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Labour Leadership Contest


The Next Labour Leader  

118 members have voted

  1. 1. Who do you want to cunt Cameron in the bastard?

    • Liz Kendall - she invented mintcake.
    • Andy Burnham - such sadness in those eyes
    • Yvette Cooper - uses her maiden name because she doesn't want to be called "I've ate balls"
    • Jeremy Corbyn - substitute geography teacher


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Those criticising Corbyn's leadership miss the point. Burnham, Cooper and Kendal have none either.

 

Labour need to go through a process, and Corbyn may not be the end of it, but he is a start, in a way the others are not.

 

A 21st century narrative for the Left in this country needs to emerge.

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Alun Parry (Scouse musician and lefty activist - and a Red in every sense of the word) has just posted this.

 

http://parrysongs.co.uk/go/2015/08/jeremy-corbyn-and-a-tale-of-two-labour-parties/

 

On my travels singing up and down the country, I have played for several local Labour Party events. I’m not sectarian and so, despite my dissatisfaction with Labour’s policies, I imagined they may not represent the actual activists on the ground and I would happily play for them.

I only started refusing to play for Labour events when the racist mug came out and I turned down a friend during the election campaign telling him that I couldn’t in all conscience assist any party in electioneering for that.

I would often leave these events feeling both puzzled and optimistic. If the party members were enthusiastic about its leadership and policies, there is no way they’d have been so enthusiastic about my performances. What I experienced at those events were passionate people who wanted a better world, yet were wedded to a party who wasn’t officially offering one.

There have been a number of polls now regarding the leadership election. The latest has Corbyn winning a majority straight off. I don’t know if this is true. But I do know that there has already been one solid expression of local party desires, and that is nominations from constituency parties. And Corbyn came top.

This is the Labour Party I have been playing to.

Whoever wins, it is abundantly clear that there is a massive divide between the politics of Labour MPs and Labour members which is now sharply in focus.

If Corbyn wins, this will be his biggest problem. His parliamentary party will be against him while the party in the country will be for him. I imagine that the party in the country will see this and seek to ensure their candidates have the same politics as they do.

Even if Corbyn doesn’t win, I imagine it will be a defeat that is relatively narrow and many MPs will be looking over their shoulder as the reselection trigger processes start to kick in.

Many Labour MPs have been silent in the face of the most vicious Tory attacks on the living conditions of ordinary people. Yet now find their voice to attack Corbyn with a fervour they have barely found when it comes to Tory policies.

They show themselves to be at odds with a huge portion of party members, and maybe even a majority of party members. Whoever wins, this imbalance will likely be played out.

The key dividing line in UK politics today in my view is between the “Thatcherites” who accept her political settlement, and those who don’t.

The Thatcherites are represented by the Tories, the Liberal Democrats, and the majority of the parliamentary Labour Party.

Corbyn is on our side of that divide, and it appears that the party membership at large is broadly with him.

Note: You have just 1 day to register to vote for Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Leader. Click here now to make your voice heard.

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I've just stumbled across a quote by Napoleon - "A leader is a dealer in hope."

 

So, by that criterion, which of the four would be the best leader?

(It's a rhetorical question.)

There is little hope with anybody standing for leader,other than Corbyn.

Its simply a vote for more of the same,or a hope of something different and something far closer to what the original Labour Party was formed to do.

There is no doubt in my mind that,at the very least,Corbyn will try to change the narrative. The beauty of these attacks is that they are highlighting Corbyn's case even more so are likely to be counter productive. No such thing as bad publicity and all that.

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Those saying Corbyn can't win ignore the fact that the Tories won the last election with less than 25% of those entitled to vote. Turnout was 66%, so there was a massive 34% of the electorate who didn't vote for one reason or another. I would imagine a large number of those are put off by the fact that they rightly or wrongly see the parties as all being the same. Corbyn only needs to get about 3 million of those inspired by the prospect of a politics that might just work for them and that would get Labour over the line. Even if he just fell short of a majority, I'm sure he'd work with both the SNP and Greens if it meant shutting the Tories out. Those saying he couldn't win are merely scaremongering and tying to protect their own interests. 

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Many of those saying he's unelectable are worried that he's electable.

I was really drawn to that point made in the article Angry posted...isnt it funny how those have been so silent in their opposition of Tory policies but have come out with such venom and in such numbers to warn us against Corbyn

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I think he will be unelectable because the media will go insane. But i'm not arsed I just want to hear genuine questions being asked and answers rebuked. I'd Love Corbyn to get a couple of years because the kinds of questions he asks and his opinion on social Justice the financial industry and politicians just don't get mainstream coverage, as opposition leader they would have to show him telling it how it is, might just motivate people and if it doesn't, so fucking what, weve lost what then? more of the same shite labour who sat there meekly and took all the Tories could throw at them and only want to ape the toff twats. Labour are pretty much dead to me now anyway, Corbyn is that very faint heart beat I'm more intrigued by consequences of him as leader than I am actually arsed about Labour as a party.

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I know I registered late but not had a single email from any of the candidates.

You won't get one for ages until they've run your name through their Trotsky dissident database. I've only been contacted by Cooper and Stella Creasey - and only a good week and a half after registering.

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You won't get one for ages until they've run your name through their Trotsky dissident database. I've only been contacted by Cooper and Stella Creasey - and only a good week and a half after registering.

I was a card carrying member of the Labour Party for years so can't see their checks taking too long.

 

I'm looking forward to them questioning me though. That'll be fun!

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I don't think they are. I think they know the british media and establishment have extensive experience destroying the credibility of people like him.

 

I didn't say that I think they think it's likely. Just that they know what he's saying is popular, and that it's best to try and crush it, using said British media and establishment, as quickly as possible.

 

It's possibly more accurate to say that they know that he'll widen the debate, and this must be stopped immediately. This is more important than one single election result.

 

On a related note, I have found the unravelling of The Guardian to be quite funny.

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I don't think they are. I think they know the british media and establishment have extensive experience destroying the credibility of people like him.

 

The hatchet jobs only seem to strengthen his position though and the more they snipe at him the more everyday people see behind the curtain, to the puppet masters controlling the strings. With every passing attack they reveal themselves more and more as a lobbying service for corporate, capitalist interests and their fear mongering about immigrants and the welfare state is exposed for what it is, propaganda to keep the people of this country at war with each other, fearful of immigrants in Calais rather than the 1% who control them.

 

Julius Caesar said it 2000 years ago "divide and conquer". Thats what the media does best, turns the people against their own, all the while lobbying for the need for hundreds of billions to pay for a new nuclear arsenal so we can blow up arabs around the globe. Whilst our country resembles a third world country at home with food banks massively on the rise, evictions going up massively in London because of housing benefit cuts, welfare cuts to the poorest people in the country, disablilty living funds disbanded so that severely disabled people don't have the right to live at home, student debt up to £30,000 and rising, selling off public run resources so energy costs continue to rise.

 

I'm voting for Corbyn and they can fuck off, in fact the smear campaigns will only strengthen my resolve to do so.

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I didn't say that I think they think it's likely. Just that they know what he's saying is popular, and that it's best to try and crush it, using said British media and establishment, as quickly as possible.

 

It's possibly more accurate to say that they know that he'll widen the debate, and this must be stopped immediately. This is more important than one single election result.

 

On a related note, I have found the unravelling of The Guardian to be quite funny.

They're just waiting for labor to hitch their wagon before they replay the well-worn anti marxist propaganda and kill 2 birds with one stone. The honeymoon period won't last. Like you say our best hope is that the debate widens and snares new visions, new solutions and new leaders. Thats my hope anyway.

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The hatchet jobs only seem to strengthen his position though and the more they snipe at him the more everyday people see behind the curtain, to the puppet masters controlling the strings. With every passing attack they reveal themselves more and more as a lobbying service for corporate, capitalist interests and their fear mongering about immigrants and the welfare state is exposed for what it is, propaganda to keep the people of this country at war with each other, fearful of immigrants in Calais rather than the 1% who control them.

 

Julius Caesar said it 2000 years ago "divide and conquer". Thats what the media does best, turns the people against their own, all the while lobbying for the need for hundreds of billions to pay for a new nuclear arsenal so we can blow up arabs around the globe. Whilst our country resembles a third world country at home with food banks massively on the rise, evictions going up massively in London because of housing benefit cuts, welfare cuts to the poorest people in the country, disablilty living funds disbanded so that severely disabled people don't have the right to live at home, student debt up to £30,000 and rising, selling off public run resources so energy costs continue to rise.

 

I'm voting for Corbyn and they can fuck off, in fact the smear campaigns will only strengthen my resolve to do so.

At the moment he's being allowed to talk about aspirations. In time he'll be forced to talk about actual policies. When we get there the seeds of doubt will be sown and things like credibility and ability to execute will be questioned and those things are far easier to undermine than aspirations.

 

And then he'll eat a sandwich incorrectly...

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At the moment he's being allowed to talk about aspirations. In time he'll be forced to talk about actual policies. When we get there the seeds of doubt will be sown and things like credibility and ability to execute will be questioned and those things are far easier to undermine than aspirations.

 

And then he'll eat a sandwich incorrectly...

 

I don't think there's a lot to attack him with personally although i'm sure the full details of his involvement with Sinn Fein and Hamas will rear it's head conveniently a few months before the election. Then we'll get the whole "do you want a terrorist running this country?" angle from the rag and the mail. His policies will be attacked one by one, but thats par for course, hopefully after ten years of tory rule the country will be so fed up they'll vote in Labour regardless.

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At the moment he's being allowed to talk about aspirations. In time he'll be forced to talk about actual policies. When we get there the seeds of doubt will be sown and things like credibility and ability to execute will be questioned and those things are far easier to undermine than aspirations.

 

And then he'll eat a sandwich incorrectly...

He has policy proposals on his website.

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At the moment he's being allowed to talk about aspirations. In time he'll be forced to talk about actual policies. When we get there the seeds of doubt will be sown and things like credibility and ability to execute will be questioned and those things are far easier to undermine than aspirations.

 

And then he'll eat a sandwich incorrectly...

Policies like increasing the highest rate of tax, nationalising the railways, reinstating the safety net for the poorest people, not slashing public services, smashing them up and selling the bits to your mates in the City... these are all perfectly achievable and utterly credible.  The right-wing cunt media will try to undermine them, but the big job (in Opposition and in Government) will be to keep fighting for the people and against those cunts.

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