Labour Leadership Contest

[Section_31]

I've heard this line trotted out a few times now, that Labour need to decide whether to be a party of protest or a to be seriously contesting elections. What a fucking crock of shit!

 

If they are seriously suggesting that you can only win an election by having right wing policies, then Labour might as well give up and leave it to the Tories anyway. Jeremy Corbyn is popular with the general public for the very fact that he is a protest, he is a different voice.

 

Please bring back some ideology into politics Jeremy!

 

The bit I can't genuinely get my head around is the concept of Labour having to appeal to Tory voters, or 'win back' Tory voters. Surely if you're a Tory you're going to vote Tory? 

 

I still don't subscribe to the notion that Tory voters backed Blair because he was trying to realign Labour into the centre ground, I think that was part of it - the idea that they were no longer a threat to the 'wealth creators', but more a case of they like Blair as opposed to Major, he seemed like a modern Presidential style charisma-based leader rather than a bloke with grey hair and glasses on. 

 

The Tories had been in for 18 years and shaken by repeated scandal, and Murdoch's press saw which way the wind was blowing and wanted to back them to make it look like they played a part in it 'it was us what won it'. 

 

If Major was in charge of the Tories now and a young Blair was in charge of Labour, Labour would win an election tomorrow, so all this bollocks about fiscal responsibility and red ed is exactly that - bollocks - the British electorate isn't that complicated. 

[Spy Bee]

Labour got in partially down to the devil incarnate (Blair) and partially due to the pendulum effect.

 

It really is mental that everyone is swallowing this shit about Labour being unelectable if they move left, when SNP just won a landslide of votes with an anti-austerity manifesto!

[xerxes]

The best thing about all this is that it's revealed the modern labour party for the total charade it is....

-----

The bit I can't genuinely get my head around is the concept of Labour having to appeal to Tory voters, or 'win back' Tory voters. Surely if you're a Tory you're going to vote Tory?

It is amusing isn't it seeing Oxbridge, pro War, pro cuts, duo Cooper and Burnham arguing over who should claim the right to lead?

 

The days of mass tribal voting are over, it's no longer the workers versus the toffs, people largely vote down to competence and what is in it for them. The 90's Tory party was a shambles. Some who had voted Tory voted Labour to punish them, but many felt correctly that they could not put a competent government together, and Labour could.

 

Labour's problem at the last election was that from the start neither the PLP nor membership wanted him and he failed ( miserably in front of an open goal) to put a credible alternative government on offer.

 

The end of tribal voting is a good thing, whether the parties have caught up with the need for credible policies behind the badge is another matter.

[Dr Nowt]

It really is mental that everyone is swallowing this shit about Labour being unelectable if they move left, when SNP just won a landslide of votes with an anti-austerity manifesto!

 

They really couldn't have made it more obvious for people in the last GE. 

 

8 months in advance of it the Better Together lot and Murdoch help shit everyone up about Scotland going it alone and talk about what a tragedy it would be to break up the Union, then 8 months later the self same people are telling everyone in England to be frightened of the Scots and not to trust them being part of political decisions down here, and a huge majority fail to notice what's going on.  Even when Murdoch's rag is saying one thing in it's Scottish version and another in it's English version, at the same fucking time.

 

I suppose you can't blame them all for thinking such stupidity may not have limits and giving it another go.

[Babb'sBurstNad]

What I don't understand is why people like Miliband, and Hunt again on Newsnight last night, are spending their time highlighting their backing of Kendall. She's the antithesis of why people are swayed towards Corbyn, and doesn't have a hope of winning. How can you lecture people on wasting a vote for Corbyn, stating he'd never win an election, and then go on to back Kendall?

[mattyq]

They really couldn't have made it more obvious for people in the last GE. 

 

8 months in advance of it the Better Together lot and Murdoch help shit everyone up about Scotland going it alone and talk about what a tragedy it would be to break up the Union, then 8 months later the self same people are telling everyone in England to be frightened of the Scots and not to trust them being part of political decisions down here, and a huge majority fail to notice what's going on.  Even when Murdoch's rag is saying one thing in it's Scottish version and another in it's English version, at the same fucking time.

 

I suppose you can't blame them all for thinking such stupidity may not have limits and giving it another go.

Murdoch supported the SNP and is very pally with Alex and Nicola.

Think the Scottish Sun didn't explicitly back Independence but it certainly gave the SNP a lot of support

[Sugar Ape]

Murdoch ( the Scottish sun ) did back independence. I've said it before on here loads of times but there are big question marks for me over how left wing and progressive the SNP are. Certainly more so than the Tories and New Labour, but much less so than Corbyn.
 
I'm not posting any Sun pictures on here but you can see the front pages on the Guardian link about it here.
 
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/apr/30/scottish-sun-snp-rupert-murdoch-nicola-sturgeon
 

Scottish Sun backs the SNP: is Rupert Murdoch pulling the strings?

The Sun’s backing for different parties in England and Scotland could be seen as a sign that this is an election like no other. And yet in some ways the Sun’s decision to support the SNP in Scotland and Tories elsewhere reflects the history of Rupert Murdoch’s ownership of Britain’s biggest-selling paper.

It might be, in the words of the press regulator turned senior Sun editor Stig Abell, a “funny old election” but the paper is behaving as though the world hasn’t changed since the 1980s – and not just because of its dodgy photomontages and a picture of a headless Kate that has spooky echoes of Diana.

To recap. In England, the Sun sports a cheesy front page with a baby David Cameron swaddled in the arms of the Duchess of Cambridge and the headline “It’s a Tory!”. In Scotland, the paper superimposes a picture of SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon on Princess Leia’s body and tells readers “why it’s time to vote SNP”.

They are so different – and yet both papers are full-frontal attacks on the Labour party. With an election too close to call and nationalist challenges from Ukip in England and the SNP in Scotland, this is the Sun giving all it’s got to keep David Cameron in No 10.

In a tweet earlier in the week, Abell referred to possibly the most iconic Sun election front page when he posted the results of a poll predicting an SNP landslide in Scotland and asking “will the last Labour MP in Scotland please turn out the light?”

The accusation of a cynical political ploy – backing a party loathed by its London counterparts in Scotland where Labour is facing armageddon – is strongly denied by the paper’s editors. The Scottish Sun’s leader says the contrasting front pages are “not hard to explain”.

This is a Scottish newspaper, produced in Scotland by a Scottish editorial team, fighting for the best interests of our readers. If that means we take a position different to our colleagues down south, then so be it.

And don’t buy this desperate ‘vote SNP, get Tory’ lie. If we send 50 anti-Tory MPs to London, why does it matter if only a handful are Labour this time?

But it isn’t hard to link the decision with the fact that Murdoch is in London this week. Though not known as a massive fan of David Cameron – just read his tweets over the weekend – he is far from being a Milifan. A party leader backed by the unions would never win the backing of a man who famously crushed the print bosses.

David Yelland, the editor of the Sun during its pro-Tony Blair era, says: “Ed Miliband owes nothing to the media whatsoever. If he is elected he will be the first PM for generations ... to get into Downing Street knowing he owes no debts to any editor, any proprietor or any newspaper.”

Another senior editor at a right wing newspaper told me: “If Miliband gets in, it will be a disaster. The first thing he’ll do is Leveson.”

Murdoch has admitted that he was closely involved in the Sun’s decision to endorse Alex Salmond’s SNP at the Scottish elections just as the first minister was promising to lobby for News Corp to take control of BSkyB.

He told the Leveson inquiry that he was “probably” involved in agreeing to the Sun’s emphatic “Keep Salm and carry on” front-page endorsement of Salmond in April 2011 but that it was his staff who made him do it.

Like all media owners, Murdoch likes backing winners. What’s the point of backing a loser? He is understood to have already expressed his anger that the paper’s political coverage does not seem to be breaking through, either for the Tories or in newspaper sales. The Sun sold 3m copies a day in 2010; it is now at 1.85m.

Back in the glory days of 1992, after superimposing the head of Labour leader Neil Kinnock on a lightbulb and asking readers to turn it off if he came to power, the Sun claimed to have won it for the Conservatives. So much has changed since then, not least an internet that dissects each decision and is frankly better at photoshopping.

But politics has also changed and the enemies of newspaper owners and editors who want a Conservative victory are many-headed. Not for nothing did the Sun paint a gruesome image of a “Six Edded Beast” including Gerry Adams, union boss Len McCluskey and SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon to terrify its readers on Wednesday. These are complicated times for any newspaper that wants to control the debate. Will the Sun’s leaders put Cameron in Downing Street? We’ll find out on 8 May.

[Anny Road]

Murdoch backs the winners not necessarily the party which best suits his interest. Backing the loser would isolate his organisation.

[VladimirIlyich]

Its quite simple. He backed the SNP to kill Labour votes in Scotland knowing neither the SNP nor Labour would be even close to troubling the tories. Even better was Miliband's refusal to deal with the SNP as it split the centre left vote down the middle. The good old politics of self interest. Rupert is such a cad! (Cad meaning Supertwat,in this case.)

[Section_31]

Its quite simple. He backed the SNP to kill Labour votes in Scotland knowing neither the SNP nor Labour would be even close to troubling the tories. Even better was Miliband's refusal to deal with the SNP as it split the centre left vote down the middle. The good old politics of self interest. Rupert is such a cad! (Cad meaning Supertwat,in this case.)

Yep.

 

While I agree people do vote for what's in it for them, I think it's always been this way but that the argument was fraimed differently.

 

If Clement Atlee was around now and was able to promise a genuinely world class NHS, full employment and good quality pensions, who wouldn't say yes to those 'left wing' values?

 

People aren't naturally right wing or left wing in my experience, they just tend to go with what seems the most practical. If you frame left wing arguments as 'crackpot' and austerity as 'fiscal responsibility' then this is what you get.

[Section_31]

[mattyq]

Its quite simple. He backed the SNP to kill Labour votes in Scotland knowing neither the SNP nor Labour would be even close to troubling the tories. Even better was Miliband's refusal to deal with the SNP as it split the centre left vote down the middle. The good old politics of self interest. Rupert is such a cad! (Cad meaning Supertwat,in this case.)

It's even more simple than that, mate

He backed the SNP because they'll do anything that he asks being more in thrall to him than Tony Blair was and, although they claim to be progressive they're actually not very progressive at all

[Section_31]

I think we're starting to see the first staring now of a deeply divided country, much the same way as it is in the states. 

 

The idea of perpetual Tory regimes and an underclass/working class that knows for an absolute fact their leaders do not care whether they adn their families live or die is going to cause major social unrest as time goes by IMO. 

 

This country's whole ideology is now so at odds with mine I actually feel like I've been invaded. 

[Spy Bee]

It is amusing isn't it seeing Oxbridge, pro War, pro cuts, duo Cooper and Burnham arguing over who should claim the right to lead?

 

The days of mass tribal voting are over, it's no longer the workers versus the toffs, people largely vote down to competence and what is in it for them. The 90's Tory party was a shambles. Some who had voted Tory voted Labour to punish them, but many felt correctly that they could not put a competent government together, and Labour could.

 

Labour's problem at the last election was that from the start neither the PLP nor membership wanted him and he failed ( miserably in front of an open goal) to put a credible alternative government on offer.

 

The end of tribal voting is a good thing, whether the parties have caught up with the need for credible policies behind the badge is another matter.

I think people vote on propaganda and fear.

 

Seriously people are worrying about a few asylum seekers and not giving a fuck about every working man being raped and pillaged via deals like Royal Mail and RBS. The thing that pisses me off is that they are doing this in plain sight and getting away with it.

[Section_31]

I think people vote on propaganda and fear.

 

Seriously people are worrying about a few asylum seekers and not giving a fuck about every working man being raped and pillaged via deals like Royal Mail and RBS. The thing that pisses me off is that they are doing this in plain sight and getting away with it.

 

Media's fault, we live in country where Kay Burley asks David Cameron how many Weetabix he has for breakfast. 

[Section_31]

If Corbyn doesn't get in or gets fucked off, he should join the Greens and they should make him leader, take all that goodwill and popularity with him. 

[Babb'sBurstNad]

This country's whole ideology is now so at odds with mine I actually feel like I've been invaded. 

 

Do you think the country actually has an ideology though?

 

I find that though it sometimes appears as such, with vast swathes who fit into the tory mould, when you dig beneath the surface rhetoric there's little they believe in steadfastly, certainly not in the same way as Republicanism in the states, where it's at times almost a religious devotion ignoring all reason, worshipping at the altar of nationalism. Most people have just been swept up into a culture of putting themselves first by things like spiralling house prices and rampant fear mongering, inferring one hand put out to help someone might mean they lose what's already in their pocket.

[Jairzinho]

On the media thing, as I said last week (I think), it's encouraging that Corbyn's support increases with every Blairite utterance, every patronising anti-Corbyn Guardian article, and every Channel 4 interview trying to smear him.

 

Small steps and all that, but it does feel like some people are starting to see the media's game.

 

I don't think the country has much of an ideology either. I don't think many people are (were, hopefully) thinking at all. They get deliberately switched off for all bar the month or two before an election. 

 

Most people couldn't name their MP.

[Spy Bee]

Most people couldn't name their MP.

If I could name mine, I'd call him Cunty Bollocks.

[Jairzinho]

If I could name mine, I'd call him Cunty Bollocks.

 

I'd quite like to maim mine.

[Tony Moanero]

They're all cunts.

[Mook]

I have a theory that the majority of people in this country like to think that they're a bit to the left but when it comes to the crunch (ie - when it's their money involved), they're capitalists.

 

Or 'cunts' as I prefer to call them.

 

Oh & the SNP do an awful lot of talk about being left wing but they don't really have any evidence to back it up.

[Section_31]

I have a theory that the majority of people in this country like to think that they're a bit to the left but when it comes to the crunch (ie - when it's their money involved), they're capitalists.

 

Or 'cunts' as I prefer to call them.

 

Oh & the SNP do an awful lot of talk about being left wing but they don't really have any evidence to back it up.

 

I honestly don't know if I agree with that or not.

 

Most people I know don't crave money for the sake of it, they crave it to survive. There was a lot of talk after the credit crunch about people 'living beyond their means' and running up debt, but why was that? It's because the simple things in life - like a home - had been taken out of most people's means.

 

Most of the people I know who are in any way middle class (or probably lower middle class if they're under 40), have both people working and earn 'just' enough to get by, if one of them is sick or loses their jobs then they're staring down the barrell of homelessness.

 

Most people I know are in debt, but they're not using their credit card to buy speed baots, they're using it to get the car fixed or buy furniture.

 

The bottom line IMO is that we just get constantly fucked over in this country because we don't have the balls to stand up and do anything about it, and the reason we don't is because we're kept on the cusp of poverty.

 

If you look at the people to the right of us and to the left of us, the north europeans enjoy a lot better work protections and social benefits that we don't have, and while southern Europe is poorer, they have a lot more time for 'life', food, family, fun.

 

To the left of us in the States, they probably have just a shit a work/life balance deal as we do (the worst in western Europe for my money) but, and it's a very big but, they have more to show for it.

 

If you were a couple living in the states and both of you were working in reasonably decent jobs, your house would be  three times bigger, your car would be twice the size, your petrol would be half as costly and your fridge would be well stocked.

 

This country fucks you in the ass, and doesn't even have the god damn decency to give you a reacharound.  

[Bobby Hundreds]

I think it's bullshit this idea that the tories really want corbyn to win. I think they are playing devil's advocate trying to convince people it's a madness they are thankful for. Really I think the idea Labour might lurch to the left and have a leader who evokes an emotional response from people who are just sick to death of it all worries them. I'm not saying Corbyn will do that but he is potentially a politician people admire and have respect for and think he may be a voice they have been seeking. Most usual Labour supporters I know where generally looking elsewhere last election because they no longer felt the party represented them, many who don't usually bother voting at all have paid 3 quid to vote for corbyn.

 

Who knows how it will all turn out, it may be a disaster and strengthen the Tory's but it may not, at least with Corbyn we may see something different it may even stoke the voter apathy, for or against and shift the political spectrum. Corbyn not giving a fuck about how the media perceive him will give Labour more bollocks than they have had in years.

[Spy Bee]

I have a theory that the majority of people in this country like to think that they're a bit to the left but when it comes to the crunch (ie - when it's their money involved), they're capitalists.

 

Or 'cunts' as I prefer to call them.

 

Oh & the SNP do an awful lot of talk about being left wing but they don't really have any evidence to back it up.

two points to make here

1) We don't live in a capitalist society. Once we propped the banks up capitalism was dead.

2) People do think they are voting to protect their interests, but they're believing a lie. This government is fucking everyone who is anything less than a millionaire.