Jeremy Corbyn's time is up

[emanymton]

Fucking hell, don't raise the idea that you have to pay to vote! A Johnson government could easily go with that.

More likely they'd just sell advertising space in the polling booth, or run it like mobile games. Pay 3 quid to vote or have to watch a shit badly put together advert for 30 seconds.

 

[Ole]

Great comment on one of Momentum's event invites, on the failures of Corbyn's team to get the word out.

Unfortunately I won't be able to make this but please could someone on my behalf make the point that Corbyn and his communications team have been absolutely dismal at harnessing the power of the internet and social media to get his policy and ideological ideas across to the general public.

We have always known significant sections of the Labour Party and the mainstream media would be very hostile towards him and so it's also been glaringly obvious since he became leader that he and his team (and Momentum) would need to become very savvy and put a lot of their time and resources into putting together a communications strategy that circumvented the mainstream media and got directly to the general public.

Unlike the 1980s we now have the internet, but where is Jeremy Corbyn's own youtube channel, where are the targeted videos on local newspapers websites making his case against austerity, showing he is committed to a re-energised manufacturing industry and big infrastructure projects to re-energise the economy etc. He and his team should be taking responsibility for videoing and putting on-line their speeches/articles/research/interviews and those of the experts who support their policies, but there should also be edited versions of this and simple slogans and summaries put in circulation on a daily/hourly basis.

I recently went to John McDonnell's State of the Economy conference. It was very oversubscribed and participants had to choose which workshops to attend. The quality of the speakers was excellent and I would have liked to have attended all the workshops, but for some unknown reason none of the workshops were videoed in their entirety and made available on-line. I go regularly to conferences on the environment which are organised on a shoe-string budget, but they manage to live-stream themselves on the internet, have the videos available forever afterwards, make catchy summaries, animations etc of the key points and just try their best to get themselves heard.

Corbyn and his team do not do this and they need to. He would also do well to stop frowning into the TV cameras outside his house all the time, it is petty and when I try to encourage people who aren't familiar with him, to listen to his arguments, they just tell me he comes across as grumpy and cross. Momentum also needs to really up it's on-line presence. I read somewhere that you've been running education/discussion evenings on policy and politics, but I haven't received an email telling me where I can watch these on-line.

I also heard some of Bernie Sanders' team came and briefed you on how to do successful and powerful on-line campaigns, but you haven't chosen to really get on with this. I really love Corbyn's policies, but if he can't come up with more imaginative ways to circumvent all the hostile press etc against him he isn't going to win an election and at a time like this that is unforgivable. I haven't watched the Vice film yet, but I heard his inner team are all too similar in their outlook and therefore don't provide the input a party leader needs.

I hope as well as putting my point on communication a lot of you can also be critical friends to him tomorrow, the last thing he needs is a load of sycophants telling him he's doing great, when even when the odds against him are taken into account, he's got some massive flaws in his ability to lead a party and reach the general public. I don't have much experience of making presence on the internet, but if someone does and wants some help in getting Corbyn's policy ideas etc across I'd like to help (he needs help).

 

[emanymton]

Jeez,could this be the one occasion when most on here agree with the 'dreaded Dwyer'
I for one do

 

[billy_bob]

I've always found British popular opinion to be far to the "Left" of the British media, especially on economic matters.

In my experience, it is those who believe the working-class to be reactionary who have swallowed a myth.

I agree with this, if cautiously. There's polling (again, haven't kept a link but you can probably google up something) that shows widespread support for policies that Corbyn either already has or could be expected to support and that are broadly 'left wing', like nationalising utilities and railways, even among people who may currently think he's 'not for them'.

But the same is true to some extent of the likes of UKIP, as it was of the BNP a few years ago - surveys show far more of the British public agree with some of their ideas when presented with them without the 'taint' of being explicitly labelled UKIP-etc. policies. So Corbyn's Labour does have an image problem in the 'wider world'. Created for them to a great extent by the mainstream media and their detractors of course, but they still need to do something about it.

It's not about putting style over substance, just about being able to present a clear, convincing narrative. It's frustrating how easy it's been for people to make the decent-but-useless label stick, and how unconcerned he seems to be about it. I've said it before here: I think what did for Miliband more than anything to do with the substance of him or his campaign was Labour's failure to control its own narrative following 2010 and the way that allowed the Tories and their stooges to write it for them - 'the mess the last lot created' etc.

I think now the substance is more convincing, certainly more clearly differentiated from the Tories' substance, and if they can take control of the story that's told about it I don't think it would be half as difficult as many people seem to think it would for them to attract a broader swathe of the electorate. I don't know whether the thinking is that they should keep their powder dry for a general election or what it is, but if I was them I'd have fully worked up this 'alternative to austerity' business and be banging on about it every time I spoke, regardless of what question Laura Kuennswhatsit had actually asked me.

 

[chilango]

Do people think Corbyn will still win the members' votes?

Laura whatserface is heavily pushing the idea that he might not anymore in her BBC pieces.

Will the £3ers turn out again? Will they be able?

 

[imposs1904]

Well with Eagle, she's being touted as the "unity" candidate because she initially backed Corbyn before stabbing him in the back on Monday night. She cried a bit during the TV interview in which she explained why she'd done it, then put herself up to replace him about 12 hours later.

This is her in full, scintillating action.

Her partner's a Trot. The Daily Mail will love that if and when she becomes Labour leader.

 

[Biscuitician]

Do people think Corbyn will still win the members' votes?

Laura whatserface is heavily pushing the idea that he might not anymore in her BBC pieces.

Will the £3ers turn out again? Will they be able?

Aaron Bastani says he will, he seems a credible pundit. I follow his novaro media on YouTube. they have some decent content, even though I think politically he's a bit wishy washy

 

[killer b]

Do people think Corbyn will still win the members' votes?

Laura whatserface is heavily pushing the idea that he might not anymore in her BBC pieces.

Will the £3ers turn out again? Will they be able?

all the polling suggests he'll walk it.

 

[andysays]

Do people think Corbyn will still win the members' votes?

Laura whatserface is heavily pushing the idea that he might not anymore in her BBC pieces.

Will the £3ers turn out again? Will they be able?

She clearly has an agenda, so I wouldn't expect her to do anything else (see treelover's post 1763 for example...)

 

[killer b]

The Labour right's problem is that they made voting in their leadership election about as easy as signing a change.org petition (this also, IMO, goes some way to explaining why most of those who voted Corbyn in haven't done much since - they essentially got their man into the top job with a few clicks of a mouse - clicktivism works! No need for those old-style politics anymore...).

While there's been some noble efforts to get people opposed to Corbyn signed up, their platform simply isn't one that has the same kind of wide appeal that Corbyn's did (and will do) with the kind of people who would actually bother. So they're doomed to failure, IMO.

 

[billy_bob]

Do people think Corbyn will still win the members' votes?

Laura whatserface is heavily pushing the idea that he might not anymore in her BBC pieces.

Will the £3ers turn out again? Will they be able?

Any overly confident predictions seem a bit rash in the current state of flux, but the based on the small-to-medium sample of members I know, I think yes. I certainly wouldn't set too much store by what she says.

 

[mauvais]

You can blame the lazy clicktivists if you like, and they are a plague, but what did you expect them to do given a party whose top layer couldn't really be bothered to get on board with their decision, never mind engage them?

If you have a load of passive supporters, then you can blame them for being passive or you can blame yourself for failing to extract any action from them.

 

[ska invita]

Has anything been asked of the supporters specifically?
I would've expected that come the GE they WOULD have been activated and motivated

 

[ska invita]

Seamus MIlne has been shit....hasnt even managed to keep the Guardian on side

 

[Ole]

Do people think Corbyn will still win the members' votes?

Laura whatserface is heavily pushing the idea that he might not anymore in her BBC pieces.

Will the £3ers turn out again? Will they be able?

It's bollocks, he'll easily win again and yes the £3ers will be willing and able to turn out again.

 

[Artaxerxes]

This is fucking embarrassing, it really is.

I came close to joining back when Jez was originally on the ballot, glad I didn't. Would have been a waste of that £3 the entire party is just shit at this point and refuses to become less shit.

 

[Pickman's model]

This is fucking embarrassing, it really is.

I came close to joining back when Jez was originally on the ballot, glad I didn't. Would have been a waste of that £3 the entire party is just shit at this point and refuses to become less shit.

Parties always best on stairs or in kitchen and lp has neither so what did you expect?

 

[killer b]

You can blame the lazy clicktivists if you like, and they are a plague, but what did you expect them to do given a party whose top layer couldn't really be bothered to get on board with their decision, never mind engage them?

If you have a load of passive supporters, then you can blame them for being passive or you can blame yourself for failing to extract any action from them.

I didn't mean to blame them - it's a complex picture and I agree a lack of direction is part of it. I think blaming people for not following through after last year's election is about as pointless (and wrongheaded) as blaming low turnouts and lack of political engagement on voter apathy.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Parties always best on stairs or in kitchen and lp has neither so what did you expect?

That's discrimination that is, I'm sure you could have an awesome party on a disabled ramp or in a lift.

 

[eoin_k]

Seamus MIlne has been shit....hasnt even managed to keep the Guardian on side

When was the Guardian on side?

 

[Pickman's model]

That's discrimination that is, I'm sure you could have an awesome party on a disabled ramp or in a lift.

kitchens ime always accessible and you've clearly not heard of chairlifts

 

[mauvais]

I didn't mean to blame them - it's a complex picture and I agree a lack of direction is part of it. I think blaming people for not following through after last year's election is about as pointless (and wrongheaded) as blaming low turnouts and lack of political engagement on voter apathy.

Fair play. I can't think of a way the Labour Party has tried to engage me, apart from more clicktivism itself and asking for money for supposedly engaging other people, whoever they are. I even tried to approach the CLP and that was a failure in itself. Now I live in a different seat, a Labour one, and there doesn't seem to even be a CLP. Omnishambles.

 

[Biscuitician]

This is fucking embarrassing, it really is.

I came close to joining back when Jez was originally on the ballot, glad I didn't. Would have been a waste of that £3 the entire party is just shit at this point and refuses to become less shit.

It is, but it's a bit depressing as well frankly.

I'm not surprised at their self interest, but the depth of feeling in the PLP caught me off guard. I guess they don't think they can win a contest against him, but that they just want to make his position untenable.

Shame they couldn't focus the same attention, as an opposition party, toward the Tories.

 

[ska invita]

Lesson Ive learned this week is the limit on democracy, in action.

Exit? It's not going to happen... Not really. All the checks and balances are kicking in and 2nd referendum looks inevitable to me. We're only six days in on that so still a lot of work to undo the vote, but I reckon they'll get there.

Massive majority for corbyn? Syntax error. Computer says no.

Surprised, no, but it's quite amazing to see it happening.

On one level it's all over, but there is a price, and that's that all those whose majority vote will have been overridden will be angry, and that anger has to go somewhere. Not necessarily anywhere good but somewhere.

w

When was the Guardian on side?

Exactly! Crap appointment. (I know what you meant )

 

[danny la rouge]

Jeez,could this be the one occasion when most on here agree with the 'dreaded Dwyer'
I for one do

It does none of us any favours not to admit when we sometimes agree with those with whom we often don't.

Too many double negatives? - I agree with Dwyer on this occasion.

 

[Sprocket.]

We are learning to love the things that we hate!
With apologies to NMA.

 

[wheelie_bin]

Lesson Ive learned this week is the limit on democracy, in action.

Exit? It's not going to happen... Not really. All the checks and balances are kicking in and 2nd referendum looks inevitable to me. We're only six days in on that so still a lot of work to undo the vote, but I reckon they'll get there.

Massive majority for corbyn? Syntax error. Computer says no.

Surprised, no, but it's quite amazing to see it happening.

On one level it's all over, but there is a price, and that's that all those whose majority vote will have been overridden will be angry, and that anger has to go somewhere. Not necessarily anywhere good but somewhere.

I can't like this. I'm just saying I agree.

 

[J Ed]

I also don't get this weird tory-lite thing about 'Labour needs someone electable'. What is this, queensbury rules? Surely you want the opp to have someone shit at the helm in order to fucking crush the enemy. Why is the team opposite giving advice unasked

My guess would be that it is a mix of total arrogance and concern trolling. It reminds me a bit of a Tory voter I used to work with who took great interest in the 2015 Labour leadership election, he genuinely seemed aggrieved that Labour picked Corbyn even though he would obviously never vote Labour and wanted the party to fail.

I don't really understand the mentality, I would love it if the Tories had a leadership candidate I considered unelectable. I certainly can't imagine in what world I would be upset by that.

 

[billy_bob]

You can blame the lazy clicktivists if you like, and they are a plague, but what did you expect them to do given a party whose top layer couldn't really be bothered to get on board with their decision, never mind engage them?

If you have a load of passive supporters, then you can blame them for being passive or you can blame yourself for failing to extract any action from them.

It's also worth saying that the nature of almost any membership organisation is that only the minority of members actually do anything much beyond paying their annual subs. Perhaps clicktivism has made it easier for the non-active majority to feel like they're doing something, rather than reducing the propensity of the more involved minority to stay involved, in which case the question is whether they'd have done something else if the online options weren't open to them. 120k people choosing to stay at home signing online petitions rather than knock on doors, attend meetings and policy discussions, etc. would not be great. 120k people doing something rather than fuck all is a slightly different story.

 

[quimcunx]

killer b Possibly in one of the many emails received and swiped away without being read.

I'll admit to being lazy. This applies to all areas of my life. As said before i joined accidentally. Surely though as with all things a minority get more deeply involved while most flag wave on the sidelines making up the numbers.

I don't know that I would be different if online stuff wasn't an option. By and large I think people who get more involved do so because they enjoy it.