Of course, Labour have triple the membership of the Conservatives, so they'll get triple the votes! Simple maths!
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UK Labour Leadership Crisis: Corbyn retained as leader by strong margin
- Thread starter Hazzuh
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He isnt popular!!!
He has the lowest polling ratings of any labour opposition leader! The torries are trusted more on the NHS!
Just because a small group of people really, really likes someone doesn't mean he's popular in the wider population. He's not. He's extremely, extremely unpopular and no amount of rallies or jamborees is going to fix that. The only way the labour wins a general election is by persuading people who voted Tory in the last election to switch to labour - that's what's necessary in the key marginals. And my damn cat would do a better job than him at persuading middle England he should be elected.
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Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
No point going over all that now. Corbyn has won absolutely and completely. There is no prospect he will be removed before the next election, whenever that is. Now we have to work around that.
If that means making Maledict's cat Labour's press officer, so be it.
If that means making Maledict's cat Labour's press officer, so be it.
Being really popular with party members and activists is not the same thing as being popular enough with the electorate as a whole to win a general election.
Edit: Labour's new method of electing leaders (since 2015) is fairly similar to American primary elections (the most obvious difference being that they take just after a general election rather than just before the next one) and they're going through a pattern that we've seen many times over here with the party base picking someone on the basis of ideological purity but who lacks appeal for the broader public.
Oh I agree. I just cannot abide this silly nonsense where Corbin supporters deny reality because he has big rallies and membership has gone up.
curls
Wake up Sheeple, your boring insistence that Obama is not a lizardman from Atlantis is wearing on my patience ð¤
Yep the media is unbearable.
"People who were already going to vote Labour like him"
The electorate is a fucking joke right now. More than half of us voted to leave the European Union based on a campaign of racial hatred and lies. I honestly couldn't give less of a fuck if Jeremy Corbyn is polling low with them; with the way this country is right now, socially and culturally, I highly doubt than any other Labour contender could wrestle power from the Tories, other than a Tony Blair clone, and if that's what you want then you're not Labour anyway.
Maybe we'll lose in 2020. Maybe not, anything can happen in four years. But in the lead up to that, at least I know that the main party of opposition will be helmed by a decent man, and that maybe he'll manage to restructure it to better align with the force of progressive good it once was. Pragmatist politics is something I can only tolerate so far, before it begins to betray who I am.
Maybe we'll lose in 2020. Maybe not, anything can happen in four years. But in the lead up to that, at least I know that the main party of opposition will be helmed by a decent man, and that maybe he'll manage to restructure it to better align with the force of progressive good it once was. Pragmatist politics is something I can only tolerate so far, before it begins to betray who I am.
War Peaceman
You're a big guy.
You are deluded and ignorant to the data collected by trained polling experts.
Corbyn is not electable unless something incredible and almost unparalleled happens.
That said, Labour really does have to get its house in order and at least appear united behind him because they really don't have any other choice because the twat wouldn't resign. Though I will say, Smith is not a better candidate and his campaign was ridiculously bad. Jarvis (who at least has a valid excuse) and Umunna should have run. Umunna is the lightest of lightweights but at least his optics are good. He really is fucking terrible though.
The electorate is a fucking joke right now. More than half of us voted to leave the European Union based on a campaign of racial hatred and lies. I honestly couldn't give less of a fuck if Jeremy Corbyn is polling low with them; with the way this country is right now, socially and culturally, I highly doubt than any other Labour contender could wrestle power from the Tories, other than a Tony Blair clone, and if that's what you want then you're not Labour anyway.
New Labour fizzled out, Iraq was a catastrophe but was Blair and co that bad?
National minimum wage, same sex partnerships, got rid of section 28, massive reinvestment in the NHS including more tens of thousands new nurses and doctors, scottish, n irish and welsh devolution, paternity leave, Sure Start, big increase in child benefit, foreign aid, equality and human rights commission, banned fox hunting, and so on.
They were great. Blair fucked it up with Iraq. But let's not kid ourselves. New Labour are the best government we've had since Attlee.
Tony Blair presided over the biggest redistribution of wealth since the 60s. He doubled NHS funding. Massive education increases, including people from poor backgrounds going to uni in numbers unheard of. Sure start. Massive reductions in both child poverty and old age poverty. Introduction of a national minimum wage. Groundbreaking leaps forward in equality.
Tony Blair successfully shifted politics to the centre left in this country. It's why the tories now talk about a national living wage and why they passed gay marriage. He utterly, utterly fucked up over Iraq, but to pretend he wasn't labour and to ignore his accomplishments (the ONLY labour leader to get elected and actually do something in our lifetimes) is just denying reality. You don't shift political discourse by failing to win elections in opposition - people supporting Corbin knowing that he will lose will get exactly the opposite of what they want. Look at what happened under Thatcher ffs. Tony Blair will have done more to help the poor and the worse off in one year of being prime minister than Jeremy Corbin will achieve in his entire damn life.
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Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
Tiny Blair? He wasn't that short
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Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
It's okay, there are worse typos. I've been waiting for Gordon Blown forever.
War Peaceman
You're a big guy.
so has he to be fair
Linkstrikesback
Member
This nonsense is exactly why labour is in such trouble and we have no real opposition to the Tories.
Corbyn has a significant cult who will follow him to the grave if they had to. That means nothing. I agree with a lot of his policies and opinions, but they're worth sweet fanny Adams when he cannot court public opinion and continues to be utterly useless in public perception. Labour under Corbyn right now absolutely can't win an election because he has no control over his own party, much less the general public.
When asked what her greatest achievement was, Margaret Thatcher answered: "Tony Blair and New Labour". Iraq aside (and is it really something that should be put aside?) he brought Labour to the point where they embraced the free market that now so predominantly has grip on the United Kingdom; he surrendered control of interest rates to the Bank of England; introduced tuition fees for students (and despite what you say about education increases, turning polytechnics into Universities and destroying the drive for apprenticeships has done little but burden the poor with unpayable debt and oversaturated the job market with degrees to the point where they have little more worth than O Levels.) Differential access to education is still appalling; Russell Group Unis on average each accept just 64 students each year who received free school meals, of whom I am one (and believe me, such Universities are still very biased towards the learning and attitudes of the privately educated, as is the post-graduate job market.)
He's largely responsible for the situation we've found ourselves in today where politics is in bed with big business and mass media. His priority was freeing up business, and the majority of his social reforms simply followed the way the wind was blowing. Let's not look back at New Labour through rose tinted glasses, because they're not deserving of our nostalgia, they were an absolute mess. That we're finally seeing the party gyrate back to the left is welcome in my eyes, and needs to be appraised in the long term, not just through the kaleidoscope of 2020.
WhateverItTakes
Banned
Yeah, I agree. People seem to think Labour going more left means the country will too. It won't, because the opposition is always just the opposition, and with the Conservatives winning by a clear margin they're always two steps ahead.
Oppositions can effect a change in policy when they actually look like a threat to the current government. Corbyn and co might get to that point but they need to do a lot better at converting people to their cause.
Because liberals are rightwingers and they can no longer hide behind so-called "leftist" parties controlled by neoliberal scum.
War Peaceman
You're a big guy.
Tuition fees aren't inherently bad. All of my family were unable to attend uni when tuition was free, because they were not rich enough to have parents pay living expenses etc.
Why do you dismiss social issues as 'the way the wind was blowing' but not do the same for free market capitalism?
We went from Section 28 to civil marriage under New Labour. That is pretty incredible.
You govern an entire country. You can't just force your ideas on people whole-heartedly, you have to adapt and compromise. Thatcher did, Blair did, Attlee did. Every government hasn't got everything they wanted. New Labour took the free market approach of Thatcher and allied it with a strong social infrastructure.
There were definitely big errors with lax financial regulation and allowing big corporations too much power and control. I won't dispute that. Their welfare efforts were appalling and they ceded too much to hysteria on that.
Blair was a great PM domestically, I agree. I come from a working class family in N Ireland, and the effect of both Labour economic policy and the Good Friday Agreement transformed the standard of living where I was from, it was blatantly obvious to me even as a child.
That said, it wasn't the left wing of Labour that put them in their current situation, they accepted the New Labour mantra without splitting the party until it ran its course. It's an absolute disgrace that the Blairite wing of the party repeatedly failed to acknowledge Corbyn's mandate to the point of allowing the Tories to get away with multiple national crises in the past 12 months. They fucked about staging coups during a year where George Osborne had to abandon a budget a week after revealing it, Jeremy Hunt attempted a miner's strike moment with junior doctors, and David Cameron has ejected us from the EU as part of a failed scheme to unify his party. Literally anyone could have been the Labour leader at the time of the referendum and they would have demolished the Tories following the havoc they caused.
That said, it wasn't the left wing of Labour that put them in their current situation, they accepted the New Labour mantra without splitting the party until it ran its course. It's an absolute disgrace that the Blairite wing of the party repeatedly failed to acknowledge Corbyn's mandate to the point of allowing the Tories to get away with multiple national crises in the past 12 months. They fucked about staging coups during a year where George Osborne had to abandon a budget a week after revealing it, Jeremy Hunt attempted a miner's strike moment with junior doctors, and David Cameron has ejected us from the EU as part of a failed scheme to unify his party. Literally anyone could have been the Labour leader at the time of the referendum and they would have demolished the Tories following the havoc they caused.
Not to put too fine a point but "Being the Tories" isn't much of an opposition as much as it's an admittance that they're right.
War Peaceman
You're a big guy.
Completely agree with this and I strongly disagree with Corbyn.
GrizzleBoy
Banned
Have no fear!
The labour MPs will continue to kick and scream, another election w.ill be held and we will have a third opportunity to vote for the right person this time.
Just keep holding elections till the "right" candidate is selected.
Democracy!
The labour MPs will continue to kick and scream, another election w.ill be held and we will have a third opportunity to vote for the right person this time.
Just keep holding elections till the "right" candidate is selected.
Democracy!
It won't get that far because most of them will be out of the job when the Tories obliterate them in a snap general election. Corbyn still won't resign.
Wot? The SNP are the very definition of a Centrist party. If the Greens had picked up more seats I'd agree with you, the only reason we moved away from Labour is the mess they made of the referendum and the obvious strings they have to Labour HQ.Even the S Conservatives are allowed more autonomy than S Labour.
Corbyn doesn't have to resign as long as the neoliberal fucks keep sabotaging the party. It is obviously not his fault they're losing so badly and it'll never be as long as these corrupt cunts keep up with their bullshit.
It does make me laugh how good the SNP have been at publicity. They cut the NHS funding in Scotland, to the point where they are being warned about an ongoing health crisis. And yet numerous SNP supporters have, over the past year, complained about the Tories cutting the NHS (they haven't) and thank goodness for the SNP for protecting Scotland (they didn't).
And yet weirdly despite Corbyn constantly rebelling against Blair, and even threatening leadership challenges and complaining about him to the press, Blair won elections and led the party.
I am getting to the point where I ignore anyone who starts by throwing the word neoliberal around. It's such a pointlessly, *meaningless* word now used by the far left. It's come to mean 'anything and anyone who disagrees with me'. If you can't find a better way to express your opinions, go read a book.
I don't
Thing is, i think if Labour had a leader who could make a convincing leftist argument and was a more able campaigner than Corbyn, that person could beat Corbyn. It's not like he has some voodoo hold over the Labour electorate; folks like his policies so he wins, and nobody else on Labour's front bench wants to stand for what he stands for (which, aside from some of his sillier foreign policy planks, are all very good stuff that most of the global left should be looking at).
B-B-Bomba!
Member
Yeah. Very well said. I can only see the ultimate culprit being Blairites, for failing to digest and capitalise on an evidently powerful political movement within their own party. Instead they've done nothing but bitch, apparently on the simple basis that it's not them any more.
Edit - "If you're so electable, why aren't you helping?"
Of course he led the party. The party that has already been corrupted by corporatism coincidentally accepted that prick Blair but now it's willing to implode than accept an actual leftist. Shocking.
And of course liberals hate the word neoliberalism. It's the term that describes perfectly the "ideology" of the scum you're usually voting for and the system you support, consciously or not (usually the latter).
My party did more for the poor and disadvantaged than anything else in our lifetimes.
Your party makes jam, and best accomplishment appears to be faking a press event on a train.
Congrats. I'm sure this strategy of attacking the centre left from the far left is exactly what will get labour back into power.
You can't blame everything on the new Labour bogeyman. They are not responsible for Corbyn's generally terrible performances at PMQs or for his numerous gaffes like the Virgin trains incident.
I'm actually attacking the economic right-wingers, the illusion the media has created that liberals are center-left is just that, a blatant lie that serves the interests of the upper class.
I'm sorry, I'm confused, didn't we just have a pathetic coup attempt that made the Labour party look like a fucking joke?
Pie and Beans
Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
I love the 20 year olds in this topic and all over the net saying shit like Blair wasn't real Labour anyway and how exciting it is for them to get back to being an unelectable fringe party.
Politics is all about "absolute ideology" after all and not the hard work of compromise, balance, and dealing with an actual country. Being "in power" sounds too much like working for The Man, man.
I'm just anticipating Corbyn not stepping down after election failure at this point and that's the end of the British political system.
Politics is all about "absolute ideology" after all and not the hard work of compromise, balance, and dealing with an actual country. Being "in power" sounds too much like working for The Man, man.
I'm just anticipating Corbyn not stepping down after election failure at this point and that's the end of the British political system.
My favourite was him sabotaging his own transport policy by announcing a reshuffle on the same day as labour had geared up to really hammer the tories on the railways. I really do think that a lot of his supporters don't realise *why* the MPs want to get rid of him. Most of them tried to make it work - the number of open, actively hostile MPs was always less than 20. They ran out of patience because he is so staggeringly, unbelieveably incompetent at the job they can see the cliff edge rapidly approaching.
Which shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone - he's spent his life being a professional protest politician in a safe seat protesting from the back benches. He has the same people skills and management skills as my aforementioned cat. Running a major political party requires more than being able to give a good speech, and he has repeatedly failed to run labour at all.
Yep. We northern working class gay men who've spent the last 20 years in politics and work trying to make the world a better place for people were just right wingers in disguise all along!
Tell me, when you can't manage to persuade people like me to vote for a Corbyn, how the hell do you persuade the actual centre right people in the marginal seats who are necessary to win an election?
Politics in this country is run from the centre ground, it's how you win. Either we persuade them, or we fail and abandon any hope of change or policy in the next decade. Compromise is you win.
I'm 30+ which is why I'll never support again Brairite scumbags and their ideology of continuing conservative policies. Unlike the geniuses who just want their team to win any means necessary, even if these means translate no zero change on how the country is governed, at this point I'm willing to risk everything to have an actual leftist government instead of liberals aka the managers of neolberalism.
This must be that "kinder, gentler politics" I've heard so much about.
Play the lottery mate, you've got a better chance of winning.
And who set the standard for this centre you're talking about? Because it looks like the centre has shifted the last few decades, it's as if the ruling class is purposely moving that standard to better serve their own interests.Was David Cameron centre? Is Theresa May centre? Because if you actually believe that there's no point continuing this discussion.
I suspect the aforementioned pathetic coup attempt may have been caused in part by Corbyn's terrible performance as leader. I mean that would make sense.... but nah the majority of Labour MPs are just closet Tories and scared of real left wing policies.
WhateverItTakes
Banned
The false equivalencies in politics this season has been incredible. A centre-left labour is the same as the conservative party, Hillary is just as bad as Trump...
Haven't I read posts of yours calling both Trump and all of his supporters scumbags and assholes? Why are you allowed to despise an ideology and I'm not? I guess you draw the line at Trump but not the system that has created such a broken, dumb and desperate electorate.
CoolZombie
Member
Hear hear.
And I suspect that was just another excuse to attack Corbyn like they have consistently been doing ever since Corbyn was elected.
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