Corbyn & Cabinet in the Media

[ViolentPanda]

How might they do this?

The only way this will be possible - and even then, only as a long-term project - is through re-empowering the constituency associations deeply enough that selection/de-selection becomes purely a constituency membership matter again.

 

[free spirit]

His latest fb post (14 mins ago) has had 5.5k views, 109 shares, 608 'likes' and 66 comments.

These are pretty good numbers, I think. But I don't know if they're enough to make any real dent in the dominant narrative.

Here's a comparison of Corbyn's 2 facebook pages compared to the other parties (and official labour page).

Both of his pages had engagement of over 140 thousand people, which probably means over a million people viewing each page, though there will be a fair amount of cross over, it's probably at least 1.5 million people reached between them.

eta - actually those figures are only for direct shares and likes on the original posts, and don't include shares and likes on the shared posts, which could easily double those figures, and the post reach could be significantly higher than that as facebooks algorythms really boost the visibility of posts that have a lot of likes, shares etc.

I've been monitoring this for months, and these figures are fairly standard weekly figures.

It may well be the same people being hit on a regular basis, but it's a great way of shoring up his core support, and ensuring there's a large support base that is getting regular direct messaging to bypass the mainstream media, and then pass this on to their social circle etc.

Best political social media campaign I've seen by far, though the tories made really good tactical use of it at the election this was largely with paid for advertising, I don't think corbyn has done any paid for advertising.

btw I have another angry voice in there to show the comparative reach of an independent left wing political blogger, who has a regular social media reach that's about the same as corbyns is now, and is way bigger than any of the other political parties. And he's just one bloke from Leeds.

 

[Lo Siento.]

I suspect they're trying to avoid accusations of packing the front bench out with loyalists.

And, notwithstanding the screeching from the right wing, I think it's a sound move: these right wing Labourites are looking increasingly small-minded and petty as they grandstandingly flounce off on ever-thinner pretexts.

To successfully pull off a coup the right-wing of the Labour Party has to convince members that Corbyn didn't work. That's not going to work if the members believe that Corbyn's "try" was sabotaged by the PLP.

 

[SpackleFrog]

I agree completely. What do you think might be done about all that?

I think the key thing that will render media bias irrelevant is what is already happening; namely that over the last few years, fairly decent chunks of society have become engaged in some form of struggle over something that has a basic and direct impact on their lives for the first time and that is shaping peoples outlook and causing them to view society differently. I sometimes think we obsess a bit on the left about putting over an "alternative narrative" as somebody's bound to be about to say/has said. People learning things for themselves is the only thing that really renders the power of the media obsolete.

 

[SpackleFrog]

To successfully pull off a coup the right-wing of the Labour Party has to convince members that Corbyn didn't work. That's not going to work if the members believe that Corbyn's "try" was sabotaged by the PLP.

It doesn't, I reckon they can just embarrass and humiliate him into resigning.

 

[Lo Siento.]

It doesn't, I reckon they can just embarrass and humiliate him into resigning.

Well, I reckon anyone who's been on the left of the Labour Party for 40 years is well versed in taking embarrassment and humiliation on the chin Besides which that'll get rid of Corbyn but it won't deliver the Labour Party to the right (certainly not the New Labour right)

 

[SpackleFrog]

How might they do this?

Corbyn could have started by making bombing kids a three line whip/demotion/suspension issue. That's how other Parliamentary executives deal with stuff - discipline disloyal MP's. It's not like there aren't enough careerists in the PLP to put together a passable shadow cabinet that won't publicly attack you through basic patronage.

 

[SpackleFrog]

Well, I reckon anyone who's been on the left of the Labour Party for 40 years is well versed in taking embarrassment and humiliation on the chin Besides which that'll get rid of Corbyn but it won't deliver the Labour Party to the right (certainly not the New Labour right)

But that won't matter once they've regained control of the PLP with some 'unity' candidate.

 

[killer b]

I think the key thing that will render media bias irrelevant is what is already happening; namely that over the last few years, fairly decent chunks of society have become engaged in some form of struggle over something that has a basic and direct impact on their lives for the first time and that is shaping peoples outlook and causing them to view society differently. I sometimes think we obsess a bit on the left about putting over an "alternative narrative" as somebody's bound to be about to say/has said. People learning things for themselves is the only thing that really renders the power of the media obsolete.

I've been nosing on a junior doctor's strike discussion forum, and seeing how the current clusterfuck has radicalised them is very heartening - they're all making connections about whats going on way beyond the limits of their own dispute.

 

[ska invita]

Here's a comparison of Corbyn's 2 facebook pages compared to the other parties (and official labour page).

Both of his pages had engagement of over 140 thousand people, which probably means over a million people viewing each page, though there will be a fair amount of cross over, it's probably at least 1.5 million people reached between them.

eta - actually those figures are only for direct shares and likes on the original posts, and don't include shares and likes on the shared posts, which could easily double those figures, and the post reach could be significantly higher than that as facebooks algorythms really boost the visibility of posts that have a lot of likes, shares etc.

I've been monitoring this for months, and these figures are fairly standard weekly figures.

It may well be the same people being hit on a regular basis, but it's a great way of shoring up his core support, and ensuring there's a large support base that is getting regular direct messaging to bypass the mainstream media, and then pass this on to their social circle etc.

Best political social media campaign I've seen by far, though the tories made really good tactical use of it at the election this was largely with paid for advertising, I don't think corbyn has done any paid for advertising.

btw I have another angry voice in there to show the comparative reach of an independent left wing political blogger, who has a regular social media reach that's about the same as corbyns is now, and is way bigger than any of the other political parties. And he's just one bloke from Leeds.

View attachment 82032

Interesting stats. I've been thinking about Obama and how he came to power, supposedly on the back of a powerful and motivated grass roots campaign - of course there was the multi million dollar electoral machine as well. If Corbyn is to stand any chance that social media network is going to have play a massive role.

 

[SpackleFrog]

I've been nosing on a junior doctor's strike discussion forum, and seeing how the current clusterfuck has radicalised them is very heartening - they're all making connections about whats going on way beyond the limits of their own dispute.

Exactly, I was kinda thinking this because of the doctors I talked to yesterday, and none of them had ever been on a demo before, but they were all really fired up with their strike and so many people coming to visit them. We talked a bit about organising pickets (they wanted to know if we thought they'd done ok ) and before I left they promised to visit me when I was next on strike.

 

[free spirit]

Interesting stats. I've been thinking about Obama and how he came to power, supposedly on the back of a powerful and motivated grass roots campaign - of course there was the multi million dollar electoral machine as well. If Corbyn is to stand any chance that social media network is going to have play a massive role.

yep.

Him and his team are using it as a method to issue instant rebuttals to any press nonsense, highlighting his actions, pmq's statements on topical issues etc. And he's got the 2nd account that is basically the momentum for corbyn account that is used to counter any internal attacks from the right wing of the party as well.

he'd never have been elected without the impact of social media IMO, but he also harnessed it in a brilliant way by using it to help pack out the big meetings around the country, then publicise how packed out those meetings were on a daily basis to make clear how much momentum was building behind his campaign.

It's a very intensive level of social media use, I wonder if that can really be sustained and built on through to the next election. I'd expect his enemies in the party to be biding their time and waiting for the social media people to fuck up so they can pounce and demand their sacking, and that social media accounts are brought under party control etc.

 

[DownwardDog]

I think that the best hope for significant change is going to be a combination of a credible alternative to Tories (and Corbyn's Labour party is the nearest we've seen to that in the last 15-20 years), and the current government mis-stepping badly enough that the electorate go into "anything but that" mode. I'd like to think that's possible...

I just can't imagine what would have to happen for the swing voters in English LAB-CON marginals (by whom the 2020 GE will be decided) to think that this should be their Chancellor of the Exchequer.

L-R: MI6, future CoE apparently, Greg Allman and then Three Lions.

 

[ska invita]

I just can't imagine what would have to happen for the swing voters in English LAB-CON marginals (by whom the 2020 GE will be decided) to think that this should be their Chancellor of the Exchequer.

L-R: MI6, future CoE apparently, Greg Allman and then Three Lions.

A market crash. Look what happened in Greece - the dominant party ended up with 3% of the vote

 

[DownwardDog]

A market crash. Look what happened in Greece - the dominant party ended up with 3% of the vote

The hope of an imminent economic apocalypse was the guttering flame around which we Conservatives huddled from 1997 - 2008. If that's the strategy then that's not a strategy.

 

[ska invita]

The hope of an imminent economic apocalypse was the guttering flame around which we Conservatives huddled from 1997 - 2008. If that's the strategy then that's not a strategy.

It's not a hope for me, its an all too real fear

 

[killer b]

He's right though, it's no kind of strategy - waiting for the cavalry, and the cavalry being an economic collapse. Bonkers stuff.

 

[ska invita]

Maybe we have a different view of the current state of the world... Osbournes own plans are of escalating cuts across two terms, peaking in 2018... The economy does win elections, and I am genuinely scared by what the near future holds. There's a lot of sick canaries down the mines.

Even without a systemic collapse the economy should be a key area to campaign on come the next election.

 

[killer b]

I've exceedingly bleak expectations of the medium/long term economic outlook, so we're probably on a similar page as far as that goes - but I don't think just waiting for bad things to happen is a sane political strategy.

 

[existentialist]

I just can't imagine what would have to happen for the swing voters in English LAB-CON marginals (by whom the 2020 GE will be decided) to think that this should be their Chancellor of the Exchequer.

L-R: MI6, future CoE apparently, Greg Allman and then Three Lions.

You're not thinking on a big enough canvas

 

[J Ed]

I think that the idea that an economic crisis at this stage might even help Labour is uncertain.

 

[existentialist]

I think that the idea that an economic crisis at this stage might even help Labour is uncertain.

An economic crisis isn't going to help anybody. But it cannot fail to hurt the government in power far more than opposition parties: it will have happened on the Tories' watch, and they'd have to do some monumental propagandising to distance themselves from that.

Particular since the edifice they are currently constructing, as they slowly nibble away at taken-for-granted structures of the State, is one which will become suddenly very flimsy-looking if significant economic collapse happened. Think of the swathes of articulate, middle-class types suddenly looking to a benefits system which turns out to be nothing like the Daily Mail et al have been telling us it is, all flat screen televisions and 2 holidays a year. All of a sudden, it's going to stop being Somebody Else's Problem for an awful lot of people.

 

[Kaka Tim]

Funnily enough I met Corbyn last weekend - he turned up at the centre co-ordinating volunteers doing flood clear up work in leeds. There was no big media brouhaha - just him and a couple of people including one person videoing it. He also had local mp Rachael Reeves with him (she was kept away from the knives in case she stuck one in his back).
He was there for nearly an hour asking about the flooding. There was no media management, no army of spin doctors worrying about what was in shot or where people should stand etc. He then went on to see other parts of leeds. He had done the same in york and calderdale. I reckoned he probably spent two whole days touring around the flood hit areas.
He then puts out a video based on his discussions with people and what hes seen with arguments about what should be done. In other words - he was acting like a conscientious local mp - but on a national level - and I think people who he engaged with were very impressed with that.
Cameron flew into York for a quick photo op in wellies and fucked off - he'd have been heaved into the nearest canal if he'd shown his face anywhere near real people.
If he can get that aspect of his work - the conscientious, straightforward, hardworking bloke, listening to people and doing his best to do something about it - into the wider discourse then labour can build more support - and social media is one way of doing that.
The problem is that the narrative is still dominated by the establishment media and the westminster bubble and the people labour need to reach are the people who are poltically disengaged and uninterested who - at the last election - voted on the basis that their overall impression of labour went no further then - "well they fucked up the economy last time and that milliband looks a bit of a nob".

 

[killer b]

An economic crisis isn't going to help anybody. But it cannot fail to hurt the government in power far more than opposition parties: it will have happened on the Tories' watch, and they'd have to do some monumental propagandising to distance themselves from that.

Absolutely - the Tories reaped the whirlwind of the early 90s recession, losing hard recording the highest number of votes ever polled at the following general election.

 

[J Ed]

An economic crisis isn't going to help anybody. But it cannot fail to hurt the government in power far more than opposition parties: it will have happened on the Tories' watch, and they'd have to do some monumental propagandising to distance themselves from that.

Particular since the edifice they are currently constructing, as they slowly nibble away at taken-for-granted structures of the State, is one which will become suddenly very flimsy-looking if significant economic collapse happened. Think of the swathes of articulate, middle-class types suddenly looking to a benefits system which turns out to be nothing like the Daily Mail et al have been telling us it is, all flat screen televisions and 2 holidays a year. All of a sudden, it's going to stop being Somebody Else's Problem for an awful lot of people.

That sort of scenario would require us to be plunged into a Greece-like scenario in which the government is unable to insulate the middle-class from the austerity measures imposed on the most vulnerable and I'm not sure anyone is predicting anything like that hitting Britain even in a repeat of a 2008 recession.

 

[existentialist]

That sort of scenario would require us to be plunged into a Greece-like scenario in which the government is unable to insulate the middle-class from the austerity measures imposed on the most vulnerable and I'm not sure anyone is predicting anything like that hitting Britain even in a repeat of a 2008 recession.

Do you think that is impossible? I'm starting to wonder, with some trepidation, just how bad the effects on us of a serious world recession might be.

 

[miktheword]

Absolutely - the Tories reaped the whirlwind of the early 90s recession, losing hard recording the highest number of votes ever polled at the following general election.

and then, a few months later?...

The Tories; economic credibility was shot from September 1992 Black Wednesday to when 2008 happened. It didn't matter that Labour, Lib Dems had been pro ERM before, it happened on the Tories' watch. (to a significant number perhaps in 2010, it didn't matter that before the crash the Tories were arguing for less City regulation , the crash happened on Labour's watch)

The economic outlook seems sluggish at best, maybe dire. Expect similar falls in ruling party support at least.
An alternative economic plan to neo liberalism (apparently being worked on now and across Europe) would help.

 

[Andrew Hertford]

Yours is a counsel of despair. The answer to your question is that we are not going to be able to be rid of "tories" by any means other than creating a credible alternative to them. What Labour has done pre-Corbyn has been precisely the opposite: what they have endeavoured to do, through 3 leaders, is to out-Tory the Tories - by implication, making the Labour party more electable on the grounds that Blair, Brown and Milliband chose was simply about creating a Labour party whose policies and outlook were substantively indistinguishable from the Tories'.

It may be that you are right, and that Corbyn isn't the one to do it. But Corbyn, alone amongst the candidates as being on the more traditionally-accepted-as-Left side of politics, is the one who was elected as leader of the Labour party: it is not unreasonable to assume that this was at least part of the reason he won so convincingly. Whether he is able to translate that mandate - and at 60-odd% it's a significant mandate in the context of recent political elections of all kinds - into policy is another matter, but I cannot help feeling that your repeated evidence-free assertions that he cannot lead the party into Government are rather disingenuous. What terrifies you so much about the prospect of Corbyn as prime minister, I wonder?

It depends what you mean by ‘credible alternative’, surely it means a Labour Party which appeals to enough voters to get elected (and yes that will include sometime tory voters). I reject the assumption that Labour can only get into government by either out torying the tories or by embracing Corbynism. I don't think the majority of voters want either.

I’m not ‘terrified about the prospect of Corbyn as prime minister’ at all, why would I be? Crobyn’s politics aren’t very different to mine and I would be delighted if Labour won in 2020 with him as leader. What ‘terrifies’ me more than anything is the tories winning again and being in government until 2025.

You are right about evidence and it is difficult to prove that JC won’t win Labour the next election, although given his poll ratings I suggest it would be even harder to make the case that he will. I’m afraid that 60% among Labour members isn’t going to translate into anything near the 35%-40% of voters in total needed to win even a narrow majority.

Also, along with the electorate’s obvious distrust of him over the economy, probably the biggest obstacle Labour have to winning in 2020 is Corbyn’s opposition to nuclear weapons. Unfortunately the British people are wedded to the idea of an independent deterrent and imo they’ll never vote to scrap it. There’s also the question of his age, he’ll have turned 71 by the next election and 76 by the end of his first term. It shouldn’t matter, but who can honestly say that it won’t to a significant number of voters?

The issue for me is still how to defeat the tories in 2020 and unless anyone can convince me otherwise, I can’t see Labour having a cat-in-hells with JC.

 

[Andrew Hertford]

It's a bit of reach to suggest that was an insinuation about your mental health. Far more likely that it was an observation on your - very apparent - inability to grasp any end of any stick. You know, the sort of thing Labradors do with ease.

And if you're going to have a fit of the vapours at the mere idea of someone suggesting you're a bit short in the clue department, then quite a few might regard that as an acknowledgement on your part that you're the original unarmed man in a battle of wits, and that all you have left to debate with is outraged innocence.

Then I don’t know what Savette was implying, but being on the receiving end it sounded that way to me. What’s striking is that instead of addressing the issues I’ve raised, he simply hurls inane schildish abuse, presumably to make up for his inability to come up with any rational counter argument…. and then goes and has a major fit of the vapours himself when I spell his name wrong.

 

[Andrew Hertford]

So like you Corbyn has voted LibDem has he? And is/was in favour of a Lib-Lab alliance. You seem to think because you have some "socialist" ideas (though what they are I've no idea I've never seen you make a case for something based on socialist perspective on this board) then it doesn't matter what your actions are/have been.

Has he? I didn’t know that but I’d be surprised if it was true. Unlike the rest of us who have the opportunity to vote tactically to keep the tories out, he has a loyalty to the party who make him their candidate.