Labour leadership
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The Pale King
Well-Known Member
It's not the despair, it's the hope I can't stand...
agricola
a genuine importer of owls
Here is the actual text of that memo, in case people haven't seen it already. It is magnificent throughout, but perhaps the best bit is right at the start:
ManchesterBeth
Well-Known Member
I don't think this is surprising at all. In essence third world revolutions were pathways to social democracy via violent and revolutionary means. Of course given their peripheral status in the tripartite division of the world at the time they had to consciously and bloodily manage the process of accumulation by breaking the back of the peasantry.
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You're right, that's wonderful.Here is the actual text of that memo, in case people haven't seen it already. It is magnificent throughout, but perhaps the best bit is right at the start:
nino_savatte
No pasaran!
Good article by Mhairi Black in today's National.
Mhairi Black: The election of Corbyn changes nothing
Mhairi Black: The election of Corbyn changes nothing
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Better a surprised pessimist than a downcast optimist.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
agricola
a genuine importer of owls
Not sure it should be that much of a surprise - the media have been uniformly negative ever since he became something other than a joke candidate, the cretinry at the top of the party is openly (and ludicrously) at war with their elected-by-a-landslide leader, and (perhaps most importantly) Corbyn has only had two or three chances to put across his views without them being spun as extremism / a threat to national security etc etc.
It's odd what gets emphasised in these analyses. Looking through the data you can see Labour closing the gap on the Conservative's lead (34%-39%), Corbyn having a better personal rating than Cameron who in turn has a better rating than his party, over 50% saying Labour understands the problems facing Britain, a whopping 29% of the population saying the Tories are extreme. It would be breathless Corbynism to cherry pick in that way of course. But really it's just a mixed bag of results whose real meaning is difficult to gauge. Big but unsurprising result is that people think Labour is divided, but then it certainly is.
DotCommunist
So many particulars. So many questions.
I'll be interested to see some numbers again after the party conference. I'm sure the press will have a field day with something or other but its a chance for his first major set of speeches since the acceptance.
Even worse look at this nutter trying to predict Labour's fortunes from a handful of unremarkable council elections.
And what about attracting actual votes from among those who voted for other parties in 2015? Well, here there's some solid votes in ballot boxes to go on. Last week there were two council by-elections in Haringey, one in Ayr, one in rural North Yorkshire, and one in Cambridgeshire. Labour seems to have attracted votes from the Greens to increase their large majorities in the first two contests, remained in third place in Ayr East, and got nowhere in Yorkshire and Cambridgeshire. The move from the Greens, combined with numbers buried on page three of the ORB report showing 'others' (often Greens) shifting over to them, seems concrete and well-evidenced. But Labour stood still in Yorkshire and Cambridgeshire - while the Liberal Democrats pushed onwards with their local revival - and went backwards in Ayr. Labour's votes may be collecting exactly where the party doesn't need them: in liberal, multi-ethnic areas of big cities, where they're already well ahead. That bodes ill for them.
And what about attracting actual votes from among those who voted for other parties in 2015? Well, here there's some solid votes in ballot boxes to go on. Last week there were two council by-elections in Haringey, one in Ayr, one in rural North Yorkshire, and one in Cambridgeshire. Labour seems to have attracted votes from the Greens to increase their large majorities in the first two contests, remained in third place in Ayr East, and got nowhere in Yorkshire and Cambridgeshire. The move from the Greens, combined with numbers buried on page three of the ORB report showing 'others' (often Greens) shifting over to them, seems concrete and well-evidenced. But Labour stood still in Yorkshire and Cambridgeshire - while the Liberal Democrats pushed onwards with their local revival - and went backwards in Ayr. Labour's votes may be collecting exactly where the party doesn't need them: in liberal, multi-ethnic areas of big cities, where they're already well ahead. That bodes ill for them.
voiceofreason
Well-Known Member
Labour support's been holding up reasonably well in the face of the concerted efforts of the media to persuade us that Corbyn eats babies. Let's see what happens after Conference when people will get to see a good deal more of Corbyn and also get to hear more about how he intends to put his vision into practice and transform the Labour Party. He could get a positive bounce, but it could go the other way, if Labour is perceived to be hopelessly divided and Corbyn not in control.
youngian
Well-Known Member
Holyrood has tax raising powers, they could raise income tax on former Tories and Lib-Dems in Salmond's heartlands to alleviate child poverty but decide not to as its too politically risky. Just like Labour and the Tories in England. And the SNP want more tax raising powers on top of the ones they don't use to reverse Tory policies. Not to alleviate child poverty but to join Ireland and Osborne in a neo-liberal Dutch auction in corporation tax. And as Corbyn outflanks the SNP from the left and the Scottish Tories are polling up to 25% at the other end of the spectrum, where is the SNP going? Their game changers for a second referendum that they announced the weekend Corbyn was elected was just reheating existing policies in order to grab headlines. If constitutional concerns and Saltire waving become the SNP's only sell they'll end back where they started; Nigel Farage in kilts.
billy_bob
Air of bewilderment model's own
I've always been sceptical about Corbyn's chances of 'saving' the party from itself and it wouldn't particularly surprise me if polling did show that (not because people don't like Corbyn or his policies so much as because the LP's the wrong vehicle for them and too many of the people steering it have a vested interest in keeping it that way). But:
(i) as with previous polls that have been linked on this thread, and as Knotted suggests, the stats don't conclusively bear out the Disaster For The Left!!! narrative of the story that they're embedded in, and that pundits across the media spectrum seem determined to find.
(ii) it does seem that the more questions these polls ask, the less the answers tell us. The results are always 'read' for us in a way that assumes people are rational and consistent beings with a coherent ideology and a clear understanding of what they themselves look for or admire in a politician or a political party. And of course that's rubbish - most people's views on these things are full of inherent contradictions and fairly subject to change. Only 'who are you going to vote for?' really matters, but of course you can't assume you've got a straight answer from people even about that one.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
It's a good summary from Knotted. I'd have been surprised if labour had enjoyed a massive upswing from JC's election. The tories have just won an election, after all. But any optimism I got from his election was the hope that in the coming years a case would be made for a real, socialist(ish, at least) alternative. Only with time and events can that become popular, I think. And it remains only a hope, not an expectation - the noises about deficit elimination remain, the agenda around debt still being set by those who spin the 2008 crisis as a crisis brought on by public debt.
Plus I do fear that there is still a considerable number of people who feel they are doing well under the tories and are willing to let the poor go to the wall as long as that remains the case. Another house price crash might cure that, as I'm always rather surprised and depressed by the number of people who are chuffed that house prices keep going up and up and up, seemingly unable to see or just indifferent to the wider consequences. Feelings of solidarity with fellow citizens are at a very low ebb in certain quarters, not all of them natural tory voters.
But some kind of different case will be made by Corbyn and McDonnell in particular. I hope. And so there is a chance that that different case will make a difference. I hope. But it's going to take years, and possibly favourable events, to make it happen. Way too early to tell anything at all about how things will be at the next election. All kinds of things may have happened by then. All Corbyn's election represents is a possibility. A crack, at least. But nothing more yet.
Plus I do fear that there is still a considerable number of people who feel they are doing well under the tories and are willing to let the poor go to the wall as long as that remains the case. Another house price crash might cure that, as I'm always rather surprised and depressed by the number of people who are chuffed that house prices keep going up and up and up, seemingly unable to see or just indifferent to the wider consequences. Feelings of solidarity with fellow citizens are at a very low ebb in certain quarters, not all of them natural tory voters.
But some kind of different case will be made by Corbyn and McDonnell in particular. I hope. And so there is a chance that that different case will make a difference. I hope. But it's going to take years, and possibly favourable events, to make it happen. Way too early to tell anything at all about how things will be at the next election. All kinds of things may have happened by then. All Corbyn's election represents is a possibility. A crack, at least. But nothing more yet.
stethoscope
Well-Known Member
As an aside, anybody else get rage when everything is regarded as a 'brand' these days? 
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Yep. And anyone using that term doesn't understand at all why Corbyn was elected in the first place. It's marketing speak for a politics devoid of principle or ideology, and it assumes that the electorate doesn't care about either of those things, but that then becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy if the major parties believe it is true. As I said above, Corbyn represents a hope that Labour will move away from that.As a side, anybody else get rage when everything is regarded as a 'brand' these days?
andysays
Love and solidarity
J Ed
Follow Back Pro Expropriation
It seems to me that what is being attempted and/or suggested is a sort of Podemos in reverse. A political party decentralising power to assemblies rather than assemblies forming a political party.
Some questions that occur to me about the idea...
1) Will this actually amount to anything in the end or is it just window dressing?
2) How will Labour get people outside of the Labour Left and wider left to participate? That imo is absolutely crucial to their success, and the wider success of the project.
3) Has this strategy, Podemos in reverse or whatever you want to call it, ever been tried before?
brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
JC had little choice than attempt this tbh. With the extant policy forums involving so much PLP without such a reform he'd have no chance of putting his policies to conference. Your 'reverse Podemos' idea is good.
Jeff Robinson
Marxist-Lentilist: Jackboots and Jackfruit
John McDonnell's position is not a U turn since Corbyn's election. Its exactly the same as he took back in early august:
Jeremy Corbyn would clear the deficit – but not by hitting the poor | John McDonnell
Jeremy Corbyn would clear the deficit – but not by hitting the poor | John McDonnell
Jeff Robinson
Marxist-Lentilist: Jackboots and Jackfruit
youngian
Well-Known Member
Do you think Roy's against taking Syrian refugees because we should 'look after our own' and charity begins at home. Despite never showing an ounce of compassion toward his fellow citizens.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
I thought that Holyrood's tax-raising powers were/are truncated - that they can't raise or distribute tax in certain areas of the economy?
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Basically reinstating what New Labour removed.
Something else making Mandelson shit hot biscuits is all to the good!
seventh bullet
sovietwave
Aren't you referring to national liberation movements in what later came to be called the 'third world'?
The MPR was a modestly developed satellite for its long existence as a Soviet-guided republic following the Russian civil war and the trauma of that development is closely linked with the USSR's own.
ManchesterBeth
Well-Known Member
Yes, national liberation struggles that later became known as, or were perceived by the left as being, third world decolonial revolutions (on the road to) but not specifically proletarian revolutions.
Lord Camomile
Yipchaa!
Corbyn's currently on The Andrew Marr Show.
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