shifting gears
Well-Known Member
Chuk off and die
Chuka Umunna rules out serving in Corbyn's shadow cabinet
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Thanks - that made my day.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I'm still having to google half of these 'big names'.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Didn't expect anything different from him and the other no-marks who believe they're setting up a Blairite insurgency for 2020. Bunch of wankers who'd stab their granny in the back for pence.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Umunna does have a decent head on his shoulders, but everything gets subsumed by his ambition. He's oscillated for the last 5 years between the left and the right of the party, laying down markers in each wing (not the actions of someone who has any ideological commitments), and has eventually chosen to throw in with the Progressite right of the party. As for the likes of Hunt and Creagh (and Leslie, Kendall and dozens of others), they're not "big names",except insofar as the media has peddled them as such, so as to imply an active anti-Corbyn insurgency by MPs with intellectual heft - to which I say "fat chance, they're all political lightweights, regardless of their academic and/or professional credentials.
The problem with the Blairist presidentialism of the last 20 years is you end up with "yes-persons" and apparatchiks rather than politicians.
Monkeygrinder's Organ
Dodgy geezer swilling vapid lager
Most of them seem to have been members of the shadow cabinet over the last few months (apparently - I mean I don't remember noticing them doing it
). Essentially placeholders whose only achievement was to do absolutely fuck all in a particularly conspicuous manner.
Seems the man who could not run for leadership might be going it alone then?
Umunna supporters: “he’ll leave and start own party if CLP votes AMM”. No denial.
Umunna supporters: “he’ll leave and start own party if CLP votes AMM”. No denial.
Miss-Shelf
I'll meet you further on up the road
co-op
But....but cLoWnFiSh....
He's slowly mutating into Robert Kilroy-Silk.
CH1
"Red Guard"(NLYL)
I've met Chukka and I've been on Kilroy (the Kray edition). There is no comparison I assure you!
Monkeygrinder's Organ
Dodgy geezer swilling vapid lager
I hope he goes for it. I want to see his face when he discovers what his personal vote actually is. That said I doubt he's actually quite stupid enough to think he can win against an official Labour candidate.
CH1
"Red Guard"(NLYL)
The funny thing about this report is Squawkbox have funded Chuka constituency events in the past.
Maybe Chuka and Sqawkbox were musing on the constituency vote and this is what Sqawked out? Mind you, Stephen Bush in the New Statesman has also issued cautionary analysis on the issue.
"The SKWAWKBOX has become one the most influential of the ‘new left media’, attacked and copied in roughly equal measure by mainstream media and journalists" - claims the Skwawkbox website.
I invoke the curse of Roy, Shirley, Bill and David: Split from Labour, pact with Liberals, join Liberals, get betrayed by Liberals, fade into ignominy, become a joke.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
CH1
"Red Guard"(NLYL)
I haven't had the joy of Chuka sitting next to me rubbing my thigh and ramming a microphone under the nose of someone on my other side.
Even if you discount Kilroy's neo Jerry Springer tendencies - my recollection was that Kilroy left Labour and joined UKIP.
To add to the confusion Kilroy then split from UKIP forming another anti EU party called VERITAS. All this whilst a serving MEP.
How is any of this anything like Chuka?
I know people have axes to grind - but really!
CH1
"Red Guard"(NLYL)
Can you clarify please?((((CH1))))
(((Echoes))): beating the far-right, two triple-brackets at a time
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
MickiQ
In My Defence I was left Unsupervised
If you look at the election results for Streatham you can see that the Labour vote was declining slowly under Keith Hill but has been growing steadily since Chuka has been their candidate whilst Tory, LD and Green vote share has
been falling. I would lay a bet that the proportion of people voting for Chuka rather than Labour is fairly high. If he run as an independent or SDP 2.0 then I think there is a good chance he could win and he might very well think so too. It is however an unknown though like me he must just think this, he has no way of actually knowing without letting the masses have their say and the man can sit on the fence for Britain. Unless he thinks he is going to be deselected I doubt he will risk it.
Monkeygrinder's Organ
Dodgy geezer swilling vapid lager
I'd take that bet no problem. The background to those increased majorities is that Labour has done similarly in most comparable seats across London - I don't think he's outperformed that pattern particularly. I'd say that's a sign of the increased strength of the party vote making it even harder for an individual to win off their personal vote, not a sign that he'd perform well as a Chuka Party candidate.
co-op
But....but cLoWnFiSh....
This is laughably wrong.
co-op
But....but cLoWnFiSh....
It was a throwaway comment based on the headline that CU is thinking of starting his own party - the comparison was with RKS whose Veritas party was just a vanity project and who also was a politically-vapid, intensely ambitious pretty boy with good teeth who slowly, steadily, disappeared into political obscurity as he slowly, steadily, shrunk the size of the pond he swam in, in order to keep feeling like a big fish.
MickiQ
In My Defence I was left Unsupervised
You might very well be right maybe Chuka worries about that possibility as well, we're both essentially offering an analysis based on limited facts and of course the only way we going to know is if Chuka puts his money where his mouth is.
You are entitled to disagree with me but offer an opinion as to why you think so.
"This is laughably wrong" is a meaningless statement.
CH1
"Red Guard"(NLYL)
For what it's worth the precedents for retaining a seat on switching are not good for Chuka.
The direct comparison would be Bruce Douglas-Mann in Mitcham and Morden - who uniquely resigned seeking re-election on the SDP ticket having defected from Labour in 1982. He lost to the rather spiky Angela Rumbold (Tory).
This was an unfortunate mistake for Mr Douglas-Mann, as he had not accounted for the Falklands factor (which even had a slight effect on the 1982 Lambeth Council elections - producing a hung council here, when it might be assumed Ted Knight could have got a majority on the back of pre-Falklands Thatcher unpopularity).
If Chuka did jump I guess he would have to present it as an anti-Brexit move. Obviously under those particular circumstances he might scrape home.
The direct comparison would be Bruce Douglas-Mann in Mitcham and Morden - who uniquely resigned seeking re-election on the SDP ticket having defected from Labour in 1982. He lost to the rather spiky Angela Rumbold (Tory).
This was an unfortunate mistake for Mr Douglas-Mann, as he had not accounted for the Falklands factor (which even had a slight effect on the 1982 Lambeth Council elections - producing a hung council here, when it might be assumed Ted Knight could have got a majority on the back of pre-Falklands Thatcher unpopularity).
If Chuka did jump I guess he would have to present it as an anti-Brexit move. Obviously under those particular circumstances he might scrape home.
co-op
But....but cLoWnFiSh....
Fair enough - but isn't it mostly obvious?
Firstly we know that almost no MPs ever, anywhere, have been able to win elections as independents. The tiny number who've managed it have usually won on the basis of anomalous situations - eg Martin Bell in Tatton in 1997. Many a crazy-egoed fool has tried, all have been swept into oblivion. Not even close.
Secondly the general political direction of travel for Labour voters (actual and potential) over the past 10 years has been steadily to the left, e.g. Ed Miliband's nervous little shuffle to the left brought Labour 1m extra votes in 2015, Corbyn's confident step to the left brought Labour 3.5m more votes on top of that in 2017. CU has clearly and very publicly identified himself with the utterly discredited Blairite old guard and is thus magnificently out of step with where his voters are.
Thirdly he's loudly and publicly slagged off Corbyn and undermined him at every opportunity and is now actively hated by the huge majority of his own CLP and the large majority of the Labour electorate in Streatham.
Fourthly, as a long-time Lambeth resident (now ex) I don't see any sign at all that CU has any local following. He has not worked the patch. He's not particularly well-liked. He doesn't seem to have much sympathy or much in common with the majority of people locally. He comes across as a posh boy interested in his own personal advancement. He only won the Labour candidacy because the local CLP staged a mini-revolt against Steve Reed's pre-organised coronation - and frankly if you can't beat Steve Reed in a popularity competition you really need to find another job.
Is this true? if we take the recent vote on All Member Meetings as an indication, it's pretty evenly split.
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