Labour leadership

[Wilf]

A shorter way of putting all that is that if it was worth paying £3, if you tried to participate in good faith, it's worth kicking a fuss up if you were rejected.

 

[youngian]

The latest anti-Corbyn piece from Pollee

The idea of Corbyn winning Tory votes stretches credulity, if Corbyn wins, Britain could be out of Europe

Like Farage, Polly doesn't seem to grasp its possible to criticise the direction of the EU over Russia, TTIP or economics without being "anti Europe".

As for winning over Tory and UKIP voters, Corbyn probably has more chance than the other three as they understand what the man's talking about. And evokes the sort of trust that self confessed socialist Bernie Sanders does with conservative voters in Vermont, that he's the real deal, not in politics for himself and stands up for the little guy. I can see a type of Tory voter that Liz Kendall would be much better at winning over but you'd have little appeal to the rest of society in order to gain their trust.

 

[SpookyFrank]

If Labour can’t elect a winner, nothing will stop the Tory evisceration of public services and the welfare state.

Yvette fucking Cooper won't stop it either, she won't even vote against it

 

[andysays]

The Scotsman piece said:

Almost by definition the '25,000' claim will be predominantly 3 quidders and union members. A figure approaching 10% of that electorate rejected is pretty high. The obvious issues are that this is being done without the remotest consistency, happens more in some constituencies than others - and is affecting Corbyn supporters more than others. An example is that the Scotsman piece says they are taking canvass returns into account as one bit of the jigsaw. Can't actually imagine they have universal canvass returns nowadays, but that's by the by. The point is canvassing returns work along the lines of 'and will you be voting Labour.... err, yes.... and do you think everybody in the house will be..... erm, err, yes....'. An absurd basis to make a legally challengeable decision to exclude someone from an election. Ditto the idea of using 'bliar is a cunt' on somebody's facebook. The other bit, which is more fuck up than conspiracy, is that they are still excluding people well into the period when the voting has started. It's gerrymandering that is at once both blatant and incompetent.

At one level, I'm not a Westminster politics fan and I think all this left of centre (ish) energy going into the corbyn campaign is a massive diversion, a waste of energy. However it really is worth exposing the mendacity - that's an end in it'self. Admittedly, the Labour machine will be just as mendacious if Corbyn wins, just as it would have been all those years ago if Lord Stansgate had won.

I agree with the basic thrust of this (and I'm skeptical about the suggestion that 10% of those applying are really entryists in any meaningful sense, BTW).

My point throughout has been that IMO the individual justifications which might be given if people bother to ask are less important than the fact that significant numbers (more than are likely to be genuine trot or Tory entryists) are being excluded.

 

[Celyn]

Alumnus, surely

</William of Walworth, Pedant's Academy, Boringshire >

Alumna

 

[Pickman's model]

Alumna

an Überpedant walks among us

 

[Geri]

I'm sure it isn't the case for Geri, but I reckon plenty of the people crying foul have a record of campaigning against the Labour Party that they're conveniently forgetting - the mendacity of trots is also something we need to bear in mind.

Actually it did occur to me just now that on two occasions in the past I have signed nomination papers for a Socialist Party candidate in the local elections. I'm guessing this is on the public record.

 

[Favelado]

Yvette fucking Cooper won't stop it either, she won't even vote against it

It's already happening. Don't these cunts see that? Voting New Labour in opened the door for this. I'd love Toynbee to explain how much difference a Labour government has made to the erosion of the state int he past twenty years, or what difference it would make in the next twenty. Same train, just taking a couple of extra stops to get to the same destination.

 

[killer b]

Actually it did occur to me just now that on two occasions in the past I have signed nomination papers for a Socialist Party candidate in the local elections. I'm guessing this is on the public record.

Yep, that'll be it.

 

[Geri]

Yep, that'll be it.

Damn it, I was only doing it as a favour because I know him from years back.

 

[Dogsauce]

This is going round Facebook today, apologies if it's already been posted somewhere else in the 186(!) pages...



Doesn't quite square with how people are now getting kicked out.

 

[Sue]

Interested in the suggestion that they should use canvass returns as part of this. Given ime they largely gave up on traditional door knocking quite a while ago and many people don't have a land line these days, I imagine their canvass returns must be patchy in the extreme.

(Also thought it was a bit worrying that the expert in election law on the Today programme this morning didn't seem to know the difference between canvass returns and the info gathered by tellers at polling stations.)

 

[two sheds]

I am so angry. I have voted Labour all my life, and now they spit in my face.

Haven't reached the end of the thread yet so don't know whether this has been posted, but I'm not sure they're helping with words like:

Labour leadership: Harman vows to weed out all 'cheats'

Harriet Harman has said 3,000 alleged "cheats" have so far been excluded from voting in the Labour leadership contest, with more expected.

The acting Labour leader said: "It is not funny or clever for people from other parties to try to cheat their way into our system."

And only people who supported the "aims and values" of the Labour Party would be allowed to take part.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34047788

Not sure what the aims are but from http://www.labour.org.uk/pages/what-is-the-labour-party

The values Labour stands for today are those which have guided it throughout its existence.

• social justice
• strong community and strong values
• reward for hard work
• decency
• rights matched by responsibilities

Not sure who would say they don't have those aims really, sort of 'we want to make things ever so nice for everyone'.

 

[frogwoman]

What are 'strong values'? And what is 'decency'? That could mean anything.

 

[andysays]

What are 'strong values'? And what is 'decency'? That could mean anything.

and similarly, not sharing those values means whatever they want it to mean

 

[Pickman's model]

What are 'strong values'? And what is 'decency'? That could mean anything.

 

[Sprocket.]

Please come and join the Labour Party but never criticise any of it's policies or MPs in the future. (Or have done so at any time in the past!)

 

[Wilf]

I agree with the basic thrust of this (and I'm skeptical about the suggestion that 10% of those applying are really entryists in any meaningful sense, BTW).

My point throughout has been that IMO the individual justifications which might be given if people bother to ask are less important than the fact that significant numbers (more than are likely to be genuine trot or Tory entryists) are being excluded.

Can't disagree with that. And yes, absolutely, only a tiny few will be genuinely entryists. In fact the term entryist is inaccurate, given that it's usual meaning involves JOINING a party whilst retaining a loyalty to some other party/hostile organisation. But yes, very few will be 3 quidding in order to skew the vote for malicious purposes.

Slightly, ahem, pedantically, you can only really illustrate the overall picture of Gerrymandering by illustrating the pattern of INDIVIDUAL exclusions, but that's splitting hairs.

Suppose there's an additional reason for exposing the mendacity of the party if you think that joining the party or investing in corbyn is counter productive. It just illustrates the nature of the beast and the kind of politics/organisation you are buying into. Same time, I'm slightly conflicted about pushing that line. For me, the reasons for getting involved in anticapitalist class struggle are quite independent of Labour's lack of principles.

 

[andysays]

Can't disagree with that. And yes, absolutely, only a tiny few will be genuinely entryists. In fact the term entryist is inaccurate, given that it's usual meaning involves JOINING a party whilst retaining a loyalty to some other party/hostile organisation. But yes, very few will be 3 quidding in order to skew the vote for malicious purposes.

Slightly, ahem, pedantically, you can only really illustrate the overall picture of Gerrymandering by illustrating the pattern of INDIVIDUAL exclusions, but that's splitting hairs.

Suppose there's an additional reason for exposing the mendacity of the party if you think that joining the party or investing in corbyn is counter productive. It just illustrates the nature of the beast and the kind of politics/organisation you are buying into. Same time, I'm slightly conflicted about pushing that line. For me, the reasons for getting involved in anticapitalist class struggle are quite independent of Labour's lack of principles.

And I suspect I'm splitting hairs/being pedantic, but I'm arguing that you won't ever get the LP telling you the reason for individual exclusions, what you will get is the same catch-all statement about not sharing the aims and values.

Anyone who attempts to dig deeper by making a data protection request for info will, I suggest, get all the info the LP hold on them, from which they might be able to hazard a guess at why they were excluded, but they won't get an explicit statement which says, for example "we turned you down because you signed the nomination papers of someone standing for the SP", and perhaps a disclaimer about them not discussing in detail the reasons behind specific cases.

But anyone who wants to pursue it is obviously welcome to try.

 

[Pickman's model]

And I suspect I'm splitting hairs/being pedantic,

you're an ultrapedant

 

[andysays]

you're an ultrapedant

Are you trying to flatter me now?

 

[killer b]

Anyone who attempts to dig deeper by making a data protection request for info will, I suggest, get all the info the LP hold on them, from which they might be able to hazard a guess at why they were excluded, but they won't get an explicit statement which says, for example "we turned you down because you signed the nomination papers of someone standing for the SP", and perhaps a disclaimer about them not discussing in detail the reasons behind specific cases.

But anyone who wants to pursue it is obviously welcome to try.

They don't have the option of giving you a disclaimer - they have to give you everything they've got. Which will mean the actual evidence they used to make the decision.

 

[Pickman's model]

Are you trying to flatter me now?

it is rare people take elevation to ultrapedant status so calmly

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

They don't have the option of giving you a disclaimer - they have to give you everything they've got. Which will mean the actual evidence they used to make the decision.

Assuming they've saved it. If they've checked names against an external database - signatories to other parties nominees for example which is presumably on some publicly available database somewhere - they might not have.

 

[andysays]

They don't have the option of giving you a disclaimer - they have to give you everything they've got. Which will mean the actual evidence they used to make the decision.

What I'm suggesting is they'll give you all the evidence they hold on you, relevant or not, and you will have no definite way of knowing which part is significant, it might be signing the nomination papers of the SP candidate, it might be the fact that you once attended a meeting where Jeremy Corbyn spoke or it might be the ill-advised tweet you once made about Tony Blair being a war criminal

 

[andysays]

it is rare people take elevation to ultrapedant status so calmly

If it was anyone else I'd take it as a diss, but from you it's almost like a compliment

 

[Pickman's model]

Assuming they've saved it. If they've checked names against an external database - signatories to other parties nominees for example which is presumably on some publicly available database somewhere - they might not have.

yeh but as one electoral services worker told me some years ago simply seconding someone is not necessarily an indication of one's political sympathies: a lot of far-right candidates apparently get signatures by subterfuge.

 

[Pickman's model]

If it was anyone else I'd take it as a diss, but from you it's almost like a compliment

but only almost.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

yeh but as one electoral services worker told me some years ago simply seconding someone is not necessarily an indication of one's political sympathies: a lot of far-right candidates apparently get signatures by subterfuge.

Sure. I was only talking about data holdings there, nothing beyond that.

 

[Pickman's model]

Sure. I was only talking about data holdings there, nothing beyond that.

i'm glad to hear it