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Labour leadership

Many, many years ago, I used to buy dope from a place where there were a couple of cops amongst the regulars. Atmosphere was chilled but edgy when one or other of them was there.
 
Peter McKay, in today's Mail:

A Jeremy Corbyn premiership will see our national debt soaring to £3 trillion, our nuclear submarines sold to Vladimir Putin, Britain kicked out of Nato and the red flag flying from No 10 during ‘1,000 days that destroy Britain’.

This ‘imagining’ by one newspaper feature writer yesterday is merely an exaggerated version of what Corbyn’s leadership rivals, and their supporters, are now claiming.

But isn’t the anti-Corbyn uproar now in danger of increasing his popularity, especially since he wisely refrains from responding in kind?

While some Tories inveigled themselves onto Labour party membership lists to vote for him — presuming he’ll be an electoral liability as leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition — ex-Labour leaders Neil Kinnock, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown ganged up against Corbyn.

Who is listening to them? For many Labour voters — and young people attracted to the party — Kinnock’s forgotten, while Blair and Brown are the despised ancient regime, who turned the party away from its traditional Left-wing policies to market itself as Thatcher Lite.

Blair quit No 10 when he was ahead to build a multi-million-pound fortune. Brown’s dithering over facing a general election — famously ‘bottling’ the decision — led to Labour being driven out of power.

Labour lost again this year — letting in the Tories with an overall majority — after Ed Miliband, a Brown acolyte, was chosen as leader instead of his brother David, a Blair protégé.

The message party elders might have taken from that was that the Blair-Brown era was over and a fresh start was needed. But that was not what happened when the leadership election began.

Instead, three candidates emerged who are identified as Blairite and Brownite — Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall — and one who isn’t, Jeremy Corbyn.

Superficially the least attractive, white-bearded Leftie Corbyn immediately established himself as front-runner. How so? Allies of Burnham, Cooper and Kendall blamed mischief-makers signing up to the Labour Party to support the veteran outsider. But the obvious reason wasn’t considered — that Labour voters are tired of the old Blair-Brown hangers-on.

Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper were ministers in the Brown government that failed — and, shadow ministers in the Ed Miliband-led Opposition that failed to prevent the Tories from winning an overall majority. (Ms Kendall’s approach, so far as it is understood, was more Blairite than Brownite.)

So, is a Corbyn win in the leadership race a disaster for Labour?

No, it’s an opportunity for the party to purge itself of the Blair-Brown deceit that there’s an electorally attractive zone somewhere between Conservative and Labour philosophies. The now discredited Blair/Brown model publicly preached fairness for all, while privately striking ruinous deals with big business.

It loves privatisation even more than Margaret Thatcher did, and hates nationalisation — except when state-owned concerns taking over our water, railways and nuclear industries are French, German or Chinese.

Would Corbyn as Prime Minister destroy Britain? Maybe, if he were allowed to govern. But his party is stuffed with Blair/Brown zombies who’d oppose him, never mind what would be Her Majesty’s Loyal Tory Opposition.

Moreover, the City and big business are unlikely to comply with policies they deem harmful to themselves. Banks forced the last Labour government to bail them out with public money, while continuing to cheat us with impunity. They’ll continue to be a law unto themselves.

Nor would the U.S. be likely to regard our relationship as special — specially favourable to themselves, that is — if Corbyn sought to get rid of its Trident missiles here, or interfere in more shadowy areas of trans-Atlantic co-operation.

So the scope of individual prime ministers to destroy Britain is very limited. In my lifetime, only one is said to have done so — and only by Eurosceptics. I refer to Tory Edward Heath, who signed the Treaty of Rome in 1972, saying that joining the EU (as it became) involved no loss of British sovereignty.

Jeremy Corbyn is a symptom of — not a solution to — Labour’s problems. It’s time we all calmed down and enjoyed Labour’s brief exercise in internal democracy.
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Plumdaff said:
Police do have good stories. But so do paramedics, nurses, doctors, and firefighters etc. and none of them are going to smash your head in because you went on a demo.
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Yeah, happy to have a drink with those folks too.

There's a limit to how choosy I can afford to be if I don't want to live a lonely existence. And there's a lot worse than coppers in the local. Like CEOs. At least a copper will just break a bone, not break your whole life.
 
killer b said:
What's the point in starring out phil's college if you're going to refer to an easily googleable alumni in the same breath? :D
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Reminds me of the Monty Python sketch where a supergrass is being interviewed on telly - and they leave the interviewer in shadow.
 
How to enthuse young people:
In a speech on Tuesday, Cooper will attempt to woo young people enthused by Corbyn with a series of measures to tackle disillusionment in politics.

Cooper will unveil several new policies including a pledge to consult on moving the House of Lords out of London to a city such as Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow or Cardiff and a proposed freeze and cap on new appointments to the Lords until democratic reform is started.

She proposes getting rid of the “out of date and out of touch” way that MPs speak to each other in the House of Commons, which involves them referring to each other as “honourable” friends or members and showing their approval by crying “hear, hear”.

She would like to see electronic voting in parliament to end late-night sessions and to allow parents to take small children through the voting lobbies with them.
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http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/24/gordon-brown-backs-yvette-cooper-for-labour-leader
 
How to show strong leadership:
He said of some of his former cabinet colleagues that they needed to “show a bit more humility when they make their comments about who they would work with or wouldn’t work with”.

Burnham was heckled by members of the audience demanding to know why he had voted with the party’s leadership and abstained on the welfare bill. Burnham responded that he had not wanted to lead a rebellion and split the party, adding that they were stronger united.

He addressed Corbyn’s pledge to apologise on behalf of Labour for the Iraq war, suggesting that he could be open to this after the Chilcot report was published if “apologies need to be made”.
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http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/24/gordon-brown-backs-yvette-cooper-for-labour-leader
 
It's just occurred to me - it probably is the topic on the mind of every young person she talks to cos they are all spads.
 
Be fair, move it to Birmingham and that will solve all its problems. Mind you on second thoughts one of the remote Scottish Isles might be better.
 
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