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.

Even if Labour can't win in 2020, it is to be hoped that they end up with a leader - and leadership team -who can give Cameron . Osborne and Duncan Smith etc. a thoroughly comprehensive and painful kicking on a regular basis.

But not too crudely , which could play into the hands of the evil crew , who would be the first to cry 'foul' like the cowards they are. No, what is needed is an incessant focus on publicising at every possible opportunity the multitude of cruel and unfair effects of Tory policy, with the nature of the crimes being painted for the public in suitably lurid language to bring out its true horror.

But will they -once again - unforgivably and inexplicably spurn the chances which have so frequently lined up before them and allow Cameron and Co. to wriggle out of the noose which should snare them...?

A message from Ken Livingstone:-

“I've known Angela Eagle for years. Long before she became an MP, I remember Angela as a dedicated Labour activist, campaigning for LGBT rights and women's equality. As a trade union official she did a brilliant job fighting the Tory government for more support for NHS workers.

Angela has has never been afraid to stand up for what she believes in. But it is Angela’s honesty, straight-talking and authenticity that has always impressed me most about her. In an age when people are turned off by focus group based soundbites and political speak, her approach is refreshing.  Angela tells things as clearly as she sees them and unlike many of today’s politicians she has integrity and common sense by the boatload.

Angela will be a strong voice for members and supporters at the top of the party and will end the top down command and control approach that so many members are fed up with. Having served with her on the National Executive Committee, you can take it from me that she will do just that - she’ll pull no punches when it comes to standing up for you and giving you more say. Best of all, Angela is a unifier who will use her experience to bring Labour together.

From the recommendation of Unite and the endorsements of Unison, UCATT, TSSA and the CWU, the support of Margaret Beckett and long-serving MPs such as Stephen Pound and Mike Gapes to new MPs including Angela Rayner and Tulip Siddiq - Angela has support across our movement. She is my choice for deputy leader, I hope she will be yours too.”

Phil Hornby wrote:Even if Labour can't win in 2020, it is to be hoped that they end up with a leader - and leadership team -who can give Cameron . Osborne and Duncan Smith etc. a thoroughly comprehensive and painful kicking on a regular basis.

But will they - once again - unforgivably and inexplicably spurn the chances which have so frequently lined up before them and allow Cameron and Co. to wriggle out of the noose which should snare them...?

I throughly agree with your summary PH, I have watched debates from the HOC and been left shouting at the TV because of the open goal the Tories have made YET no reply from the Labour benches they have been given many a chance at ramming down the throats the LIES coming out of the GOBS of all Tory MPs.

Angela will be a strong voice for members and supporters at the top of the party and will end the top down command and control approach that so many members are fed up with.

Sounds about right

One thing I find strange is that Labour supporters on here seem, on reflection, to be critical in a number of respects of the Miliband era and some personalities who would have happily been accepted ( one imagined) in a Labour Government.

So what's changed...?

What has changed is that voting "anything but Tory" no longer means Hobson's Choice i.e. no choice at all really.

For the first time since the premature and much-mourned passing of John Smith in 1994 there is a glimmer of genuine intentions to oppose.

I fear for Labour. It has some turbulent times ahead and could be riven by rivalries, splits and squabbles for quite some time.

The infamous 'Tory Press' will have a field day with all that - especially during a tricky Conference Season which could have allowed the party to re-present itself as a united and coherent opposition of quality. Instead it could be a huge chance wasted , with arguments and enmities displayed for all to see.

One small positive is that, in such an environment, the Tories may- in their customary arrogance - become complacent and start to make a few mistakes which could alienate the more sane amongst the electorate. But how many will suffer as a result of the carte blanche Cameron will perceive?

I can't help but think that the future will be best served by a realignment of the ( substantial) anti-Tory opposition. Unless those parties opposed to right-wing cruelty can find a way to combine resources and compromise on the sharper edges of some policy issues , I can see a dominant Tory Party for years to come and a concomitant shrinking and marginalised Labour Party - and who will that benefit...?

PH you are spot on, some much so that it scares the living daylights out of me because Labour party and Labour voters are falling into the trap set for them by the Tories. I like yourself would have preferred to see Dan Jarvis or Keir Starmer leading the Labour party, Ed Miliband took us to the left with his policies ie getting rid of the nasty bedroom tax, the higher rate of tax back to 50p stopping the NOM-DOMS from avoiding there correct amout of tax and ridding us of the zero hour contracts.

We all know how that turned out much to the greif of what I felt on the 8th May, but the Tories will try and make sure they get back into power in 2020 thanks to the B(W)ankers and the hedge fund managers pouring money into Tory party funds maybe Labour should try some of the dirty tricks the Tories pulled during the run up to the 2015 election .

" I like yourself would have preferred to see Dan Jarvis or Keir Starmer leading the Labour party,"

I don't recall expressing a preference for a Labour leader, Redflag, and just hope that somebody - anybody!- can be found to stick it into the unspeakably vile Tories...

I would not mind buying the Labour party a "Pitch Fork" to really stick it to the Tories PH. Do you think that would help to remind the Tories of all the LIES that come out of the Tory gobs.

No further applications for membership can be made now before the Leadership election. Apparently there have been many thousands of people seeking an opportunity to vote.

What a shame there wasn't that level of interest in voting for Labour at the General Election in May.

How true

This is a picture of the comedian Mark Steel campaigning for Labour in Brighton Kemptown during this year's general election:-


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CMPcDrWW8AAEo1U.jpg

Mark's application to register for a vote in the leadership election has been rejected on the grounds that he "doesn't share Labour's values".

Here's his response:-
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/with-hundreds-of-thousands-of-new-supporters-labour-is-on-the-verge-of-something-big--what-a-complete-disaster-10454504.html

I don't think the Labour party will ever be the same again

This £3.00 FARCE sickens me what about the people that pay the full amount of membership fees boatlady, it means those paying £3.00 will get who they for in but the rest of us can go hang. I just wonder how many of those that have paid there £3.00 are really care about what happens to the Labour party, we all know how sneaky the Tories are I bet quite a few of them are Tory MPs and Tory voters because the Tories want JC as the leader of the Labour party as they know it will make it easier for Tories to win the general election in 2020.

the Tories want JC as the leader of the Labour party as they know it will make it easier for Tories to win the general election in 2020.

Ken Clarke doesn't seem so sure.....

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-leadership-race-jeremy-corbyn-could-be-the-next-prime-minister-says-ken-clarke-10436255.html

Boatlady is once again correct, though there's little argument against a change for the better.  Perhaps the electorate could be shamed into voting for fairer wealth distribution as an alternative to the standard Tory "me first!"

I really think that all of the Labour Party old guard Blair policies are yesterday's news for British electors.

If all the people sick of toryism united, the scum would be swept into the dustbin of history soon enough.   Look at the way the tories are running scared, Blair especially (though that war criminal is, of course, fighting for his neck)!

Cartoon by Dave Brown of 'The Independent'......  


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CMR8ydrWUAAZv91.jpg

" If all the people sick of toryism united, the scum would be swept into the dustbin .."

Indeed so. But there would have to be a single coherent entity for which to vote - ie an anti-Tory alliance of some description. Normally one would expect the Labour Party to be the focal point of such a grouping, but currently they are such a ragbag that they may only contribute without dominating.

Dame Shirley Williams is beginning to talk about such an initiative ( but don't let that put you off!) and unless there are some sort of left-of centre 'discussions' very soon we shall have to content ourselves with another 10 years of the Tory trauma.

Vilifying Blair as a Tory despite his having won a mere three elections for Labour may be a good bit of sport , but will he - the devil incarnate now, it seems- be proven right about the Corbynieri ?

I am ,of course, blissfully naïve, but I don't think I can detect what the Labour Party wants to be post-election - and we appear to have two or three potential versions ( that's a great vote-splitter for a start!). I felt a defeat would end up with a wholesale argument amongst the Labour faithful, but we are looking at a disaster of some proportions...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CMNs3zaWoAEEkwQ.png (via @HuffPostUKCom)

... and probably anyone (not the God-botherers obvs, but everyone else) on Cutting Edge ...

I wonder who all the many fans of Corbyn-type politics voted for back in May? If it was Labour, why didn't they win?

And if it was somebody else, they didn't win either!

Or are we saying that there are thousands of people just waiting for red-blooded left-wing policies who just didn't vote at all?

I'm getting a lot of messages from 'grown ups' telling me not to be silly and to vote for Andy Burnham instead of Jeremy Corbyn.

Starting to find it all a bit patronising

Phil Hornby wrote:I wonder who all the many fans of Corbyn-type politics voted for back in May? If it was Labour, why didn't they win?

And if it was somebody else, they didn't win either!

Or are we saying that there are thousands of people just waiting for red-blooded left-wing policies who just didn't vote at all?

That is ne question I want answered PH, how many of those prepared to vote for JC voted Labour in May 2015 ??    Look what happened when Ed Miliband took us to the left in May 2015  the biggest defeat since the Labour party was founded.

I do not vilify Blair any more than I vilify Hitler, ever. What did either do for us though?

Phil Hornby wrote:I wonder who all the many fans of Corbyn-type politics voted for back in May? If it was Labour, why didn't they win?

And if it was somebody else, they didn't win either!

Or are we saying that there are thousands of people just waiting for red-blooded left-wing policies who just didn't vote at all?

Was the Labour Party particularly worth voting for, except in marginal seats? Just keeping one lot of tories out by voting for another seems rather aimless to me, unless there is no choice.

If the Labour Party are effectively Tories, then why was Corbyn happily standing for them?

Are we saying that if Corbyn leads a largely Corbyn-style Labour Party that electoral success is likely? Or shall we see good old Jeremy denounced by his current supporters in a few years' time - just like yesterday's hero Blair is now so obviously unfavoured.

Meanwhile, those real Tories simply roll along with no discernible opposition worth the name...

Phil Hornby wrote:-
I wonder who all the many fans of Corbyn-type politics voted for back in May?

Some of them voted Labour, some voted Green, many voted SNP, and a few voted for Left Unity or the TUSC. Amazingly, it seems that some of those who now like Jeremy Corbyn voted for UKIP. Many others were part of the 34% of the electorate who didn’t vote at all.

I read recently (I don’t have the article to hand) that – if this makes sense – Labour had a 40% lead over the Tories among those who didn’t vote. In other words, if they had been motivated to turn out, a large majority would have chosen Labour.

In retrospect, it’s clear that Labour fell between several stools at the last election. It wasn’t anti-austerity enough for the left, wasn’t pro-business enough for the right, and wasn’t nationalistic enough to prevent mass desertions to UKIP in England and the SNP in Scotland.

It appears that Jeremy Corbyn has tapped into the anger which the SNP milked so successfully - anger that politicians are corrupt, all the same, and out of touch with most people. The conventional wisdom, perpetrated by the Tory press, is that Labour can only get elected if it follows the Tories further and further to the right, doing little more than offering a different set of faces to deliver the same neoliberal policies. Maybe Corbyn is showing that an awful lot of people are realising there can be an alternative, and that far from being 'unelectable', he has policies which are more popular with the voters than the other leadership contenders:-

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/14/jeremy-corbyn-labour-leadership-most-popular-candidate-voters-all-parties

It was obviously very sad that the Tories won. On the other hand Labour shouldn't panic. There are five years to try and revive the party's fortunes.

Just changing leaders isn't enough; there needs to be a fundamental change in policies and in approach. Too many of the Labour big nobs are middle class twats or worse who've never been within spitting distance of the street.

Phil Hornby wrote:If the Labour Party are effectively Tories, then why was Corbyn happily standing for them?

Are we saying that if Corbyn leads a largely Corbyn-style Labour Party that electoral success is likely? Or shall we see good old Jeremy denounced by his current supporters in a few years' time  - just like yesterday's hero Blair is now so obviously unfavoured.

Meanwhile, those real Tories simply roll along with no discernible opposition worth the name...

Immensely more likely, I'd say - you can't fool people forever. If we hoof out the Blairites and get back democracy I can't see how we can lose. With them, we shall lose forever.

That's sorted then!

Corbyn in, and Labour's woes are over - and power is theirs in 2020 with a lorry-load of by-election wins and Euro and local council election successes in the interim.

I'm just off to the bookies...

Elections depend to some extent upon the relative UN-popularity of the contestants. Many people are voting against something rather than for a particular policy, so evidence that even Tory supporters are seeing their idols with feet of clay may give heart to a reforming Labour Party.

In today's Independent, Rosie Millard (rentier normale, formerly property-correspondent on the Sunday Times) points out that the £188million Birmingham City Library is reduced to appealing to the general public for its "read once" new books so as to have something on its shelves.


David Cameron pledges “one nation” government
Elizabeth Rigby, Deputy Political Editor Financial Times,
May 8 2015

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/440e26f2-f57c-11e4-bc6d-00144feab7de.html#axzz3iu1QubEP

Phil Hornby wrote:That's sorted then!

Corbyn in, and Labour's woes are over - and power is theirs in 2020 with a lorry-load of by-election wins and Euro and local council election successes in the interim.

I'm just off to the bookies...    

As I said - but it seems to have disappeared - winning the election would just be a start. Getting rid of Stalinism was child's play compared with winkling out the tory dominance of everything here. If we don't make a start, though, we are dead.

Penderyn. I’m sure your message hasn’t been removed by one of the staff; if it had been, there would be a note to that effect on this thread. Is it possible that you clicked the ‘preview’ button instead of ‘send’? I’ve done that on a couple of occasions (senior moment!).  

Knowing your ‘affection’ for the lady, I half expected you to react to that mention of Shirley Williams yesterday. Why on earth would she want an anti-Tory alliance, when she is one of their best friends? Her contribution to politics has been to help destroy the old Labour Party and then the SDP in the 1980s, along with the Lib Dems more recently. She even persuaded Lib Dem peers to support the Health and Social Care Act of 2012, with the promise that she would always fight for the NHS to be free at the point of use. Not long afterwards, she said that she favoured a fee to see a GP and an end to free prescriptions for pensioners. Then she rubbished Tony Benn on the day after he died.

Any loose association of anti-Tory groups would immediately receive the kiss of death if Williams joined it, as you would no doubt agree. She reminds me of the wood in a game of bowls, which doesn’t reveal its bias until the last moment, except that in her case she always veers to the right.

I think a great deal of the support for Corbyn comes from the fact that he's not widely known in the country at large; that he's perceived as an anti-establishment candidate; and that the level of disillusionment with politics (not just in Britain but throughout Europe) is seeing a marked swing towards extremism whether of the left or right. So you get in Greece for instance both Syriza and the Golden Dawn polling well; far right parties in Denmark, Hungary and Portugal; UKIP, the SNP in Britain; so it's not even so much any particular message but more a case of 'to hell with the devil we know.'

So far though the media has been fairly hostile to Corbyn (even the Labour media) he's had a pretty easy ride. If he wins he'll find his policies under close scrutiny and even though a lot of them (like nationalising the railways) will be popular others won't be.

He'll have a brief honeymoon but sooner or later he'll be up against it.

And I'm not sure that a 66-year old bloke who's never even been a Minister can cope with the pressure.

But it would certainly be nice to be proved wrong!

Are Cooper and Kendall playing by the rules?  


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CMgGk0wWgAAwIGq.png

biglin wrote:I think a great deal of the support for Corbyn comes from the fact that he's not widely known in the country at large; that he's perceived as an anti-establishment candidate; and that the level of disillusionment with politics (not just in Britain but throughout Europe) is seeing a marked swing towards extremism whether of the left or right. So you get in Greece for instance both Syriza and the Golden Dawn polling well; far right parties in Denmark, Hungary and Portugal; UKIP, the SNP in Britain; so it's not even so much any particular message but more a case of 'to hell with the devil we know.'

So far though the media has been fairly hostile to Corbyn (even the Labour media) he's had a pretty easy ride. If he wins he'll find his policies under close scrutiny and even though a lot of them (like nationalising the railways) will be popular others won't be.

He'll have a brief honeymoon but sooner or later he'll be up against it.

And I'm not sure that a 66-year old bloke who's never even been a Minister can cope with the pressure.

But it would certainly be nice to be proved wrong!

If JC gets the Labour leadership biglin the first thing the Tories will hit him with be "HOW ARE YOU GOING TO PAY FOR IT" then Labour will be said to be the gov't of BORROW BORROW BORROW & SPEND SPEND SPEND will be the Tory war cry just as they did to Ed Miliband. If I thought JC would win us the 2020 general election for Labour I would vote for him biglin, but just as you have said JC has never had a ministerial job so were is his experience coming from ??

Ivan wrote:Penderyn. I’m sure your message hasn’t been removed by one of the staff; if it had been, there would be a note to that effect on this thread. Is it possible that you clicked the ‘preview’ button instead of ‘send’? I’ve done that on a couple of occasions (senior moment!).  

Knowing your ‘affection’ for the lady, I half expected you to react to that mention of Shirley Williams yesterday.....Any loose association of anti-Tory groups would immediately receive the kiss of death if Williams joined it, as you would no doubt agree. She reminds me of the wood in a game of bowls, which doesn’t reveal its bias until the last moment, except that in her case she always veers to the right.

I probably just forgot to post it at all - I am quite capable of it.    As to Shirley Williams, if the Liberals have as little effect on a Unity Government as they had on the tories, they are welcome to several limousines!

I suppose we could make Shirley Williams Queen too, at the right moment, to avoid Charles the Last.    She would probably not be content with anything less than Empress, however, that ghastly third-rate Zuleika Dobson!

Redflag. The Tories and their media poodles will attack whoever becomes Labour leader; when casting our votes, we shouldn’t consider how they will react. I’ve thought about this very much over the last two months, and although initially I thought Andy Burnham was the man for the job, I decided about ten days ago that Jeremy Corbyn is the best candidate – because he offers hope and clear policies and seems to be able to motivate people. Whenever he holds a meeting, the hall is full and there is often an overflow. When the robotic Yvette Cooper launched her attack on him the other day, only 58 people turned up. And far from the media cry of being "unelectable" (something which was also said of Thatcher in 1975), Corbyn’s policies are actually popular with people:-

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/14/jeremy-corbyn-labour-leadership-most-popular-candidate-voters-all-parties

When Labour won the 1997 election, neither Tony Blair nor Gordon Brown had any ministerial experience. The same can be said of Cameron and Osborne in 2010, and more importantly, Osborne hadn’t even passed his GCSE Maths! It could count in Jeremy Corbyn’s favour that he wasn’t a part of the government which was so unfairly blamed for causing a global financial meltdown, but whose members did little to challenge that whopping lie which was embedded in the nation’s psyche by the Tories and that ginger rodent who has just been knighted.