What now for Labour? (Part 1)

First topic message reminder :

A post mortem

We lost. I feared the worst a few days ago when walking my dog. I met a left-wing man I’ve known for years who said that he was voting for the Peace Party. Someone of his persuasion was going to throw his vote down the drain instead of opting for the only party which could replace the Tories. That made me apprehensive about whether millions of anti-Tory voters would use their votes effectively. (The Peace Party came seventh in my constituency.) Worse was to follow when I logged in here. To read that a serious Tory hater couldn’t “become enthused by any party on offer” and chose not to vote for the only viable alternative to Cameron’s evil regime, was further evidence, albeit anecdotal, that the Labour campaign, despite having so many troops on the ground, was failing to motivate enough people to secure a victory.

About eleven million people in the UK (about 37% of those who voted) chose the Tories, and it resulted in them winning 331 of the 650 seats in Parliament, 12 more than all the other parties combined. In our so-called democracy, we have to respect their choice, even if it’s difficult to understand it. I’ve never come to terms with how anyone of modest means, or anyone with a social conscience, could ever vote Tory. I have a brief encounter with OCD whenever I go into a polling booth, checking what I’ve done on the ballot paper several times before I put it in the box.

What makes it even more difficult to understand now is that many people believed Cameron in 2010, he lied to them and has since broken a string of promises (which have been recorded elsewhere on this forum any number of times). He’s presided over the cruellest government in living memory, and yet so many people don’t seem to care. He’s stuffed the House of Lords with cronies, often after the Tories have received generous donations from them, and he's sold off state assets at knockdown prices, in the case of the Royal Mail enabling Osborne’s best man to make a fortune. He and his government have even been reprimanded several times for falsifying statistics.

The Tories often complain that the BBC is ‘left-wing’, which it isn’t, as a thread on this forum fully demonstrates; if anything it leans to the right these days, and it has always fawned over so-called ‘royalty’. But the Tories never complain about the rabid right-wing nature of most of the press, with even ‘The Independent’ giving them a tepid endorsement this week. That press, and programmes such as ‘HIGN4Y’ and ‘News Quiz’, have participated in the character assassination of Ed Miliband over a long period of time, gradually corroding his credibility, and dismissing him as “not being prime ministerial”. Whether he is we will never find out now, but does Cameron fit the bill? So often he’s shown himself to be an arrogant, bad-tempered, out-of-touch bully with a sense of entitlement. His behaviour on the day after the Scottish independence referendum incited the Scots and drove many of them from Labour into the arms of the SNP. In this campaign, he created fear of the SNP to scare many English voters towards the Tories. Had he been alive today, Machiavelli could have learned lessons from Cameron.

Ed Miliband sometimes looks awkward on television and isn’t very good at eating a bacon sandwich (who is?). But what does it say when the issue of choosing a potential prime minister is reduced to the level of a vote for ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ or ‘The X Factor’? Would Clement Attlee - in my opinion the greatest PM we’ve ever had - have won many votes for his celebrity status? Shouldn’t it be more important to choose between the bedroom tax and a mansion tax, and between democratically managed public services or private ones controlled by unaccountable corporations? Did those who voted Tory really want the ultimate destruction of the welfare state? Are they really so blasé about the possibility of becoming sick, unemployed or disabled one day? Instead of thinking about such issues, so many were distracted by the Tory charge that Miliband was ‘weak’, even though Cameron was too scared to debate head-to-head with him.

So it was rather like 1992 after all. No triumphalist Sheffield rally this time, just a silly stone monument, but the polls telling us that it was neck-and-neck and then the Tories winning easily. Three party leaders have resigned, but so should the pollsters. Electoral Calculus was claiming only yesterday that the chance of a Tory majority was just 4%. I don’t think I’ll ever bother to look at an opinion poll again; studying tea leaves is probably a more reliable guide to election outcomes.

Maybe the similarities with 1992 (which turned out to be a good election to lose) won’t end there. Five months after John Major lied his way back into office with scaremongering and promises of “tax cuts year on year”, Tory economic incompetence was there for all to see on ‘Black Wednesday’. His hapless government, riddled with sleaze and tearing itself apart over Europe, limped through five unhappy years, and we all know what happened next. So maybe 2020 will be like 1997, but five years is a long while to wait to find out, and sadly a lot of vulnerable people are going to suffer in the meantime.

Phil Hornby wrote:Labour's in a poor condition,
And hell-bent on yet more perdition;
Supporters seem to be a-wishin'
For perpetual Opposition...

And who's eager to give power
to a second tory shower?
It is better to oppose
than think Murdoch's arse a rose
which you breathe in with a bright
smile and contented kiss goodnight!

It's not fair as a rank amateur when one suddenly finds oneself amongst seasoned professionals...  

However...

It's great to have sound principles
And keep them all in in place,
But Conservative invincibles
Went on the win the race...

Ok, my resignation's in the post...

No promises Phil.

ghost whistler wrote:-
Labour are dead. It's time to move on.

When the Tories lost spectacularly in 1997, and failed to get 200 MPs in three successive elections, I don't recall anyone other than Douglas Carswell (with his HMV analogy) suggesting that it was the end of the Tory Party. Incidentally, I don't remember anyone arguing for a Tory leader who espoused Labour policies.

Labour's problem is to obtain a policy platform and leadership capable of impressing 40% of voters, while at the same time keeping party activists and foot soldiers reasonably happy. The task is made more difficult because there appears to be a dichotomy between popular individual left-wing policies (such as a mansion tax or renationalisation of the railways), and the reluctance of many to vote for a generally left-wing manifesto. The ability of the Tories to induce irrational fear in voters probably has something to do with it.

Look at their new shadow chancellor proclaiming that rent caps are a bad thing - he's another of the rentier class ffs!

Yet another red tory.

Jesus, just let it die! Labour are done.

Never say never GW and the shadow chancellor may not be the shadow chancellor after the leadership for leader, just to enlighten you Yvette Cooper like her husband has a degree in ECONOMICS unlike Osborne who has a degree in Modern History, now you will know why the economy of the UK is slowly going down the river.

It's hardly likely that he'll be replaced by someone who thinks differently.

Now we even have Stella Creasy arguing a strawman in favour of profits abasing herself before big business.

Ugh.

Can you tell me GW what would please you? Tell us on the forum instead of coming on and moaning at every ones posts, or would you prefer to keep a Tory gov't in power because that is what you really want.

I don’t think the next Labour leader should try to position the party on the so-called ‘centre ground’, which has largely been defined by the Tories since 1979. It wouldn’t keep the core vote happy or the foot soldiers motivated, it wouldn’t help to win back those who have defected leftwards to the Green Party or the TUSC, it wouldn’t satisfy those who moved to UKIP or the SNP claiming that Labour no longer cares about the working class, and it would play into the hands of those who claim that the major parties “are all the same”.

I’m not sure that the concepts of left and right are significant to many voters. Thatcher didn’t get elected for being ‘moderate’, and Cameron has just won an election after presiding over the most extreme right-wing government for decades. I think Thatcher won – apart from the novelty of a female PM and the bribe of cheap council houses – for having a vision and sounding as if she believed in it (which she did). At this point in time it seems as if it’s more important to be a nationalist than to be either left-wing or right-wing, but hopefully that will be a temporary phenomenon.

Liz Kendall has told us that she doesn’t approve of a freeze on energy prices, supports free schools, wants to spend 2% of GDP on defence even if it means cuts elsewhere and thinks that Labour overspent when it was last in office. She would not prioritise cuts in tuition fees and is ‘relaxed’ about private sector involvement in the NHS. Maybe she would have joined the Liberal Democrats if they weren’t facing such a bleak future.

I ask myself what would be the point of a Labour government led by Liz Kendall? It has to have a purpose other than just offering a different set of faces. Yes, winning is everything, but so is what you do with that power once you’ve achieved it. In our so-called democracy, voters should be given a clear choice, an alternative vision. And I think that to have a clear vision of how this country should go forward is more likely to inspire voters than being a pale imitation of the other lot.

Sat listening to 'PMQ's' and yet again Cameron spends his time asking questions of the Labour leader...rather than answering the question posed....

When will the the leader of the opposition start to ask one question and if there is not an answer just stand up and say in public that the whole idea of PMQ's as it currently stand is a waste of time.....

PMQ's has morphed into the traditional, ritual, Punch & Judy, and belongs in a children's sandpit.

It might be politic for Labour leaders to acknowledge openly the futility of continuing the format in view of Cameron's evident reluctance to answer any of the questions which are actually asked.

Redflag wrote:Can you tell me GW what would please you? Tell us on the forum instead of coming on and moaning at every ones posts, or would you prefer to keep a Tory gov't in power because that is what you really want.

The only Tory supporter here ate the red Tory voters here who persist, despite all evidence, in believing labour are going to find their roots again.

As I have said GW stop moaning and let us know how you would arrange the Labour party ?? You seem to keen to get rid of the Labour party is that so we would have a permanant Tory gov't WITH nobody to stand up for the WORKING MAN/Women just the parasites that suck the life blood out of them ie The Tory party and there donors.

astradt1 wrote:-
Cameron spends his time asking questions of the Labour leader...rather than answering the question posed....

For that I blame Bercow, who should intervene and tell Cameron to answer questions and not ask them. But in a place where clapping isn’t allowed but braying and ya-booing is, what can you expect?

Cameron would love it if Labour withdrew from asking questions at PMQs. Then he could have even more of those planted, obsequious questions from his backbenchers (“Does the PM agree with me that he’s doing rather well?”), which are a waste of time and an insult to the intelligence of anyone who bothers to watch the charade.

What can Labour do? I suggest the party leader (interim or permanent) writes to Bercow and insists that, as the source of authority of the House of Commons, he makes Cameron answer questions. Maybe Labour should try doing what Cameron promised to do and end the ‘Punch and Judy’ nature of the event, which only turns off most voters. Use the occasion, not for point-scoring, but to ask six pertinent and incisive questions on details of government policy and then leave it to viewers as to how they judge Cameron’s replies. If that doesn’t seem to work, maybe it’s time for a cross-party committee of MPs to look at whether the format should be changed or scrapped altogether. But of course the latter idea would suit Cameron and save him the need to find reasons to be somewhere else on so many Wednesday lunchtimes.

"  Use the occasion, not for point-scoring, but to ask six pertinent and incisive questions on details of government policy and then leave it to viewers as to how they judge Cameron’s replies"

Exactly. Which is why I felt so many times that Miliband was not effective in opposing generally and  - not least - in PMQs, where all he seemed to do was to provide Cameron with a series of statements - poorly disguised as a questions - which were then used as a large stick with which the Labour leader was soundly thrashed.

But that's history, of course...

I don’t accept that failing to answer almost every question that’s put to you is evidence that you’ve “soundly thrashed” your opponent, but I do think the next Labour leader should treat PMQs as a chance to appear statesmanlike, while Cameron will no doubt continue being an arrogant, red-faced bully.

So who will be the next Labour leader? Needing 35 nominations to get on the ballot paper, Andy Burnham currently has 50, Yvette Cooper 35, Liz Kendall 32, Jeremy Corbyn 11 and Mary Creagh 6. I very much doubt if Creagh will get anywhere near 35 nominations and can probably be discounted. Corbyn (who will be 71 by the time of the next election) is amassing a few hard-left nominations but would be a suicidal choice for Labour. At the other end of the spectrum we have Kendall, daughter of a former Liberal councillor. She doesn’t even know how to drive a car, something which the tabloids would no doubt exploit with childish analogies:-

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/06/i-didnt-see-any-point-pretending-profile-labour-leadership-candidate-liz-kendall

When I look at who is nominating who, it confirms my belief that Andy Burnham is the best candidate on offer:-

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/05/list-mps-endorsements-labour-leadership-candidates

Jeremy Corbin seems to be getting a bit of a following among some party members - what do you think about him?

He strikes me as a candidate I could be happy with, but I am just an old lefty hippy, so wouldn't really know how he'll play with the country as a whole

IVAN What do you think of Yvette Cooper as leader of the Labour party although she will need the skin of a rhino because of Ed her husband Davy boy and his bully boys would have a field day, but there is just as much to have a go at Andy Burnham and no doubt the Tories will have a go at him. My problem is which of them could handle themselves better and give Davy boy just as much as they get.

I still think that Ed Miliband is the one that got away along with John Smith two good leaders we never got to see as the UKs PM

Jeremy Corbyn would be the Tory choice for Labour Leader! 

It would be as risky as leaving a bag of doughnuts for 'safekeeping' with a couple of 12 year-old boys, or lighting a fag in a gunpowder factory...

Why? Seems to have good socialist credentials

Yvette Cooper is my choice Redflag,but she would have to get a punch bag in at home to practise on, and I do not mean her hubby.

Dear old Tony Benn used to argue that a PM should just be the chairman of the committee governing the country. He talked about policies not personalities. Sadly, too many British voters have been raised on a diet of celebrity culture, and not enough of them bother to find out about the policies on offer.

Jeremy Corbyn wouldn’t stand a snowflake’s chance in hell of becoming PM. He will be 71 years old by the time of the next election, and times have changed since Winston Churchill re-entered Downing Street in 1951 at the age of 76. (Some of you may recall how Ming Campbell was lampooned for being old when he was leader of the Lib Dems.) And that’s before we start talking about Corbyn’s hard-left agenda…..

Therein lies the dilemma - a purist agenda of red-blooded socialism, or someone who can win elections and still motivate core voters and party foot soldiers? I’ll settle for Andy Burnham, but I won’t be upset if Yvette Cooper gets the job. It just mustn’t be Liz Kendall.

The fact that Harriet doesn't know is party of the problem.

She and the rest of them don't see how they've poisoned labours ideals and what the party had become.

If she can't see what was so lacking in miliband then god help them.

At the last moment he threw the election by saying he'd rather a tort government than work with the SNP. Ridiculous.

Ivan wrote:Therein lies the dilemma - a purist agenda of red-blooded socialism, or someone who can win elections and still motivate core voters and party foot soldiers? I’ll settle for Andy Burnham, but I won’t be upset if Yvette Cooper gets the job. It just mustn’t be Liz Kendall.

you're selling for someone that wants to cut welfare and privatise the NHS. Wer already have that.

" At the last moment he threw the election by saying he'd rather a tort government than work with the SNP. Ridiculous "

I tend to agree that Miliband should have signalled that he would be willing to obtain support from any other party which supported a left-of-centre , social democrat- style approach to governing Britain - in the interests of ridding the nation of the evil Tories.

But he didn't, and adopted a far more restrictive approach involving only his own party  - and he lost...

ghost whistler wrote:The fact that Harriet doesn't know is party of the problem.

She and the rest of them don't see how they've poisoned labours ideals and what the party had become.

If she can't see what was so lacking in miliband then god help them.

At the last moment he threw the election by saying he'd rather a tort government than work with the SNP. Ridiculous.

Just to let you know GW that Ed Miliband was spot on with all he done, let us take the SNP people in England did not want them being part of the Westminister gov't and the Tories played on that with all the different billboards they put up KNOWING it would stop people from voting Labour.

As for Eds policies they where all good policies that would have helped the low paid (ie part-time and those on zero hour contracts) but now those same people will have to put up with another 5 years of Tory Austerity which IMHO will cause a lot of trouble within the UK, and it could also cost Davy boy Scotland who WILL leave the UK which in turn will mean a permanant Tory gov't for the rest of the UK so I hope that pleases you, for all your denials you are a right winger at heart.

I believe a tort is an action that causes someone else to suffer loss or harm and can result in legal action (civil not criminal) against the perpetrator. However, as ‘t’ is next to ‘y’ on the keyboard, I assume that the intended four-letter word was something even nastier than a court case. If only members would take a few seconds to read through what they’ve written before sending it…….

I don’t think the ‘Ed Stone’ did much for the former Labour leader’s credibility in the last days before the election, but, as we agreed earlier, that’s all history. The immediate question for the party is who should be the next leader, and my order of preference (in the unlikely event of all five making the ballot paper) will be:-
1. Burnham
2. Cooper
3. Creagh
4. Corbyn
232. Kendall

Well we do not think too differently Ivan just 1 and 2 the other way round.

Ivan wrote:....If only members would take a few seconds to read through what they’ve written before sending it…….

TIP: Members should not read their post aloud while they type it, as the spittle can fog your spectacles.

Ivan wrote:I believe a tort is an action that causes someone else to suffer loss or harm and can result in legal action (civil not criminal) against the perpetrator. However, as ‘t’ is next to ‘y’ on the keyboard, I assume that the intended four-letter word was something even nastier than a court case. If only members would take a few seconds to read through what they’ve written before sending it…….

or you could accept that some people aren't very good at typing and that occasionally mistakes get through.

Redflag wrote:As for Eds policies they where all good policies that would have helped the low paid (ie part-time and those on zero hour contracts) but now those same people will have to put up with another 5 years of Tory Austerity which IMHO will cause a lot of trouble within the UK, and it could also cost Davy boy Scotland who WILL leave the UK which in turn will mean a permanant Tory gov't for the rest of the UK so I hope that pleases you, for all your denials you are a right winger at heart.

how does workfare help the low paid, which is what labor were planning with their jobs guarantee

How do you know GW ??    If the people of the UK had been sensible enough to vote Labour in May we would now be watching the REPEAL of the bill that brought in the nasty BEDROOM TAX.

As for Workfare it was LIES like that cost Ed and the Labour party the general election, if Ed was going to rid the UK of ZERO HOUR CONTRACTS, why would he keep Workfare in place.   ou really need  to go to the Labour party web site and read the Labour Manifesto or have you been banned from going on with your posts on here I do not blame them if they have.

The more I read your posts the more I think you are a "SHY TORY VOTER".   Trying to upset us so you can get this forum taken off the web so in future do not address your postds to me as I do not want to read your DRIVEL

Dissent doesn't get tolerated well on here, does it? 

I am afraid not Phil.

Please let’s calm things down! I don’t for one minute believe that ghost whistler is a Tory, shy or otherwise, but he would still be entitled to post here even if he was. His criticisms come from the left, and I suspect he thinks most of us are pink Tories for supporting Labour, which in his opinion isn’t sufficiently different from the real nasty party.

Zero hours contracts – paid work without guaranteed hours – are not the same thing as workfare, which is little more than slave labour in return for benefits. I’d like to think that Ed Miliband’s jobs guarantee plan would have been more positive, and provided more dignity, for unemployed people than IDS’s workfare, but I guess we’ll never know now.

I tend to ignore most of GWs posts now Ivan, because I think mostly he posts to provoke, he has his views and they certainly are very different to mine.

Very true bobby, he has to learn the dirty tricks of politics, then he would make a perfect Prime Minister.

Redflag wrote:How do you know GW ??    If the people of the UK had been sensible enough to vote Labour in May we would now be watching the REPEAL of the bill that brought in the nasty BEDROOM TAX.

As for Workfare it was LIES like that cost Ed and the Labour party the general election, if Ed was going to rid the UK of ZERO HOUR CONTRACTS, why would he keep Workfare in place.   ou really need  to go to the Labour party web site and read the Labour Manifesto or have you been banned from going on with your posts on here I do not blame them if they have.

The more I read your posts the more I think you are a "SHY TORY VOTER".   Trying to upset us so you can get this forum taken off the web so in future do not address your postds to me as I do not want to read your DRIVEL

How do i know? Labour's plan was to 'offer' a job to everyone out of work.

There aren't enough jobs, so how is this going to work if it isn't a front for a workfare scheme?

Labour has its hands dirty in the age of austerity: who controls Newham council for instance? 'Sir' Robin Wales - a labour councillor.

Isn't Hackney a Labour council? Wanting to fine people for sleeping rough!

Or Andy Burnham's disgraceful forelock tugging to the House of Windsor.

Ed Miuliband was never going to get rid of Zero Hour Contracts.

I don't care what their manifesto says.

="bobby....As for a new leader, why not just keep Ed Miliband in place ....

As I have always said, I believe  Ed Miliband would make a good Prime Minister if only he knew how to win an election.

Concur.  I'm on record here as supporting Ed Miliband, commenting on the dangers of changing horses in midstream, and he has five years in which to "learn how to win an election" if that were indeed what's required.  The Electorate has twice rejected Labour's economic policies.  The time now is for a re-examination, not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Ed knew how to win an election; he just didn't want to.