make them understood properly to win an election in the face of a media set on peddling misinformation.

[Gnasher]

If anyone bar Corbyn wins i look forward to the winner campaigning up Glasgow with a Labour message of "squeezed middle" that'll put the fun back into politics.

[bossy]

Do my eyes and ears deceive me?  Did she really just succeed in making something even more vacuous than the Kendall one?

It's laughably dreadful isn't it? I'm a member of the Greens so won't be voting but it's plain to see that the only person with any real political agenda is Corbyn. The others are merely continuing in the managerial footsteps of New Labour. I think Corbyn would be a challenge to Cameron and co and look forward to his dismantling of the Tory pisspots lies every PmQ.