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[nelsonroyale]

I don't want to dispute that the narrative has been against him from the start - and he hasn't been given a chance. That's absolutely been happening.

But what my point was more that regardless of what's there - they've not been fighting back. Or if they are fighting back, doing it well. Every report from within the Corbyn camp is that they can't organise a media grid, have no strategies, policies aren't agreed on, the top team will make decisions without the Shad Cabinet that they have to then get behind... and this isn't just anon sources, this is coming from the people who worked with him and tried to get behind him... but the team made it impossible.

Fair enough, there is still the question of who the people are making these assertions, what is their timing, what is their current stance, etc. As what are their motives. But that is by the by, I accept that Corbyn's team may indeed be pretty ineffectual - well it is not as if he has had particularly good support within the party infrastructure. But of course, this issue is much bigger than Corbyn or his team, and, at least in my case, rather displaced from the tedious narrative of hard left, centrist, whatever. There are genuinely different persectives out there on how governments should tackle the major issues of the 21st century: poverty, immigration, climate change, defence. I find it rather tragic that much of the discourse focuses on Corbyn, rather than the underlying reasons for his support, or that many who do support what he represents are hardly uninformed. They just have a different perspective on how change should happen and what needs to be done. A rift such as exists in Labour will not be healed by a new leader, particularly not one as frankly lame as Smith...

 

[Camp Freddie]

I think the underlying reasons for his support are:

Hard socialism has always had a strong appeal to a significant minority of people.
Ed Milliband showed how a (perceived*) Tory-lite candidate won't win.
Therefore a lot of people are willing to just say fuck it and go full socialist, since the alternative didn't work.
The alternatives to Corbyn were/are even less appealing than Ed.
Couple this with an extremely low barrier to entry (£3, or now £25) and the number of people willing to vote for a socialist firebrand is far higher than the number of people willing to vote for the status quo (when the status quo is basically losing again).

I'm still predicting a lost decade for Labour. I just hope that there's something left to recover from after the 2020 GE, so that 2025 is winnable.

* Ed was of course, the socialist option and not the choice of the PLP or even the core membership. The unions got him in but he chose to aim for the centre ground to avoid the sort of PLP rebellion that Corbyn has provoked. This made him doubly ineffective, since the core thought he was trying to be another Blair but the centrists still saw him as an old-school socialist union man.

 

[travisbickle]

I'm a minority employee whose role literally included equalities (and hate crime). This regulation is dumb and this is not how you improve equalities. It's tokenism with an added flavour of central bueocracy.

It's also horrendous optics. You don't make this sort of thing the centre piece of your campaign. This is something you do on the side. The Single Equalities Act was a major, major piece of legislative work and a triumph for labour - 'socialism in one clause'. But they didn't make it the centre piece of the 2005 election, because that's not how you get elected. And without being elected you can't do anything.

I didn't expect this response, the legislation in regards to businesses over 250 was written into the Single Equality Act but was delayed and enacted by the coalition in ~2013?

I'm sure you could look back at 2010 and see accusations of bureaucracy for the original act, and youre saying a part of the original act that would now be applied to a greater number of organizations is bureaucratic?

I guess Labour need someone else because we're well beyond the point that Corbyn is hated no matter what he does.

 

[Goodlife]

Why are people blaming Corbyn for the polling, not the PLP?

 

[kmag]

Why are people blaming Corbyn for the polling, not the PLP?

Because the polling for Corbyn has never ever been good. Even when most new leaders get a bounce (yes even those other Labour leaders the press character assassinated from the start), Labour didn't under Corbyn (and you can't even blame the PLP for not getting behind him, there were a number who didn't but the overwhelming vast majority did).

The polling has went off the cliff just now and that's partly the PLP's fault but Corbyn getting ethered off May at the last PMQ's is also a factor as is Corbyn's steadily dropping personal ratings (and those had plummeted pre coup).

 

[CyclopsRock]

Why are people blaming Corbyn for the polling, not the PLP?

Does it even matter? As long as Corbyn is the leader and the PLP is the PLP, these are the numbers.

 

[Royal_Phalanx]

Meanwhile the Corbyn cult keeps going #keepCorbyn on my Facebook page.

 

[Jackpot]

Why are people blaming Corbyn for the polling, not the PLP?

Because a good leader would recognise when his position is untenable and leave for the good of the party rather than hang on and damage it further.

 

[Maledict]

I didn't expect this response, the legislation in regards to businesses over 250 was written into the Single Equality Act but was delayed and enacted by the coalition in ~2013?

I'm sure you could look back at 2010 and see accusations of bureaucracy for the original act, and youre saying a part of the original act that would now be applied to a greater number of organizations is bureaucratic?

I guess Labour need someone else because we're well beyond the point that Corbyn is hated no matter what he does.

There is a huge difference between a business employing over 250 people and one employing 20. That's why the act was written in this way. There's huge amounts of legislation that applies to big business but not small business - for a reason. Extending the requirement to publish is tokenistic at best. My point was also about optics - labour didn't fight an election on the single equalities act. It's not a vote winner. It should be, but it isn't. To pass good equalities Legislation we need a raft of policies which appeal to the majority so we can win power and theN also deal with things like this.

Labour cannot go into an election with its major policy piece being an act of further regulation on small businesses - it's utter suicide. The newspaper articles write themselves

 

[Coriolanus]

Meanwhile the Corbyn cult keeps going #keepCorbyn on my Facebook page.

Given the levels of support he enjoys in the party, calling the majority of the members a cult seems as silly as it is counterproductive.

 

[Burai]

Amazing article covering the launch of Corbyn's leadership bid:

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co...my-corbyn-launches-labour-leadership-11656041

"I'm going to tell you something now you won't have read in any of the papers, because none of them had any space to carry it whatsoever, because they are very, very busy with all the important news of the day," he said, to knowing laughter.

"On Thursday, which is 36 hours ago, so the news should have got through by now, there was a by election in the district of Thanet, in north Kent, a by election in which the Labour candidate Penny Newman took the seat from UKIP and won it for Labour."

Cue wild applause that went on for ages.

Momentarily I was genuinely stumped. But not for long. Labour hadn't won some kind of massive victory in Thanet that I'd missed, but had in fact (just) won a parish council election in Ramsgate in which around 500 people took part.

The UKIP incumbent had stood down from both that seat and his role in the district council. In the higher level district council election, UKIP won.

On the face of it it is the stuff of farce, yet again. To anyone with a grasp of politics - and perhaps that is key here - clearly that win means absolutely nothing.

To anyone with a glancing understanding of news, a parish council election is local news, really really local news, and indeed Kent Online did cover it.

When Corbyn says sarcastically that the 'mainstream media' ignored it because they were busy doing other things, he answered his own implied passive-aggressive question. We have just left the EU and got a new Prime Minister, news he had greeted variously with entirely contradictory statements and - in the case of Theresa May - by attending a Cuba solidarity meeting.

 

[Jezbollah]

Given the levels of support he enjoys in the party, calling the majority of the members a cult seems as silly as it is counterproductive.

He most certainly does not enjoy that level of support amongst the general population, so it may still apply.

 

[Commander Jameson]

Should it not be straightforward for Smith to get those people engaged and voting for him then? Not sure what the problem is in getting Corbyn out.

 

[War Peaceman]

Should it not be straightforward for Smith to get those people engaged and voting for him then? Not sure what the problem is in getting Corbyn out.

Party membership and the voting public are two vastly different voting blocs

 

[Commander Jameson]

The general public can join to vote though, no? So given the right motivation, they could be persuaded to join and vote for Smith.

 

[Hyams]

The general public can join to vote though, no? So given the right motivation, they could be persuaded to join and vote for Smith.

The most politically engaged (ie. those most likely to join political parties) seem to be more extreme than the general populace.

 

[War Peaceman]

The general public can join to vote though, no? So given the right motivation, they could be persuaded to join and vote for Smith.

My understanding is that it is too late right now but they changed the rules to be as byzantine as possible so I'm not 100% on that.

But you are right, abstractly that is the way to defeat Corbyn. It would be extremely difficult to do though; people just aren't interested in political parties.

 

[Commander Jameson]

I think you're right about the deadline for joining, but given the cut-off date in January, it might be reasonable to assume that the bulk of eligible Labour members (discounting the new £25 members) are the ones who have been in the party for a while, so should be more forthcoming to a centrist candidate and less militant to boot. They must be people that Smith should be able to get into his camp.

 

[Billy_Pilgrim]

Should it not be straightforward for Smith to get those people engaged and voting for him then? Not sure what the problem is in getting Corbyn out.

There are significant numbers of people who support Jeremy corbyn but have never had anything to do with the Labour party before. Longstanding members who voted for him are increasingly changing their minds, but for everyone he loses he brings in another former supporter of a nothing party like the TUSC, AWL or the Greens, or someone who has never bothered to learn anything about politics before but has had an awakening that leads them to believe they're entitled to tell an MP what to do because democracy.

 

[Commander Jameson]

As War Peaceman mentioned, the entry for voting has closed, so no new members are coming in, plus a big majority of post-January members have been excluded.

I'm not sure what you want to do about those people who you believe not to have learned anything about politics. Is that everyone in the membership? What criteria would you like to see for Labour members to either join or vote?

 

[Coriolanus]

He most certainly does not enjoy that level of support amongst the general population, so it may still apply.

that he doesn't enjoy that level of support in genpop is evident. How insulting those that one must convince to vote for someone else / abstain will bring about the result one desires is another matter entirely. Obv.

helps no one, is wot im saying

 

[Palmer27]

Show solidarity:
http://www.redbubble.com/people/prayforpatrick/works/22483970-jeremy-for-leader-white?asc=u

 

[Billy_Pilgrim]

As War Peaceman mentioned, the entry for voting has closed, so no new members are coming in, plus a big majority of post-January members have been excluded.

I'm not sure what you want to do about those people who you believe not to have learned anything about politics. Is that everyone in the membership? What criteria would you like to see for Labour members to either join or vote?

By new members I'm talking about the ones who joined post may 2015, where he does have a core support that is loyal to him and not the Labour party. This is a pretty significant number. My CLP has gone from 300 ish to 950 over the course of the year, meetings generally tend to be the same 40 or so people with up to 30 new names on the rare occasions that there's a reason to enforce the rule of Jeremy.

As for screening members/votes, it should be pretty straightforward. Anyone who has campaigned against the Labour party should not be given a voice in it's leadership, this is a long standing principle that was simply not enforced sufficiently and we're now living with the aftermath, not just in terms of people who want to vote for Corbyn but those who turn up to meetings playing militant or treating it like the SWP/TUSC/AWL. Yes, these people do exist, I deal with them far too regularly for the good of my health.

For people who have just discovered politics, there's no real way of enforcing anything until they step out of line, which they often do - the compliance unit is way too understaffed to deal with the amount of nonsense going on at the moment. I don't think people realising they're political afterall is a bad thing, I do however believe that entering a party that's constitutionally bound to upholding Parliamentary democracy is it's ultimate goal should not be subverted into a protest for direct democracy and MPs as delegates.

Quite simply many of these people do not understand the basics of how our political system works, and they have no intention of learning or accepting the reality of it because they want to smash it to smithereens and replace it with something else. The fact that they'll never get the chance to do so is not stopping them attempting to do it with the Labour party itself, unfortunately.

 

[Burai]

Show solidarity:
http://www.redbubble.com/people/prayforpatrick/works/22483970-jeremy-for-leader-white?asc=u

Nnice!

 

[Lagamorph]

Over 2 and a half million labour voters choose May over Corbyn as PM

 

[JonathanEx]

Over 2 and a half million labour voters choose May over Corbyn as PM

Deselect them as voters, they're not pure enough

 

[twobear]

http://www.jomec.co.uk/blog/who-can-solve-labours-leadership-problem/

An interesting article about the potential leadership candidates.

And Simon Wren-Lewis has also written a great blog piece:

https://mainlymacro.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/labour-times-change.html

(And your monthly reminder to follow Simon Wren-Lewis' blog.)

 

[D4Danger]

Over 2 and a half million labour voters choose May over Corbyn as PM

lol. what was the sample size of this yougov poll? a few hundred?

 

[MrS]

Could never vote for somebody named Owen. Is that bad?

 

[Jackpot]

lol. what was the sample size of this yougov poll? a few hundred?

1680.

Couldn't even google it before trying to dismiss it?

 

[MisterFalcon]

1680.

Couldn't even google it before trying to dismiss it?

Which is pretty good, a 99% chance to be less then 4% off the actual numbers. Which still leaves 1% chance it's wrong, about as good as Corbyn's odds at becoming PM.

 

[travisbickle]

By new members I'm talking about the ones who joined post may 2015, where he does have a core support that is loyal to him and not the Labour party. This is a pretty significant number. My CLP has gone from 300 ish to 950 over the course of the year, meetings generally tend to be the same 40 or so people with up to 30 new names on the rare occasions that there's a reason to enforce the rule of Jeremy.

As for screening members/votes, it should be pretty straightforward. Anyone who has campaigned against the Labour party should not be given a voice in it's leadership, this is a long standing principle that was simply not enforced sufficiently and we're now living with the aftermath, not just in terms of people who want to vote for Corbyn but those who turn up to meetings playing militant or treating it like the SWP/TUSC/AWL. Yes, these people do exist, I deal with them far too regularly for the good of my health.

For people who have just discovered politics, there's no real way of enforcing anything until they step out of line, which they often do - the compliance unit is way too understaffed to deal with the amount of nonsense going on at the moment. I don't think people realising they're political afterall is a bad thing, I do however believe that entering a party that's constitutionally bound to upholding Parliamentary democracy is it's ultimate goal should not be subverted into a protest for direct democracy and MPs as delegates.

Quite simply many of these people do not understand the basics of how our political system works, and they have no intention of learning or accepting the reality of it because they want to smash it to smithereens and replace it with something else. The fact that they'll never get the chance to do so is not stopping them attempting to do it with the Labour party itself, unfortunately.

So basically the reason people feel disenfranchised and disillusioned by politics is because that's the way it is meant to be, essentially set to disenfranchise them.

I'm not surprised when someone said Corbyn's policies focus on the bottom 10%, typical New Labour voter totally unaware that at least the bottom 30-40% of the UK are living with inadequate wages, sending their kids to inadequate schools, and have inadequate investment spent on their local services.

But yeah keep fuckin' that chicken to pick up floating Tory voters.

Labour's a piece of shit party and I'm happy to see it sink into irrelevance.

 

[Ghost]

Owen Smith has his 20 pledges ready for his stone tablet:

1. A pledge to focus on equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity.
2. Scrapping the DWP and replacing it with a Ministry for Labour and a Department for Social Security.
3. Introducing modern wages councils for hotel, shop and care workers to strengthen terms and conditions.
4. Banning zero hour contracts.
5. Ending the public sector pay freeze.
6. Extending the right to information and consultation to cover all workplaces with more than 50 employees.
7. Ensuring workers’ representation on remuneration committees.
8. Repealing the Trade Union Act.
9. Increase spending on the NHS by 4% in real-terms in every year of the next parliament.
10. Commit to bringing NHS funding up to the European average within the first term of a Labour Government.
11. Greater spending on schools and libraries.
12. Re-instate the 50p top rate of income tax.
13. Reverse the reductions in Corporation Tax due to take place over the next four years.
14. Reverse cuts to Inheritance Tax announced in the Summer Budget.
15. Reverse cuts to Capital Gains Tax announced in the Summer Budget.
16. Introduce a new wealth Tax on the top 1% earners.
17. A British New Deal unveiling £200bn of investment over five years.
18. A commitment to invest tens of billions in the North of England, and to bring forward High Speed 3.
19. A pledge to build 300,000 homes in every year of the next parliament – 1.5 million over five years.
20. Ending the scandal of fuel poverty by investing in efficient energy.


All sounds good to me, over to you Jeremy.

 

[Commander Jameson]

How many of those are existing Labour party policy? I've seen a few of those before on other lists.

 

[Sheentak]

Owen Smith has his 20 pledges ready for his stone tablet:

1. A pledge to focus on equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity.
2. Scrapping the DWP and replacing it with a Ministry for Labour and a Department for Social Security.
3. Introducing modern wages councils for hotel, shop and care workers to strengthen terms and conditions.
4. Banning zero hour contracts.
5. Ending the public sector pay freeze.
6. Extending the right to information and consultation to cover all workplaces with more than 50 employees.
7. Ensuring workers’ representation on remuneration committees.
8. Repealing the Trade Union Act.
9. Increase spending on the NHS by 4% in real-terms in every year of the next parliament.
10. Commit to bringing NHS funding up to the European average within the first term of a Labour Government.
11. Greater spending on schools and libraries.
12. Re-instate the 50p top rate of income tax.
13. Reverse the reductions in Corporation Tax due to take place over the next four years.
14. Reverse cuts to Inheritance Tax announced in the Summer Budget.
15. Reverse cuts to Capital Gains Tax announced in the Summer Budget.
16. Introduce a new wealth Tax on the top 1% earners.
17. A British New Deal unveiling £200bn of investment over five years.
18. A commitment to invest tens of billions in the North of England, and to bring forward High Speed 3.
19. A pledge to build 300,000 homes in every year of the next parliament – 1.5 million over five years.
20. Ending the scandal of fuel poverty by investing in efficient energy.


All sounds good to me, over to you Jeremy.

So the diffrence between smith and Corbyn is one actually has policies and not just vague statements?

 

[Bony Manifesto]

Wow, he's got a lot of balls putting "equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity" front and centre! I suppose it justifies his 'I'm just as radical a socialist as Jeremy' point, but I feel it'll be a tough sell with the wider electorate.

 

[Charles Brandon]

How many of those are existing Labour party policy? I've seen a few of those before on other lists.

Some of those are Corbyn policies, which is no bad thing really.

 

[Real Hero]

yeah there's a lot of cobryn in there but if he can be corbyn light while also getting the plp in line I'd vote for him ( despite big issues with things he has said in the past)

 

[QuicheFontaine]

Wow, he's got a lot of balls putting "equality of outcome, not equality of opportunity" front and centre! I suppose it justifies his 'I'm just as radical a socialist as Jeremy' point, but I feel it'll be a tough sell with the wider electorate.

No kidding! Just seeing that first point immediately turned me off, but I guess I'm not really the target for this stuff - I'm not a Labour party member.

 

[twobear]

Those seem like good policies, for the most part, although I'm not convinced he isn't just saying them to win the election.

Also, equality of outcome vs equality of opportunity; the only way to ensure actual equality is the former. The latter is just something to support if you don't really care about equality but want something to help you sleep better at night.

 

[War Peaceman]

Those seem like good policies, for the most part, although I'm not convinced he isn't just saying them to win the election.

Also, equality of outcome vs equality of opportunity; the only way to ensure actual equality is the former. The latter is just something to support if you don't really care about equality but want something to help you sleep better at night.

It isn't even a policy, it is meaningless.

OVerall, though, that is a broadly decent set of policies. It would be nice for Corbyn to oblige and provide policies he wants to enact.

Every politician makes pledges to win elections - that is basic electioneering. The question is a) do you trust this person, b) are these achievable?

 

[travisbickle]

Those seem like good policies, for the most part, although I'm not convinced he isn't just saying them to win the election.

Also, equality of outcome vs equality of opportunity; the only way to ensure actual equality is the former. The latter is just something to support if you don't really care about equality but want something to help you sleep better at night.

Isn't it literally what Tony Blair said.

 

[Nicktendo86]

The only thing Smith's speech today will be remembered for will be that bizarre 'Knock May on her heels' comment.

 

[D4Danger]

1680.

Couldn't even google it before trying to dismiss it?

Yeah so I was right. It's a few hundred people.

Nobody ever uses poll data like that. The headline and story are so transparent.

If people want to discuss how shit Corbyn is that's fine (and there's plenty of ammo) but you don't need to make stuff up.

 

[nelsonroyale]

So the diffrence between smith and Corbyn is one actually has policies and not just vague statements?

Quite a lot of these seem to be existing Corbyn policies. Interesting reversal on some of New Labours positions, but they had to do it given they are trying to appeal to more socio-economically progressive elements of the party.

Addressing your vague comment, many of these are pretty vague though. Is there actually a working paper that currently sources all his figures? Would be interested in seeing it.

 

[shinra-bansho]

Yeah so I was right. It's a few hundred people.

Nobody ever uses poll data like that. The headline and story are so transparent.

If people want to discuss how shit Corbyn is that's fine (and there's plenty of ammo) but you don't need to make stuff up.

It shouldn't be extrapolated to a population number.

But reporting a crosstab percentage figure is valid. Depending on the size of the sub sample.

Ie 29% of Labour voters prefer May to Corbyn.
--
Also what doed equality of outcome entail. Macro level. Individual level. Geographic?

 

[Jackpot]

Yeah so I was right. It's a few hundred people.

It's sixteen hundred. More than "a few". And your point was the poll must be flawed because the sample size is too small. Take the L, man.

 

[D4Danger]

It's sixteen hundred. More than "a few". And your point was the poll must be flawed because the sample size is too small. Take the L, man.

1) 29% of 1680 is about 487 aka a few hundred. not 2.7m.
2) the sample is size tiny especially if that's what you're basing a story like that on
3) you don't use poll data like this
4) you don't use poll data like this

Do you ever see a headlines like "Donald Trump gains 30m new voters with a two point swing"? No. because you don't extrapolate polling numbers like that.

edit: honestly I was going to let this go but this seems to have become the weapon of choice on gaf when someone wants to validate their opinion or it fits their narrative. They'll take a daily poll that samples a thousand people and fill in the blanks.

 

[shinra-bansho]

The sample isn't tiny.

 

[D4Danger]

The sample isn't tiny.

If I was going to write a story about millions of people doing something I'd expect it to be bigger but I guess we can agree to disagree here.