Should Corbyn remain as Labour leader?

[skend04]

A centrist would moonwalk nude into No.10 right now, parliament is an absolute shambles right at the very time that the 2 main parties are so poles apart. Obviously this is prefaced by having a viable centrist candidate.

[Numero Veinticinco]

1 hour ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

I'm convinced a centrist would lose.

Centrists of some variety have been the PM for many decades in a row and in practically every major nation in Europe. I heard this a lot on here, but I’ve never seen anything to make me believe or even understand the logic behind. If it’s just a guess/opinion, that’s fine. Not really sure what it is based on though.  

[Jairzinho]

6 minutes ago, Numero Veinticinco said:

Centrists of some variety have been the PM for many decades in a row and in practically every major nation in Europe. I heard this a lot on here, but I’ve never seen anything to make me believe or even understand the logic behind. If it’s just a guess/opinion, that’s fine. Not really sure what it is based on though.  

It's based precisely on those centrists being in power for the last few decades and failing the vast majority of populations all over the developed world leading to Brexit, Trump, Syriza, Podemos, Five Star, Orban, VOX, etc, etc. Some in power, some hugely increasing their vote share (often out of absolutely nowhere). It's also based on the current popularity of the likes of the Lib Dems and Macron. 

 

Of course most governments are still going to be centrist now because the shift has only happened in the last few years.

 

It isn't a guess.

[Scooby Dudek]

7 minutes ago, Numero Veinticinco said:

Centrists of some variety have been the PM for many decades in a row and in practically every major nation in Europe. I heard this a lot on here, but I’ve never seen anything to make me believe or even understand the logic behind. If it’s just a guess/opinion, that’s fine. Not really sure what it is based on though.  

What I am basing it on is the fact Red Ed Miliband lost because he couldn't eat a bacon butty. 

It doesn't matter is the person is a centrists, they will be painted as a left wing lunatic and attacked by the press. Let us not forget that Ed's dad is the man who hated Britain. 

Labour lost over 3 million working class votes during the Blair years, so many that if Ed had received them votes he would have won a majority. 

 

A centrists doesn't bring back those votes, one of the reasons Corbyn massively increased the votes in 2017 is the fact his policies re-energised a lot of those disillusioned Labour voters and also the younger voters. 

 

Labour lost in 2010 and in 2015, with the vote share going down, the was reversed with a Lefty in charge. My concern is a centrists in charge is the direction of the party in relation to policy and democracy.

 

 

[Numero Veinticinco]

2 minutes ago, Jairzinho said:

It's based precisely on those centrists being in power for the last few decades and failing the vast majority of populations all over the developed world leading to Brexit, Trump, Syriza, Podemos, Five Star, Orban, VOX, etc, etc. Some in power, some hugely increasing their vote share (often out of absolutely nowhere). It's also based on the current popularity of the likes of the Lib Dems and Macron. 

 

Of course most governments are still going to be centrist now because the shift has only happened in the last few years.

 

It isn't a guess.

There’s no doubt that the extremes of the spectrum have been growing. That’s not the same thing as somebody in the center not being able to win an election because they’re centerists. 

 

I think, and this is just a judgment call, that it’s a mixture of a guess and wishful thinking. There’s certainly some misalignment in our thinking because you and a few others on here think a centrist can’t win, I think only somebody from the central or center leaning positions can win with an outside shot of somebody from the fringes playing more moderate to get into power. 

[Jairzinho]

Just now, Numero Veinticinco said:

There’s no doubt that the extremes of the spectrum have been growing. That’s not the same thing as somebody in the center not being able to win an election because they’re centerists. 

 

I think, and this is just a judgment call, that it’s a mixture of a guess and wishful thinking. There’s certainly some misalignment in our thinking because you and a few others on here think a centrist can’t win, I think only somebody from the central or center leaning positions can win with an outside shot of somebody from the fringes playing more moderate to get into power. 

Are you guessing as well?

[Numero Veinticinco]

1 minute ago, Scooby Dudek said:

What I am basing it on is the fact Red Ed Miliband lost because he couldn't eat a bacon butty. 

It doesn't matter is the person is a centrists, they will be painted as a left wing lunatic and attacked by the press. Let us not forget that Ed's dad is the man who hated Britain. 

Labour lost over 3 million working class votes during the Blair years, so many that if Ed had received them votes he would have won a majority. 

 

A centrists doesn't bring back those votes, one of the reasons Corbyn massively increased the votes in 2017 is the fact his policies re-energised a lot of those disillusioned Labour voters and also the younger voters. 

 

Labour lost in 2010 and in 2015, with the vote share going down, the was reversed with a Lefty in charge. My concern is a centrists in charge is the direction of the party in relation to policy and democracy.

 

 

Blair losing votes wasn’t because he was a centrist. In fact, the Blair and Brown years were incredibly popular. Take out Iraq and Afghanistan and people would vote for them all day long. 

[Grinch]

1 hour ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

Fair enough.  You're a jaded cynic who can't be arsed, so you're excusing yourself from any action to improve things by pretending "they're all the same" and there's nothing to be done. It's much easier to sulk in a corner, carping at people who still have a spark of life.  Unfortunately, I think there are millions like you.

 

Fortunately, I also know that there are millions on the left who, far from pushing people to the right  (whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean) are offering the working class the best hope we've had for decades.

 

No I've just got my eyes open to it all.   It's all a con, a divide to keep us fighting amongst one another. 

 

The left can't keep saying we're all the same on one hand and then treating people differently based on the colour of their skin.   Of course that's going to cause anger and resentment amongst the white working class.   It's then easily turned on the wrong people, those with even fucking less than us.   

 

Colour of skin shouldn't matter at all, nationality shouldn't matter.   There's white cunts, black cunts, yellow cunts, there probably even cunts in outer space, then there's good folk of all colors too.   Yet everything has to be so black and white. 

 

I don't want to get into this on here mainly cause you'll get the usual sheep shouting racist.  Twisting words and I really don't want to argue with anyone right now for my own peace of mind. 

 

We've got to stop dividing humans.   Treat all of them equally and then and only then will we see equality. 

 

But yea carry on oppressing white straight males, that's working out so well for mankind.   All the while those that sit in their ivory tower watching over the fools blaming each other rather than looking up.   

[Pureblood]

9 minutes ago, Grinch said:

 

No I've just got my eyes open to it all.   It's all a con, a divide to keep us fighting amongst one another. 

 

The left can't keep saying we're all the same on one hand and then treating people differently based on the colour of their skin.   Of course that's going to cause anger and resentment amongst the white working class.   It's then easily turned on the wrong people, those with even fucking less than us.   

 

Colour of skin shouldn't matter at all, nationality shouldn't matter.   There's white cunts, black cunts, yellow cunts, there probably even cunts in outer space, then there's good folk of all colors too.   Yet everything has to be so black and white. 

 

I don't want to get into this on here mainly cause you'll get the usual sheep shouting racist.  Twisting words and I really don't want to argue with anyone right now for my own peace of mind. 

 

We've got to stop dividing humans.   Treat all of them equally and then and only then will we see equality. 

 

But yea carry on oppressing white straight males, that's working out so well for mankind.   All the while those that sit in their ivory tower watching over the fools blaming each other rather than looking up.   

Holy shit.

[Numero Veinticinco]

1 minute ago, Jairzinho said:

Are you guessing as well?

I think it’s pretty clear from the way I phrased it (‘judgement call’ and ‘I think’) that I am. The difference between my judgement call and yours is that mine would just require more of the same, supported by powerful interests and media as they already are, easy to swallow and savvy as have always been, but yours would require a massive deviation from the norm. I’m not really making any claim that things will change. I acknowledge that both left and right wing causes have got traction and that a lot of people are pissed off with the status quo. I just don’t see how this translates into a centrist being demolished for being centrist. Both Ed Miliband and Corbyn are as popular as dog shit at a BBQ. You can point to the media and say ‘yeah but’, and you’re right. But that would, to quote Teeth, is all part of the dance. 

 

Talk of Bugon and Long-Bailey just causes me to shake my noggin. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see them leading Labour in the future. Which, for whoever the Tory PM is would be a welcome sight I’m sure. 

 

I agree with there being a dearth of options of a certain age. That’s a real issue. If the left, the proper left, want to win an election we need somebody so charismatic, intelligent, a debating God, an oratory genius, and clean as a whistle whilst being good looking enough to make the opposite sex want to be with them and the same sex want to be them. Then I’d guess we’d have a decent chance of getting a minority government or slim majority. 

[Numero Veinticinco]

12 minutes ago, Grinch said:

But yea carry on oppressing white straight males, that's working out so well for mankind. 

In the quiet words of the Virgin Mary... come again? 

[Jairzinho]

Do you think if an election was called tomorrow Corbyn would do better or worse than last time?

[Scooby Dudek]

21 minutes ago, Numero Veinticinco said:

Blair losing votes wasn’t because he was a centrist. In fact, the Blair and Brown years were incredibly popular. Take out Iraq and Afghanistan and people would vote for them all day long. 

I agree the wars had a major impact but losing votes from the poorest in society was, like brexit imo, due to the fact people felt left behind by the centrist politicians and had nothing to lose. 

 

Labour lost 2.5 millions votes between 1997 and 2001 but only lost 1 million between 2001 and 2005, after going into Iraq in 2003. 

 

I agree great things took place during the Blair years, but once people at the bottom saw their quality of lives worsening during the Blair years that played a bigger role than Iraq. 

[Scooby Dudek]

Ultimately we all want the same thing, Blair and Brown also sucked up to the British press and was thus presented in a good light. This was also part of playing the game but I also believe that due to major policies were not seen as a treat to the people at the top.  

 

One of the reasons Ed was attacked was his "left-wing" anti business policies and obviously to a larger extent this is happening to Corbyn. The only was to get the press on side is to agree with what they want. Corbyn will never do this, because his policies can not allow it. Any new leader, I hope would have similar policies and hence the media will attack them. We need to learn how to by-pass the media offensive. 

 

Easy to say but not to do.

[Jairzinho]

14 minutes ago, Scooby Dudek said:

I agree the wars had a major impact but losing votes from the poorest in society was, like brexit imo, due to the fact people felt left behind by the centrist politicians and had nothing to lose. 

 

Labour lost 2.5 millions votes between 1997 and 2001 but only lost 1 million between 2001 and 2005, after going into Iraq in 2003. 

 

I agree great things took place during the Blair years, but once people at the bottom saw their quality of lives worsening during the Blair years that played a bigger role than Iraq. 

It's also about timing. It's why, in my opinion, it's very difficult to look at the success of a politician in an era where the political and economic circumstances were different generally and conclude that it could be replicated in the current era. These things tend to have a shelf life.

 

In order to get centrism, in my opinion, you need the working class to be doing okay. Yeah, there is creeping privatisation, and the rich are getting richer, but we're doing okay. Blair's vote dropped steadily over his tenure, but there was no great clamour for socialism or anything on the right. Because people were still doing okay, especially in comparison with the Thatcher years. That isn't the case now. The breaking point, to some extent, has been reached. There are fewer and fewer sections of society, or job sectors, that are benefiting from the current economic system. And the desire in these situations is rarely to make small changes back to what you had before. It's for change.

[Jairzinho]

6 minutes ago, Scooby Dudek said:

Ultimately we all want the same thing, Blair and Brown also sucked up to the British press and was thus presented in a good light. This was also part of playing the game but I also believe that due to major policies were not seen as a treat to the people at the top.  

 

One of the reasons Ed was attacked was his "left-wing" anti business policies and obviously to a larger extent this is happening to Corbyn. The only was to get the press on side is to agree with what they want. Corbyn will never do this, because his policies can not allow it. Any new leader, I hope would have similar policies and hence the media will attack them. We need to learn how to by-pass the media offensive. 

 

Easy to say but not to do.

I don't think Miliband and Brown's economic policies were radically different. The difference was that Murdoch supporting Labour had fulfilled its aim. He no longer needed to. He (not alone, obviously) had successfully shifted them to the right, and redrawn the political landscape, that he could now present Miliband as a loony leftie on the edge of acceptable opinion. That and the garbage about sandwiches, and the truly hateful stuff about his old man, etc.

[Numero Veinticinco]

4 minutes ago, Scooby Dudek said:

I agree the wars had a major impact but losing votes from the poorest in society was, like brexit imo, due to the fact people felt left behind by the centrist politicians and had nothing to lose. 

 

Labour lost 2.5 millions votes between 1997 and 2001 but only lost 1 million between 2001 and 2005, after going into Iraq in 2003. 

 

I agree great things took place during the Blair years, but once people at the bottom saw their quality of lives worsening during the Blair years that played a bigger role than Iraq. 

Lots of people's lives improved at the bottom. I ripped the Labour Party (on here, repeatedly, too) for many things. one of which was the widening gap between rich and poor. That wasn't because they poor were getting worse off though. And don't forget, in 1997 Labour won 418 seats, with Tories getting something like 160. In 2001, Labour got 413 seats. They lost around 3% of the vote in that time. Not dramatic. May got more votes in 2017 than Blair did in 1997. Almost as big a share too (around 1%). That's in 2017. Against a left-wing, socialist. 

 

It's probably sounding like I don't want a left-wing socialist government, sometimes I forget that not everybody is enthralled by my 10 years of utterly boring bullshit on this site and might not understand that I've said a million times what I want. I'd much, much prefer Corbyn over any Tory government. If he can swing this thing into a general election, the unique circumstances of them failing to deliver Brexit might just mean he's actually in with a fighting chance of either a minority or slim majority. Should he fail... fuck me, I don't even want to think about it. 

[Barrington Womble]

20 minutes ago, Jairzinho said:

Do you think if an election was called tomorrow Corbyn would do better or worse than last time?

I think he wouldn't win regardless of better or worse (I suspect he would do worse if the election was tomorrow) and that is the only thing that matters. He had a large share of the vote last time, yet he's still way off forming a government. It's not just about increasing the popular vote, it's about winning votes in the right places. Until we change our electroral system from FPTP, it will always be about winning votes in the right places rather than just winning votes. 

[Numero Veinticinco]

17 minutes ago, Barry Wom said:

I think he wouldn't win regardless of better or worse (I suspect he would do worse if the election was tomorrow) and that is the only thing that matters. He had a large share of the vote last time, yet he's still way off forming a government. It's not just about increasing the popular vote, it's about winning votes in the right places. Until we change our electroral system from FPTP, it will always be about winning votes in the right places rather than just winning votes. 

Yeah, very true that. It's disheartening that in spite of everything, a GE wouldn't be a forgone conclusion. 

[Jose Jones]

Unless, or until, Labour is able to win back Scotland, and to a lesser extent, Wales, then the best I think Labour can do at the moment is a coalition with the nationalists.

 

A Blair type figure might be able to win more English votes, but it was Blairism that lost the Scots in the first place.

[Numero Veinticinco]

17 minutes ago, Jose Jones said:

it was Blairism that lost the Scots in the first place.

Don't agree with that. Didn't lose it until 2015. 1997 was 56 (up from 50), 2001 was 56, 2005 46 (so under Blair it went from 50 to 46), 2010 41, then in 2015 under Miliband it went from 41 to 1.  Under Corbyn went from 1 to 7.

[Strontium]

2 hours ago, Numero Veinticinco said:

Blair losing votes wasn’t because he was a centrist. In fact, the Blair and Brown years were incredibly popular. Take out Iraq and Afghanistan and people would vote for them all day long. 

 

Labour just released a video celebrating 20 years of the minimum wage. Notable by his absence is any mention of the Prime Minister who introduced it. I think this historical revisionism is one of the biggest turn-offs of the Corbyn project.

[Numero Veinticinco]

2 minutes ago, Strontium Dog said:

 

Labour just released a video celebrating 20 years of the minimum wage. Notable by his absence is any mention of the Prime Minister who introduced it. I think this historical revisionism is one of the biggest turn-offs of the Corbyn project.

It started way before the Corbyn project, to be honest. It’s an unattractive feature of the left to eat itself, including any leftist progress made by centre-left or centrist politicians. I’ve heard Blair referred to as right wing and far right wing, which is quite clearly just not right. Far from perfect, even outside of the ward, but also far from the devil his demonisers try to make out. I mean, fuck the guy, but Hitler’s lovechild he ain’t. 

[Barrington Womble]

2 hours ago, Jose Jones said:

Unless, or until, Labour is able to win back Scotland, and to a lesser extent, Wales, then the best I think Labour can do at the moment is a coalition with the nationalists.

 

A Blair type figure might be able to win more English votes, but it was Blairism that lost the Scots in the first place.

I don't think it was just blairism (unless you count devolution as a blairism) but I think the Scottish parliament legitimised the SNP as a party that could be trusted and voted for, so allowed an easy transition for labour voters to another left wing party. I think that gene is out of the bottle now and I don't think labour can win Scotland back in the medium term.  In England UKIP tried to appeal to those same disillusioned voters, but it was much harder for them to win them over as they're a bunch of nazi twats. They still had significant success though. 

[Jairzinho]

2 hours ago, Jose Jones said:

Unless, or until, Labour is able to win back Scotland, and to a lesser extent, Wales, then the best I think Labour can do at the moment is a coalition with the nationalists.

 

A Blair type figure might be able to win more English votes, but it was Blairism that lost the Scots in the first place.

Yep. Their patience finally ran out.