Politics Thread!

[k345y]

I know, I apologise, I will know my place from now on. Plebland is where I hail from and Plebland is where I shall stay.

[pogo]

I know, I apologise, I will know my place from now on. Plebland is where I hail from and Plebland is where I shall stay.

Your time has come, for there is now a leader worthy of your attentions – Jeremy Corbyn. Hurry as there are only three days left to register and vote in the leadership elections ! A once in a lifetime opportunity, or at least once in a generation.

Seriously, I can’t see this happening again. They changed the rules for choosing the leader, to stop a disaster like Ed Miliband being elected again, and can change the rules again. This time they handed the choice to members, who sensibly went for his brother David last time, hoping they would choose someone similarly sensible and centrist. The token leftie in that election, Diane Abbot, got only 7%.

But they badly underestimated the electorate, who look at the alternatives and see only losers. Burnham and Cooper played key roles in Labour’s two most recent electoral failures, and promise more of the same, no new ideas. Kendall has the best policies but seems entirely unconvincing. Corbyn has both experience and conviction, has not changed his views with the times. Problem is those views are from a different age. Not just opposing the government more strongly, but things like reversing privatisation, support for CND, policies Labour abandoned long ago.

Still, a Corbyn win might be the best thing for Labour. Yes he cannot win the 2020 election for Labour but probably none of them can. But a clearly left wing leader might make it easier for the next leader to come along and move the party back to the centre. He would at least make it clear how much support there is for genuinely radical policies today, which Labour probably needs to find out (again) before electing someone more in the Blair mould.

[(o)(o)]

Corbyn has both experience and conviction, has not changed his views with the times. Problem is those views are from a different age. Not just opposing the government more strongly, but things like reversing privatisation, <snip>

BULLSHIT



https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/c ... pdf#page=2

Still, a Corbyn win might be the best thing for Labour. Yes he cannot win the 2020 election for Labour..

Cannot ??

Simply bullshit.

[pogo]

Corbyn though isn’t just supporting the limited form of renationalisation proposed by some in Labour (e.g. Burnham), such as letting railway franchises lapse so they all become state owned and run, but with restoring/renewing Labour’s commitment to state ownership which ended with the abandonment of Clause IV:

Jeremy Corbyn to 'bring back Clause IV': Contender pledges to bury New Labour with commitment to public ownership of industry

There are two big problems with that: it would be incredibly expensive to buy back all the shares, and many of the companies have thrived as private companies. The railways have done especially well since privatisation. In fact that’s the problem with many of the questions in that YouGov poll. Here’s another most people supported:

(would you support) Putting a total ban on immigration into Britain for the next two years?

The problem with that (apart from what it says about the British electorate) is it’s impossible. Or the only way you could do it is by closing the borders and stopping everyone entering. And leaving. In fact any attempt to stop people from other countries in the EU settling here would see reciprocal bans on us emigrating. Of course we would have to leave the EU, and stop visa-free access, so we would all need visas to travel to the rest of the world.

I.e. that survey is a grab-bag of popular policies, but all ones with significant costs, whether directly financial such as buying back shares or social such as making it much harder for us to emigrate or even go on holiday. Which is why they aren’t in the manifesto of any mainstream party.

[phattslagg]

Kendall has the best policies but seems entirely unconvincing.

Love how you state this like it's some kind of fact, and not just the personal opinion of a Tory.

[pogo]

Kendall has the best policies but seems entirely unconvincing.

Love how you state this like it's some kind of fact, and not just the personal opinion of a Tory.

She seems unconvincing to me: comes across as far too mild mannered and sensible, so it’s an opinion. Would that make her a bad leader ? I don’t know, her manner might work quite well at PMQs and she would have five years to establish herself. But she’s last in every poll I’ve seen so we will never find out. A real shame Chuka Umunna ruled himself out, as he looked like a much stronger candidate from the right of the party.

[phattslagg]

Kendall has the best policies but seems entirely unconvincing.

Love how you state this like it's some kind of fact, and not just the personal opinion of a Tory.

She seems unconvincing to me: comes across as far too mild mannered and sensible, so it’s an opinion. Would that make her a bad leader ? I don’t know, her manner might work quite well at PMQs and she would have five years to establish herself. But she’s last in every poll I’ve seen so we will never find out. A real shame Chuka Umunna ruled himself out, as he looked like a much stronger candidate from the right of the party.

It was the "best policies" bit I was referring to.

[pogo]

You can take that as an opinion if you like. But it’s right from one point of view: Labour only wins if it runs as a centrist party, so with its own right wing in charge. As such Liz Kendall’s policies are the best ones for Labour as they are the ones Labour needs to adopt to have a good chance of winning again.

[(o)(o)]

Labour only wins if it runs as a centrist party

Shame we don't all have access to this crystal ball you are gazing blindly into ...

[pogo]

I’m referring to their past performance; going back decades they only win nationally if they run from the centre. Miliband just added another data point to that.

Could the next leader move the party left and still win in 2020? It’s possible but it seems very unlikely. More so then ever with the upheaval in Scotland, rise of UKIP and boundary changes they will need to win seats off the Tories.

[zip accident]

I’m referring to their past performance; going back decades they only win nationally if they run from the centre.

This is bollocks. The only reason Thatcher wasn't out on her arse after one term was she conned the Argentines into starting the Falklands War. Since that war happened, she was in for three or four terms, whether the opposition was labour, marxist, liberal or wet. So it isn't sensible to consider that decade.

[pogo]

You think so? I think Labour would have conspired to lose that election even without the Falklands War. After all they ran with a manifesto described as “the longest suicide note in history”, by one of their own MPs. They did not need the Tories to point out how left wing they were, the SNP, the bit of the Labour party that had broken away from it as it was too left wing, would do that for them.

1983 is the election most invoked now as a warning to current leaders, as they had then elected an elderly leader chosen for his socialist credentials, leading to actual divisions in the party. Their answer to Thatcherism was to move decisively left and it kept them out of government for almost two decades.

The other lesson from that time is the election of 1992. Then they went into the election expecting to win, with polls pointing to a Labour majority, but they still lost. A partial repeat was staged this year. The point is it’s not enough to have popular policies, and to win polls over whose policies are most popular. When people go to vote their vote often swings on different matters, such as economic competence and the standing of the leader.

[zip accident]

You think so? I think Labour would have conspired to lose that election even without the Falklands War.

Yeah, but Thatcher would have lost too.

That war was worth something like 30% of the vote to the party in power. If it had been Labour or the SDP–Liberal Alliance, you wouldn't have seen them shifted for ten years either.

[k345y]

1983 is the election most invoked now as a warning to current leaders, as they had then elected an elderly leader chosen for his socialist credentials, leading to actual divisions in the party. Their answer to Thatcherism was to move decisively left and it kept them out of government for almost two decades.

.

33 years ago.

What an undeniably shit base to evaluate upon, for all parties regardless.

More power to Corbyn if he's prepared to ignore the 'lessons from the past' and simply concentrate on the current for a future.
Fuck! Listen to me a recent SNP committed voter!
Corbyn has reintroduced my interest in being a part of the United Kingdom and no Labour leader, Tory, LibTwat or A.N. Other has even remotely made me feel united in such a way since it became apparent that British politics are about serving the 'City' and the distribution of the scraps left over for the rest of us. Pfffffft.

Centre politics are the old politics now Pogo, you need to realise that and consider lefty is now the new radical thanks to a double decade of stagnant centrists telling us what's best for us rather than listening for what we want.

C*nts!

[k345y]

1983 is the election most invoked now as a warning to current leaders, as they had then elected an elderly leader chosen for his socialist credentials, leading to actual divisions in the party. Their answer to Thatcherism was to move decisively left and it kept them out of government for almost two decades.

.

32 years ago.

What an undeniably shit base to evaluate upon, for all parties regardless.

More power to Corbyn if he's prepared to ignore the 'lessons from the past' and simply concentrate on the current for a future.
Fuck! Listen to me a recent SNP committed voter!
Corbyn has reintroduced my interest in being a part of the United Kingdom and no Labour leader, Tory, LibTwat or A.N. Other has even remotely made me feel united in such a way since it became apparent that British politics are about serving the 'City' and the distribution of the scraps left over for the rest of us. Pfffffft.

Centre politics are the old politics now Pogo, you need to realise that and consider lefty is now the new radical thanks to a double decade of stagnant centrists telling us what's best for us rather than listening for what we want.