Who will be the next Labour leader?

[chilango]

On your first point that’s true. And you can correlate the decline of Labour, Unions and the social, cultural and political agency of pro working class politics (which I deliberately separate out from Labour and the trade union movement politics) along a similar timeline.

On your suggestion that it’s ‘barely a memory’ I disagree. Contained within the anti politics, populist and anti establishment protests like Brexit, there is a deep longing, an interpretive nostalgia and a deep anger at what was lost.

By that I don’t mean communities mourn the loss of a local GMB Branch or a steelworks football team. I mean they are aware that the fact that they once existed was once part of being part of a producer economy now reduced to surplus population for the consumption society. I mean the knowledge that they have been moved from the centre of the economic conversation to the periphery and I mean the sense that their community has been unraveling and going backwards for 40 odd years.

The feeling is not limited to older people. It’s transmitted down generations but manifests itself in different ways

Only where those communities are more less intact perhaps?

 

[Proper Tidy]

I thought rise of the right and that ilk were interesting when they explored that the growth for far right politics in w/c areas was deeply informed by a nostalgia for (poor word, maybe sense of loss of) post war to thatcher period, social democracy, whatever we call it, when w/c had social value and economic power

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Only where those communities are more less intact perhaps?

I’m specifically talking here about the ‘red wall’ seats. Not cities. And not areas where the service economy offers money circulation if not good work. I’m not sure how you measure ‘intact’ but if you mean where a collective memory exists (even in an anomic form) then it’s present in many of these places.

 

[chilango]

I’m specifically talking here about the ‘red wall’ seats. Not cities. And not areas where the service economy offers money circulation if not good work. I’m not sure how you measure ‘intact’ but if you mean where a collective memory exists (even in an anomic form) then it’s present in many of these places.

Yeah. I'm not really disagreeing.

It's just been absent from anywhere I've lived in the UK (not abroad though).

 

[redsquirrel]

I thought rise of the right and that ilk were interesting when they explored that the growth for far right politics in w/c areas was deeply informed by a nostalgia for (poor word, maybe sense of loss of) post war to thatcher period, social democracy, whatever we call it, when w/c had social value and economic power

Melancholy (as opposed to mourning - discussed a bit here). It's a good analysis IMO, the actions of the political class have halted any ability of these communities to move on in a way that has not happened in, say, city centre communities.

 

[fakeplasticgirl]

 

[two sheds]

I like the way that the right wing candidate is always the one to 'unite the party'

 

[kebabking]

I like the way that the right wing candidate is always the one to 'unite the party'

Its shorthand for 'with the electorate...'.

 

[belboid]

Nandy is the right-wings candidate - look at which MP's nominated them both. That's why Starmer can, supposedly, unite them.

 

[Marty1]

On your first point that’s true. And you can correlate the decline of Labour, Unions and the social, cultural and political agency of pro working class politics (which I deliberately separate out from Labour and the trade union movement politics) along a similar timeline.

On your suggestion that it’s ‘barely a memory’ I disagree. Contained within the anti politics, populist and anti establishment protests like Brexit, there is a deep longing, an interpretive nostalgia and a deep anger at what was lost.

By that I don’t mean communities mourn the loss of a local GMB Branch or a steelworks football team. I mean they are aware that the fact that they once existed was once part of being part of a producer economy now reduced to surplus population for the consumption society. I mean the knowledge that they have been moved from the centre of the economic conversation to the periphery and I mean the sense that their community has been unraveling and going backwards for 40 odd years.

The feeling is not limited to older people. It’s transmitted down generations but manifests itself in different ways

Honestly mate, some of your posts are amazing - like this one, it’s like you are posting people’s subconscious.

 

[fakeplasticgirl]

I like the way that the right wing candidate is always the one to 'unite the party'

How on earth is starmer right wing?

 

[Proper Tidy]

How on earth is starmer right wing?

In the context of this leadership campaign he's the candidate on the right though

 

[brogdale]

In the context of this leadership campaign he's the candidate on the right though

Where's that political compass graphic when you need it?

 

[redsquirrel]

Abstained on welfare, voted against investigations in Iraq, voted for Trident, pro-EU, backed Owen Smith, resigned from Corbyn's cabinet.

EDIT: Oh and unlike Starmer Nandy has spoken at UCU meetings during the strikes
EDIT2: Actually Starmer seems to have gone to the picket at SOAS TBF

 

[fakeplasticgirl]

In the context of this leadership campaign he's the candidate on the right though

That would be nandy

 

[redsquirrel]

Depends what you mean by right, Nandy is easily to the left of Starmer on certain issues (welfare, trident, Iraq).
Both Nandy and Starmer are from the soft left but they are pitching themselves to different sections of the party outside the soft left, Nandy to the remnants of the old Labour right, Starmer to the liberals.

 

[fakeplasticgirl]

Starmer didn’t abstain on welfare - he voted against it at third reading. He wrote an opinion piece about why the Iraq war was unlawful at the time (of course he wasn’t an MP then). and he has a long history of working pro bono for the under-privileged.
I haven’t looked into Nandy’s voting record tbf but from watching the hustings she seems to be going for the centre-left vote?

 

[two sheds]

How on earth is starmer right wing?

Well mainly stuff I've seen on here, and meaning further right than RLB: time at DPP including ten year sentences for benefit fraud, resigned in protest at Corbyn’s leadership, supported Andy Burnham for leader, continuing support for Remain despite referendum result.

 

[redsquirrel]

Starmer didn’t abstain on welfare - he voted against it at third reading.

Come on, he abstained on it in the second reading. One of the key moments in Corbyn becoming leader, he made a choice not to defend welfare, a choice that Long-Bailey refused to accept and Nandy said she would have opposed.

 

[fakeplasticgirl]

Well mainly stuff I've seen on here, and meaning further right than RLB: time at DPP including ten year sentences for benefit fraud, resigned in protest at Corbyn’s leadership, supported Andy Burnham for leader, continuing support for Remain despite referendum result.

Fair enough he’s further right than RLB but saying the “right wing” candidate is a bit unfair? Andy Burnham is hardly right wing, the guidelines on benefit fraud sentencing (note the word FRAUD) related to where there were aggravating features such as multiple offences, abuse of position or substantial loss to public funds. Can’t deny he resigned under Corbyn! but so did nandy.

 

[fakeplasticgirl]

Come on, he abstained on it in the second reading. One of the key moments in Corbyn becoming leader, he made a choice not to defend welfare, a choice that Long-Bailey refused to accept and Nandy said she would have opposed.

he has been an MP for 5 months at the time and was following Harriet Harman’s whip.

 

[Shechemite]

Er...

 

[Humberto]

They need to take a fresh approach; they need to stop playing nice. Too many open goals were missed and there were too many cautious plays. Tell it how it is. Stop backing down from arguments. It didn't work for Miliband or Corbyn and it has left us all with the Tories in charge again and allowed to do their worst.

If you let the opposition always set the agenda and are always on the back foot and then 'bide your time', you just look weak. And lose. It was a good manifesto, in my opinion, but who reads them? It's obviously very important to have the right policies, but the Tories are the Eton>Oxbridge rich establishment default. If the PLP won't get their hands dirty, can't hold their own in a debate and won't be positive and take not even the open goals then we are screwed. There should be no rapprochement with these murdering greedy scum.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Depends what you mean by right, Nandy is easily to the left of Starmer on certain issues (welfare, trident, Iraq).
Both Nandy and Starmer are from the soft left but they are pitching themselves to different sections of the party outside the soft left, Nandy to the remnants of the old Labour right, Starmer to the liberals.

Precisely. The risible attempts to position Starmer as ‘left’ purely on the basis of a comparison with Nandy should be treated with the seriousness it deserves.

The excitement from some about the imminent recapture of Labour by the epitome of centrist middle class liberalism is telling.

 

[Mr Moose]

I thought rise of the right and that ilk were interesting when they explored that the growth for far right politics in w/c areas was deeply informed by a nostalgia for (poor word, maybe sense of loss of) post war to thatcher period, social democracy, whatever we call it, when w/c had social value and economic power

Nostalgia for that age is peculiar in many respects. There was almost no social mobility and it was repressive and violent, men to other men, groups of men to other groups of men, men to women legal and unpunished, straight to gay, white to black etc. But people remember it as orderly, like Camberwick Green. Jobs and a role for life (with limited choices) and yes a share collectively of economic power.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Nostalgia for that age is peculiar in many respects. There was almost no social mobility and it was repressive and violent, men to other men, groups of men to other groups of men, men to women legal and unpunished, straight to gay, white to black etc. But people remember it as orderly, like Camberwick Green. Jobs and a role for life (with limited choices) and yes a share collectively of economic power.

Nostalgia works on many levels and takes many forms. This sort of offhand dismissal is well wide of the mark

 

[fakeplasticgirl]

Precisely. The risible attempts to position Starmer as ‘left’ purely on the basis of a comparison with Nandy should be treated with the seriousness it deserves.

The excitement from some about the imminent recapture of Labour by the epitome of centrist middle class liberalism is telling.

He’s soft left, in comparison to anybody.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

He’s soft left, in comparison to anybody.

That’s utterly meaningless. He represents a very specific class position, feeling and view. How he voted once, on some issue, is irrelevant.

 

[fakeplasticgirl]

That’s utterly meaningless. He represents a very specific class position, feeling and view. How he voted once, on some issue, is irrelevant.

I wasn’t the one bringing up his voting record.

the son of a toolmaker and a nurse - the first in his family to go to uni - do you not like working class men succeeding?

cant wait until keir wins!

 

[Proper Tidy]

Are you reading from an autocue