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UK PoliGAF |OT2| - We Blue Ourselves

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phisheep

phisheep

NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
I'm kind of coming round to the idea of Corbyn for Labour leader.

And just to be clear, yes I'm usually though not always a Conservative voter but no, I don't mean this in a Toby Young "let's make labour unelectable" sort of way. I think Corbyn could be good for the Labour party and good for British democracy.

First of all, he is a real electoral threat. None of the others, unless they drastically change their tune (which would of course be noticed and slammed) has the slightest chance of forming a working alliance with the SNP because of the "red tories" slur.

Secondly, he offers clarity and honesty and a degree of certainty about where he is coming from. Labour has not had that for the last 20 years or so because of trying too hard to be just like the Tories only (a) less sleazy (that failed), or (b) less divided (that failed), or (c) less, well, nasty about it. That last one worked just fine until, partly because of internal divisions, Labour turned out to be kind of gutless when it came to public service reform. And when that failed, the only selling point for New Labour was to be exactly like the Tories but less good at it - which is scarcely a vote-winner.

And thirdly, for exactly the same reason that the "morons" nominated Corbyn for leader - namely that there is a big debate that needs to be had in the Labour party - this moron favours voting for him for leader because there is a big debate to be had in the country and in the Commons too. And just because New Labour shifted the goalposts rightwards doesn't mean that debate is over.

Now, I don't think - on current policies - that I would vote for Corbyn as PM (yes I know we don't actually vote for the PM but you know what I mean). But I might, depending on what coherent policies he comes up with. Which is more than I could say for the other three, because if I want a Tory-style government then I might as well vote Tory.

Will be watching this with considerable interest.
 
H

Hellers

Member
It`ll certainly make things more interesting and to be honest can`t be any worse than these faceless, career tory-lites.

Any government in power needs a strong opposition just to keep them honest (Or at least less dishonest). Labour haven`t been that for a long time.
 
U

Uzzy

Member
Nicktendo86 said:
They are actually going to do it aren't they, the crazy bastards are actually going to vote for Corbyn.
Click to expand...

Hardly surprising now is it? The other three candidates are vacuous non-entities who only offer the idea that Labour need to be the Tories but with a pretty face. At least Corbyn stands for something else, something different to what's already available.

As phisheep correctly points out, if people want a Tory government, they'll vote Tory. So an alternative is what should be offered.
 
C

CyclopsRock

Member
Uzzy said:
Hardly surprising now is it? The other three candidates are vacuous non-entities who only offer the idea that Labour need to be the Tories but with a pretty face. At least Corbyn stands for something else, something different to what's already available.

As phisheep correctly points out, if people want a Tory government, they'll vote Tory. So an alternative is what should be offered.
Click to expand...

I think that the Nasty Party vibe is still very much around and some people still think they're all swan eating child rapists, yet they still won the election because people found Ed's offer so unappealing that they'd rather hold their nose and vote Blue than elect Labour. As such, I think the idea - as Phisheep also said - of a "Tory party with a heart" might actually be a very popular option. And whilst it's not all about being popular, ya gotta win it to get your policies made law, right? They ain't gonna stop the "wholesale privatisation of the NHS" or whatever guff they've made up today by complaining about it at PMQs. Of course, it could be that there's a huge tranche of voters that would have voted Ed were he a) more appealing personally and b) more left wing, but the evidence doesn't bear that out imo, so Labour's options are basically Tory lite or ruin, imo.
 
R

RobotNinjaHornets

Banned
Can I just ask, how exactly was Ed so left wing? Was it the controls on immigration? Or his agreement that social security needed reforming? The mansion tax and getting rid of the bedroom tax promises hardly matter when your argument is still centred around promising to fuck over the poor.
 
W

War Peaceman

You're a big guy.
CyclopsRock said:
I think that the Nasty Party vibe is still very much around and some people still think they're all swan eating child rapists, yet they still won the election because people found Ed's offer so unappealing that they'd rather hold their nose and vote Blue than elect Labour. As such, I think the idea - as Phisheep also said - of a "Tory party with a heart" might actually be a very popular option. And whilst it's not all about being popular, ya gotta win it to get your policies made law, right? They ain't gonna stop the "wholesale privatisation of the NHS" or whatever guff they've made up today by complaining about it at PMQs. Of course, it could be that there's a huge tranche of voters that would have voted Ed were he a) more appealing personally and b) more left wing, but the evidence doesn't bear that out imo, so Labour's options are basically Tory lite or ruin, imo.
Click to expand...

It was nasty but competent vs. not as bad (note: not nice) but a bit useless and untrustworthy. Polling for many of Labour's flagship policies were overwhelmingly popular, they just could not be trusted (legacy of Blair/Brown + failures over previous parliament).

Talk of Labour's ruin is overdramatic. We all know 2020 is unlikely to be a victory, it is better to restore principal and trust even if it is at the expense of short term success. People respect principal and they like characters. Corbyn is a better shout because he has both. Yes he may not be in the political zeitgeist (ugh) but people fucking hate career politicians more than someone they slightly disagree with. I would vote for Dan Jarvis without question, but frankly they other candidates offer nothing of value. Fuck them.

The more I think about it, the less I am convinced that New Labour's success was Blair. He was made to look strong and powerful because he won. Just the same way Cameron went from weak end inept to the opposite because he won. Blair was not why Labour won. Everything was in their favour. However one of the best things they did was have a very strong party political machine. They had strong messaging and solid organisation. Blair was a good mouthpiece for that, but was only a part of it. All that has disintegrated.

ED wasn't very left wing outside of certain rent control ideas and energy price freezes (although immigration control has a long legacy in Labour). It was largely fabricated by the media.
 
C

CyclopsRock

Member
RobotNinjaHornets said:
Can I just ask, how exactly was Ed so left wing? Was it the controls on immigration? Or his agreement that social security needed reforming? The mansion tax and getting rid of the bedroom tax promises hardly matter when your argument is still centred around promising to fuck over the poor.
Click to expand...

I don't think anyone's claiming he was "so left wing" but he was more left wing than any Labour front bench for 20+ years before him (ie the ones that won elections). What else should we be comparing him to? And let's not forget he also wanted to implement price ceilings on rent, train tickets and utilities, have a "reckoning" with banks, he talked about predatory capitalism etc. He's not Marx but he's hardly Blair either.

vcassano1 said:
It was nasty but competent vs. not as bad (note: not nice) but a bit useless and untrustworthy. Polling for many of Labour's flagship policies were overwhelmingly popular, they just could not be trusted (legacy of Blair/Brown + failures over previous parliament).

Talk of Labour's ruin is overdramatic. We all know 2020 is unlikely to be a victory, it is better to restore principal and trust even if it is at the expense of short term success. People respect principal and they like characters. Corbyn is a better shout because he has both. Yes he may not be in the political zeitgeist (ugh) but people fucking hate career politicians more than someone they slightly disagree with. I would vote for Dan Jarvis without question, but frankly they other candidates offer nothing of value. Fuck them.

The more I think about it, the less I am convinced that New Labour's success was Blair. He was made to look strong and powerful because he won. Just the same way Cameron went from weak end inept to the opposite because he won. Blair was not why Labour won. Everything was in their favour. However one of the best things they did was have a very strong party political machine. They had strong messaging and solid organisation. Blair was a good mouthpiece for that, but was only a part of it. All that has disintegrated.

ED wasn't very left wing outside of certain rent control ideas and energy price freezes (although immigration control has a long legacy in Labour). It was largely fabricated by the media.
Click to expand...

Well IMO their road to ruin is if someone crappeo like Cooper becomes leader, they limp along like a sack of useless soup for 5 years, lose, and THEN there's a Corbyn figure who says "look, we tried being right, we need to go left!" and then they lose again as a result in 2025. By that point their next opportunity for success is 2030, at which point it'll have been 20 years since they were last in government. I don't know if this scenario is likely, but it's entirely possible. Their main chance at success would be basically waiting for the Tories to destroy themselves, like a weird sort of Chemotherapy battle to see whether the cancer dies before the host does.
 
Jezbollah

Jezbollah

Member
Realistically, all Corbyn is, is a stop-gap. The guy is going to be very nearly 71 going into the 2020 election if he lasts until then.

What is the long term plan for Labour leadership?

Crab will say Dan Jarvis. I'll be happy with that!
 
M

Mindwipe

Member
Labour are also very bad at getting their vote out.

Honestly, if they had any strategic common sense the Labour party's platform at this point would be built entirely around electoral reform.
 
C

CyclopsRock

Member
Mindwipe said:
Labour are also very bad at getting their vote out.

Honestly, if they had any strategic common sense the Labour party's platform at this point would be built entirely around electoral reform.
Click to expand...

That's good as an electoral thrust (ironically), but for the next 4.5 years the Tories are going to be tabling bills that cut welfare, change this, alter that etc and Labour need to know where they stand. Electoral reform, whatever else its virtues, don't answer any of those questions. I'm slightly sympahetic towards Cooper and Burnham right now in the sense that they're stuck between a rock and a hard place by virtue of their being in cabinet - they need to act with the cabinet collective responsibility and vote with whatever their supply teacher says, which makes it pretty hard for them to actually chart a direction. We don't really know where they stand on a lot of things, just where Harman stands.
 
C

CyclopsRock

Member
The communication workers union has declared war:

CLKaZfoWwAA0-wH.png:large


What the fuck.
 
M

Mindwipe

Member
CyclopsRock said:
That's good as an electoral thrust (ironically), but for the next 4.5 years the Tories are going to be tabling bills that cut welfare, change this, alter that etc and Labour need to know where they stand. Electoral reform, whatever else its virtues, don't answer any of those questions. I'm slightly sympahetic towards Cooper and Burnham right now in the sense that they're stuck between a rock and a hard place by virtue of their being in cabinet - they need to act with the cabinet collective responsibility and vote with whatever their supply teacher says, which makes it pretty hard for them to actually chart a direction. We don't really know where they stand on a lot of things, just where Harman stands.
Click to expand...

Given Labour don't have an answer they should probably try to move the debate somewhere they could.

Cameron announcing huge internet censorship plan this morning. Press barely notice.
 
C

CyclopsRock

Member
vcassano1 said:
What's wrong with what they said? The virus stuff is just shit rhetoric.
Click to expand...

Arguably that's a sufficient crime for the "communications" union, but publically insulting the only leadership the party's had in 40 years that's won an election is, imo, mental. "We reject the notion that the Labour party will ever be a legitimate political force in the UK again."

Edit: I mean "legitimate" in the "too legit to quit" sense, not the lacking-in-legitimacy-mr-rahman sense.
 
H

Hellers

Member
Hitler could have been in charge of Labour in 97 and won. Does everyone forget just how much the Tories were hated then?
 
C

CyclopsRock

Member
There's something in the air tonight, I think, because someone annoyed Phil Collins a bit on twitter:

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article4513159.ece

This gives me a dilemma if I decide to run for public office. Do I, as no doubt you would, dear naive leftie, proclaim these beliefs loudly in the certain knowledge I am right and the public is wrong? Or do I concentrate on other issues, such as economic prosperity? Do I perhaps even have enough respect for the electorate to concede that, in a democracy, I have no mandate for my republican views? For the Corbynite left, this shows a flinching coward and a sneering traitor. For anyone with a less adolescent view of the world this is no “hypocrisy” or “betrayal”. It’s politics in a democracy. Here’s the rub, simple-minded leftie, in words of one syllable: grow up.

I apologise to readers of an intelligent disposition for the next sentence. If Labour is not in power, the Conservatives are. The Labour party was formed to send the representatives of working men to parliament and form a government. Mr Corbyn is a loser who will help to ensure the original purpose of the Labour party is frustrated. Making this case, which ought to be obvious, is not helped by writers who waste their fluency on a pitiful attempt to cast Mr Corbyn as the heir of anti-politics. No, clever-clogs commentator, Mr Corbyn is not the messiah. He’s just a very naughty boy. The tip-off for this sort of rubbish is the use of the meaningless term “neo-liberal”. Anyone who dares compromise with reality is, for the mock intellectuals of the left, a “neo-liberal”. Whatever it means, I’d rather be neo-liberal than Neolithic.
Click to expand...

More at the link, but it's behind Murdoch's wall of hate.
 
T

tomtom94

Member
People on the right of the Labour party really don't seem to get that the electorate they claim to be so in touch with believes they are poison because Brown has become intrinsically linked with the financial crisis.

Did they really miss all the times Ed got called out for that during the debates?
 
T

TeddyBoy

Member
So I watched this Channel 4 video about Corbyn, I quite like him as a leader and I think he'll offer a new and different take on the big political issues.

I don't really want to nationalise the Royal Mail since that's against EU regulations but otherwise I think he's great (abolishing tuition fees would be something I strongly believe in!).

Just found out he wants to abolish the monarchy as well! For the republic!
 
D

DeFiBkIlLeR

Banned
TeddyBoy said:
So I watched this Channel 4 video about Corbyn, I quite like him as a leader and I think he'll offer a new and different take on the big political issues.

I don't really want to nationalise the Royal Mail since that's against EU regulations but otherwise I think he's great (abolishing tuition fees would be something I strongly believe in!).

Just found out he wants to abolish the monarchy as well! For the republic!
Click to expand...

..and this is why Labour will spend the next 10yrs in opposition, eventually realising they need to move back to the centre and putting another TB like figure in charge...you lefties, stuck in your little echo chamber of student schoolboy politics never learn.
 
T

TeddyBoy

Member
DeFiBkIlLeR said:
..and this is why Labour will spend the next 10yrs in opposition, eventually realising they need to move back to the centre and putting another TB like figure in charge...you lefties, stuck in your little echo chamber of student schoolboy politics never learn.
Click to expand...

I'm not being serious with my republican talk, I don't think he'll win any election but it would be nice to have different options for the British government.

The major political parties all feel far too familiar and it'll be nice to have parties representing different policies going in the next election (then Cobryn will be thrown out and we'll be back to New Labour).
 
R

RobotNinjaHornets

Banned
DeFiBkIlLeR said:
..and this is why Labour will spend the next 10yrs in opposition, eventually realising they need to move back to the centre and putting another TB like figure in charge...you lefties, stuck in your little echo chamber of student schoolboy politics never learn.
Click to expand...

Define the centre ground please.
 
D

DeFiBkIlLeR

Banned
RobotNinjaHornets said:
Define the centre ground please.
Click to expand...

It's the place from which Labour can only ever win an election in a middle class dominated electorate in 21st century Britain.

Putting a twat like Corbyn in charge is a betrayal of those that need the most help because you'll be able to do fuck all for them from the opposition benches.
 
I

It's Reyn Time!

Member
DeFiBkIlLeR said:
It's the place from which Labour can only ever win an election in a middle class dominated electorate in 21st century Britain.

Putting a twat like Corbyn in charge is a betrayal of those that need the most help because you'll be able to do fuck all for them from the opposition benches.
Click to expand...

"Those that need the most help" are already completely fucked under Tory leadership, ta.

I think we'd rather support a losing side than bend over and accept the constant reaming.
 
Jezbollah

Jezbollah

Member
It's Reyn Time! said:
"Those that need the most help" are already completely fucked under Tory leadership, ta.

I think we'd rather support a losing side than bend over and accept the constant reaming.
Click to expand...

That's something that could have been easily said before May, and yet the Conservatives gained to achieve a majority.

Putting Corbyn in as Leader may suit a lot of the Labour party, but the real question is if it would suit the fence sitting electorate. Even with the five years of the coalition government, the Labour party achieved only a 0.7% change of vote share over the Tories (+1.5% for Lab vs +0.8% for Con). Sure, there's a possibility of a Green vote grab to be had, but also there's a nice chunk of 9.5% of UKIP vote that Cameron would love to chip into, not to forget those Blairites who may not enjoy Jeremy's leadership.

It does beg the question if Corbyn being elected leader would unify the party or split it more from those who want to pull it to the centre to attract those fence sitters. Because I for one can't see those same voters wanting to elect someone who will be 70 by the time 2020 rolls around..
 
T

tomtom94

Member
Dan27 said:
It does beg the question if Corbyn being elected leader would unify the party or split it more from those who want to pull it to the centre to attract those fence sitters. Because I for one can't see those same voters wanting to elect someone who will be 70 by the time 2020 rolls around..
Click to expand...

The idea of Burnham/Cooper/Kendall's MPs splitting off in the event of Corbyn getting the nomination amuses me. What do you call yourselves when you explicitly want to be the centrist party?

remember that 'The Liberal Democrats' is taken
 
C

CyclopsRock

Member
Robert Webb (yeah, Jeremy from Peep Show, who IMO is a great example of how celebrities should use their profile for political reasons without coming across as shit bags) said something along these lines the other day:

"I'd like for Corbyn to win the leadership and become PM, but he won't win the election, and fucked people need us to win."

That's why, IMO, the idea that the most important thing is for Labour activists to be able to hold their heads up high rather than compromise on their ideals is a bit pathetic IMO. Note that this is a different discussion as to whether he can win (which I also think he can't) - it's the ones who themselves believe he can't win but want him to lead Labour anyway that are the crazies.
 
W

War Peaceman

You're a big guy.
But the choice isn't Corbyn or a chance of victory.

The choice is Corbyn or candidates who have roundly failed to market themselves or their ideals to their own fucking party. If you can't persuade your own, how can you the wider public?

All the hand-wringing about not being electable is self-defeating. It is an attempt to delegitimise a wing of the party. If you are always chasing the middle you end up with very little principle, plus what defines the middle now won't be the same in 2020 or 2025. It is naive to not compromise but also naive to assume that Corbyn won't.

TBH I would love to not vote for Corbyn, his foreign policy is repellant. But the alternatives are rubbish. Dan Jarvis <3
 
I

It's Reyn Time!

Member
Supporting a more right-wing Labour Party sure as shit isn't going to help the people who are fucked now either - the Tories based a good chunk of their election campaign on vilifying the poor, the sick and the disabled and the voting public ate it up. Being more like the Tories helps nobody.

I think people will be surprised by just how much support a truly left wing Labour Party could muster in just a few years. There's going to be a lot of people who were just kids during this election, who will have spent their formative years eating from food bank handouts.
 
H

Hellers

Member
There's no point appealing to the center fence sitters if your core base has decided they don't want to vote for you anymore.
 
D

Deleted member 231381

Unconfirmed Member
The evidence just doesn't bear out, though. Where are these magical leftwing voters coming from? The Labour Party could win every single Green party voter there is (and it's ludicrous to suggest they would, the Green party has its own identity that exists independently of how leftwing or not Labour is), and would still have less votes than the Conservatives. The SNP are a more rightwing party than Labour was under Miliband and arguably than under Blair, so it's difficult to see how Corbyn helps with that - the issue is messaging, not policy. There's no evidence that non-voters are significantly more leftwing than they are rightwing (they're marginally so, but only because younger people are somewhat more likely to be non-voters), and there's no reason to suppose that Corbyn will galvanize the left-wing non-voters more than he will the right-wing ones to vote for the other side. What's left? Winning TUSC votes? Wow, election-winning strategy right there.

Let's be brutally honest, here: British elections, fundamentally, are decided by a very small group of Labour-Conservative swing voters in a number of key constituencies, and by the media sources they read the most which have a large part in determining their decisions (primarily the Sun and the Daily Mail). Nobody else matters in deciding who takes government. This group of swing voters has shown no real preference for Corbyn over any other candidate, and tend to, as a whole, lean towards Burnham before anyone else (even Liz Kendall, contrary to Cyclops Rock's suppositions).

That doesn't mean Labour has to "abandon its core principles". Labour's core principles were making sure that people got access to healthcare, support, and education regardless of the situation. At the point you're going "we're sitting out this election because ideological purity", you are directly reducing the chance that healthcare, support, and education are taken away from those who need it most. You want to talk about food banks? How many people more do you think will be in food banks after another five years of Conservative policies?

Corbyn would be an excellent PM, but he wouldn't be an excellent election-winner. One day, we can fight for someone like Corbyn - when we have a candidate who is young, attractive, fresh; when a previous more moderate Labour government has managed to institute the media reforms that this country desperately needs, when all the baby boomers are dead and the current generation of people who've been fucked over by Conservative policies are the main generation. That day isn't today. Today is the day where we have an admittedly slim chance to wrestle control from a country that is, by nature, Conservative. I'm not letting that chance go.

It's also worth pointing out that Burnham is on the left of the party. Corbyn is literally the left-most figure in the entire Labour party given his voting record, so obviously Burnham doesn't quite compare to that, but you already have a very viable option to take the Labour party leftwards - and this one stands a (small) chance at winning!

EDIT: And for what it's worth, the Conservatives actually *did* do the above, which is why they're winning. Cameron doesn't appeal to core Conservatives - up until he eked that narrow majority, backbenchers hated his guts and he faced some of the most serious revolts of any PM since Major. Die-hard Conservatives think he's a wet Tory, and doesn't go far enough. He got his majority because he didn't listen to die-hard Conservatives, and made at least a sop to centre-ground issues.
 
PJV3

PJV3

Member
I'm still happy with Corbyn, it will be a car crash but the right of the party will finally have to admit the left of the party exists and start talking/compromising again.

The new labour brigade are not going to win without the left. Corby needs to democratise the party and bring the PLP into a proper debate with members over policy.
 
T

tomtom94

Member
I maintain that the main benefit of Corbyn will be pulling Labour to the left even if he's not elected, which is a chance for Labour to seize political momentum and move discussion towards the centre (which will be especially crucial since next year they lose the chance to do that when Farage gets to yell at the EU again)

Immigration Bill has been drafted, basically a load of proposals which will please the Mail/Express crowd but we have no idea how effective (both in terms of cost and in terms of getting rid of illegal immigrants) they are.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33754595
 
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