What now for Labour? (Part 2)

First topic message reminder :

Phil Hornby wrote:I feel that Corbyn is sincere, polite, interesting and likeable - so are my neighbours but, like them, he isn't electable as Prime Minister.

In which case, why should we pay some phoney twicer to be something else?

Phil Hornby wrote:Like it or not, the British voter wants a potential Premier to (a) look like one, and (b) sound like one

You mean like a big-mouthed crook?   I think you are wrong:  people are beginning to look back to the period since the fall of Callaghan and draw deductions.    At the moment it just means they spit at the word 'politician', but I think they are also beginning to wonder about Murdoch's fuherprinzip, I do believe.

Phil Hornby wrote:the ritual shooting of messengers

Whose message are they delivering? Rupert Murdoch’s? Paul Dacre’s? Anyway, I thought the 'problem' is that Corbyn’s policies are too left-wing, rather than the fact that he isn’t telegenic and wears a beard?

I agree that the ‘X Factor’ mentality seems to have permeated the electorate. Clem Attlee, in my opinion the greatest PM this country has ever had, wouldn’t have stood a chance in the present climate, and would have been labelled a dangerous extremist for wanting to set up the NHS. Jeremy Corbyn also doesn’t come across as a charismatic character (neither does Theresa May), but he does attract large crowds, and maybe one of these days the British public will end its flirtation with racism, fascism and the cult of personality and rediscover some decent values.


Source: 'Liverpool Echo'

Sadly, I doubt if much will change in that department in the next three years, unless Brexit goes ahead and enough people start to feel its negative effects. The 172 MPs who passed a motion of no confidence in Corbyn have probably already handed the Tories enough ammunition to win the next election, regardless of the state of the NHS, our social care, our prisons and even the economy. If you’re going to stage a coup against your leader, you have to be successful, and you have to have a credible alternative, not Owen Smith.


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

I wish that Labour under Corbyn would make a pitch for the votes of the 48.11% of us who voted to stay in the EU, by offering a clear and unequivocal pledge to scrap the referendum result, but that’s something for another thread......
https://cuttingedge2.forumotion.co.uk/t1142-should-labour-be-leading-the-campaign-to-keep-the-uk-in-the-eu

I hate the Tories. It is people like me that Labour needs to attract to its cause .

But if all such folk are told that their opinion about Corbyn not being an attractive proposition - or that the Parliamentary opposition to the government is lame and ineffective - is unwelcome, they will simply wait on the sidelines until an alternative political grouping produces a leadership and opposition worth the name.

Meanwhile those 'unbelievers' will have to bear disapproval for daring to suggest that Corbyn and Labour currently have as much chance of electoral success as do Hartlepool FC of winning the Premier League...

So Putin can allegedly get chosen people into The White House, but Jeremy Corbyn into Number 10 may take a little longer?

Phil Hornby wrote:I hate the Tories. It is people like me that Labour needs to attract to its cause .

But if all such folk are told that their opinion about Corbyn not being an attractive proposition - or that the Parliamentary opposition to the government is lame and ineffective - is unwelcome, they will simply wait on the sidelines until an alternative political grouping produces a leadership and opposition worth the name.

Meanwhile those 'unbelievers' will have to bear disapproval for daring to suggest that Corbyn and Labour currently have as much chance of electoral success as do Hartlepool FC of winning the Premier League...

The difficulty is to know how you can have formed such a silly opinion without having been brainwashed by the Murdochite shits, who are extremist tories.

Time will tell just how silly the opinion is, I imagine...  

All your opinion means is that, like Stalin, the current gang control all the means of propaganda. That's a fact, but it is possible to change it, if we stop licking their bums.

I wouldn't trouble yourself unduly with my opinion.

Phil Hornby wrote:I wouldn't trouble yourself unduly with my opinion.

Well, fair play, I do manage to sleep at night quite well despite it!

I've never understood myself, why Corbyn is felt to be unelectable - the policies seem good and he seems to be able to engage large numbers of people from a wide range of backgrounds.

Despite little support from his own MPs (something else I struggle to understand) he has managed to build a front bench team that are making an impression and every time I hear him speak I find myself impressed by what he says - as in fact do many others.

I guess to some extent it's a matter of personal preference and some people would like to see a bit more 'charisma' whatever that is, or someone better connected, or better dressed or better looking - in my limited experience, when we've had PMs that fit any of those criteria if often ends in tears - they become carried away by hubris, or they get so wedded to an ideological position that they are unable to see the detail of how policies actually play out on the ground, or they are compromised by getting too close to powerful pressure groups, or they pander to the media.

On the whole, I'd rather have good policies fairly enacted by dull people with good will and intentions who are willing to keep in touch with the electorate - somebody please tell me why I'm wrong

" On the whole, I'd rather have good policies fairly enacted by dull people with good will and intentions who are willing to keep in touch with the electorate - somebody please tell me why I'm wrong"

All very laudable, of course.

There is just the small matter of getting elected first, however....

And there is also the small matter that Corbyn, against all the odds, managed to get elected TWICE as leader of the Labour party and has represented his own constituency now for several years without losing a vote - so clearly he is electable.

For a General Election I think many of us would vote on the policies not the personalities

Time will tell...meanwhile can we expect some stunning by-election victories under his leadership?

"stunning by-election victories" likely to be few whilst some MPs persist in trying to row Labour's boat back to the safe harbour of 1997.

Remove media spin, and I think the party's record in bye-elections isn't too bad when you take into account the aforementioned oarsmen

I think in general the Labour candidates who have lost in bye-elections have been opponents of the current leadership - but like the man said - time will tell

Whenever the Party has attempted to do serious things to help working people, the careerist right has tried to sabotage it. They were too weak in 1945, but otherwise they have always shown true to form. The trick is to stick it out and not believe we have to trust the Daily Mail or take heroin: they go away, join the Liberals and die, and we still have the same job to do.

But if the Brexit vote meant anything, it was a public outcry for an end to 20th. Century Politics still being practised in the 21st. C.
FPTP is not fit for purpose - other Nations use PR. The separation between "haves" and "have-nots" has expanded at the same rate as separation between the policies of Left- and Right-wing parties and there is an unsafe imbalance which ordinary people want to see corrected pronto. The Parliamentary "whipping" system means that some elected representatives are gagged when they should be able to speak up for those whom they represent, and the sheer stupidity of "safe seats" makes a joke of Democracy.

oftenwrong wrote:The separation between "haves" and "have-nots" has expanded at the same rate as separation between the policies of Left- and Right-wing parties and there is an unsafe imbalance which ordinary people want to see corrected pronto.

Which 'left-wing parties' were they, then, and where?

The rightwards lurch of Government since 2010 (which has by no means abated), has rendered ANY left-wing party that's still standing look not unlike the revolutionaries of Russia in 1917 by comparison.

I think some parts of the Labour party (sadly not the NEC) want it to be a socialist party.

Phil

I hate the Tories. It is people like me that Labour needs to attract to its cause .


.....but if you won't vote Labour because of Corbyn (personality) that means you would rather have a Tory government than a Labour government. If you suggest you'll vote Lib-Dem, or Green, instead that also means, in effect, you would rather have a Tory government.

I'm sure many Tory voters don't like Theresa May, didn't like Cameron, and other Tory leaders but will always vote Tory. Do you see the difference?

So....would you rather return the Tories to power at the next election, or have a Labour government?

I think what many want is the Platonic ideal of a Labour government - but they'll settle for an everyday imperfect Tory government

" So....would you rather return the Tories to power at the next election, or have a Labour government? "

I don't recall ever saying that I would not vote Labour and I would certainly like to see a Labour government.

What I have been saying is that I do not believe the mass of the voting public will ever have sufficient belief in him to make it happen - and the Opposition in general is not coherent, effective, or credible.

For voicing that opinion I am regularly taken to task and effectively called a Tory supporter, even though it is people like me who need to be better convinced that Labour is doing all it can to be elected...
.

For some reason best known to Forumotion, nearly all threads lock automatically once they contain 990 replies to the original post. As that could well be about to happen to this thread, I am locking it and inviting you to continue the discussion on part 3:-

https://cuttingedge2.forumotion.co.uk/t1143-what-now-for-labour-part-3#75970