Jeremy Corbyn

but they were major players the "coup" was a done deal and nothing could save Jeremy.

Which is just nonsense as without a rule change the membership decide the leader and there has been an absolutely huge surge in pro-Corbyn members. This makes him untouchable as Leader in terms of a leadership challenge. They all know this, which is what makes them even more pathetic....

There is nothing they can do other than bitch and moan about it all.

Except they don't have any means to get rid of him. If the membership want him as leader (which over 60% do), he stays.

Party membership ? wider electorate

You can't win general elections by appealing only to the party membership

what a spineless bunch of wazzocks the blairite wing is

When have they ever shown themselves to be anything else? These are people who got involved in politics for the single reason of attaining power and having a nice cushy ego-massaging career. In the end they value their MP's salary and all the perks that come with it more than whatever opinions they have about the leadership or direction of the party.

Party membership ? wider electorate

You can't win general elections by appealing only to the party membership

You also can't get a proper understanding or even fair election if 100% of the media is massively biased against one leader....

So far they said he would never be elected leader of the PLP. He was by a landslide. They said he couldn't last 100 days. He did. They said Labour would be wiped out in the local elections. They weren't. They said he could never win a general election......

Chins up - JMcD sounded positively upbeat as the party had avoided the thumping that he claimed many had predicted. Truly now a party of aspiration and ambition!! 😉

Bit of a shame that the Lib Dems are all but forgotten as our two main parties are in pretty sad states. Guess we get what we deserve....

Truly now a party of aspiration and ambition!!

To use a football analogy, would you expect your team to win if a third of the players on the pitch were deliberately not passing the ball to their teammates and conspiring with journalists to get rid of their manager? The question is whether the manager remains and he has a clearout of the players, or whether the players get their way. Seeing as in this case the owner of the club and the majority of the fans are solidly behind the manager, I don't hold out much hope for the players.

Have you seen the shadow front bench? How much more of a clear out can you have...?

Where do you place the vice captain - in old leather lace ups or modern Nike flouro pumps?

Seeing as in this case the owner of the club and the majority of the fans are solidly behind the manager, I don't hold out much hope for the players.

It is a shame we haven't started to see local parties talk about de-selection, or maybe the PLP needs to expel them first....

These are people who got involved in politics for the single reason of attaining power and having a nice cushy ego-massaging career. In the end they value their MP's salary and all the perks that come with it more than whatever opinions they have about the leadership or direction of the party

Yes, this is what we've been hearing for ages about the Blairites, but as pointed out above, that all contradicts 100% the line that the Blairites won't back Corbyn because they are afraid he will win... Lefty conspiracy theory fail!

You also can't get a proper understanding or even fair election if 100% of the media is massively biased against one leader....

I'm not convinced that will happen for the simple reason that I don't think the blairites have the backbone or the mass popular support to carry it through.

@ninfan it really is pointless trying to engage a RW troll as anyone, no matter their politics, can see that having the media against you is not going to help anyone win an election. No one is saying its all their fault but if it made no difference party leaders would have implemented leveson and stopped toadying up to DIgger et al.
Clearly the media exerts [undue influence] and making childish comments is well childish.
Are you ever able to just switch of the cheap political digs and have an actual grown up debate?

Something very odd has just happened at the Grauniad...

They've accidentally allowed a pro-JC article to make it onto their website. Heads will obviously roll.....

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/06/doom-merchants-corbyn-viable-leader-labour

Where do you place the vice captain - in old leather lace ups or modern Nike flouro pumps?

[IMG] [/IMG]

grown up debate

Sure, whenever anyone here is ready to get over whinging about how [i]unfair[/i] it all is, and how the bastard Blairites were traitors to the cause because they actually had an interest in winning elections... FFS, it's cloud cuckoo land! You want a grown up debate? fine, lets gave a grown up debate about what it would take for labour to win the next election, let's look at the impact of your losses, let's look at how many votes you need to win and in which English seats (after losing Scotland). It ain't pretty.

Blair responded to what the electorate wanted. That's how democracy's meant to work, last time I checked.

Blair responded to what the electorate wanted. That's how democracy's meant to work, last time I checked.

Well, what they thought they wanted at the time.

I doubt he could win now.

the bastard Blairites were traitors to the cause because they actually had an interest in winning elections

Yes, that's exactly why the left hated Blair wasn't it? You really don't get it do you? Is it so hard to understand why the vast majority of labour party members elected a leader who actually has labour party policies and principles and some integrity and honesty? If you want to see what happens when politicians and governments routinely ignore the electorate in favour of their own and their friends interests then look to what's happening in the US.

I doubt he could win now.

If he turned up fresh and no-one had heard of him, I bet he would.

If he turned up fresh and no-one had heard of him

Well if we're allowing time travel into our hypotheticals anything goes.....

labour party members elected a leader who actually has labour party policies and principles who has some integrity and honesty?

The same Labour Party members who abandoned Blair after he took us into an Iraq war that nobody(*) wanted?
(*nobody on the left wanted it, but they voted for it and still reelected him as PM two years afterwards)

Spare us the hand wringing, It's like being preached to about morals by a Catholic priest...

The one thing you [b]cant[/b] accuse Blair of is routinely ignoring the [u]electorate,[/u] he just ignored the loony left of the party who had held them from power since '79

If he turned up fresh and no-one had heard of him, I bet he would.

If Labour had chosen the other Miliband brother, they would be a year into their first term by now!

Yeah, interesting point really. If Blair hadn't been around when he was, what would've happened to Labour...?

molgrips - Member

If he turned up fresh and no-one had heard of him, I bet he would.

Pretty much says it all doesn't it? ........ if the electorate didn't have a clue about Blair then they could be hoodwinked again.

Which complete undermines your claim [i]"Blair responded to what the electorate wanted".[/i]

Which complete undermines your claim "Blair responded to what the electorate wanted".

How?

if the electorate didn't have a clue about Blair then they could be hoodwinked again.

What, wait a minute, how long did it take for them to figure out what he was like? Or does that mean that lefties are [b]so[/b] stupid that it took them ten years of him as PM (and two reelections) to realise?

ninfan - Member

What, wait a minute......

No sorry labrat/Z-11/ninfan, I can't.

Why, are you overdue at a post election speech from Ken and Khan?

[IMG] [/IMG]

Yes, something like that.

Or does that mean that lefties are so stupid that it took them ten years of him as PM

You really do find it impossible to have a sensible discussion on this don't you? Your ability to talk about this stuff seems to be at the level of a Sun editorial.

The left's opposition to Blair was there from the beginning. Witness the struggle he had removing clause IV. The main difference between how they reacted then, and how the Blairites are behaving now is that they accepted that at the time the party disagreed with them and they accepted the democratic wishes of the party and the wider electorate. That didn't stop them campaigning and pushing their own causes, but they didn't resort to deliberately working against the interests of the party's electoral chances as is happening now.

working against the interests of the party's electoral chances as is happening now.

Hahahahahha

You actually, honestly, really believe that supporting Corbyn is in the best interest of the Labour parties electoral chances 😆

they accepted the democratic wishes of the party and the wider electorate.

I refer to my earlier point:

Party membership ? wider electorate

I used to be a member of the Labour Party. I voted for Blair. I now feel like I'm 'fessing up to the circle at AA.

I've not been a member of Labour for a long time. But the attraction Corbyn has is that he has backed the same horse for just about ever. After seeing all the shiny ones turn to dust and slime, with their moral compasses spinning like tops, you've got to respect someone who actually believes in something.

I would never have put myself down as particularly left wing but the feeling that Corbyn labour aspires to the right things has made me much less lax about voting. I don't think I'm the only one. The Westminster hegemony should probably consider that.

You actually, honestly, really believe that supporting Corbyn is in the best interest of the Labour parties electoral chances

I don't know. I don't claim to be able to predict the future like yourself, or all the people who said Corbyn wouldn't last 100 days, or past this election, or that he'd lose hundreds of councillors and the southern English councils, and who said he'd lose the Oldham by-election. What I do believe is that Labour's electoral chances at the next election wouldn't have been any better under Cooper, Burnham or Kendall as they were offering nothing different to what the electorate had just rejected under Miliband.

But Miliband was touted as the most left wing Labour leader since Foot

"we've got our party back" they said at the time, true, they got the election results back too, It's only very recently that he's been cast under the blairite/moderate banner

His brother would have walked the last election.

ninfan - Member

In fact, isn't winning the election at any cost regardless of principles written into the very DNA of the Blairites?

No. Ironically, that means swallowing their myth whole. And it's easily done, because the myth is all you ever hear- "Blair did what he had to" "He made Labour electable". It's simultaneously their universal excuse and their proudest claim- and both are absolute pish. Because Blair didn't really have to do anything to win- Smith and Major had done that for him. Everything he did, he did because he wanted to.

😆

But Miliband was touted as the most left wing Labour leader since Foot

The only people claiming that were the deranged rightwing commentariat at the DM and Torygraph.

His brother would have walked the last election.

Maybe, but he wasn't elected and hasn't seen fit to return to british politics so maybe that tells you something about what he thinks his chances of winning now are?

His brother would have walked the last election.

Fairly irrelevant as without time travel we'll never know.

"Everything he did, he did because he wanted to."

I don't think leaders have the freedom to act as they wish.

Power seems to me to be a succession of decisions where both options are going to be unpopular...

The only people claiming that were the deranged rightwing commentariat at the DM and Torygraph.

And the editor of the New Statesman:

http://www.standard.co.uk/comment/comment/jason-cowley-ed-miliband-the-most-left-wing-leader-since-michael-foot-10189547.html

So, is the infamous [i]staggers[/i] part of the evil right wing press conspiracy as well now?

You really do find it impossible to have a sensible discussion on this don't you? Your ability to talk about this stuff seems to be at the level of a Sun editorial.

It was a reasonable debate till you all got ,deliberately, sidetracked on a corbyn thread by debating Blair with ninfan
You really all should have a word with yourself for both falling for it and feeding it.

Yeah, I mean, how dare we discuss what it takes to be a successful* Labour leader on a thread about the current Labour leader

(*wins elections)

To be fair I welcome ninfan's contributions to political threads. He does more to make Tory supporters look ridiculous than I could ever manage to do.

The secret though is to ignore him and let him get on with it.

ninfan wants a reaction]he will type anything to get it
He realises it better to be RW to achieve this on STW so that is the role he plays to get the reaction he craves.

You think he's possibly not actually right-wing? I must admit that at times I've had my doubts.

I know its a bad result for a midterm opposition party but shit the bed !, theres no mention of corbyn on the Daily Mail front page

[img] [/img]

Oooo, the personal abuse has started started.

Who'd a thunk it.

I know its a bad result for a midterm opposition party but shit the bed !, theres no mention of corbyn on the Daily Mail front page

To be fair from what I've seen I reckon the Daily Mail hasn't actually been too bad in its reporting of Corbyn, relatively speaking.

The newspaper which has been totally hysterical and completely obsessive about Corbyn imo is the Daily Telegraph.

true dat, the only thing that the DT is more obsessed with is kate middleton

The torygraph has it easy, barely a week goes by where I don't see the grauniad desperately trying to appear as if it's not doing a hatchet job on Corbyn in the guise of 'reporting' when really all it's doing is recycling tittle tattle fed to it by labour MPs. Since Corbyn became leader I've read umpteen articles about PLP meetings and behind the scenes plotting, but nothing about what Corbyn is actually doing.

Well I'm shocked but not surprised. Since upping their price to £1.80 The Guardian has lost one of their less affluent readers. I now the buy The i for 40p.

Yes a "Blairite" could indeed should have won the 2015 GE, David Milliband would have been right right choice had Labour wanted to win. However, the membership don't care about a GE victory they just want a party of conscience - hecne Corbyn.

Relegated to third in Scotland, loosing seats to UKIP in Wales and "hanging on" (his words) in England. I said he wouldn't last past these May elections, seems I will be proved wrong by at least a few months. Have to say I am delighted, the longer the better 🙂

Except they don't have any means to get rid of him. If the membership want him as leader (which over 60% do), he stays.

ernie_lynch - Member
The secret though is to ignore him and let him get on with it.

And yet....

...that's as funny as the Chief suggesting that he ignores Jambas. Bravo!

Yes of course THM, I get into heated debates with ninfan - I find him so hard to ignore. You've obliviously noticed that's why you find it so funny.

Yes, very funny

Hilarious.

Now you are going too far - very funny is enough.

Is THM really giving out lectures in how to successfully ignore people now
Its as useful as it is humourous
[img] [/img]

Mornin' - I saw Blair suggest that Corbyn should automatically be on any leadership challenge ballot. All you anti-Balirites need to thank him for that as it would save Corbyn's bacon, or maybe its reverse psycology ? 🙂

Morning Jambas - did you finish the other ales? How's the weather?

Nah the next leadership contest will be a Tory one if Dave looses the EU vote

Fortunately as long as the 'young, educated and cultured' or whatever the anti-kipper is, come out to vote Dave should be safe

My lord you tories are getting some serious wood this morning about Blair and Corbyn
Is it just because you cannot discuss Zac Goldsmith playing the race card in london and failing so spectacularly?

I assume even the Blairites are sensible enough to realise that splitting the PLP from the membership is not going to lead to success. Corbyns downfall will continue to be predicted by the type of person who constantly gets [s]it [/s] everything completely wrong and then still insist they are satisfied with being wrong.

@tmh, sadly not all, 12 in two days would have been some going and I didn't fancy the home brewed largers. Very nice today, in Leeds for family bbq after seeing youngest perform at Northern School of Contemporary Dance. Insteresting factoid is the School is an old Synagogue !

Junky commented on Zac on the other thread, strange choice of Candidate for a contest its very hard for anyone other than the Labour candidate to win. Strange he accpeted the request to stand (comment last night that Cameron will be glad he lost as a victory for such a euro-skeptic would have been bad for the referendum). Goldsmith asked the obvious questions getting the obvious response and generating the predictable "racist" howls, reminds me of this Charlie Ebdo editorial

[url= https://charliehebdo.fr/en/edito/how-did-we-end-up-here/ ]How did we get here ?[/url]

David Miliband would have been right right choice had Labour wanted to win

I doubt it, I really think he was worse than his brother, at least his brother went for it.

Its not really a question that with the "had they wanted to win" cheap dig.
I suspect he was more popular with those who like superficial things but I am sure the media would have savaged him as much as they did "red ed" and as much as they are savinging Corbyn for "terrorist sympathiser" God knows what tenuous straw man they would have made up for him though - Jamby what dont you like about him 😉

I know jamby I read it and not one mention of his racism though even though high ranking Tories moaned about it
Still we all must have principles if not consistency

A new leadership election with MPs not putting Corbyn on the ballot would be the end of the Labour Party. Even Blair sees that. The only way for labour MPs to get rid of him, is to find a candidate who isn't a blairite or brownite metropolitan clone who understands working people. Once they do this they then have to persuade the membership to vote for them instead of simply telling them to. They would be much more successful in this if they accepted and worked with the current leader rather than acting like spoilt children.

And Jamba are you really complaining about goldsmith being called a racist given your obsessive attempts to label most people on the left as hitler apologist anti-Semites?

Cameron will be glad he lost

#jambaplanet

Goldsmith asked the obvious questions getting the obvious response and generating the predictable "racist" howls,

What question was that?

@Junky - Worth actually getting over who says it, and sitting down and listening to what he says

#jambaplanet

@ninfan, yes points very well made

However, the membership don't care about a GE victory they just want a party of conscience - hecne Corbyn.

Labour mayors for London and Bristol. Maybe a party with conscience [i]and[/i] some victories

@ninfan, yes points very well made

#torycirclejerk

So which of the specific points that Blair made would you disagree with V8ninety?

game over for the slimy bastards innit!! 🙂

I want that giveaway hat.

[s]So which of the specific points that Blair made would you disagree with V8ninety?[/s]Please respond to my desperate troll

FTFY

play the ball not the man Junky

or are you just trying to divert attention away from what Blair says being spot on again...

are you just trying to divert attention away

Asks the man who has taken diversionary tactics on forum threads to new giddy heights.

I like it when ninfan gets [s]polite [/s] desperate to get a response...its almost endearing. Futile but endearing

When you are serious I may respond till then Mleh

Junkyard - lazarus

I like it when ninfan gets [s]polite [/s]desperate to get a response...its almost endearing. Futile but endearing

When you are serious I may respond till then Mleh

You serious? I mean really? Not kidding here. 😯

I thought you have been having some fun like me? Yes?

Crikey must be me command of poor English language.

How serious are you exactly? 😮

I see the [url= http://www.theguardian.com/global/commentisfree/2016/may/08/jeremy-corbyn-local-election-results-labour-leadership ]guardian has gone into anti-Corbyn overdrive again[/url]. So in the last year these so called media 'experts' told us it was a cast-iron certainty that we would get a hung parliament, then they said Corbyn couldn't win, then they said he wouldn't last past christmas, then when he did he wouldn't last past May. They also said the labour vote would collapse and they'd lose masses of councillors and councils. And whilst all this was going on labour won the London Mayoralty and Bristol too. If I were the editors of these idiots I'd be asking some serious questions about the quality of their 'analysis'.

If I were the editors of these idiots I'd be asking some serious questions about the quality of their 'analysis'.

Until they can point at a successor there isn't going to be a coup

What they are doing is writing easy column inches

He is going to stay on unless there are health issues or a really big cock up happens