Labour Party leadership election 2015

[Blair]

Well 2015 been's the first election year I've actually followed (General Elections are the only ones that count IMO) and it's going to be pretty crap if we have Labour getting crushed at the may election losing their Shadow Chancellor and Foreign Secretary, and then going on to elect someone who is going to be the worse leader since well ever. 

[Blair]

New YouGov poll:

Corbyn - 53%
Burnham - 21%
Cooper - 18%
Kendall - 8%

I would say it's time for a Blair-Brown pact between Burnham and Cooper but both are so mediocre and lack some sort of vision

Even with a blair brown pact between all three it's still going to end up with Corbyn winning, he needs to get about 35-38% in the first round in order for the other candidates to have a chance

[Blair]

The interesting thing is that even if Corbyn survives until 2020 and loses I'm sure his supporters will still claim that he was stitched up, and that we need to go further to the left.

I completely lost hope after reading this yesterday because it's so true. Burnham=Muskie, Humphrey=Cooper, Kendall-Jackson.

Who's our Jimmy Carter?

https://medium.com/@davidbutler100/jeremy-corbyn-labour-s-george-mcgovern-60b52a98bbfc

[Blair]

Can Corbyn really bring back Scottish votes or is SNP talk of a lack of a "true left wing alternative" just populist nonsense?

It's more of a middle finger to the establishment-I know many scots who saw the referendum as the English conning the scots, claiming that 'operation fear' was used to scare people into voting No. Likewise Scottish Labour has had something like 6 leaders since 2008, and it's been pretty useless.  Combined with the toxic parts of New Labour it's allowed the SNP to surge-they actually won the 2007 elections despite being much more right wing. The SNP use to be know as tartan tories, which is one of the funny aspects of british politics.

It seems lazy to think that labour becoming left wing will win back scotland because there's so many factors. Also the SNP only got 50% of the vote in scotland-FPTP just titled it awfully to give them 58 seats

Corbyn would probably do better in scotland in getting back former labour voters, but even if we got the 58 SNP seats we'd still be 50 off a majority

[Blair]

Coopers speech was actually very good, and was heavy on policy. This is what she should have done 4 weeks ago! She actually showed some backbone and passion for once, and went after the fact that Corbyn has some crazy ideas. Burnham's response has been awful, and as someone who worked for him and met him even I'm having serious doubts about him

[Blair]

Likewise to comrades from London am I the only person who has no idea who to vote for in the deputy or mayoral race?

[Blair]

Even as a party hack the amount of stuff I'm getting send is amazing, had 10 emails yesterday and had letters from Cooper, Burnham, Jowell, Khan, Lammy and Watson.

[Blair]

I see there is a Survation poll that comes across well for Corbyn but voters won't see one clip of him, they will see four and a half years worth of media coverage, some of which will be very negative.

Yeah, the assumption in 2010 was that Ed connected well with the voters, and basically got rid of the bad new labour stuff. There's serious concerns over his links to anti-Semitic groups, and despite the noise from the left I don't think this country prefers Hamas over Israel. It will be absolutely brutal-if people like me can find stuff on Corbyn through a quick google search no doubt the tories will find some bad comments. Likewise look at how much of a liability Ed Balls was, someone like John Mcdonnell or Dianne Abbot ( I just forgot she was in the SC for 3 years, and she didn't even get sacked for racist comments!)

Just received an impressive booklet from Watson.

That managed to win my vote for him, he's a shameless trade union hack but Caroline Flint has been awful in this campaign, and the others are all dull without the strength to make a difference. Standing up to Murdoch shows a lot of balls



On any leadership challenge anyone who's read The End of a Party by AR knows how awful labour are at getting rid of leaders. Sure Brown and Blair were political beasts but it took Brown 5 years of open warfare to get rid of Blair, and then the Blairities fluffed challenging Brown in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010. Let's not forgot Miliband's near death coup in 2014-I reckoned that either Cooper or Burnham was beyond those rumours, yet both waited until now, and it looks like they've done a David Miliband

[Blair]

Here's the thing. Today is the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. Between then (the 1945 election was before VJ Day) and 1997, Labour won precisely one working majority.

Also, I read the transcript of Corbyn's interview. Answering a question "Are you a Marxist?" with "I'm not sure" is not likely to help win over Middle England.

Labour is unlikely to win 40 seats in Scotland unless the SNP self-destructs; 20 is a realistic goal. To get an overall majority in a 600-seat Commons, Labour has to pick up 80 seats in England - and they'll pretty much all have to be from the Tories.

But remember the 40% who don't vote will all vote for Corbyn because austerity is bad, all students will vote for him because he'll cancel student debt and he's not actually that left wing

[Blair]

If New Labour proved anything, it was that huge majorities are meaningless with a leader not willing to do anything with them. Speaking of meaningless, the idiosyncrasies of FPTP rewards are not reflective of actual desire. See how it robbed Attlee in 1950 & 1951 whilst rewarding Blair in 2005 and the Tories this year.

look as a member of the LGBT community it's clear that Blair did a lot of good with his 150 seat majority-repealed section 28, introduced gay adoption and civil partnerships and appointed the first gay cabinet member. If we want to expand that it's concerning that labour members have such blinkered views- minimum wage, house of lords reform, maternity leave doubled, paternity leave introduced, crime cut by 32%, 14,000 new police officers, double funding for each school child, peace in north Ireland, Sierra Leon saved, Milosevic stopped in Kosovo, increased rights at work, child tax credits, inner city schools rebuild, the Olympics brought to London and the NHS reborn with 85,000 new nurses and 35,000 new doctors. Blair did a lot of good

It's been 8 years since he resigned, and we're still arguing over it

Foot was leading the polls pretty handsomely before the split, and he was happy to tell news reporters he was a Marxist.

Labour is unlikely to win a majority in the first place, Curtice has made it perfectly plain that unless Labour take back Scotland they need in excess of a 13 point lead to take enought seats from the Tories. I maintain Corbyn is the best leader to help do that in Scotland, and with those you're then looking at a more realistic prospect for Tory marginals. Many of which can be won back with just the reversal of the Greens and disillusionment. 

Foot was an awful leader and quite frankly that's the one election where I would have struggled to vote Labour because you can't run on leaving the EU and scrapping Trident during the Cold War-I'm not even a hawk but that's too far.

We need to stop seeing Scotland as this far away socialist paradise because frankly we can't build our strategy around winning it back if we lose 80-100 of our target seats in England. Tbh as awful as it I'd support a progressive unionist party in scotland under a federal system but that's another day. Scotland has become this promised land for the left of the party when its a combination of nationalism, FPTP (SNP only had 50%) and the indy ref. Sure SNP voters are probably more left wing but we can't win scotland on the lazy analysis of muh socialism. We hadn't been doing voter ID since 2011 and we wondered why people didn't connect. There isn't a short answer for scotland, and even if if it is winning every seat in Scotland is pointless if we get fail in England and Wales.

I don't have the polling on me but it's another myth that all green voters will come back to labour when there's 50% of them who thought Labour are too pro-welfare, and wanted to vote green to put a finger up the establishment. I'm skeptical again of the idea that Corbyn will simply just unite the left because we heard that Miliband in 2010 would pick up all the Lib dem vote.

These serious concerns are a bit overblown. Israel/Palestine generate a lot of heat and noise, but the general public aren't interested, and appear to be slightly more sympathetic to the Palestinians. I don't think it's the death knell that the Right believe it is - and the charges usually amount to little more than guilt by association and ungenerous readings of his comments.

So since the public aren't interested we should just pretend its not important.   I'm sympathetic to Palestine, and support the vote in parliament last year but Corbyn takes it to a new level. Calling Hamas a force for ''social justice and peace'', sharing a stage with know anti-Semites and donating to someone who doubts the holocaust is hardly progressive. Corbyn is of the foreign policy school that gets into bed with people that we'd absolutely kill the right for talking to.

The Jewish Chronicles allegations appear to be pretty bad, and I've yet to see a good rebuttal apart from saying that JC is committed to peace in the Middle East and works with all parties. It's really not going to look good to have a bloke who seems to be close to Hamas and the whole anti-Israel movement

[Blair]

I really don't know much about John McDonnell apart from him leading the SCG, trying to run in 2007 and recently writing a guardian piece that screamed shadow Chancellor. IMO Corbyn has two options for his Shadow Cabinet-full leftist or fake unity.

[Blair]

I've heard that Watson is going to be both a key player in removing Corbyn and in protecting him. Whilst I'm voting for him I don't know where the media myth that he's a great political mover comes from when his only claim to fame is his rather pathetic attempt at removing TB in 2006.

[Blair]

Forgot to say-part of me would love to have a shadow chancellor who said he'd want to assassinate Thatcher

[Blair]

Voted for Burnham, Watson and Jowell. Where does that put me on the ideological spectrum

[Blair]

As I've said before any pact is worthless if Corbyn get's 50% in the first round (Even if he gets 45% I can still see him getting 5% from the rest-1. Kendall 2. Corbyn/ 1. Cooper 2. Corbyn voters must exist)

I read torygraph piece saying that Kendall offered to endorse Burnham and withdraw if Cooper did as well, but Cooper rejected it. I'm in two minds-part of me knows that Cooper has wanted this since 2010 and apparently regrets not standing in 2010, but I doubt if Cooper and Kendall withdrawing would look like anything other than a desperate establishment trick.

It shows how weak labour are as the two 'big beasts' of Cooper and Burnham are actually weak as hell. We'll have to wait for Dan Jarvis to arrive on his white horse

[Blair]

Burnham is more of a curiosity than that; he has significant strengths as well as weaknesses, but for whatever reason the leadership campaign has mostly brought out the latter (and this will be a fair comment even if he wins). Mind you, that's a fairly common curiosity in the Labour Party: he is nowhere near as extreme as case as Denis Healey.

An interesting thing to note about Jarvis - I've mentioned it before but its worth repeating - is that while he's associated with the Right (and is not even hostile to Progress) he often sounds very left wing when talking about social policy and some economic matters.

He had a very good start-getting the endorsement of the most MP's, and several big players like Jarvis, Reeves, Kinnock and Prescott. As someone who voted for him, and still supports him the charge that he 'flip flops' has managed to catch on-unfairly in some cases and fairly in others.

It's interesting how someone who as a 'darling' of the party last year has managed to struggle-a large part of it is the NHS not being an issue at all in this election, that was always Andy's trump card

[Blair]

I am just starting to look into the non-Corbyn candidates.
Burnham seems a decent politician (and man),also with all the Hillsborough stuff. What are his more obvious weaknesses?

From a strict tory press office point of his view it's that he was Health Secretary when there was an 'alleged' cover up of hospital deaths-it's a complete smear but it appears to have traction.

On personality he's seen as being indecisive and not being consistent-he was an arch blairite in 2010, but tacked left afterwards   

[Blair]

Got some thoughts about the race, and they are probably the exact opposite of what I've said before.

1-Corbyn is the only one proposing policy-this is a complete myth, and something I saw during the General election. Kendall has proposed raising inheritance tax... Burnham opposed academies, a UCAS for apprenticeships, a separate EU campaigning group, rail nationalisation... Cooper has had universal childcare. I'd argue it's more that Corbyn is proposing left wing policies, and these are the only policies that many people want

2-Corbyn is bad because he's un-electable  - He's bad because he's proposing some absolutely awful policies that we'd heavily attack the tories for- leaving NATO, supporting a United Ireland, calling for a 'party of peace', associating  with anti Semites and that's just his foreign policy.

3-Corbyn is just proposing a moderate centre left policy-again see above, these policies haven't been part of mainstream labour opinion since the 1930's (IIRC even Foot was an establishment left winger in the mould of Miliband)  Printing money to invest in infrastructure, re-opening the coal mines and becoming a party of peace isn't credible. The argument that's it's popular is true, however I'd point to the fact that for the last 20 years the Death Penalty was popular-also people don't vote on single issues it's all part of a package. If you present a package with massive tack hikes on middle england people won't support it because they said they like rail nationalization-it's like saying that gay voters will vote Tory because of gay marriage

As a member of the 'Milifandon' Miliband had a clear left wing stance, and this revisionist claptrap that we didn't offer enough in 2015 has already started-I've seen the mantra that Miliband was held back by the Blairites but let's look at what we were offering- An elected House of Lords, increased Bank Levy,  regional investment banks, 50p tax rate, mansion tax, getting rid of non doms, a joined up health and social care, cutting tuition fees to 6,000 and so on. It was actually quite a big package of reform

[Blair]

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/08/blair-and-brown-invented-monster-frighten-voters-old-labour-now-it-s-fighting-back

Stephen Bush is one of the best labour writers out there

[Blair]

I've cast my vote. I did not use all of my preferences. I've also voted in the other contests.

It's always exciting being able to vote for the conference committee!

Hell will freeze over before it happens but I'd love to see the reaction from Corbyn supporters if Kendall beat say Burnham due to the boast of 'no 2nd preference' from corbyn voters.

I think I watched a British Coup about 4 years ago on Gold at about 7 in the morning before I had any understanding of politics beyond Britain=Good

[Blair]

I'd be pretty surprised if we were leading the charge against those, tbh. Even the anti-Semites suggest you're entangled in the Palestine camp - an unfortunate reality. The Tories have associated with all sorts of these types in their Eurosceptic grouping, btw. Foreign policy is clearly his most radical, and controversial part of his platform - outside of that, "absolutely awful" to Labour voters? I doubt it.

As lame as it sounds after following Palenstinian Solidarity on facebook for a month I realized how absolutely awful it's membership it, it's ugliest form was the type of stuff we had going on with George Galloway. Corbyn has got some pretty deep ties with these groups, and when it's added to his comments about Hamas and ISIS the charge that 'he's pro-terrorist' is going to stick with the public

The tories use to have their wacko's in the Ian Smith groups, and thus it Corbyn would be similar to Neil Hamilton in that he has strong links to groups that go against the fundamentals of being a labour member IMO. I know that Foreign Policy isn't that important but it's going to tie into the package that our leader isnt a credible PM, regardless of whether we keep him until 2020 I'd want us to pick someone who we can at least pretend is credible with running the country.

He was very equivocal about coal mine reopening, dependent on its viability, and there's always been a significant anti-war influence in Labour (Iraq only passed with Tory support, for instance) and the wider public are more receptive to that idea than ever, as well. A lot of his positions were mainstream Conservative opinion thirty years ago, and can be found in the many European countries surrounding us.

But it's those kind of comments that just come across as loony left esque-like the old urban legand about Islington banning black bin bags. Although  the other candidates already have there-Yvette Balls, Andy 'Flip Flop' Burnham and Liz 'Tory' Kendall.

I'll agree there's been a 'anti-war' presence but there's a difference between Jeremy Corbyn's opposition to Iraq and Ed Milibands. Miliband's soft power approach appreciated the need to intervene in Libya and Iraq (against ISIS) See Corbyn's position on Kosovo and Milosevic as an example of him being way out of the mainstream.

I agree that they were conservative positions 30 years ago-the key is 30 years ago. Apart from rail nationalization which I'm lukewarm towards there's a reason why they were tory policies 30 years ago and not today. We can't run an election being economically illiterate and counter it by saying it was conservative policy 30 years ago. There's also policies like massive QE in economic uptimes that were never mainstream. I'm not an economist at all but Keynes never called for QE during economic growth

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IIRC he run his 2010 campaign based on keeping the 50p rate, and it was something he was always clear about defending. It was certainly one of the clearer areas of reform. The impression of our flagship policies was that they were all taxes- 50p tax, mansion tax, bank tax, energy tax etc

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It is, I take a rather arrogant and probably misguided view that the public opinion on single issues is often misguided, misread and even on top of that not that important. As I've said before something like 75% agreed with our Non-Dom removal but it didn't translate into voters

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That's a tax hike for middle england imo, when my Dad had a leadership position in his school he earned over 50,000. I suppose I'm a brownite in that I prefer non-direct taxes rather than increasing income tax rates

[Blair]

Watson will either be Corbyn's best or worse ally.

I saw something tonight saying that Andy Burnham is going to be offered the Chancellorship over John McDonnell.

[Blair]

Just out of interest who reckons Corbyn will win on the first ballot?

[Blair]

Looks like Sadiq Khan is going to win the mayoral race as I heard that Corbyn surrogates/staff were handing out his literature at the events in London this week. Not sure how I feel about him-ideologically he's fine but he lacks that vision thing'-although it's a rare asset in the party now

[Blair]

His comments about ISIS for example where a good example of the 'philosophical' left where he compared ISIS to the US army in fallejuah or however you spell it