DownwardDog
Riding a Brompton with a power meter.
Second prize is two trips to Manchester to see Jeremy Corbyn.
Jeremy Corbyn's time is up
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Second prize is two trips to Manchester to see Jeremy Corbyn.
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Reaching out
Is anyone surprised? "Jeremy Corbyn’s office has accepted that Labour is heading for defeat at the 2020 general election if it cannot turn around its dismal poll ratings before then"
Speaking on Tuesday, Sir Keir, who is tipped as a potential future leader, said: “The loss in Copeland was really serious. I don’t think some of the reasons put forward are compelling.”
Corbyn admits Labour cannot win election unless things change
Speaking on Tuesday, Sir Keir, who is tipped as a potential future leader, said: “The loss in Copeland was really serious. I don’t think some of the reasons put forward are compelling.”
Corbyn admits Labour cannot win election unless things change
Mr Moose
What the hell are we supposed to tell the kids?
Surely no one is going to claim Corbyn is a revolutionary? In which case we are still in the valley of the least worst of neo-liberalism.
Both sides in this debate are arguing for something that has never happened, an electable left or a trustworthy moderate left.
Both sides in this debate are arguing for something that has never happened, an electable left or a trustworthy moderate left.
BigTom
Well-Known Member
Can I ask, given a free choice, would you want a social democratic party/policies or are you very much committed to neo-liberalism? If the latter there's no point in this discussion tbh.
If the former, well if you want to take credit for the marginal good labour would (have) done over conservative you also have to take the blame for eg the academisation of schools which is leading to the need for parents to boost education with private tuition, or the PFI debts that threaten to destroy various NHS trusts, or the fact that labour council's all over the country are cutting adult care services or the millions of disabled people for whom ESA is a total fucking disaster.
You need to explain why, as kabbes pointed out, Milliband lost in 2015 and why someone on a similar platform would win in 2020. If you are going further to the right of milliband then you really are into red tory territory and I'd ask why you'd want that (only reason I can think is that you want neo-liberal policies to run this country). Left of milliband is corbyn so...
Fantasy? Was the post-war social contract a fantasy? There's a period in time when both the tory and labour parties were following broadly social democratic policies, that happened because the social conditions following ww2 and pressure from working class people/organisations meant that capital needed to cede some wealth / outcome of production. You say right now that a social democratic party is unelectable, so we need to make a social democratic party electable, as has been the case in the recent past. Doing so means changing the conditions that parties exist in, policy is not a vacuum, it's generated in response to the socio-economic landscape.
As long as you are pushing for a neo-liberal labour party to be elected, you are arguing for neo-liberal policies, this pushes the overton window further right, making social democratic policies less likely to be put in place. All the time you cede arguments and grounds to tories in order to appear electable, you are making a non-tory party less likely to be elected.
In terms of actual action, recently both UK Uncut and Boycott Workfare have had successes in hegemonic/ideological and practical politics, now I would see local (linked up to make national) campaign(s) around social housing and secure housing as being most likely to be productive. Wages, benefits, NHS all offer chances to reject neo-liberal ideas in favour of social democratic ones. Arguing against the social democratic ideas to chase being elected means accepting and arguing for neo-liberal ideas which makes social democracy move further away, makes a social democratic party less electable. Why should we waste generations campaigning for a neo-liberal party when we want a social democratic party?
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
Who's this addressed to?
And it's just factually wrong. You don't have to be a revolutionary not to be a neo-liberal, ans as BigTom's post points out an 'electable left' is something that has happened in the past.
What are you actually arguing? I know you want Corbyn to go but then what? Back to neo-liberalism like Hartford wants?
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Plumdaff
joy in people
Weren't Labour committed in both 2010 and 2015 to make cuts to all these budgets too?
not a trot
Well-Known Member
For 10 quid I'd want the whole fucking party.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
as groucho marx said, 'call this a party? the women are cold and the beer is warm'
BigTom
Well-Known Member
I'm also wondering how much of that NHS increase was done by PFI rather than an actual increase in spending
Mr Moose
What the hell are we supposed to tell the kids?
I can't say there is Labour policy that is too left for me and despite the alleged lurch to the left I suspect that is true for many voters. My problem is how Corbyn squares the contradictions between who he is and the role he is auditioning for, to lead HM's Government.
For this he seems hopelessly compromised and vacillating. We know for example that Jeremy is personally against nuclear power. But as a policy this is not likely to change anytime soon especially as the Unions also back it. Nuclear power requires the full focus of the state to sustain it, massive multinational capital investment, militarised security. JC simply doesn't convince that he is a statesman with the will or capacity to ensure the governance of this type of project, nor is he the rebel or visionary to lead into a non-nuclear paradigm.
So on this and many other issues he is neither effective rebel or statesman and the voters see that. He is not and will not be their champion. His political vision appears to be a string of things he objects to. He has not been able to project any vision of what kind of leader he could be and how the power of the state will be used. Sure he has not had a fair wind, but he won't ever so that's the territory.
I am glad you believe there is an electable left that can do good. I can't believe you believe JC can get it elected though.
Supine
Newt Member
^ what he said
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
None of that actually addresses any of the questions I asked. You think Corbyn has to go (as you thought Miliband needed to be replaced), fine - then what? What are you arguing for? A neo-liberal Labour Party like Hertford? Or a social democratic one with someone's other than Corbyn?
Hertford's liberal scum but at least he's outlined a political position. I think those aiming for a SD Labour Party are daft at best and actively harmful at worst but at least it's a political position. What've you got? You've said a whole load of nothing besides 'Corbyn must go'.
Mr Moose
What the hell are we supposed to tell the kids?
Don't call people 'scum' please. You are impressing no one.
Well what have you got? It's not really clear why you hang around this thread apart from to get to the position where you can be rude to someone. Is that your politics in total? Do you really think ordinary people, tired of being looked down upon, want that sort of politics?
If you want to know, I would like a Labour Party that campaigned against the marketisation of everything. That campaigned on a platform to do things together in solidarity, as a clear alternative to the Tories and New Labour. That drew a line that everyone gets housing and working and the rewards of working get shared. I would like them to campaign that you cannot have it all. You cannot own it all, have six cars and four homes, because it is anti-social. I would like a platform of no more second homes and in some areas compulsory sales to free up housing. To build social housing and ban the building of investment properties aimed at overseas capital. i would like an environmental strategy that protects the land, promotes public pride and gets people active to enjoy their country. I would like to see salary caps and very progressive taxation. Amongst many other things.
I don't see how the Labour Party gets to campaign not to run a capitalist economy though. It needs to regulate and mitigate the effects of that by turning the most vital services into non-profit making, particularly energy. If that is merely social democratic then so be it. It's up to the people if they wish to take it further.
agricola
a genuine importer of owls
Not so much "done by" as "required by", probably
BigTom
Well-Known Member
oh yes, that too - I was thinking of "input" money (which pfi provided) not "output" money (which pfi takes, in vastly greater quantities than it gives). (for avoidance of doubt, I've made up those terms in quotes, I think they are clear)
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
I'll certainly call neo-liberal pricks like Hertford scum.
Then how does getting rid of Corbyn push the Labour Party towards social democracy? I don't believe that the Labour Party can be moved back to social democracy under Corbyn but I'm damn sure there's no chance if Corbyn quits like you want him to. If he quits now the party will swing rightwards, the party establishment are already trying (successfully IMO) to shut out any challenge to their liberalism, they aren't going to make the mistake they made in 2015 and let a crack open up.
If you want a social democratic Labour Party then you've got to take the opportunity (shit as it is) that Corbyn's leadership represents, you're not going to get something better.
I'm well to the left of Mr Moose personally, but in his defence a bit, I think he's arguing pragmatic electability more than anything else.
If Corbyn/leftish Labour could get in next election on such a moderate but OK social democrat-type programme as Mr M suggests, then I'd the last to get so paranoid (as I really am at the moment) about where Corbyn's leadership is leading the LP.
My paranoia is purely and only in terms of the next election, and the dismal current prospects of a Teresa May landslide
I appreciate I'm close to arguing against electoral politics at all there, but I don't think a 200 seat Tory majority next time is going to do any favours to any part of the left.
And few of Corbyn's weaknesses in such a system are his own fault. The right and the capitalist press are just too powerful in this country ATM.
None of the above represents me arguing for Corbyn to be replaced by a leader any more right than him. I just wish he, or someone with acceptably left/OKish politics (ie not his opponents in Parliament!
) could do better at being populist-left.
And the LP need to have a less incompetent media strategy -- surely?
If Corbyn/leftish Labour could get in next election on such a moderate but OK social democrat-type programme as Mr M suggests, then I'd the last to get so paranoid (as I really am at the moment) about where Corbyn's leadership is leading the LP.
My paranoia is purely and only in terms of the next election, and the dismal current prospects of a Teresa May landslide
I appreciate I'm close to arguing against electoral politics at all there, but I don't think a 200 seat Tory majority next time is going to do any favours to any part of the left.
And few of Corbyn's weaknesses in such a system are his own fault. The right and the capitalist press are just too powerful in this country ATM.
None of the above represents me arguing for Corbyn to be replaced by a leader any more right than him. I just wish he, or someone with acceptably left/OKish politics (ie not his opponents in Parliament!
) could do better at being populist-left.And the LP need to have a less incompetent media strategy -- surely?
Mr Moose
What the hell are we supposed to tell the kids?
It's tactics in the end. I think Corbyn is holding up left wing advancement in the party because he makes it look unattractive and fey. Keeping him is like telling Labour voters that the members think they are wrong about most things.
I don't believe a right wing coup would succeed in any way but superficially. The membership have the upper hand.
Ultimately though in order to win the party does have to reach a broad church, which means taking plenty of people along whose politics you may feel needs developing. The party needs a unifier to keep it in order and a catalyst - we've seen how talking directly to an electorate, even having a bit of a row can work. But how can Jeremy do those things. He simply is not that kind of personality.
agricola
a genuine importer of owls
He might not be, but the uncomfortable truth is that no-one in the PLP is either. One then ends up asking whether its more likely that such a figure could make it into the PLP under Corbyn or under some hypothetical successor; personally my money would be on Corbyn, if for no other reason than there isn't that much evidence he is fixing elections from the centre.
Mr Moose
What the hell are we supposed to tell the kids?
Long game. Not sure what shape Labour would be in by then.
brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
On a reduced share!
Must be very tiny number of folk voting and seems LP vote -> Ind & UKIP.
E2a 24% turnout.
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Andrew Hertford
Chocolate Jesus
Sorry, but these kinds of distinctions have become meaningless to me, as I expect they are to most people. My politics have always been close Corbyn’s but most other people's simply are not.
Voters were sick of Labour by 2010 and they'll almost certainly be sick of the tories by 2025, if not before (although we might as well forget 2020 now). Of course that doesn't mean that Labour will be able to just step in by default, even when brexit goes pear-shaped. To stand any chance of winning they'll have to become reflective of the views of millions of voters whose support they need and be led by someone who unlike Corbyn or Miliband inspires confidence.
By the ‘recent past’, do you mean 1945?
Please explain how "we" can "change the conditions" so as to make Corbyn's Labour electable? What kind of ‘landscape’ is needed for that? (Not one similar to 1945 I hope). Because until you do explain it's still just fantasy.
Oh please! I suggest you try coming back down to Earth. None of that is going to get rid of the tories or convince millions of people to vote Labour in 2020 when they probably voted tory or UKIP in 2015.
Pursue your own ideological dreams all you like, but a Labour government is still the only chance we have of stopping the tories. People are suffering now in 2017 and it’s getting worse. 2025 may if anything be too late to save the NHS and other essential services. How long do you expect people to wait?
Just out of curiosity, do you have any examples of your "successes in hegemonic practical politics"?
Andrew Hertford
Chocolate Jesus
Jeez mate, Is that really necessary?
I suppose it’s symptomatic of the unnecessary antagonism which prevents people who all basically share a desire for a fairer and more equal society from ever getting on and agreeing.
You’re not even right, I’m not a liberal.
emanymton
A cat politely sat on the flaming gardener.
Ok I'm going to say something really stupid now.
In order for the Labour part to become a progressive social democratic force, it would need to abandoned the idea that its primary purpose is to win elections.
I would rather have a proper social democratic Labour party in opposition than a tory lite version in power. An opposition that linked up with campaigns outside parliament and actally opposed the government. If it was successful at this it could most certainly go on to win elections and implement many of the policies we would all like to see.
Of course this is never going to happen, and that is part of the reason the Labour party is fucked.
In order for the Labour part to become a progressive social democratic force, it would need to abandoned the idea that its primary purpose is to win elections.
I would rather have a proper social democratic Labour party in opposition than a tory lite version in power. An opposition that linked up with campaigns outside parliament and actally opposed the government. If it was successful at this it could most certainly go on to win elections and implement many of the policies we would all like to see.
Of course this is never going to happen, and that is part of the reason the Labour party is fucked.
Mr Moose
What the hell are we supposed to tell the kids?
It's changed since you were last there and is now very posh.
brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
Since May 2016? (46.7%)
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
How? Any candidate bar Corbyn needs nominations from 20% of MPs and MEPs. Corbyn only survived last years challenge because he didn't need nominations, McDonnell wouldn't even get on the ballot.
Then don't pretend that you're not arguing for liberalism. It's the same nonsense that Toynbee comes out with 'I really am socialist, never mind I'm backing a neo-liberal'. It's intellectually dishonest rubbish. If you're going to argue for that as Toynbee does, as Hartford does then you're a liberal and you should face up to that.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
This is the exact type of bollocks I'm talking about. We're not on the same side, I want to destroy you and your ilk. And you're exactly a fucking liberal, you're just too stupid/dishonest to see it.
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