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Labour leadership

yeah, but you're on urban. people on urban aren't 'people' as referred to in VP's post. Of course he wasn't left enough for us.
 
Andrew Hertford said:
Labour would be doomed, it’s fantasy to believe that a dour and uncharismatic 71 year old from the old Labour left will appeal to British voters. Why do you think the Telegraph for are trying to get their readers to pay £3 and vote for him?

It’s a shame that personality is a major factor in democratic politics, but there you go.
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Plenty of dour and uncharismatic leaders across the world, we do seem to be like the U.S though where image is important(most of the time, read GW Bush)
 
Btw, Chuka launched a vicious attack on the left/Corbyn supporters, etc in the L/P on Newsnight last night, calling them childish, etc.
 
Andrew Hertford said:
Why bother with a leader who couldn’t possibly win? Any Labour government is better than any tory one.
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This logic doesn't work for the simple reason that none of the lead candidates has a cat in hell's chance of beating the Tories on current trends.

  • Kendall's right-wing chatter can't get the Labour base out, ensuring a fight based on Tory voters which she can't hope to win in the face of both tribal loyalties and a frankly far superior Tory political machine.
  • Cooper and Burnham are basically variations of the "neither fish nor fowl" Ed Miliband model, with the same result looming.
  • Corbyn would either have to totally destroy Labour's upper echelons (including all-out war against the vast majority of his own MPs) or go down under an avalanche of internal betrayals and withering external attacks within months of taking office. He'd never make it to the next election.

So if you are a Labour supporter whose only interest is winning, you probably need to start thinking not in terms of who can win now, but in terms of how to spend the next five years rebuilding the party from the ground up to make it electable.

And tbh to do that, you'd probably need to oust a large number of the most Blairite MPs (who have been a massive liability ever since Cameron and Osborne worked out that stealing their spiel of fairness/discipline while rhetorically hacking away at the Blair legacy basically neuters them) without splitting the party.

You'd then need to replace them with a) working class and b) intelligent/charismatic leftists who can provide plausible lines capable pulling out its vanished voters. Otherwise it's Labour competing on Tory ground without a left base - fine if the Tories are divided with utterly pants leaders and a press corps looking to push the broad agenda rightwards, electoral suicide against this lot.

I mean don't get me wrong, it's a massive waste of time trying to do anything useful with Labour, but if I were a party loyalist that'd be the obvious path, anything else just plays directly into Tory hands over the long term and offers bog all electorally in the short term.
 
It seems Chukka is only interested in winning, I don't know about you, but i'd settle for 5 yrs of battering at the Tory gates.
The cons started out as the omnishambles then Labour (lack of fight) allowed them to shut the door.

Box clever and smart Chukka says and they let any tom, dick and harry with £3 a vote on who they want as leader.( brilliant thinking ). Flokin el Tristram, another labour MP afraid to be seen as such, by bully tories, who he see as his betters.
Why are labour doing the Conservatives job.:mad:
Hey! Labour join us and kick the unions in the bollocks, what! you are picking a leader, you have one, it's us stupid.
 
Rob Ray said:
This logic doesn't work for the simple reason that none of the lead candidates has a cat in hell's chance of beating the Tories on current trends.


  • Kendall's right-wing chatter can't get the Labour base out, ensuring a fight based on Tory voters which she can't hope to win in the face of both tribal loyalties and a frankly far superior Tory political machine.
  • Cooper and Burnham are basically variations of the "neither fish nor fowl" Ed Miliband model, with the same result looming.
  • Corbyn would either have to totally destroy Labour's upper echelons (including all-out war against the vast majority of his own MPs) or go down under an avalanche of internal betrayals and withering external attacks within months of taking office. He'd never make it to the next election.

So if you are a Labour supporter whose only interest is winning, you probably need to start thinking not in terms of who can win now, but in terms of how to spend the next five years rebuilding the party from the ground up to make it electable.


And tbh to do that, you'd probably need to oust a large number of the most Blairite MPs (who have been a massive liability ever since Cameron and Osborne worked out that stealing their spiel of fairness/discipline while rhetorically hacking away at the Blair legacy basically neuters them) without splitting the party.


You'd then need to replace them with a) working class and b) intelligent/charismatic leftists who can provide plausible lines capable pulling out its vanished voters. Otherwise it's Labour competing on Tory ground without a left base - fine if the Tories are divided with utterly pants leaders and a press corps looking to push the broad agenda rightwards, electoral suicide against this lot.


I mean don't get me wrong, it's a massive waste of time trying to do anything useful with Labour, but if I were a party loyalist that'd be the obvious path, anything else just plays directly into Tory hands over the long term and offers bog all electorally in the short term.
Click to expand...


No, Labour needs to think in terms of who can lead them to victory in 2020 and it certainly won't be Jeremy. I don't agree that none of the other candidates stand a cat in hell's chance of appealing to voters and beating the tories. I don’t see why Labour can’t win in 2020, especially if the tories fuck up. But not with Corbyn.

And I don't see why Labour should be obliged to fill its ranks with MPs who are exclusively 'working class', if that’s what you meant.
 
nino_savatte said:
Corbyn isn't "far left". Stop repeating the drivel of the Tory press and Blairite fuckwits.


I don't suppose you have a figure for your assertion that "Most voters simply don’t want strange looking old men"? Funnily enough, Corbyn's actually popular among young people. That sort of pisses on your chips somewhat. You've clearly bought into the postmodern idea of politics (appearance/presentation is everything).


People like you are part of the problem.
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Read what I said: I didn't say Corbyn is far left, I said he is perceived to be far left (which isn’t all that surprising considering he describes himself as being on the left of the Labour Party).

Corbyn actually reflects my own views more than the other candidates, but unfortunately I’m not particularly representative of the British electorate. Are you?

I won't reciprocate by calling you part of ‘the problem’, you're not that significant.
 
Andrew Hertford said:
I don’t see why Labour can’t win in 2020, especially if the tories fuck up.
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Because it needs more votes than can be garnered from turncoat Tories, and couldn't get those by shifting further onto conservative territory even if it wanted to. I mean if you've accepted the logic of the right that Britain overspent and needs to cut back why on earth would you drop the Tories for Labour - the party which has gone down in the popular imagination as having massively overspent while in power? Especially when this message is constantly bashed into the public consciousness by a dominant rightwing press? What does a Burnham or Kendall Labour actually offer a 2015 Tory voter that the Tories themselves don't, other than the name?

This is the thing your brand of essentialist analysis falls down on - "capturing the south" can't happen using prior logics, because they are out of date. Clapping the Tories along in an effort to look "fiscally responsible" to the likes of Murdoch doesn't make Labour MPs seem sensible, it just makes them look like Fredo Corleone to the Tories' Michael. It makes them look weak - and weak is unelectable.

As for your "wait until the Tories fuck up" plan... I have no words. Just genius. Why didn't I think of that?

And I don't see why Labour should be obliged to fill its ranks with MPs who are exclusively 'working class', if that’s what you meant.
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I said if I was going to be a cynical Labour loyalist simply out to win then plausible left MPs should replace some of the Blairites. If you don't understand why that is, or why the background of those MPs is important for a party looking for such plausibility to mobilise working class voters then you're not as clued up as you think you are.
 
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Andrew Hertford said:
Most voters simply don’t want strange looking old men leading the country,
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I appreciate it was some time ago, but conforming to your description didn't do Churchill any harm. And while it was some time ago that he led the country, isn't he regularly voted in media polls as one of the greatest leaders of all time?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not an admirer of Churchill's politics. But the obsession with style over content really pisses me off.
 
Andrew Hertford said:
Read what I said: I didn't say Corbyn is far left, I said he is perceived to be far left (which isn’t all that surprising considering he describes himself as being on the left of the Labour Party).

Corbyn actually reflects my own views more than the other candidates, but unfortunately I’m not particularly representative of the British electorate. Are you?

I won't reciprocate by calling you part of ‘the problem’, you're not that significant.
Click to expand...
You're all over the place.
 
Andrew Hertford said:
Read what I said: I didn't say Corbyn is far left, I said he is perceived to be far left (which isn’t all that surprising considering he describes himself as being on the left of the Labour Party).

Corbyn actually reflects my own views more than the other candidates, but unfortunately I’m not particularly representative of the British electorate. Are you?

I won't reciprocate by calling you part of ‘the problem’, you're not that significant.
Click to expand...
Luckily, the amount of heroin I use is harmless, I inject about once a month on a purely recreational basis. Fine. But what about other people less stable, less educated, less middle-class than me? Builders or blacks for example. If you're one of those, my advice is leave well alone. Good luck.
 
Andrew Hertford said:
No, Labour needs to think in terms of who can lead them to victory in 2020 and it certainly won't be Jeremy.
Click to expand...

Which is why the party is in such a state: it still thinks in terms of winning elections rather than being a popular movement. One (being a movement) should come before the other (winning elections). The current leadership thinks it's better to chase after Tory voters than to build a movement. How about you?
 
Or praps one for the 'Why Labour is Scum' thread.

Jeremy Corbyn: Labour MPs are plotting a coup against the potential leader if he is elected
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...tential-leader-if-he-is-elected-10399272.html
Indie said:
Although this result is still seen as a long shot, MPs said in the event of a Corbyn victory they would immediately start gathering the 47 names needed to trigger a coup. One said: "We cannot just allow our party, a credible party of government, to be hijacked in this summer of madness. There would be no problem in getting names. We could do this before Christmas."
Click to expand...

:facepalm: :D

How that's 'changing Labour from within' working out @articul8?
 
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