Jeremy Corbyn's time is up

[butchersapron]

From recall an opposition needs about 100 shadows to roughly keep abreast of most of what a government is doing on a day-to-day basis, and more if it wants to be able to challenge the government on a broad range of fronts with any degree of detailed knowledge and not get shown up by having completely missed something important.

Corbyn, it appears, simply can't get anywhere near this number because people just won't work for him (and given how his ally Clive Lewis was treated at conference, would you?). Regardless of how many of the Party members like him, he simply can't do the job of leading the opposition - he is the problem (not labours only problem by any stretch).

Does it traditionally being that number mean it always has to be? Politically there are 5-6 jobs that count and get the headline stuff. There is no damaging public expectation of of 100 shadows now spurned either.

 

[bemused]

Spend more time pretending to like Bands now Watson.

One of my guilty pleasures is chuckling at Tom Watson's sour mug on PMQs - it's a thing of beauty.

 

[J Ed]

Spend more time pretending to like Bands now Watson.

I did wonder whether the appointment was partly a joke or something because of that picture of him at that festival drinking cider.

 

[two sheds]

Next year's leadership candidate has already laid down a marker

Tony Blair hints at return to UK politics: ‘It’s an open question’

Tony Blair has suggested he might return to politics in order to battle the Conservative Party’s vision of Brexit Britain.

In an interview with Esquire magazine, the former Prime Minister said the Tories had created a “one-party state” in the face of a weak Labour Party.

 

[agricola]

From recall an opposition needs about 100 shadows to roughly keep abreast of most of what a government is doing on a day-to-day basis, and more if it wants to be able to challenge the government on a broad range of fronts with any degree of detailed knowledge and not get shown up by having completely missed something important.

Corbyn, it appears, simply can't get anywhere near this number because people just won't work for him (and given how his ally Clive Lewis was treated at conference, would you?). Regardless of how many of the Party members like him, he simply can't do the job of leading the opposition - he is the problem (not labours only problem by any stretch).

A hundred is way too much, don't forget that loads of Shadow roles were (like PPS's) given out in an effort to increase the payroll vote. In terms of actually holding the Government to account, you could probably do it with twenty shadow ministers (as long as that was their main focus), a competent team of researchers backing them up and a wider Parliamentary party encouraged to find things on their own. Of course Corbyn can probably rely on one of those things, when he would need all three to make it work.

 

[kebabking]

..

who was acceptable to the mass of new joiners and re-energised supporters?...

Who cares about what the members what, the kind of lunatics and weirdos who join political parties are the absolute last people on earth you should consult on pretty much any topic you could think of.

The electorate is what matters, and it's the electorate the MP's work for, not Corbyn (or when Corbyn was a backbencher, Kinnock, Blair, Brown or Milliband which he was happy to mention once or 500 times...) or even the LP.

 

[NoXion]

Who cares about what the members what, the kind of lunatics and weirdos who join political parties are the absolute last people on earth you should consult on pretty much any topic you could think of.

The electorate is what matters, and it's the electorate the MP's work for, not Corbyn (or when Corbyn was a backbencher, Kinnock, Blair, Brown or Milliband which he was happy to mention once or 500 times...) or even the LP.

This is the same electorate that has previously rejected the Red Tory non-entities in favour of the Real McCoy, yes?

 

[treelover]

EDL seem to be re-appearing on social media, some disgusting posts on JC4PM, with DA and Corbyn pictured as you would assume.

 

[Pickman's model]

EDL seem to be re-appearing on social media, some disgusting posts on JC4PM, with DA and Corbyn pictured as you would assume.

imaginatively or simply crudely?

 

[treelover]

Crudely

 

[J Ed]

I see that the New Statesman are offering a free copy of that not very well rated anti-Corbyn book 'Comrade Corbyn' that came out with a 12 issue subscription. lol

The other 'free gift' for a subscription for a year or two years is wine. Presumably the free gift is to help you stomach the contents of the magazine...

 

[Sue]

Would the same people work for a different reasonably honest, mildly left-wing leader who was acceptable to the mass of new joiners and re-energised supporters?

I'd bet they'd give any equivalent leader just as much shit as they're giving Corbyn.

I wish they'd all just shut the fuck up. I am so utterly bored of all this nonsense and the whining and bleating from the anti Corbynites. They still don't seem to get/accept they lost and that they are in no position to dictate terms on anything. Ffs, can someone make them all go away?

 

[butchersapron]

tony can

 

[Nylock]

Next year's leadership candidate has already laid down a marker

Tony Blair hints at return to UK politics: ‘It’s an open question’

The only role in British politics i would want that cunt to adopt is one of 'defendant'. At the Hague....

 

[Nylock]

So his defeats in the two national elections he has been involved in are not actual elections because he was not on the ballot.
Basically he wins when his fan alone club get to to vote for him.
Looking good for 2020.

Even by your low standards that's a pretty fucking dire piece of verbal subterfuge.

 

[squirrelp]

The only role in British politics i would want that cunt to adopt is one of 'defendant'. At the Hague....

I would like him to assist the police force.


With their enquiries

 

[butchersapron]

What's Dr Sausages doing about it? Even the Labour Party Anarchist Police are making an effort of patrolling the edges. Make sure they don't go wrong like.

 

[butchersapron]

I would like him to assist the police force.


With their enquiries

Fuck off, twat. Don't try and cosy in.

 

[squirrelp]

Fuck off, twat. Don't try and cosy in.

mate that was my 75th post on this thread. Why the abuse?

 

[redsquirrel]

From recall an opposition needs about 100 shadows to roughly keep abreast of most of what a government is doing on a day-to-day basis,

Cobblers, there never used to be that number of people in the (shadow) cabinet. The % of MPs that are backbenchers has decreased markedly since WWII, the increase in size of the (shadow) cabinet and PPSs is/was a deliberate tactic used to push loyalty to the gov/opposition.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Who cares about what the members what, the kind of lunatics and weirdos who join political parties are the absolute last people on earth you should consult on pretty much any topic you could think of.

The electorate is what matters, and it's the electorate the MP's work for, not Corbyn (or when Corbyn was a backbencher, Kinnock, Blair, Brown or Milliband which he was happy to mention once or 500 times...) or even the LP.

The members (or 'selectorate' if you want to be picky) have in the real world decided to elect Corbyn, which the (current) party rules allow them to do. It doesn't matter what you think of them. That's just the fact of the matter.

You're asserting that Corbyn can't do the job, because he's objectionable to most of the PLP, but unless the members are also replaced with people whose views the PLP finds acceptable, coerced into changing their views or somehow prevented from expressing those views by ballot, that problem doesn't go away by replacing Corbyn.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Actually, there's an obvious flaw in my previous post. If they scrags Corbyn the PLP could probably keep anyone acceptable to the Momentum crowd off the ballot.

So the underlying problem doesn't go away, but if they could shove Corbyn under a bus or something, the PLP would at least change the nature of the infighting.

They could claim the high ground of electability and portray the people trying to democratically deselect them at a constituency level as a threat to democracy.

 

[kebabking]

...You're asserting that Corbyn can't do the job, because he's objectionable to most of the PLP, but unless the members are also replaced with people whose views the PLP finds acceptable, coerced into changing their views or somehow prevented from expressing those views by ballot, that problem doesn't go away by replacing Corbyn.

i think the problem is caused by a fundamental - and probably genuine - disagreement of over who MP's 'belong' to. Corbyn - in stark contrast to when he was a backbencher - seems to take the view that MP's belong to the party and the party belongs to the members. the PLP takes the view that MP's belong to the electorate of their constituancies (remarkably enough, a view Corbyn held before he became leader...) and should vote/argue in a way broadly consistant with the personal and party manifesto that those constituants voted for.

so, for example, the Labour candidate in my constituancy got 16,000 votes in the 2015 GE. she campaigned on the Milibandite manifesto, and apart from some local interest stuff never campaigned on or talked about anything far from the LP manifesto. she didn't win, but assuming she had she'd have become our MP based on a centerist, pro-NATO, pro-Trident manifesto. why should she vote in a different way to the the promises she made to - and were accepted by - the 18,000 or so constituants she'd have needed to win just because perhaps 500 of her constituants voted for Corbyn in the leadership election?

(500 based on Corbyns 313k votes in Sept 2016 divided by the 620 or so CLP's. if you want to go wild you could divide the 313k by the 220 Labour MP's, which comes out at around 1400. even then its a pitiful number compared to the number of people who voted for whatever manifesto - party or personal - the MP stood on in 2015, and very few of them could be described as Corbynesque).

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Well, it's a three way relationship in practice isn't it? There are three groups that MPs and candidates are accountable to.

• Members
• Electorate - or at least the bit they try to win votes from because they can afford to ignore those who vote tribally most of the time
  
• Dodgy Millionaires and Billionaires - because they need their cash for campaign costs and the support of their media outlets to win over the swing voters in key marginals who decide general elections.

There are also interactions between the three groups (e.g. Members are also part of and can locally influence the electorate, campaign contributions pay for political technology and propaganda influences elections, most members have very different political goals to Lord Sainsbury and Rupert Murdoch etc)

What's causing turmoil right now is a shift in the balance of power from the latter to the former. The PLP have become accustomed to only really being accountable in practice to the third group and taking the other two largely for granted.

You could think of it as a political ecology, within which sucking up to Lord Sainsbury and Rupert Murdoch defined an important fitness function, but now something systemic has changed making other evolutionary pressures (ie relevance to political aims of members) more relevant than previously.

 

[Pickman's model]

Tbh all this infighting is if not *the* reason then a major part of why Corbyn won't be the next prime minister

 

[tommers]

As soon as the election was done the thread's declined into squabbling.

 

[butchersapron]

i think the problem is caused by a fundamental - and probably genuine - disagreement of over who MP's 'belong' to. Corbyn - in stark contrast to when he was a backbencher - seems to take the view that MP's belong to the party and the party belongs to the members. the PLP takes the view that MP's belong to the electorate of their constituancies (remarkably enough, a view Corbyn held before he became leader...) and should vote/argue in a way broadly consistant with the personal and party manifesto that those constituants voted for.

so, for example, the Labour candidate in my constituancy got 16,000 votes in the 2015 GE. she campaigned on the Milibandite manifesto, and apart from some local interest stuff never campaigned on or talked about anything far from the LP manifesto. she didn't win, but assuming she had she'd have become our MP based on a centerist, pro-NATO, pro-Trident manifesto. why should she vote in a different way to the the promises she made to - and were accepted by - the 18,000 or so constituants she'd have needed to win just because perhaps 500 of her constituants voted for Corbyn in the leadership election?

(500 based on Corbyns 313k votes in Sept 2016 divided by the 620 or so CLP's. if you want to go wild you could divide the 313k by the 220 Labour MP's, which comes out at around 1400. even then its a pitiful number compared to the number of people who voted for whatever manifesto - party or personal - the MP stood on in 2015, and very few of them could be described as Corbynesque).

I must say, i've never seen Corbyn outline such a position - i've never even seen him say the the PLP based opposition should do anything beyond vague 'unite' guff. I've never seen him argue on that well trodden ground at all. I've seen him say the party belongs to its members when talking about internal matters but never about the role MPs must play in anything beyond being members.

 

[kebabking]

Tbh all this infighting is if not *the* reason then a major part of why Corbyn won't be the next prime minister

I disagree, Corbyns policies and history are the reason he is astonishingly unlikely to become the next PM - this stuff widens the gap between possible and no chance, but opposing NATO and trident while Vlad the Invader rolls through eastern Europe, and is 'friends' with Hamas and believes the police should be disarmed and the security services abolished while IS rampages through France is the reason he is astonishingly unlikely to be PM.

The left may have chosen a great candidate to win elections in the Labour party, but they have chosen a really shit candidate to win an election amonst the wider electorate...

 

[Pickman's model]

I disagree, Corbyns policies and history are the reason he is astonishingly unlikely to become the next PM - this stuff widens the gap between possible and no chance, but opposing NATO and trident while Vlad the Invader rolls through eastern Europe, and is 'friends' with Hamas and believes the police should be disarmed and the security services abolished while IS rampages through France is the reason he is astonishingly unlikely to be PM.

The left may have chosen a great candidate to win elections in the Labour party, but they have chosen a really shit candidate to win an election amonst the wider electorate...

Yeh. Well, they could dump him tomorrow and elect St Francis of assisi reincarnated and they would still lose in 2020 in large measure because of the PLP refusal to abide by 2 leadership elections.

 

[DownwardDog]

You're asserting that Corbyn can't do the job, because he's objectionable to most of the PLP, but unless the members are also replaced with people whose views the PLP finds acceptable, coerced into changing their views or somehow prevented from expressing those views by ballot, that problem doesn't go away by replacing Corbyn.

I don't think it's got anything do with their "views" as Labour MPs are nothing if not ideologically malleable. If they thought Corbyn could lead them to a 100+ seat majority they wouldn't give a shit about his views and would swaddle themselves in the Hezbollah flag and be right up for nationalising Argos. They just think he can't win a GE and will probably lead them a shafting on a scale that will take a generation to recover.