Labour Party leadership election 2015

[Blair]

There's some comment around how he was talking to the IRA before the British government did. Ignoring the fact about whether we should have negotiated with them at all (it's entirely possible that the PIRA might have been crippled anyway after 9/11 due to its American backers pulling out), it ignores the fact that they didn't have a charter calling for the destruction of the UK.

Oh and when Tzipi Livni visited the UK, he wasn't interested in talking with her - he wanted her arrested.

Corbyn supporters seem to paint him as some sort of George Mitchell or Tony Blair in Northern Ireland when in reality his idea of a peace settlement would have been a united catholic Ireland-it's funny that the two groups in the labour party who are most anti-Corbyb are the Jewish affiliates and Northern Ireland based groups

[Blair]

I've equally seen people scream on twitter about getting removed, only for people to highlight them in may saying 'Vote Green!''

Although they shouldn't kick people out for that when we intended to run an open primary in the first place

[Blair]

As someone who wasn't around in the 1980's how similar is Corbyn's campaign similar to Benn's campaign for labour party democracy?

[Blair]

Interesting about royal family because I'm against the institution but I'm not 100% certain I'd vote to get rid of them in a referendum.

The poll shows, that despite what Corbyn supporters say his political positions are out of the mainstream   

[Blair]

Many of these policies receive majority support amongst Tories, it is a testament to the gulf between the PLP and the membership that these aren't our accepted policies.

As I've said before a tory in kent supporting rail nationalization isn't going to simply vote Labour because of one policy. Our last manifesto has scared me off retail politics

[Blair]

Word (well, rumour) is that a majority has yet to cast a vote and that about a third is still undecided; this has led to some Labour insiders not being as convinced about a Corbyn victory as they were a week or so ago. Burnham's camp is putting out data suggesting that a plurality of the undecideds are leaning towards him.

Yeah the data I've seen shows that Corbyn will probably win on the first round but only with about 35%, meaning that Burnham has a good chance of coming back. Funnily enough we looked and 1 out of 16 Kendall voters have put Corbyn as there 2... make of that what you will haha

[Blair]

Word (well, rumour) is that a majority has yet to cast a vote and that about a third is still undecided; this has led to some Labour insiders not being as convinced about a Corbyn victory as they were a week or so ago. Burnham's camp is putting out data suggesting that a plurality of the undecideds are leaning towards him.

Yeah the data I've seen shows that Corbyn will probably win on the first round but only with about 35%, meaning that Burnham has a good chance of coming back. Funnily enough we looked and 1 out of 16 Kendall voters have put Corbyn as there 2... make of that what you will haha

What data is this?
At our nomination meeting, one of the three people brave enough to vote for Kendall also second preferenced Corbyn, so these strange ones do exist!

It's a combination of phone bank data, voter ID, turnout reporting etc. I've got no idea how they merged it all together because I'm just a foot soldier

[Blair]

Certain the Corbyn hype was over exaggerated and a bit played by Burnham\Cooper in order to get enough votes around to carry them to a 1:1 with him.
I'll wager Burnham to win leadership with Watson as deputy  

It may being optimistic but several things could over inflate the Corbyn Surge...
-Social Media, the zeal and numbers of his supporters don't even match the polling data. If we based elections on social media noise last election the Greens would have won with UKIP coming second. It's very much an echo chamber.
- The media is building up the hype, combined with 'silly season' in August and the desire for a story Corbyn is the perfect candidate. The £3 supporters are all being billed as Corbyn supporters when in fact they won't all vote for him
- The polls give Corbyn a shocking 37 point lead, winning 57 in the first round which is equal to Blair in 1994. Considering multiple general election polls were wrong by 6 points (Most were lab 33, tories 33) I'm not going to leap back into trusting polls. Plus it's much easier to say to a poll your voting Corbyn than to actually vote for him.

This is the type of thing you can repost when I'm proved horribly wrong

Yeah the data I've seen shows that Corbyn will probably win on the first round but only with about 35%, meaning that Burnham has a good chance of coming back. Funnily enough we looked and 1 out of 16 Kendall voters have put Corbyn as there 2... make of that what you will haha

If Corbyn only gets up to around the 35-40% mark after the first round (which would surprise me after all the hoopla surrounding him) it looks somewhat doubtful he will end up winning.

Will each round of voting be announced and then a gap while the second preferences of the eliminated candidate are redistributed amongst those remaining? [/quote]

I assume so, Anne Black did an awful job in 2010 because she read out how each person did in each section (trade unions, members, PLP)

The magic number is 43%, if Corbyn gets above that the data says he'll win in the last round

[Blair]

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jamieross/here-are-voters-brutal-assessments-of-the-labour-leadership#.fnvQDwqzq3

It's buzzfeed, I know but its interesting. The 2010 focus groups actually showed what could happen at the 2015 election, and these one's show that all four have there problems. It also shows how sexist the average brit is imo, I know you can't call the voters thick but here's the summary

Corbyn-Hates the rich, bitter hippy guy
Kendall- Doesn't care, looks like headmistress
Cooper- Only cares about mum issues
Burnham- Too young!?

[Blair]

Did anyone see the Newsnight focus groups last night? They were basically the full versions that were in the Buzzfeed article I mentioned earlier

[Blair]

Labour's policies in the 1960s were actually to the right of Corbyn, certainly in terms of defence. In some areas, Corbyn is actually to the left of the 1983 manifesto, which was still committed to NATO membership.

This may be a daft question, but why is Britain becoming neutral seen as such an extreme position? You are on the edge of Europe and face no serious security threats, so you could "afford" it better than most. Is it clinging on to past glory via the special relationship with the US?

Also, why is there (seemingly) no right wing isolationist opposition to NATO? Are all of UKIP and the Europhobic part of the Tories pro-Atlantic?

Well part of it is that for about a year we were the only country in Europe facing down the Nazis, and took much of the brunt of the war. Combined with our post WW2 role in NATO, our fighting in Korea and the Falklands war we've always valued NATO as an important part of our defense.

Even post cold war it's still played a role for us-Gulf War, Kosovo and Afghanistan. The screw up after 2003 in Afghanistan disguised that in 2001 we actually did the right thing in attacking Al-Qaeda, it's often overlooked and I know I sound like an awful hawk but 9/11 and 7/7 show that terrorism is actually a major threat for us.

I actually agree with Miliband's foreign policy because it supported the good (Palestine vote, Libya intervention) and opposed the bad (Syria 2013) The problem was that he couldn't challenge the ghost of Iraq and didn't make a major foreign policy speech until well the election campaign. Corbyn's foreign policy is laughable, I mean he basically thinks that everything NATO has done since 1990 is evil, and the world would be a better place if he committed our self to being a party of peace.

[Blair]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HaPvHJyNWs#action=share

The people's flag is a palest pink!

[Blair]

Although I'd argue the collapse of the lib dem vote, and the rise of UKIP has shifted this pattern slightly. Labour's major problem this election was that we won urban seats of the Lib Dems that haven't voted Labour since 1981 like Bermondsey , but only just about won back seats like Wirral West. Basically Labour's ed, which is the general analysis from this leadership election
 

[Blair]

Out of interest does anybody remember Mary Creagh?

[Blair]

Out of interest does anybody remember Mary Creagh?

No.

Btw, Dan Jarvis is second favourite (after Corbyn) with Ladbrokes to lead Labour in the next GE.

As awful as it sounds I always hoped that electing Cooper or Burnham would allow Jarvis to swoon in in 2020.

It was said here but I reckon that Corbyn will last until 2017/18 and then give up for a younger face whilst the moderates unite around Jarvis leading to a 1981 style election. However that assumes the Labour party is sane. I've heard from people in AB's campaign that Cooper is already talking about running again in 2017

[Blair]

Maybe Corbyn found the dirt on Chukka?

[Blair]

It's awful to think that people don't have anywhere else to go, because frankly they will. It's that thinking that's lead Labour to collapse in Scotland.

On Corbyn I'll give him until the 2016 elections-if we poll less than the tories in Scotland and lose in London then we need to look at the leadership

[Blair]

Big move to Cooper in the betting markets in the past few hours and away from Corbyn and Burnham, though Corbyn is still firm favourite. A new poll out in the near future?

Could be, or Voter ID from unions is showing low turnout for Corbyn. Her speech on migration has actually put her relatively in the news and got a lot of praise, along with the news night focus group. I have to admit Burnham has been drifting towards Kendall like levels of media activity lately.

As I've said before, and I doubt anyone cares but Cooper could have been my 1st if it didn't make Corbyn more likely to win. I'd eat my hat if somehow Corbyn comes third and it's a between Burnham and Cooper

[Blair]

Our biggest concern was that poll that had us at 8% in the Scottish elections next year

[Blair]

Our biggest concern was that poll that had us at 8% in the Scottish elections next year

What poll was that? I haven't seen Labour below 20%, tbh.

The poll has disappeared, Ruth Davidson and several blairites re-tweeted it-basically laughing at the fact that we're doing worse than the tories for probably the first time since well ages

[Blair]

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http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/sep/05/labour-liz-kendall-vote-for-yvette-cooper-get-jeremy-corbyn

Is it a case of former Corbyn supporters switching their first preferences to Burnham or a case of Burnham supporters viewing Corbyn as being more acceptable now? Or both?

God knows, not sure if it's in there or the NS article but there's a claim that 50% of AB supporters are backing Corbyn as 2-that's way too high from what I've seen both phone banking and talking to people. Although Burnham's support is a cross between the soft left who agree with Corbyn, and people like me who are voting for him based on personality/electionability.

As Stephen Bush put it we're at the stage where only Andy Burnham can stop Corbyn in the last round but Burnham can't get get to the last round. He's had an bad last couple of weeks imo

[Blair]

Even if Burnham wasn't having a shocking campaign, he clearly isn't seen as an acceptable compromise for the right of the party.

That seems rather silly of them.

Especially given that he is, you know, on the right of the party (though on the left of this leadership campaign).

Eh Burnham has always been hard to tackle-I get the impression from some labour members that anyone not supporting a Corbyn agenda is well a right wing Blairite. The only clear right wing policy he has is on immigration, and that's still relatively moderate compared to people like Danczuk and Hoey.

There's going to be a lot of Blairite MP's who will thank the gods that JC doesn't win, but then realize they've got Burnham as leader

[Blair]

The noughties is certainly matching the 1980's nadir. New Labour seems to have left us discredited and demoralised (rightly or wrongly), hence the appetite for an Old Labour return.

There's always a trend of Labour absolutely killing itself after office. This is an extreme simplification but often a whole host of problems come out in one issue

1950's- Nuclear Disarmament
1970's- Keynesian economics/Bennism
2010s- Iraq/Neo-Liberalism

The reason I'm so desolate about it is that Labour were expected to at least stop the tories getting more than 290 seats at the worse. I thought after 5 years of austerity/general tory crapness that there support would drop rather than increase

[Blair]

Another fun fact.

Only one Labour leader has won an general election since 1974

[Blair]

I thought the rule with the electoral system is that we accept 1951 because we won 2005

As much as I usually dislike Dan Hodges his article on Total Politics has a couple of good lines. I'm extremely guilty of the 2nd one

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