2020 Labour Leadership Election

[parochial boy]

I really, really, really hope that what Labour members and supporters take away from this debacle isn't that the party needs to go back to neoliberal fiscal policies and embrace hard-Remainer identity politics. We'll see.

It's unlikely considering the current membership.

Although, to be honest, pretty much everything I've seen so far seems to suggest that everyone across every wing of the party is just suffering from a massive case of confirmation bias. No-one seems to be exactly ready to engage in the sort of introspection that the party definitely needs.

[parochial boy]

I like Clive Lewis, think he'd be good. Especially since he's got good experience with red walls...

It's Sunday night. Sorry

[parochial boy]

I mean, Sajid Javid is the current chancellor of the exchequer; so it's not like being a mentally subnormal extremist is anything of an obstacle to getting that particular job.

[parochial boy]

- Nandy is lightweight and "sounds dumb"

Which is sure to be a major handicap against the famously articulate Boris Johnson.

Lisa Nandy is brown, you see

[parochial boy]

And the fates of Labour's "sister" parties in Ireland, Italy, France, Germany and the Netherlands* in particular might provide something of a caution against overly enthusiastically embracing technocratic liberal economic policies in this, the year 2020.

*obviously there are many different factors explaining the electoral fortunes of Europe's Social Democrats, but in the above five cases - embracing "centrist" liberal economics was a direct and almost uncontestable cause of their particularly intense electoral oblivions

[parochial boy]

I generally reckon the UK would be healthier if it managed to avoid any more toxic US culture wars.

Just an observation, like

[parochial boy]

How do CLP nominations work anyway? I’m imagining that everyone in a particular CLP goes and sits in a hall and votes with there hands or something - or is it secret ballot or through the branches or what?

Basically, how easy is it for a few local notables to ensure the nomination goes the way they want?

[parochial boy]

Labour International went Starmer/Rayner, with Starmer beating RLB by something like 54% to 45%. That was an online ballot of the full CLP membership, so indicative of... something? Although I expect that particular CLP would be unusually pro-EU, and unusually concerned about that one issue in particular (big membership in Germany, I believe)