Ed Miliband

[Russ Atmosphere]

This made me laugh:

 

"Military men are typically Tory supporters. The Conservatives have numerous MPs with army backgrounds, mostly with short periods of service."

Like the royal family, a CV addition to validate shitting on everyone for the rest of their sorry, selfish, comfortable lives.

[Paul]

This digging around to look at potential new leaders, as well as the gut-wrenching awfulness of the realisation that the right wing political and media hegemony in England is as strong as ever, has made me decide to rejoin the Labour party. I fucked them off after about fifteen years of membership when Brown bottled an early election. However, the time is right to get involved again.

 

There isn't room for serious political activism in my life between my family, my job and my work as a school governor, but they can have my money at the very least. I can't just sit back and moan about these Tory cunts any more. It's time to offer at least something - if only a few quid - towards getting them out because the thought of "same again" in five years time under these fixed term rules is unbearable.

[Vincent Vega]

There's a Daily Mail article creaming over him.

I saw one of the political journalists on TV yesterday saying that Jarvis is someone the Tories fear due to his background and the appeal he could bring.

[Gnasher]

Like the royal family, a CV addition to validate shitting on everyone for the rest of their sorry, selfish, comfortable lives.

Oh come on give the Royal Family a break, good patriotic soldiers one and all, you seen the medals they parade on their chests at the cenotaph? Even Prince Edward drips in medals, well deserved too, he was magnificent a few years ago in that rehash of its a knockout.

[Vincent Vega]

This digging around to look at potential new leaders, as well as the gut-wrenching awfulness of the realisation that the right wing political and media hegemony in England is as strong as ever, has made me decide to rejoin the Labour party. I fucked them off after about fifteen years of membership when Brown bottled an early election. However, the time is right to get involved again.

 

There isn't room for serious political activism in my life between my family, my job and my work as a school governor, but they can have my money at the very least. I can't just sit back and moan about these Tory cunts any more. It's time to offer at least something - if only a few quid - towards getting them out because the thought of "same again" in five years time under these fixed term rules is unbearable.

One of the cunt tricks the Tories apparently have lined up is to outlaw Labour's funding from the unions. They are going to need every penny they can get. I'll watch and wait to see who they appoint as the next leader and what kind of direction they are going to head in, but I may sign up to become a member myself, and I have never contributed to a political party before.

[Paul]

There are a couple of photies of Jarvis where he looks a bit like Kenny. Just sayin'...

[Paul]

One of the cunt tricks the Tories apparently have lined up is to outlaw Labour's funding from the unions. They are going to need every penny they can get. I'll watch and wait to see who they appoint as the next leader and what kind of direction they are going to head in, but I may sign up to become a member myself, and I have never contributed to a political party before.

I'm joining now so I can have a say in who the new leader will be.

[ratcatcher]

This digging around to look at potential new leaders, as well as the gut-wrenching awfulness of the realisation that the right wing political and media hegemony in England is as strong as ever, has made me decide to rejoin the Labour party. I fucked them off after about fifteen years of membership when Brown bottled an early election. However, the time is right to get involved again.

 

There isn't room for serious political activism in my life between my family, my job and my work as a school governor, but they can have my money at the very least. I can't just sit back and moan about these Tory cunts any more. It's time to offer at least something - if only a few quid - towards getting them out because the thought of "same again" in five years time under these fixed term rules is unbearable.

 

Welcome home, friend.

[Russ Atmosphere]

I'm joining now so I can have a say in who the new leader will be.

 

It wouldn't make any difference who Labour get in as leader, it wouldn't matter. You have to accept the reality of where they're currently at in relation to the other parties, that being 2nd is par.

[Vincent Vega]

I'm joining now so I can have a say in who the new leader will be.

I will get a vote as a member of a Labour party affiliated union anyway Paul. At least Ed did at least one good thing when he first took over and changed the leadership election rules to one member, one vote, this will at least mean the party gets the candidate it wants and the unions cannot ride roughshod over the will of the members.

[Paul]

It wouldn't make any difference who Labour get in as leader, it wouldn't matter. You have to accept the reality of where they're currently at in relation to the other parties, that being 2nd is par.

I don't have to accept anything. I'm not going to accept anything. This defeat has shaken me out of a 7/8 year period of relative political apathy and making a small contribution to the most likely source of opposition will help me cope with the endemic cuntery of the establishment.

[Paul]

I will get a vote as a member of a Labour party affiliated union anyway Paul. At least Ed did at least one good thing when he first took over and changed the leadership election rules to one member, one vote, this will at least mean the party gets the candidate it wants and the unions cannot ride roughshod over the will of the members.

Me too. But I'm going to throw some cash their way as well.

[ratcatcher]

It wouldn't make any difference who Labour get in as leader, it wouldn't matter. You have to accept the reality of where they're currently at in relation to the other parties, that being 2nd is par.

 

It wont make a difference right now, maybe not even next year or the year after. But policy will be developed and changed to be more in tune to what the electorate want. And then it will matter.

[Paul]

A Westminster take on Jarvis from a right wing source:

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11502940/Can-steely-Dan-Jarvis-be-the-next-Labour-leader.html

 

Can steely Dan Jarvis be the next Labour leader?

 

Labour shadow Justice Minister Dan Jarvis

Dan Jarvis: Steely-eyed messenger of death

 

By Dan Hodges

6:15AM BST 30 Mar 2015

The former soldier has been tipped to replace Ed Miliband if Labour loses the election. But his candidacy has been constructed by factions with axes of their own to grind

 

Somewhere out there, amid the gloomy arches and alleyways of London’s King’s Cross, lurks a sinister figure. He has alcohol on his breath and malice in his heart. And – if a popular narrative currently sweeping Westminster turns out to be correct – he’s recently changed the course of British political history. He is the man who mugged Dan Jarvis.

 

Actually, he is the man who made the mistake of trying to mug Dan Jarvis. Ten days ago Parliament was abuzz with how Labour’s shadow youth justice and victims minister nearly became a victim himself. As he told the Sun: “I walked into the Tube and the man, who was clearly very drunk and aggressive, came over and said if I didn’t give him my wallet he would break the bottle over my head. I said 'that’s not going to happen’ .”

 

It didn’t. The miscreant had messed with the wrong shadow minister. Jarvis is a former special forces major, with tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. After a brief standoff, the cowed assailant withdrew. Friendly MPs gave Jarvis a new nickname, “Steely Eyed Messenger of Death”.

 

 

 

A few hours after the story broke, a press release dropped into my in-box from the bookmakers Paddypower. They had slashed the odds on Jarvis becoming next Labour leader from 16/1 to 6/1 after “a surge of bets”. I rang the company and asked if the bets had been placed in the wake of the story. “No,” a spokesman replied. "We received most of them last week.”

 

Slowly but deliberately the narrative has been constructed. Labour loses the election. Ed Miliband resigns. His party learns from his defeat. The importance of character, personality and biography. The need to look beyond the Westminster “beltway”. The need to hand the baton of leadership on to a new generation. The need, in other words, for Dan Jarvis. And it’s a compelling narrative. It was on the lips of several Labour MPs as they toured the parliamentary bars last week, toasting departing colleagues. But to coin a phrase, it isn’t going to happen. At least, not like that.

 

Jarvis is a spoiler candidate. He is being inserted into the race to stop other candidates from winning: to “split the field” in Westminster jargon. The first person he is supposed to stop is Chuka Umunna, the shadow business secretary. Umunna is currently the voice of Labour’s new generation. Elected in 2010, he has, according to one shadow cabinet colleague, “got something we’ve been missing. A bit of magic”. So Jarvis is being sent out to scatter some of his own magic dust. As one Labour MP explains, “Dan’s being talked up to deliberately split the moderniser vote”.

 

 

By whom? The current driving force behind the Jarvis campaign are Progress, the Blairite pressure group. Their motivation is threefold. Many Progress members have never forgiven Umunna’s youthful dalliance with rival Left-wing pressure group Compass. They also feel that after being marginalised under Ed Miliband, they need their own candidate to prove continuing influence. And they believe Jarvis’s lack of ideological baggage gives them an opportunity to shape his thinking and, by extension, the terms of Labour’s internal debate.

 

But Compass are not alone in trying to exploit Dan Jarvis’s embryonic leadership ambitions. Opponents of the shadow health secretary, Andy Burnham, sense an opportunity to undermine his “northern working-class boy made good” appeal to the unions, and Labour’s soft-Left activist base. “Andy may carry his Unite card, but he’s never carried a machine gun” one Labour MP said to me. Similarly, enemies of Labour’s other main leadership candidate, Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, have begun contrasting Jarvis’s increasingly high energy campaign with her own low profile.

 

 

 

“At least Dan’s getting out there,” said one Labour insider “but where’s Yvette? Is she still alive?”. Cooper’s team insist she is concentrating on securing an Ed Miliband victory. But supportive MPs are starting to privately express concern at her lack of organisation and visibility. Even Umunna supporters, who have most to lose from a Jarvis candidature, see an upside. “Dan has defined himself as the New Labour candidate. Chuka believes we have to bury that Old Labour, New Labour nonsense,” said a shadow minister.

 

So why is it these disparate factions are so sure that having talked up a Dan Jarvis, they can control him? Partly it’s because they think he is only “running for position”, eyeing a big shadow cabinet role post election. But mainly it’s because they don’t yet see him as a credible political force. Jarvis has been able to do little of significance with his two junior shadow ministerial briefs. His front-line political – as opposed to military – experience is very limited. And he has yet to furnish much evidence of a philosophical hinterland.

 

So the Dan Jarvis puppeteers are probably right. The next Labour leadership election may well come too soon for the steely eyed messenger of death. But politics is a funny business. And if they keep whispering how great Dan Jarvis is, people may start believing it.

[lifetime fan]

This digging around to look at potential new leaders, as well as the gut-wrenching awfulness of the realisation that the right wing political and media hegemony in England is as strong as ever, has made me decide to rejoin the Labour party. I fucked them off after about fifteen years of membership when Brown bottled an early election. However, the time is right to get involved again.

 

There isn't room for serious political activism in my life between my family, my job and my work as a school governor, but they can have my money at the very least. I can't just sit back and moan about these Tory cunts any more. It's time to offer at least something - if only a few quid - towards getting them out because the thought of "same again" in five years time under these fixed term rules is unbearable.

They can have my membership back when they earn it.

[lifetime fan]

Id never heard of Jarvis until today. I've no idea if he's credible or electable.

 

However he's not Hunt, Burnham, Cooper, Harman or Umuna so that's a positive at least.

[ratcatcher]

A Westminster take on Jarvis from a right wing source:

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11502940/Can-steely-Dan-Jarvis-be-the-next-Labour-leader.html

 

Can steely Dan Jarvis be the next Labour leader?

 

Labour shadow Justice Minister Dan Jarvis

Dan Jarvis: Steely-eyed messenger of death

 

By Dan Hodges

6:15AM BST 30 Mar 2015

The former soldier has been tipped to replace Ed Miliband if Labour loses the election. But his candidacy has been constructed by factions with axes of their own to grind

 

Somewhere out there, amid the gloomy arches and alleyways of London’s King’s Cross, lurks a sinister figure. He has alcohol on his breath and malice in his heart. And – if a popular narrative currently sweeping Westminster turns out to be correct – he’s recently changed the course of British political history. He is the man who mugged Dan Jarvis.

 

Actually, he is the man who made the mistake of trying to mug Dan Jarvis. Ten days ago Parliament was abuzz with how Labour’s shadow youth justice and victims minister nearly became a victim himself. As he told the Sun: “I walked into the Tube and the man, who was clearly very drunk and aggressive, came over and said if I didn’t give him my wallet he would break the bottle over my head. I said 'that’s not going to happen’ .”

 

It didn’t. The miscreant had messed with the wrong shadow minister. Jarvis is a former special forces major, with tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. After a brief standoff, the cowed assailant withdrew. Friendly MPs gave Jarvis a new nickname, “Steely Eyed Messenger of Death”.

 

 

 

A few hours after the story broke, a press release dropped into my in-box from the bookmakers Paddypower. They had slashed the odds on Jarvis becoming next Labour leader from 16/1 to 6/1 after “a surge of bets”. I rang the company and asked if the bets had been placed in the wake of the story. “No,” a spokesman replied. "We received most of them last week.”

 

Slowly but deliberately the narrative has been constructed. Labour loses the election. Ed Miliband resigns. His party learns from his defeat. The importance of character, personality and biography. The need to look beyond the Westminster “beltway”. The need to hand the baton of leadership on to a new generation. The need, in other words, for Dan Jarvis. And it’s a compelling narrative. It was on the lips of several Labour MPs as they toured the parliamentary bars last week, toasting departing colleagues. But to coin a phrase, it isn’t going to happen. At least, not like that.

 

Jarvis is a spoiler candidate. He is being inserted into the race to stop other candidates from winning: to “split the field” in Westminster jargon. The first person he is supposed to stop is Chuka Umunna, the shadow business secretary. Umunna is currently the voice of Labour’s new generation. Elected in 2010, he has, according to one shadow cabinet colleague, “got something we’ve been missing. A bit of magic”. So Jarvis is being sent out to scatter some of his own magic dust. As one Labour MP explains, “Dan’s being talked up to deliberately split the moderniser vote”.

 

 

By whom? The current driving force behind the Jarvis campaign are Progress, the Blairite pressure group. Their motivation is threefold. Many Progress members have never forgiven Umunna’s youthful dalliance with rival Left-wing pressure group Compass. They also feel that after being marginalised under Ed Miliband, they need their own candidate to prove continuing influence. And they believe Jarvis’s lack of ideological baggage gives them an opportunity to shape his thinking and, by extension, the terms of Labour’s internal debate.

 

But Compass are not alone in trying to exploit Dan Jarvis’s embryonic leadership ambitions. Opponents of the shadow health secretary, Andy Burnham, sense an opportunity to undermine his “northern working-class boy made good” appeal to the unions, and Labour’s soft-Left activist base. “Andy may carry his Unite card, but he’s never carried a machine gun” one Labour MP said to me. Similarly, enemies of Labour’s other main leadership candidate, Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, have begun contrasting Jarvis’s increasingly high energy campaign with her own low profile.

 

 

 

“At least Dan’s getting out there,” said one Labour insider “but where’s Yvette? Is she still alive?”. Cooper’s team insist she is concentrating on securing an Ed Miliband victory. But supportive MPs are starting to privately express concern at her lack of organisation and visibility. Even Umunna supporters, who have most to lose from a Jarvis candidature, see an upside. “Dan has defined himself as the New Labour candidate. Chuka believes we have to bury that Old Labour, New Labour nonsense,” said a shadow minister.

 

So why is it these disparate factions are so sure that having talked up a Dan Jarvis, they can control him? Partly it’s because they think he is only “running for position”, eyeing a big shadow cabinet role post election. But mainly it’s because they don’t yet see him as a credible political force. Jarvis has been able to do little of significance with his two junior shadow ministerial briefs. His front-line political – as opposed to military – experience is very limited. And he has yet to furnish much evidence of a philosophical hinterland.

 

So the Dan Jarvis puppeteers are probably right. The next Labour leadership election may well come too soon for the steely eyed messenger of death. But politics is a funny business. And if they keep whispering how great Dan Jarvis is, people may start believing it.

 

A junior shadow minister and to be frank, annonymous. Obviously not a block to the top job in the party but unlikely. Chukka gets my vote.

[lifetime fan]

I seriously don't get the love in for Chukka, he's a bland career politician but black.

 

Would you vote for a tarred up Mandelson?

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

[robslappa]

I know very little about Chuka Umunna but two things strike me immediately about him. The fact that he's black is a massive positive for me because the white male dominance of Westminster is a national disgrace and s fundamental factor in the alienation of the electorate and also the steady rise of anti-immigration views.

 

However, there's a big negative for me too: he just seems to want it a bit too much and, without knowing anything about him, strikes me as just a younger generation of career politician. In other words, I fear he's just more of the same albeit with a black and fresher face.

 

Now, as I implied, I could be totally wrong about him but if this election and the Milliband debacle has proven anything, it's that first impressions stick with the British electorate.

 

I'm off to find out more about him because Cooper, despite being female and seriously intelligent, is tainted goods and Burnham is too "northern" for Middle England.

My brother lives in Umunna's constituency in London and speaks very highly of him.  He says  he's very well thought of in the area and appears to genuinely care about his constituents. 

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

My brother lives in Umunna's constituency in London and speaks very highly of him.  He says  he's very well thought of in the area and appears to genuinely care about his constituents.

He's become more and more bland with the expectation of leading the party. He doesn't want to rock the boat. Fair enough, I guess. He's more likely to get a vote than Miliband, just because he doesn't look and sound like a cartoon.

[robslappa]

He's become more and more bland with the expectation of leading the party. He doesn't want to rock the boat. Fair enough, I guess. He's more likely to get a vote than Miliband, just because he doesn't look and sound like a cartoon.

Yeah, I'd agree with that and said as much to my brother.  My view of him before was of a career politician who was just waiting for an opportunity to go for the top job and was surprised (pleasantly) when I heard how active he was in the community.

[lifetime fan]

 

I'd vote for him before the other twats wanting the leadership of the party.

[RedKnight]

Just looked, Your right they did, the tories gained three seats, Labour lost one. Fucking hell.

In areas that are either dominated by land owners, farmers or expensive to live though. The valleys will always be Labour and if they ever switch it'll be to Plaid.