Jeremy Corbyn

It’s the Sleaford by-election this Thursday. I’m unaware of whether the Mods will be present.

The Tories will walk it, but I’d put my house on UKIP leap-frogging Labour into second, having nicked all their former voters, and with the lib dems scoooping up the middle class, anti-Brexit lot, labour finishing dead last with a minuscule percentage of the vote, and probably losing their deposit. Again.

Corbyn will once again say nothing, change nothing, and blindly bungle on to lead the Labour Party into repeating exactly this scenario all over the country, at the next general election. So the former ‘heartlands’ will look like Scotland does now. A Labour free zone

Binns, you are being harsh. Jezza was

Yesterday, I visited Terezin Memorial – a World War II concentration camp and former Jewish ghetto. Never forget

responding to recent criticism – deserved or otherwise – yesterday. Good for him.

Token gesture TMH he declined to visit Israel recently and sent Tom Watson instead to a global Labour Party event. The head of the Israeli Labour Party said on British TV recently Corbyn “has a problem with Jews”. As far as I am aware he last visted the region (Gaza) at the invitation of and paid for by Hamas.

C’mon Jambas, small steps and all that. Give the old boy a break.

And why is that? – the antics on the labour front benches. Watson, Benn, Cooper etc are the problem briefing against him. Not Corbyn.

He’s not a very good leader by any chance?

Jamba – will you stop with the antisematic lies. You have repeatedly been show to be completely wrong on that.

One anti-Semitic quote from Corbyn please. Just one ( note anti Isreal does not equal anti-Semitic)

And why is that? – the antics on the labour front benches. Watson, Benn, Cooper etc are the problem briefing against him. Not Corbyn.

(I reluctantly had to conclude that) even so, this is still a Corbyn issue.

Those people are his staff. He needs to manage them, get them inspired and motivated to work for him and push his vision for what Britain and British politics should be.

If he can’t get them on board then he’s failing as a leader. Just like if a company’s staff think their boss is a witless oaf and refuse to work for him, you can’t say it’s everyone else’s fault. The boss has to bear some responsibility – it’s what he’s paid for.

Corbyn seems a nice bloke with some good ideas. But he isn’t a leader.

And why is that? – the antics on the labour front benches.

Yes, that’s part of it. Also part of it is that he’s a sh*te and – most importantly – unwilling leader, another that the media are out to get him. But it doesn’t matter any more, the damage is done. There is no way he can come back from it. The only choice left for him is to step aside in the hope that labour’s fortunes can turn around under someone else, or hang on and take the party down with him. I’m still hoping he’ll take the third option of staying long enough to reform the party then stepping aside, but as the hole he digs gets bigger, the harder it will be to get out of it.

Or a 4th option Dazh – turn Labour into what it was – a ground up not top down organisation where the elected representatives represent the peoiple who vote for them

Undo the damage done by Blair and Mandleson which turned Labour from a mass membership party to one of a tiny membership

Some encouraging signs with the large influx of members. Just need to get rid of the deadwood at the top. Those so deluded they cannot understand their antics are destroying their party.

But I do agree its very hard to see how it can be turned around now

turn Labour into what it was – a ground up not top down organisation where the elected representatives represent the peoiple who vote for them

Isn’t that the 3rd option I just mentioned? I totally agree that’s what the labour party should be, but not with him at the head of it going into the next election.

Actually another part of it is that the team around him are hopelessly out of their depth. The cyber physical systems stupidity is a perfect example. I’ve never worked in PR or the media, yet even I could have seen that was a stupid thing to do. Somehow, the idiots around him in the space of little over a year, have turned him from an anti-establishment honest voice of the people, into an elitist urbanista with the personality of a jaded history lecturer. That takes some doing.

Undo the damage done by Blair and Mandleson which turned Labour from a mass membership party to one of a tiny membership

Ahh yes, those dirty, election winning swine – never again, never forget.

😆

Undo the damage done by Blair and Mandleson which turned Labour from a mass membership party to one of a tiny membership

Ah, the re-writing of history continues. Let us airbrush the success of the Sedgfield model from Labour’s history lest Tony Blair ever be associated with anything positive!!!

Labour has a history of successfully winning new members but one of losing them quickly too!

cranberry – thats a myth tho – under Blair labours vote and polling consistently dropped. It was Kinnock and Smith who made labour electable again. Blair sewed the seeds for the state labour is in now by hollowing it out.

Alternatively

Following Tony Blair’s election as leader in 1994 a sustained expansion of Labour’s membership took place. As well as benefiting from local strategies to target members, the party allocated considerable resources to recruitment at a national level in the form of advertisements and staff. Labour also benefited from an extremely favourable political climate in which the Conservative administration was exceptionally unpopular in the opinion polls.

Never let facts get in the way of a good yarn…

Is THM still answering my posts?

is all I see

No just correcting your regular factual errors. Its like a PSA!

Fact check:

THM’s quote is correct for the first few years but Blair was leader for a bit longer than that. Membership did indeed rise from 92 til 96, but it then fell steadily for the entire remainder of Blair’s leadership. By 2001 it was back at the level it was in 92. And by 2007 it was about half what it had been in 92.

“There was a fall in membership during Labour’s time in office between 1997 and 2009”

(just for clarity, I know Blair was no longer leader by 2009- that’s just when it bottomed out on that long decline from 97

Source: House Of Commons.

teamhurtmore – Member

Never let facts get in the way of a good yarn…

True – NW, I was addressing the whitewashing of the success of the Sedgefield model and the rise of party membership under Blair’s leadership. Of course you are correct about this being unsustainable too – hence my comment about Labour being very good at losing members.

Life is often different in power – ask Cleggy!!

TJ he has turned a very blind eye to disgraceful anti-semitic behaviour again and again. He has facilitated the cover up of anti-semtic behaviour by party and Momentum members at OULC. When you get someone who has met with, invited to Westminster (thus legitimising) deeply anti-Semitic individuals, desribed Hezbollah and Hamas as friends and been chairman of an organisation riddled with anti-semites in Stop The War, then that’s complicit.

The Labour Party has never been a less safe space for Jews than it is now. I have heard that first hand from Jewish Labour Party members, most recently in October.

The Commons Home Affairs Committee said Corbyn had created a safe space for anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.

TMH he could have published the first anti-Semitism report in full (imo he did not as it’s too daming and he has promoted some of the activists). He could have presided over a real investigation under Chakrabati rather than the whitewash she produced in retrun for a peerage. He could have intervened when a Momentum activist used an age old anti-Semtic remark that Jews control the media in a conspiracy at the public meeting where he was supposed to be releasing the Shabrabati report. One of his very few Jewish MPs left the meeting as a result and his responce was to cosy up all smiles to the abuser.

cranberry – thats a myth tho – under Blair labours vote and polling consistently dropped. It was Kinnock and Smith who made labour electable again.

versus

Following Tony Blair’s election as leader in 1994 a sustained expansion of Labour’s membership took place.

Anyone can see which is factually correct – except those who block me of course. They are destined to remain in the darkness.

Kinnock 272k
Smith 279-305K
Blair 94-97, 305k – 405k
By 2000 back to 311k

And now Jezza’s back and better than all of them!!! 😉

[By 2009, it was under 40 per cent of what it had been when Labour was elected to office in May 1997.] Such a decline was all the more noteworthy, of course, because back in the mid-1990s developing a mass membership base was taken to be a defining feature of New Labour, one that was intimately associated with Tony Blair’s leadership of the party and with techniques pioneered in Sedgefield, his parliamentary constituency in the North-East of England. Between 1994 and 1997 membership had increased spectacularly, reaching just over four hundred thousand, but thereafter the party had proved unable to hold onto its membership. Moreover, the increase since May 2010 does not appear to have been sustained.

For those opposed to staying in the dark, the source was

Labour’s lost grassroots: the rise and fall of party membership

http://worldofstuart.excellentcontent.com/repository/Labour_s_Lost_Grassroots_BP_FINAL.pdf

Well, we all know that in the 21st century, in this brave new world of technology, communication, and social media, the barometer for forthcoming electoral success is surely increasing the number of people who carry a little card around with them, in their wallet, or purse, to announce which political party they intend to vote for.

That and the tractor production figures. Good tractor production figures are essential too eh comrade!

Well, we all know that in the 21st century, in this brave new world of technology, communication, and social media

Jamba – so nothing then at all just attacks from his political enemies

Not a single antisemetic remark or action from him at all that you can quote in any way.

so once again you are shown to be talking baseless rubbish

THM is keen to ignore what TJ actually said.

tjagain – Member

Undo the damage done by Blair and Mandleson which turned Labour from a mass membership party to one of a tiny membership

This categorically happened. 4 years of growth don’t dispel 11 years of decline. Under Blair, membership tanked to an all-time low.

It wasn’t that it was an “unsustainable rise”- he’s not being criticised for not sustaining the rise. That’d be a fair point if it’d fallen to pre-Blair levels, but of course it didn’t, the fall didn’t even slow as it passed through pre-Blair levels.

“Your sales have fallen disastrously this year”
“No they haven’t- they went up in January and February!”
“But then they went down in March and didn’t stop falling til December, and your year end results are half what they were last year”
“But they rose! Anyone can see this is factually correct! If you disagree you are destined to remain in the darkness!”
“You’re fired”
“No I’m not! You’re just whitewashing my success!”

let’s not forget that all parties’ membership figures have been declining too. (until Jez). – and the Tories lost just as many members from 97 to 2007 as Labour did.

In fact Maggie lost a lot more members during her time as leader of the tories than Blair did for Labour…

Source:

http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN05125/SN05125.pdf#page=8

Oh goodie, a NW lets argue against something that hasnt been said session!!

They did doris – but one thing that cannot be refuted is the success that Blair had in Sedgefield and as leader of the party originally. So that falsifies TJ point – which was my point. NW will no doubt try to twist this into something else – see above ^

diris except the SNP – who at one point had more members than any other UK party IIRC but now overtaken by Labour ( perhaps)

1:10 of the scots population are now SNP members

diris except the SNP – who at one point had more members than any other UK party IIRC but now overtaken by Labour ( perhaps)

1:10 of the scots population are now SNP members

where are you getting these numbers?

The National says they’re on 120K, wiki says 120K – which is about one in 40. Labour are now on 500K-ish, and have never been below about 200…

sources:

http://www.thenational.scot/news/14904031.120_000__SNP_membership_hits_record_level_after_post_Brexit_surge/

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14636996.Scotland__on_the_brink_of_independence__says_SNP_s_Westminster_leader/

etc

PSA alert

1:10 of the scots population are now SNP members

If I read this correctly 1:10 is 10%.

SNP membership is 120,000….you do the maths…(population is about 5.4million)

Perhaps 2% is closer to the mark, but never let facts….you know the rest….

Shall we start an amusing tag to go with that? TJFact, perhaps? Too close to Jambafacts?

😉

No that would be unkind and stooping to the levels of the Jamba baiters! 😉

PSA alerts should be fine.

So … serious question Uncle Jezza…. how do you think the beardy messiah’s clear and concise message, and commanding, inspiring leadership is going to play out at the Sleaford and North Hykeham by-election on Thursday?

I’m going for Labour finishing dead last, and losing their deposit, overtaken by both UKIP and the Lib Dems. Do you see a different outcome?

Binners – no idea about the byelection. I have no knowledge or interest in it really so couldn’t predict. I am afraid I have lost all real interest in English politics / even polityics in gneral to a great extent given recent events.

Intersting Doris – I thought they had hit over 400 000. Blame an old mans memory.

CFH – hence “IIRC” which means I was sloppy and didn’t factcheck. shouldn’t rely on my memory should I 😳

Old age, TJ, it comes to us all eventually. 😉

or Wings over Scotland 😉

teamhurtmore – Member

They did doris – but one thing that cannot be refuted is the success that Blair had in Sedgefield and as leader of the party originally. So that falsifies TJ point – which was my point.

It simply does not falsify TJ’s point, and it’s pretty absurd to claim it does. TJ said Blair “turned Labour from a mass membership party to one of a tiny membership”, which the numbers show is true. A short rise doesn’t cancel an overall decline and does nothing at all to falsify TJ’s point- which was an uncontroversial statement of fact, yet which THM claimed was “re-writing of history”.

It’s all written on the previous page, in words. But we’ve got THM’s standard tactic of saying one thing, making an argument about something else, then pretending that the one supports the other. A reverse strawman, as it were.

Bravo. QED.

Since you are on a roll, have a crack at the 1:10 point now. That takes a bit more imagination mind…bon chance

short rise v 30% increase 94-97 😀