The New Leader of the Labour Party

[torahboy]

11 minutes ago, Barry Wom said:

I don't understand your point here. As we've just seen with Corbyn, no matter what the reasons, the latest manifesto was utterly rejected by the electorate. If labour party members (of which I'm one myself) think the way to get elected is to reject everything that's ever happened in the past, well we'll continue with having Tory governments and we're fucked. I know what I'll be doing, voting for a leader who has a chance of being elected. 

I didn't think the manifesto was either truly presented or seriously debated in the media. 'Brexit', we were told was the central issue and I'm fucking well sure the people of Blyth never considered anything other than Corbyn being a 'Commie' and '17 million voted 'leave'. Far from the manifesto being rejected by these poor, ignorant bastards it was probablt never diiscussed.

 

I am also a party member but a return to anything remotely like the politics devised by Mandelson, Campbell and Powell would make me think about how well represented I am by 'managed, caring capitalism'. Starmer may well be an acceptable option, but the likes of Phillips, Cooper and Nandy wouldn't do much to unite or progress the party in the direction that Corbyn's brand of socialism has pointed. And, far from rejecting everything that happemed in the past, I would take a few more leaves from Atlee's '45 manifesto. After what this current shower of Tory bastards are going to do to us 2025 will feel like rebuilding afater a war.

 

None of our current potential leaders are perfect but Long Bailey and Starmer working together and gathering a shadow cabinet that can maintain an agreed diretion wouldn't be awful. Yet the party is still infested with centrists that will not accept anything other than a return to Blairite days. Internal feuds cost us dearly over the last three elections, all of it coming from the centrists.

 

 

[Sugar Ape]

1 hour ago, moof said:

“Offer what the tories offer, but a little bit more” 

 

you’re a genius, pal. It’s absolutely foolproof. 

I’m clearly talking only about spending pledges to cut off one of the main lines of attack from the right. When we’re in power we can pump in what we want, as I also clearly explained in the other parts of my post that you cut out. 
 

There are also plenty of other ways we can offer big differences to the Tories that don’t cost money such as stronger equality laws or beefing up the fox hunting ban to give bigger punishments. 
 

If you don’t look credible on the economy you aren’t getting elected, it just isn’t happening. I’m not saying carry on with austerity but realise there is a difference between a popular policy (I’d like free broadband) and how that policy is received in reality (Labour want to waste our money unnecessarily by nationalising the internet)

 

But sure, we could carry on doing it your way and just double down on everything that’s led to the biggest loss since 1935 whilst also being condescending and sneering at everyone who doesn’t agree with you. 

[torahboy]

19 minutes ago, SasaS said:

Didn't someone on here already say that internal Labour polling also favours Starmer? Shares of other possible candidates also look pretty realistic to me.

I'm a member. I haven't been made aware of any such results.

[Dr Nowt]

The problem is that the electorate are too thick to understand socialism because the media/establishment.

 

Also, let’s continue with the same approach.

[TheHowieLama]

15 minutes ago, Sugar Ape said:

 

If you don’t look credible on the economy you aren’t getting elected,

[TheHowieLama]

7 minutes ago, Lizzie Birdsworths Wrinkled Chopper said:

the electorate are too thick to understand socialism

Choose a different word - they know what it means

[moof]

No, we should give it to a safe pair of hands like Keirsy and prove Labour is just as credible on the economy as the Tory party. That will sort out all of the existential problems we’ll face in the next couple of years fo sho 

[Sugar Ape]

1 hour ago, Captain Turdseye said:

Why would my boy Clive be massacred? I’m not having that. If he had the backing of the unions he’d be a shoe-in. But he hasn’t so he isn’t. 

He’s got no support base anywhere in the party. He’s not particularly liked or backed in any significant way by Momentum it seems or the activist base, I doubt he’ll have any union backing, not from the big ones anyway, and he doesn’t seem popular with his fellow MPs to the point I’m not even sure he’ll get 21 to back him. 
 

So that’s the membership, unions and his colleagues who all seem to favour multiple other candidates over him. In addition, I don’t think he’s a particularly great orator nor charismatic. 
 

Mainly though, it would be easy as fuck to ruin him with the groping and sexist language claims. They’ll say he said something sexist and here is the clip of him saying it. You’ll counter that if you read this article explaining the context you’ll see it was a joke aimed at a man and he’s apologised but none of that matters imo. 99% of people won’t read that article or care about it, they’ll just see a clip of him saying it on Twitter or Facebook and that is what they’ll remember about him. 
 

He’s damaged goods so it’s a no for me, Clive. 

[Bruce Spanner]

11 minutes ago, torahboy said:

I didn't think the manifesto was either truly presented or seriously debated in the media. 'Brexit', we were told was the central issue and I'm fucking well sure the people of Blyth never considered anything other than Corbyn being a 'Commie' and '17 million voted 'leave'. Far from the manifesto being rejected by these poor, ignorant bastards it was probablt never diiscussed.

 

I am also a party member but a return to anything remotely like the politics devised by Mandelson, Campbell and Powell would make me think about how well represented I am by 'managed, caring capitalism'. Starmer may well be an acceptable option, but the likes of Phillips, Cooper and Nandy wouldn't do much to unite or progress the party in the direction that Corbyn's brand of socialism has pointed. And, far from rejecting everything that happemed in the past, I would take a few more leaves from Atlee's '45 manifesto. After what this current shower of Tory bastards are going to do to us 2025 will feel like rebuilding afater a war.

 

None of our current potential leaders are perfect but Long Bailey and Starmer working together and gathering a shadow cabinet that can maintain an agreed diretion wouldn't be awful. Yet the party is still infested with centrists that will not accept anything other than a return to Blairite days. Internal feuds cost us dearly over the last three elections, all of it coming from the centrists.

 

 

 

And therein lies the problem, people cannot see through their own parochial view of what the Labour Party should be, all seen through some hackneyed, sepia tinged, version of the past where Atlee leads us to the promised land.

 

The world, jobs and working people have changed an inordinate degree and to even try to position Labour to fit the nostalgic trade union, workers’ rights supporting 'party of the people' is futile, because that was lost to the wind when my dad's dad was on strike.

 

We need a radical rethink about what is this country is and how best our party can support it, fix it and allow it to survive the impending shitstorm, not play petty game of one-upmanship.

 

In solidarity.  

[Numero Veinticinco]

3 hours ago, Jairzinho said:

No idea. 

 

And like everything else, it'll be degrees rather than one thing or the other. 

True, mate. I do have a sneaking suspicion that Starmer might well be a bit more palatable to - to quote our Blue friends - the powers that be. 

[torahboy]

46 minutes ago, Bruce Spanner said:

 

And therein lies the problem, people cannot see through their own parochial view of what the Labour Party should be, all seen through some hackneyed, sepia tinged, version of the past where Atlee leads us to the promised land.

 

The world, jobs and working people have changed an inordinate degree and to even try to position Labour to fit the nostalgic trade union, workers’ rights supporting 'party of the people' is futile, because that was lost to the wind when my dad's dad was on strike.

 

We need a radical rethink about what is this country is and how best our party can support it, fix it and allow it to survive the impending shitstorm, not play petty game of one-upmanship.

 

In solidarity.  

Would a civil war help? At least our party has experience in that field.

[Bruce Spanner]

9 minutes ago, torahboy said:

Would a civil war help? At least our party has experience in that field.

 

Nowt civil about war, lad.

[Barrington Womble]

5 hours ago, Jairzinho said:

There isn't actually evidence that this is the case. Brexit and Corbyn appear to be the reasons Labour did so badly (beyond the obvious, toxic media influence). There is no indication that the public wants to return to centrist policies. If they wanted that they'd have voted for centrist parties...which they didn't.

They rejected everything about the campaign. It was an utter failure. Anyone who thinks it can be just put down to Corbyn's personality (which everyone seemed convinced on this thread was loved and it absolutely wasn't the issue prior to the election) and Brexit is kidding themselves - it was a complete disaster front to back, it was Fulham last season. This country has never voted anything away from either the centre or the right in my life time. What evidence is there it's ready to vote for anything else? With FPTP, this is a right wing country, for it to vote labour into power it needs the Tories to fail badly combined with labour sitting in a position those in the centre feel comfortable with. We've had the Tories failing badly, labour just chose to wank each other off thinking they were reinventing politics. The manifesto and the leader was as toxic to the electorate as anything that happened in the 80s. 

[Barrington Womble]

5 hours ago, torahboy said:

I didn't think the manifesto was either truly presented or seriously debated in the media. 'Brexit', we were told was the central issue and I'm fucking well sure the people of Blyth never considered anything other than Corbyn being a 'Commie' and '17 million voted 'leave'. Far from the manifesto being rejected by these poor, ignorant bastards it was probablt never diiscussed.

 

I am also a party member but a return to anything remotely like the politics devised by Mandelson, Campbell and Powell would make me think about how well represented I am by 'managed, caring capitalism'. Starmer may well be an acceptable option, but the likes of Phillips, Cooper and Nandy wouldn't do much to unite or progress the party in the direction that Corbyn's brand of socialism has pointed. And, far from rejecting everything that happemed in the past, I would take a few more leaves from Atlee's '45 manifesto. After what this current shower of Tory bastards are going to do to us 2025 will feel like rebuilding afater a war.

 

None of our current potential leaders are perfect but Long Bailey and Starmer working together and gathering a shadow cabinet that can maintain an agreed diretion wouldn't be awful. Yet the party is still infested with centrists that will not accept anything other than a return to Blairite days. Internal feuds cost us dearly over the last three elections, all of it coming from the centrists.

 

 

I know most on this forum.dont agree, but I'd have Blair and Brown over Boris Johnson and the ERG every day of the week. You can either be outside the tent pissing in or inside pissing out. If that means we need to water down the starting point, I'm fine with that..Rome wasn't built in a day and it's about getting a foot hold and get people used to voting labour without thinking it's going to bring them and the country financial ruin. The last labour government would have achieved that but got fucked by the biggest global recession in 70 years. 

 

As for the manifesto not being debated properly, that's because there was a new policy every few minutes being announced. Like it or not, the country is full of idiots. They don't need a new message every day. They don't need to know about 30 different policies. They just need to know about the top 2 or 3 and have them hammered down their throat. 

[Captain Turdseye]

5 hours ago, Sugar Ape said:

He’s got no support base anywhere in the party. He’s not particularly liked or backed in any significant way by Momentum it seems or the activist base, I doubt he’ll have any union backing, not from the big ones anyway, and he doesn’t seem popular with his fellow MPs to the point I’m not even sure he’ll get 21 to back him. 
 

So that’s the membership, unions and his colleagues who all seem to favour multiple other candidates over him. In addition, I don’t think he’s a particularly great orator nor charismatic. 
 

Mainly though, it would be easy as fuck to ruin him with the groping and sexist language claims. They’ll say he said something sexist and here is the clip of him saying it. You’ll counter that if you read this article explaining the context you’ll see it was a joke aimed at a man and he’s apologised but none of that matters imo. 99% of people won’t read that article or care about it, they’ll just see a clip of him saying it on Twitter or Facebook and that is what they’ll remember about him. 
 

He’s damaged goods so it’s a no for me, Clive. 

I’m gonna vote for him if he gets the 21 though. And so is everyone else on this forum except for you or they’re getting negged. So is my lad, three people from my branch and the two other people I’ve got to sign up since the GE. These are real numbers. No fucking abaaat. 
 

There’s absolutely fuck all in the groping claims and I disagree with what you say about how he speaks. Stick him in a debate with a Tory and he walks away having made a twat of them every single time.
 

I think he’s eloquent without being posh, he says all the right things, he’s left wing, in favour of PR, open to forming coalitions with other parties, his voting record is second to none and he resigned from Corbyn’s front bench purely on principle. All the shit Corbyn was praised for basically, and more. Add in the fact he took the queen’s shilling by doing a stint in Afghanistan and he broadens his appeal even further. 
 

He’s also now the only Labour MP left in the entirety of Suffolk and Norfolk, which says to me that he’s a great MP. Similarities with Corbyn again. Throw in the fact that he’s a black man. It’s silly that I have to say that but I think that could play well with all of these people who want to be seen as ultra left wing and also for ‘traditional’ Labour Brexiteers that would like to somehow prove that they’re not actually racist. 
 

Something else you should also factor in is that I’ve typed this entire post whilst half pissed on a bus that’s wobbling around all over the place. 
 

And perhaps most importantly I’ll win £300 if he does it. 

[TheHowieLama]

46 minutes ago, Barry Wom said:

 I'd have Blair and Brown over Boris Johnson and the ERG every day of the week.

Who disagrees with this??

[Jairzinho]

12 hours ago, Strontium Dog™ said:

Labour's worst election result since 1935 could be considered evidence, like.

Yeah, like. Top analysis. 

 

Christ, this is all so depressing. Prescribing the cause. 

[Jairzinho]

6 hours ago, TheHowieLama said:

Who disagrees with this??

No-one.

 

In much the same way that no-one thought Corbyn's personality was universally loved.

 

 

[Jairzinho]

11 hours ago, Numero Veinticinco said:

True, mate. I do have a sneaking suspicion that Starmer might well be a bit more palatable to - to quote our Blue friends - the powers that be. 

Yes, I'd imagine he will be. And here's hoping.

[Barrington Womble]

8 hours ago, TheHowieLama said:

Who disagrees with this??

Loads of people on this forum. We had this discussion on the Corbyn thread a few times. Blair is used as a dirty word on this forum, yet he's the only fella who's formed a labour government since the year I start infant school and I'll be 50 this year. There's a message in there. Anyone who thinks this country was ready for Corbyn and that manifesto that seemed like a brain dump when pissed of all the things they thought were great, are kidding themselves. 

[Brownie]

I must admit i’ve not seen anyone suggest Corbyn was universally loved at all. Happy to be corrected.

 

The general consensus seemed to be that he got a rough ride from the media but his policies were popular (as evidenced by the gains in 2017).

 

That lurch to the right is happening and it’s being trumpeted by lefties; depressing.

 

[Rico1304]

2 hours ago, Jairzinho said:

No-one.

 

In much the same way that no-one thought Corbyn's personality was universally loved.

 

 

He’s fans did and do. They simply can’t understand why other people don’t feel the same way.  It’s incredibly weird to watch. 

[Barrington Womble]

1 hour ago, Brownie said:

I must admit i’ve not seen anyone suggest Corbyn was universally loved at all. Happy to be corrected.

 

The general consensus seemed to be that he got a rough ride from the media but his policies were popular (as evidenced by the gains in 2017).

 

That lurch to the right is happening and it’s being trumpeted by lefties; depressing.

 

Lurch to the right? This country has never been to the left, it doesn't vote for left wing governments. It votes for the right and the best we can ever hope for is a left of centre government. We need to start getting labour winning elections because any version of labour is better than getting the Tories. 

[Brownie]

3 minutes ago, Barry Wom said:

Lurch to the right? This country has never been to the left, it doesn't vote for left wing governments. It votes for the right and the best we can ever hope for is a left of centre government. We need to start getting labour winning elections because any version of labour is better than getting the Tories. 

I’m talking about Labour lurching to the right, not the country.

 

The point about moving back towards the centre to be electable has been debated over and over and I can’t be arsed going over old ground.

[lifetime fan]

1 minute ago, Barry Wom said:

Lurch to the right? This country has never been to the left, it doesn't vote for left wing governments. It votes for the right and the best we can ever hope for is a left of centre government. We need to start getting labour winning elections because any version of labour is better than getting the Tories. 

Or just do what the tories do. 
 

Project a sellable message and then introduce more left wing/controversial stuff once you’re in power. 
 

The nationalisation of public schools was the perfect example. There was zero benefit to announcing it before the election when it was actually an aspiration and not fully planned out. 
 

Say nothing and once in power then remove the tax breaks public schools get. 

 

It was stupidity of the highest degree, pick your fucking battles.