Forum menu
gauss1777
Member
When people were shouting to be rid of Corbyn, (or was it just Binners?), it was not obvious who had the skills needed to take over
This is a pretty important point- it goes towards the absence of obvious candidates but also towards the wider Labour party. Every time centrists or blairites tried to bring Corbyn down, it was obvious that they had no plan for what to do next. Owen Smith was the best offering they could find last time, perfectly nice guy and capable MP but how you scheme and work to replace a leader and then forget to put forward a new one I don't know. Corbyn might have been able to defeat a meaningful leadership challenge, but he never faced one- the best anyone could manage was "We should vote for someone else." "I'm someone else!".
It's another of the wider Labour problems that seemed to go unremarked amidst criticism of corbyn- the leadership challenges were so poorly thought out that all they ever achieved was damaging the party, they never had any chance of delivering any progress. It just showed a total lack of competence in the people who were trying to take over. Of course it was all Momentum's fault...
Say what you like about the Tories, when they stage a coup they do it well, and all that plotting and stabbing is basically their apprenticeship for leading.
how you scheme and work to replace a leader and then forget to put forward a new one I don’t know
Juts because you know what the problem is; it doesn't follow you know what the solution is.
It's not the fault of anyone but the Labour party that they have no credible candidates. The rot goes a long way down
His simple message was that he would deliver Brexit. That’s what cut through above all else.
Classic Dom
😉
@ransos you don’t win power by appealing to your core electorate. You appeal to those in the centre. Whoever wins the centre, when added to their core gets to govern. Those are the rules. Labour seem to have forgotten how to play and decided to just appeal to their core.
TIRed
That's kind of true, but not if you lose your core. The reason the Tories struggled to get a decent majority recently is they lost a lot of their core voters to UKIP/Brexit party. One of the reasons labour can't get anywhere near a majority is they've lost Scotland, which used to be a big part of their core.
You're right that Johnson appealed to more centrists this time, but he also got back the right of his party - if Labour had convinced Scotland to vote foe them thing would have been a lot closer.
I cannot see a route to Labour taking power again. They might attract a few more centrist constituencies, but without 50 or so seats from Scotland will they ever get enough?
I cannot see a route to Labour taking power again. They might attract a few more centrist constituencies, but without 50 or so seats from Scotland will they ever get enough?
Unlikely, but as the SNP are a left of centre party they would have enough in common for a coalition assuming Labour granted a second indyref. Of course if Scotland then voted yes it would be a one term solution with permanent opposition for Labour thereafter in an rUK parliament.
Until the working class leave labour vote has had a bellyful of brexit deciding who/what direction the party should shift in is a completely pointless exercise. It would make sense for Corbyn to stick around for a while see how brexit is panning out and pick the direction and leadership then.
Unlikely, but as the SNP are a left of centre party they would have enough in common for a coalition assuming Labour granted a second indyref. Of course if Scotland then voted yes it would be a one term solution with permanent opposition for Labour thereafter in an rUK parliament.
Unless this theoretical coalition did the sensible thing and introduced PR.
Yep PR please Santa
Yep PR please Santa
Santa says come back in five years, his elves are busy Getting Brexit Done.
I have a suspicion that the future success, or not, of Labour will have less to do with whoever is chosen as the new leader, or indeed where they position the party on the political spectrum. Rather it will be more influenced by the economic success or otherwise of the UK post brexit and more importantly, bank/lending base rate. Put simply, if the housing market goes tits and interest rates multiply, the Tories will be out on their ear.
Which is more than possible during this next 5 year term.
Aside from that, IIRC the Lib Dem’s were formed from the centrist labourites who were disaffected from the lefty socialists at the time.
I think what Slackalice says has some real merit. Once Brexit is done and if thinks haven't got much better, then the sheen will rapidly go off Boris. Governments tend to lose elections rather than oppositions winning.
It terms of parties coming back from the dead look at 1997 and 2001 - Tories with 165 and 166 seats respectively. It took another lost election (only 195 seats so still worse than Labour!) and a coalition but they recovered eventually.
But the warning for Labour is there - if Labour don't sort themselves out it could be a long time of Johnson rule!
I do think coalition or some sort of arrangement with the SNP wouldn't be the end of the world for Labour. SNP would be pretty supportive as they benefit from increased public spending (Barnett formula) but control health education etc policy and spending.
if Labour had convinced Scotland to vote foe them thing would have been a lot closer.
If everyone in Scotland had voted Labour, the end result would have been the same.
I'd agree that the next leader shouldn't necessarily go into the next election as leader.
Brexit needs to pan out a bit and see how the country lies 2 years on.
Right now for "Labour to be electable" they need to appeal to northern working class leavers, at the same time appeal to London remainers as well as Telegraph reading "moderate" Conservatives, and also the section of their core who love Corbyn.
I do feel the situation is much more complex than the one Blair had.
I’d agree that the next leader shouldn’t necessarily go into the next election as leader.
I doubt anyone will want to take on the ball-ache of being leader without the opportunity to fight an election.
I do feel the situation is much more complex than the one Blair had.
Don't be daft, all they've got to do is find a shiny suit and say they want to stay in the EU ad infinitum and they'll all come flocking back.
I’d agree that the next leader shouldn’t necessarily go into the next election as leader.
Makes sense to me. The LibDems sort of tired that… with Cable helping the party to regroup and then pass onto a fresh leader, to try and use their honeymoon period to give the party another kick for the general election… but boy did they pick the wrong person for that! 🤡
Labour probably need someone to guide them through the early years of Brexit and Johnson’s winning afterglow, and then change to someone fresh to build up to the next general election. They are going to lose that election, but they HAVE to do better than this time, to start building support and, ahem, momentum, if they want to get into power again before 2030.
Unless this theoretical coalition did the sensible thing and introduced PR
If PR passed a referendum
Don’t be daft, all they’ve got to do is find a shiny suit and say they want to stay in the EU ad infinitum and they’ll all come flocking back.
👌😂
It terms of parties coming back from the dead
Yeah it's all about the personality, not really about the policies. So all you need is the right person. Problem for Labour is that they haven't been able to find one since Blair shot himself in the foot.
What are peoples takes on the ideal Labour leaders position on the climate emergency?
For me I'd want this to be a top priority, but do you think this will broaden or narrow their appeal with the general electorate?
Whoever it is will get mauled and held to one-sided standards, verging on the immaculate conception by the predominately right-wing print media regardless. You know the stuff people read on Sundays with a cup of tea, so they can pretend they are erudite and informed!
They didn't really have much dirt on Corbyn but harnessed the power of suggestion! Labelled him a communist straight off the bat and twisted details of his associations. Went to town on his unprofessional bumbling appearance, nailing his hat on within days and it stuck. Remember other Labour leaders, Miliband his communist Dad, bacon butty and tombstone. As pathetic as it all is, it coalesces in peoples minds!
At this election they offered too many policies, that seemed on the face of it expensive and unachievable, pretty much confirming the communism jibe and high taxes/borrowing planted in the minds of voters. Every small business owner I met thought they were going to be taxed to the hilt and expected to pay a ridiculously high, already resented, minimum wage. TBH most small business owners I know view their staff (and some of their customers) with raging contempt and would be ecstatic to regress back to something resembling medieval slavery.
Forcing Labour to be the conduit for remain (second ref) was fatal, as proved at the previous election when the only mainstream remain party got hammered. I suspect they would have done better competing with the Tories as an alternative leave party, but would have still lost because of the other failings, some of which Corbyn just didn't deal with.
Dianne Abbot should have been shuffled to the back of the pack, she contributed to an air that became a stink of incompetence.
What are peoples takes on the ideal Labour leaders position on the climate emergency?For me I’d want this to be a top priority, but do you think this will broaden or narrow their appeal with the general electorate?
How many seats have the greens got?
What's the point? We've literally just seen that the majority of the voting population has elected a government they believe will make things better for them personally, not other people.
I find that quite depressing and frankly, with the combination of a hard Brexit and huge Tory majority, I'm quite looking forward to the fact that they'll get well and truly shafted by Boris Johnson over the next ten years.
They didn’t really have much dirt on Corbyn but harnessed the power of suggestion!
When the editor of the New Statesman says (today's Sunday Times) that he couldn't endorse Labour because of anti semitism allowed by Corbyn and his association with extremists over decades then it's more than a Tory press smear.
What are peoples takes on the ideal Labour leaders position on the climate emergency?
For me I’d want this to be a top priority, but do you think this will broaden or narrow their appeal with the general electorate?
The biggest (and certainly most realistic) weapon we can deploy against climate change is innovation in science and engineering, IMHO. So I'd be looking for a brave, committed, and visionary science policy.
LOL only kidding - no major political party has a serious science policy, partly due to their being no real scientists in parliament. So we need the closest proxy for science policy which is economic policy, which is foundational to any manifesto.
So if climate change was my top, overwhelming priority as a voter, I'd just vote for whoever I thought could deliver the best economic performance for the UK.
Remember when Julian Huppert was an MP?
Openly bullied for being a ‘nerdy’ scientist.
Are there any in the new intake?
dazh
Subscriber
I doubt anyone will want to take on the ball-ache of being leader without the opportunity to fight an election.
I think they have a few people who could do well as a unity candidate, but know they wouldn't be the right people to fight an election. The thing about fighting an election is you might not win. Ironically Corbyn could have made a pretty good short-term caretaker. Equally I think some of the best candidates for the next election probably aren't the right people to turn things around- it's two different jobs and skillsets.
And I think that any worthy candidate for leadership will be doing what they believe is right for the party, not necessarily because they've always wanted a go in a government limo. The next leader might never be prime minister but they might well be "the one who saved the Labour party".
(OK, admittedly the flaw in my argument is that they've basically remembered Kinnock as a failure and excised Smith entirely from the party history, and replaced all their work with BLAIR MADE LABOUR ELECTABLE. But still)
ctk
Member
Yep PR please Santa
Aye, I'm sure this party that just won 56% of seats with 43.6% of votes cast will get right on fixing FPTP.
kiksy
Member
What are peoples takes on the ideal Labour leaders position on the climate emergency?
Same one pretty much everyone should take- climate change is going to be bloody hard work and expensive, and the later we start the worse it will be. It isn't just morally wrong to leave it to the next generation, it's also the most fiscally stupid decision in world history. Not to mention the most destabilising- hey kids, if you like mass immigration, you'll love the flooding of Bangladesh.
And the thing about hard, expensive things is that they create new industries and new jobs. And those technologies and skills will be the most important and most marketable and most in demand in the world, for probably most of the next century.
This is one place where the left wing stance and the green stance are also the only good economic stance- and where the conservative stance of denial and delay is economically moronic.
Remember when Julian Huppert was an MP?
Openly bullied for being a ‘nerdy’ scientist.
Are there any in the new intake?
Don't know Kelvin. Probably have a few with a science degree but people who've gone past that to become scientists are v rare in parliament.
Irving Kristol reckoned scientists and engineers were the second worst type of politician concievable, behind businessmen [the scientists see things in terms of problems to be solved according to certain axioms, and the businessmen expect to be able to make instant decisions and have people do what they say - neither approach viable in politics]. You'd definitely not want to see a parliament full of scientists, but the plague of lawyers and PPE dross that we're currently treated to tells its own story.
Remember when Julian Huppert was an MP?
Openly bullied for being a ‘nerdy’ scientist.
Are there any in the new intake?
Probably not.
I have a theory that the working classes and sections of the middle classes are happy to elect a posh buffoon as long as they come across as a bit anti-intellectual - what really grinds their gears are nerds from more working class or middle class backgrounds.
Then there is the culturally top down sneering at scientists from the Oxbridge PPE/Law lot.
Irving Kristol reckoned scientists and engineers were the second worst type of politician concievable, behind businessmen [the scientists see things in terms of problems to be solved according to certain axioms, and the businessmen expect to be able to make instant decisions and have people do what they say – neither approach viable in politics]. You’d definitely not want to see a parliament full of scientists, but the plague of lawyers and PPE dross that we’re currently treated to tells its own story.
Irving Kristol was part of the problem that has left this country in a ****ing mess. The US/Japan/Germany and now China have or are building their economies on the back of science and engineering, the US in particular was lucky enough to have a massive military industrial complex that recognised the value of science even if their politicians didn't. Whilst we're still obsessed with pushing money around and longing after the days when we could plunder bannanas and coco to trade.
ransos you don’t win power by appealing to your core electorate. You appeal to those in the centre. Whoever wins the centre, when added to their core gets to govern. Those are the rules. Labour seem to have forgotten how to play and decided to just appeal to their core.
This is the opposite of reality. Labour lost seats because it stopped appealing to its core. Shifting to the centre may appeal to you, but it doesn't win back the north. What you are describing is a pathway to permanent oblivion.
Does not compute.
Labours core electorate shifted right, why do you think staying where they are or shifting even further left will bring them back?
The truth is, is that those who feel that they have lost something or are on the fringes of society are historically just as likely to vote extreme right as further or far left. Once traditional norms break down and people no longer feel that they have to vote for one party out of tradition, this demographic of voters becomes reactionary and can swing wildly from one group of extremists to the next early on, the fascists and the communists in the 30s were in constant competition for the same voters. To keep them, you have to undertake a constant spiral to ever increasing political extremes - not policy or ideological extremes but authoritarianism and nationalism - which is why communists and fascists often sound so much alike. Eventually one side wins out and ends up with a mass movement - the conservatives so far look to be on course to winning that race.
Leave the tories to chasing reactionaries - Labour can sweep up in the centre ground.
I haven't read the whole thread, but has anyone suggested distancing from Momentum and their batshit brand of socialism?
Does not compute.
Agree - makes no sense.
Labours core electorate shifted right, why do you think staying where they are or shifting even further left will bring them back?
We're all just hypothesising, but to me it looks like it was Labour's lurch to the left that alienated it's traditional base. Corbyn probably thinks that traditional Labour voters are clamoring to return to the labour ideals of the 70s/80s - but people just don't want that any more. In fact, they don't want it so much.... they voted tory.
It didn't help that labours policies were presented (poorly) by somebody who's persona epitomizes the labor party of the 70s and 80s.
In terms of a new direction, Labour need to do some really good research and testing..... just what do the people who would consider voting labour want from them? I would suggest that they haven't the foggiest.
They need to win the votes and build their popularity back up with some more slightly-left-of-centre stuff before they start freaking potential supporters out with the stuff that's further left.
I haven’t read the whole thread, but has anyone suggested distancing from Momentum and their batshit brand of socialism?
Yep. I did earlier. And it's not just what they suggest, it's the aggression and condescending way that they engage too. Our local momentum activists were vicious in their attacking anyone on local community pages who dares even utter a word of doubt about labour, corbyn or even the labour led city Council. I know for a fact they disenfranchised people who should have been core supporters. On the doorstep they were abrasive and confrontational - saw this first hand.
I've said it so many times, you don't win hearts and minds by insulting, talking down to or berating the person who's support you want.
@andyrm Coolio, you've made the points I would have made there. I'd argue it's still going on, now branding people thick, that's not going to be forgotten, nor is the way the party is now turning on itself, that for some justifies their switch.
It's party that lacks integrity and substance, which is a ****ing tragedy.
Looks like The Absolute Boy is hanging around until March then.
Incidentally, isn't that when the EHRC are due to report?
Labours core electorate shifted right, why do you think staying where they are or shifting even further left will bring them back?
Yet on the GE thread a Labour supported was foaming at the mouth at the suggestion that a move back towards Blairism and a more appealing message would be of benefit.
"(Blairites) would have another think coming"
I wonder if after the drubbing has sunk in, a more conciliatory message might be seeping through
I find that quite depressing and frankly, with the combination of a hard Brexit and huge Tory majority, I’m quite looking forward to the fact that they’ll get well and truly shafted by Boris Johnson over the next ten years.
I would like to think like that but that is where empathy comes in. A lot of the people who switched to Tory were sold Brexit as the answer after being fooled into thinking that in 2016. They were then lied to during the election of what the tories would do for the country.
I don't wish for people who couldn't see through the bullshit to be even harder hit but they do need to see that it hasn't worked for them. Somebody on the other side telling them upfront doesn't do it so they will now be finding out the hard way but to me the sad thing is that we have parties and governments who completely take advantage of the people they fool into voting for them.
The hardest left candidate will win the leadership election once it does to the members and Momentum changed the nomination rules to make it harder for the PLP to stop the nutters getting through. So in theory the Momentum candidate will be the next leader. *However* it occurs to me that there's a possibility that there might be no candidate from Corbyn's wing of the party willing take the job on given we've seen beyond doubt a hard left manifesto has no voter appeal[1]. Alternatively if a volunteer from Corbyn's wing is found, even with the new nomination rules, is there any possibility they might fail to get the 20 or so required nominations? Both seem unlikely to me but if either happened Labour could be back on track this spring.
If Labour does get itself back in line with the voters this spring there's a lot for them to be electorally optimistic about. There's a high chance of a recession between now and the next election. Brexit may not go well. Boris's approval rating is poor and his election campaign was dire. It's entirely possible Labour will have an open goal for the third election in a row. With a credible leadership taking back the centreground they could well win.
In other news: Interesting contrast between Labour's handling of the Northern seats and the Tory's. Boris went straight up there on a charm offensive working to keep them onside. In contrast Labour have spent three days calling them elderly racist idiots. On Friday morning it seemed inevitable all of those seats would return to Labour at the next election. By Monday I'm thinking Labour could have chased them away for the long term.
In other other news: Corbyn lost his vote of no confidence back in the day 172–40 and was only able to stand again because a dubious interpretation of the rules meant he didn't need to be nominated. If he'd quit then there's an excellent chance there would currently be a Labour government.
[1] Yes, Corbyns wing of the party are all over twitter saying the problem wasn't with the Manifesto. Yet none of them are saying the Manifesto was enthusiastically received so we can safely say it wasn't.
I'm 54 next and am pessimistic about ever seeing a Labour government again in my lifetime.
I think that for a large number of people in the UK now the ideas on which Labour were formed are alien to them, and the number of such folk will only increase.
Hope I'm wrong but.....
Yet none of them are saying the Manifesto was enthusiastically received so we can safely say it wasn’t.
Corbyn has been saying exactly that, hasn’t he?
I wonder if after the drubbing has sunk in, a more conciliatory message might be
If you beleive what they're saying on twitter you'd think not but I'm wondering...
For the Momentum project to continue they need to find a candidate willing to flog a dead horse for 5 years and then lose an election. If there is such a volunteer they've got to find 20 nominations form the PLP. 20 people who want to flog a dead horse for 5 years and then lose an election.
I wonder if people on Corbyn's wing of the party are more rational than we think and they'll look at the situation and just hand the party back to the moderates by default.
I'm not saying that will happen, but it's a thought.
Corbyn has been saying exactly that, hasn’t he?
I've been following twitter/the media pretty closely this weekend and not seen that but maybe I've missed it. Quote it?
Corbyn has been saying exactly that, hasn’t he?
'I am proud that on austerity, on corporate power, on inequality and on the climate emergency we have won the arguments and rewritten the terms of political debate. But I regret that we did not succeed in converting that into a parliamentary majority for change.
'There is no doubt that our policies are popular, from public ownership of rail and key utilities to a massive house-building programme and a pay rise for millions. The question is, how can we succeed in future where we didn’t this time?'
So sort of. If you're going to be forensic, there's a difference between individual policies being well received and the manifesto as a whole.
It feels a little like this GE was the point to which Momentum and their dangerous identity politics game of division came utterly crashing down around their heads, problem is they're so arrogant and deluded they can't reflect on that and have taken to continuing to insult the voting populace, seems they like to partake in political self-harming.