Next Leader of the Opposition

[Molly]

Why are you all complaining about a successful democratic vote.

 

If he gets it then good for him.

[johnny the fox]

Why are you all complaining about a successful democratic vote.

 

If he gets it then good for him.

so your backing the turkeys vote this yule tide...

[Guest Bilo]

Why are you all complaining about a successful democratic vote.

 

If he gets it then good for him.

 

It'll be bad for the country though.

 

There's no way he could lead a party that could realistically form the next government, the election process has defined navel gazing from the outset and been ruinously divisive. I want to see Labour back in office in 2020, but that hope will probably be extinguished if Corbyn is elected.

 

A weak opposition to the government is bad for democracy, whatever your political leanings.

[Molly]

so your backing the turkeys vote this yule tide...

 

As I said before I like the idea of having parties that are different to each other rather than 3 that are so similar the plastic smile can be transplanted onto each of the leaders.

 

The population can choose which they want - that's democracy.

 

And why critisize a party for picking the person the MAJORITY of them want?

[Molly]

It'll be bad for the country though.

 

There's no way he could lead a party that could realistically form the next government, the election process has defined navel gazing from the outset and been ruinously divisive. I want to see Labour back in office in 2020, but that hope will probably be extinguished if Corbyn is elected.

 

A weak opposition to the government is bad for democracy, whatever your political leanings.

 

The last 2 labour leaders couldn't either. And if you really think Burnham or any of the others are going to lead Labour to victory you're probably kidding yourself.

 

Maybe you should consider voting for the Lib Dems as they seem to reflect your views better. 

[johnny the fox]

As I said before I like the idea of having parties that are different to each other rather than 3 that are so similar the plastic smile can be transplanted onto each of the leaders.

 

The population can choose which they want - that's democracy.

 

And why critisize a party for picking the person the MAJORITY of them want?

the Tory members voted for   Hague, Duncan -smith, and Howard... were they right?  

[Guest Bilo]

The last 2 labour leaders couldn't either. And if you really think Burnham or any of the others are going to lead Labour to victory you're probably kidding yourself.

 

Maybe you should consider voting for the Lib Dems as they seem to reflect your views better. 

 

Brown lost because Labour had lost touch with the broader electorate and was being unfairly blamed for the worldwide economic crisis. He also led a pretty miserable campaign in 2010. Miliband lost because the public didn't trust us with the economy, and because the media still perceived us as being too locked in the Westminster bubble. We were too narrow at the election - focusing too much on the poorest and the richest, and too little on those in between. Burnham at least gets that, and his manifesto is very much about looking outside not only the Westminster bubble, but on converting voters who left us for other parties. If we don't do that, we get battered again in 2020.

 

Corbyn preaches more or less exclusively to the converted and the movement for him is too inwards looking, too focused on calling everyone who hasn't yet joined the latest cult Tories and ultimately, even more narrow than the campaign that just bombed in May.We have to show the people we're listening to their concerns, that we can be trusted with the economy and that we can change lives for the better. Blairism is dead, but Corbynism is unlikely ever to be born as an electoral force.

 

The fact you implore me to vote for the Lib Dems when I'd rather not vote at all tells me all I need to know. Telling a Labour Party member to leave the party because they don't think Corbyn can win an election is the standard reaction of a Corbynite. Presumably I'll be Blue Labour, pro-austerity, Red Tory or Tory Lite next. I've heard them all, and they're all ignorant nonsense aimed at silencing through smearing.

 

It's been a long time since I've seen such an ignorant, undemocratic and divisive political trend such as this one. When UKIP are more accommodating to views outside of their party than Corbynites are to alternative views within their own, you know we're going to have serious problems converting new blood under Corbyn's tenure - if we're as out of touch with the public mood as the YouGov poll suggests.

 

If everyone in the party who feels misgivings regards Corbyn's electability leaves, as a great deal of Corbynites seem to pin their hopes on, there'll be a split within the party that makes Michael Foot look like a unifying force. The irony is that Corbyn, wholly unprepared for leadership as he is, is actually a decent man of integrity and good manners while his supporters seem the exact opposite. 

 

Tie all of this to a press that will be implacably hostile, Corbyn's tendency to get hot under the collar when challenged directly (hardly a trait that bodes well for PMQs, interviews on Sunday Politics and chats with Paxman), policies that seem unlikely to restore the public trust in Labour's economic competence and the noted transience of Damascene moments and you've a recipe for disaster.

 

There's a reason that Tories and UKIP are keeping everything crossed that Corbyn gets elected, and it isn't double bluffing.

[Webbo]

Brown lost because Labour had lost touch with the broader electorate and was being unfairly blamed for the worldwide economic crisis. He also led a pretty miserable campaign in 2010. Miliband lost because the public didn't trust us with the economy, and because the media still perceived us as being too locked in the Westminster bubble. We were too narrow at the election - focusing too much on the poorest and the richest, and too little on those in between. Burnham at least gets that, and his manifesto is very much about looking outside not only the Westminster bubble, but on converting voters who left us for other parties. If we don't do that, we get battered again in 2020.

 

Corbyn preaches more or less exclusively to the converted and the movement for him is too inwards looking, too focused on calling everyone who hasn't yet joined the latest cult Tories and ultimately, even more narrow than the campaign that just bombed in May.We have to show the people we're listening to their concerns, that we can be trusted with the economy and that we can change lives for the better. Blairism is dead, but Corbynism is unlikely ever to be born as an electoral force.

 

The fact you implore me to vote for the Lib Dems when I'd rather not vote at all tells me all I need to know. Telling a Labour Party member to leave the party because they don't think Corbyn can win an election is the standard reaction of a Corbynite. Presumably I'll be Blue Labour, pro-austerity, Red Tory or Tory Lite next. I've heard them all, and they're all ignorant nonsense aimed at silencing through smearing.

 

It's been a long time since I've seen such an ignorant, undemocratic and divisive political trend such as this one. When UKIP are more accommodating to views outside of their party than Corbynites are to alternative views within their own, you know we're going to have serious problems converting new blood under Corbyn's tenure - if we're as out of touch with the public mood as the YouGov poll suggests.

 

If everyone in the party who feels misgivings regards Corbyn's electability leaves, as a great deal of Corbynites seem to pin their hopes on, there'll be a split within the party that makes Michael Foot look like a unifying force. The irony is that Corbyn, wholly unprepared for leadership as he is, is actually a decent man of integrity and good manners while his supporters seem the exact opposite. 

 

Tie all of this to a press that will be implacably hostile, Corbyn's tendency to get hot under the collar when challenged directly (hardly a trait that bodes well for PMQs, interviews on Sunday Politics and chats with Paxman), policies that seem unlikely to restore the public trust in Labour's economic competence and the noted transience of Damascene moments and you've a recipe for disaster.

 

There's a reason that Tories and UKIP are keeping everything crossed that Corbyn gets elected, and it isn't double bluffing.

You've obviously been brainwashed by the right wing press.

[Guest Bilo]

You've obviously been brainwashed by the right wing press.

 

Already been accused of being a 'Murdoch loving Tory shill' on another forum.

 

There is a lot of what Corbyn says that I agree with, but it's not the Labour Party rank and file he has to convince. It's the angry UKIPpers, shy Tories, disillusioned Lib Dems, floating voters and Scotland. Of those groups, I'd say the only one he looks better equipped to convince than Burnham or Cooper is Scotland.

[Sir Fynwy]

UKIP had plenty of centre left policies in their manifesto.

The official opposition should have some different policies to the current government rather than fight over the same ones.

[leicsmac]

Brown lost because Labour had lost touch with the broader electorate and was being unfairly blamed for the worldwide economic crisis. He also led a pretty miserable campaign in 2010. Miliband lost because the public didn't trust us with the economy, and because the media still perceived us as being too locked in the Westminster bubble. We were too narrow at the election - focusing too much on the poorest and the richest, and too little on those in between. Burnham at least gets that, and his manifesto is very much about looking outside not only the Westminster bubble, but on converting voters who left us for other parties. If we don't do that, we get battered again in 2020.

 

Corbyn preaches more or less exclusively to the converted and the movement for him is too inwards looking, too focused on calling everyone who hasn't yet joined the latest cult Tories and ultimately, even more narrow than the campaign that just bombed in May.We have to show the people we're listening to their concerns, that we can be trusted with the economy and that we can change lives for the better. Blairism is dead, but Corbynism is unlikely ever to be born as an electoral force.

 

The fact you implore me to vote for the Lib Dems when I'd rather not vote at all tells me all I need to know. Telling a Labour Party member to leave the party because they don't think Corbyn can win an election is the standard reaction of a Corbynite. Presumably I'll be Blue Labour, pro-austerity, Red Tory or Tory Lite next. I've heard them all, and they're all ignorant nonsense aimed at silencing through smearing.

 

It's been a long time since I've seen such an ignorant, undemocratic and divisive political trend such as this one. When UKIP are more accommodating to views outside of their party than Corbynites are to alternative views within their own, you know we're going to have serious problems converting new blood under Corbyn's tenure - if we're as out of touch with the public mood as the YouGov poll suggests.

 

If everyone in the party who feels misgivings regards Corbyn's electability leaves, as a great deal of Corbynites seem to pin their hopes on, there'll be a split within the party that makes Michael Foot look like a unifying force. The irony is that Corbyn, wholly unprepared for leadership as he is, is actually a decent man of integrity and good manners while his supporters seem the exact opposite. 

 

Tie all of this to a press that will be implacably hostile, Corbyn's tendency to get hot under the collar when challenged directly (hardly a trait that bodes well for PMQs, interviews on Sunday Politics and chats with Paxman), policies that seem unlikely to restore the public trust in Labour's economic competence and the noted transience of Damascene moments and you've a recipe for disaster.

 

There's a reason that Tories and UKIP are keeping everything crossed that Corbyn gets elected, and it isn't double bluffing.

 

Excellent post. The bolded part being extremely, EXTREMELY important.

[Guest Bilo]

I think they would whether it was Burnham or Cooper - though I agree that Kendall isn't far enough away from the Tories to present a sufficient departure.

[johnny the fox]

I suppose Labour can stay unsullied and pure to their true beliefs...and stay as a bystander for the rest of the millennium ...don't bother ..I can afford the Tories..

[Lionator]

Burnham would've walked this is if he'd have voted against the welfare bill. 

[Strokes]

Maybe you should consider voting for the Lib Dems as they seem to reflect your views better.

I think quite a few will if corbyn gets in

[enmac]

He's got a point though. There is no real 'left-wing press' in the UK. At least not in the mainstream, at least not truly left-wing.

Mirror, which I haven't read for years-maybe- former home of Alaistair Campbell-left wing! Guardian- essentialy Liberal (old style), but did advise readers to vote Milliband- probably because the new liberals were essentially Tories- coalition.

Independent- advised readers to vote Tory.

So I think I have a very good point.

Left wing press! No such thing.

That guy probably thinks the Sun is left wing!

[enmac]

It would be a pretty desperate aregument to claim a news channel was right ( or left) leaning.... At least in the UK anyway.

Do you know your arse from your elbow?

Answer: no.

[enmac]

Do they? Tories are paying £3 in their droves to vote for Corbyn, the most pro Tory paper the Telegraph has openly called on people to support him, which Tories don't want him? The last thing any Tory I know wants is a Blair style leader at the helm of the Labour party, you really think we'll be cheering on Jarvis or Umanna when they eventually put their names forward?

Back on topic an open letter was penned yesterday by David Aaronovich begging people not to vote for him. Fairly interesting read.

Dear young Corbynista,

I know you won’t be reading this online since you don’t want to give any money to Rupert Murdoch. But there’s just a chance of you seeing The Times in your local library (if the Tory cuts have left any standing) or of reading a copy left on the bus. And if so this column is addressed to you.

I don’t think you’re stupid (or, at any rate, no stupider than anyone else). And I understand that you care about things — certainly more than some of your hedonistic selfie-stick contemporaries who you may find frustratingly and almost deliberately ignorant. I am also beginning to grasp — hard though it is for me — that my waving the past before your eyes is not persuasive. The 1983 Labour electoral disaster? The Militant Tendency? Neil Kinnock’s battles against a far left that included Jeremy Corbyn? Ancient history. So if I tell you that some of those old Trotskyists, unrepentant and unlearning, have shaken off the attic dust and joined the JC movement, that will mean nothing. And perhaps it shouldn’t. They aren’t the people fuelling this candidacy. You are.

And I don’t think you’re going to be impressed either by my reminding you that Mr Corbyn has, by the age of 66, never actually run anything in his life, never had to defend a decision or a policy. Look at all the middle-class, middle-aged white men who have been in charge of things, you may retort. At least he’s not one of them.

But what is he one of? A volunteer, helping to run his packed-out meeting in Camden on Monday night, said of Mr Corbyn: “It is not what he says, it is what he stands for.” And that distinction, of course, means that Corbynism, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. So what he’s likely to stand for is fairness, a commitment to peace and no cuts to anything except Trident.

Up to now you’ve mostly been told by Mr Corbyn’s opponents that the biggest problem with him is that he is not electable. To which your response, like the musician Brian Eno’s on Monday night, might be that electability is overrated. What’s the point of being in politics if fear of the ballot box terrifies you out of saying what you believe? How can you ever change things that way?

So I want to tell you instead why I wouldn’t support Jeremy Corbyn even if he was electable and why you might not either. It’s an argument that does have something to do with what he says and supports — and has said and supported for years — rather than what you imagine he stands for.

I read an interview with JC recently in which the admiring questioner said that “the thing about Corbyn is that he is nearly always proved right — after the event”. The example given was his support for talking to Sinn Fein long before the Good Friday Agreement brought peace to Northern Ireland. So, for example, Corbyn’s observation of a minute’s silence in 1987 for an IRA squad ambushed by the army at Loughgall had to be seen as a sort of premature peace gesture.

This is almost comically wrong. The significance of Loughgall was that it was one of the events that convinced the Provisional IRA that it could not force Britain out of Northern Ireland by military means. Corbyn was utterly mistaken about it. But then, in his view, all would have been well if only Britain had withdrawn and allowed a united Ireland, over the heads of the Protestant majority in Ulster. He argued for that. But eventually peace was achieved without a united Ireland.

Corbyn’s support for militant Republicanism did not come from nowhere. It came from a Cold War analysis that identified “imperialism” as the chief enemy of peoples everywhere. In 1991 he opposed the military operation against Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait. In 1999 he opposed military action against Milosevic’s potentially genocidal campaign in Kosovo and argued for Nato to be disbanded. He opposed sanctions against Saddam’s Iraq. In November 2001 he opposed military action against the Taliban who had sheltered bin Laden’s bases in Afghanistan. He opposes military support for the Kurds against Islamic State now. Whenever there is a conflict, as in Ukraine, it is — in Corbyn’s view — the imperialist West’s fault. Last year, as Russian armour entered the sovereign republic of Ukraine, Mr Corbyn wrote an article in the Morning Star subtitled “It is the US drive to expand eastwards which lies at the root of the crisis in the former Soviet republic.”

It is always, always, always the West’s fault, partly because the West’s social economic system, even when modified or reformed, is inferior and drives it to conquest. And Mr Corbyn, in his many statements and speeches and motions in favour of the Chavistas in Venezuela or the Castros in Cuba, supports — believes in — a better system.

That system is state socialism: I use the term here analytically, not pejoratively. Mr Corbyn still argues that Labour should re-adopt its old Clause IV, requiring “the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service”.

Taken at its word (and Mr Corbyn is famously sincere) such a provision would require the corner shop to be run by a workers and residents committee. In practice in Cuba and Venezuela (the Chinese have long abandoned it) it means a deadening, bureaucratic nightmare, held together only by an antipathy towards America.

It entails economies that go bust even when there is oil, cities where the fabled people’s doctors can’t get paid and have to supplement their income selling drugs on the black market. It means a shackled press and the intimidation of opponents.

In practice those who seem to espouse such statism abroad don’t follow it at home. As mayor of London Ken Livingstone was as boringly pragmatic as Boris. More, even. In Scotland the SNP government talks left yet does nothing to frighten the middle-class horses. So, if you don’t mind purely rhetorical and foreign-policy leftism, that’s reassuring.

But you said Mr Corbyn is different. He’s not like all those compromising, frightened, etiolated Labourites of recent years. He’s the genuine article. He means it. In which case he is absolutely the last person you should want to see lead the Labour party. Because the “it” he means is even worse — far worse, in fact — than the state we’re in now.

So please don’t do it.

Yours, David

In case it hasn't been posted already.

Aronovitch ( according to Wiki (?))- big supporter of Blair. Strongly in favour of the Invasion of Iraq.

Haven't read many of your posts, but those I have make me question your motives.

[enmac]

Your motives: MattP- Ukip/Far right Tory, who's shit scared JC might win. You know this much- the other 3 have no chance. At least we agree are on something.

[Webbo]

In case it hasn't been posted already.

Aronovitch ( according to Wiki (?))- big supporter of Blair. Strongly in favour of the Invasion of Iraq.

Haven't read many of your posts, but those I have make me question your motives.

What are your motives?

[Molly]

the Tory members voted for   Hague, Duncan -smith, and Howard... were they right?  

If that's what they wanted then they were right.

 

Surely a party (or group of any kind) should be representative of it's members.

 

We all support Leicester and they don't win the league. Should we instead support Manchester or Chelsea because they have the better chance of winning?

 

A party should represent its members and the population can vote for the party whose policies they prefer.

 

If that means never having a labour government again so be it. 

 

Clearly to win the last election Labour would have needed to become a cross between UKIP and the Tories. Is that really how you want you politics to go?

 

Personally I prefer parties with well defined beliefs - new parties if needed - and people vote for beliefs.

[Molly]

 

 

The fact you implore me to vote for the Lib Dems when I'd rather not vote at all tells me all I need to know. Telling a Labour Party member to leave the party because they don't think Corbyn can win an election is the standard reaction of a Corbynite. Presumably I'll be Blue Labour, pro-austerity, Red Tory or Tory Lite next. I've heard them all, and they're all ignorant nonsense aimed at silencing through smearing.

 

 

 

Yet you are clearly not inline with the view of the majority in the party. Perhaps you should re-evaluate what you want from your leaders. It seems you want a business oriented party. You seem to have labeled yourself Labour but moved away from those labour principles. I suggested Lib Dem because you seem more in line with them but you also hold Tory views (much as you may hate to hear it). You have the right to move to whichever group you want to move to. The labour party can stick to its core beliefs and then you can decide if you are really labour nowadays or not.

 

You are the one transfixed upon labour winning at all costs - even if they sell their souls. Corbyn is saying he wants to make a stand with his beliefs - no-one has to back him - if they do then it shows that the majority wish to make that stand to.

 

TBH an efficient public owned system clearly trumps all others theoretically. Efficient Non-profit organisations will give you the best service at the best price. 

[Molly]

I think quite a few will if corbyn gets in

 

Well that's what a democracy is about.

[Sir Fynwy]

Some labour MP's and supporters don't seem to understand democracy, maybe they'd be happier with the Chinese system of imposed candidates?

 

It's not about winning elections, it's about a system of beliefs and if the majority of labour members feel they want to move the party back towards it's left wing roots rather than fight in the middle ground that's what should happen, if it doesn't win elections then they might change their views or they might be happy with membership of a smaller party.

 

British politics (English really) is infantile in it's application at present.

[Voll Blau]

Already been accused of being a 'Murdoch loving Tory shill' on another forum.

 

There is a lot of what Corbyn says that I agree with, but it's not the Labour Party rank and file he has to convince. It's the angry UKIPpers, shy Tories, disillusioned Lib Dems, floating voters and Scotland. Of those groups, I'd say the only one he looks better equipped to convince than Burnham or Cooper is Scotland.

 

Don't forget non-voters. Say what you will about him, but he does seem to be getting them interested...