Labour Party leadership election 2015

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Alan Johnson has endorsed Cooper. Given that he's a well liked figure amongst ordinary Labour members this is decent news for her. He's also used his endorsement to take a pop at CWU General Secretary Dave Ward for the manner in which he issued the CWU endorsement of Corbyn. Johnson, of course, is a former CWU General Secretary.

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Eric Shaw described the public boards as improving significantly in efficiency after their nationalisation. I think the drastic improvements in conditions in the mines also make Attlee's moves pretty wise, even in retrospect.

Yes. It's worth noting that the Attlee government's nationalisations were largely pragmatic anyway; the coal industry (for instance) was nationalised because the private companies that ran it frankly sucked balls, which was a very bad thing considering that the industry was absolutely critical to the wider economy at the time.

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I will not pretend to be an expert, but Vauxhall remains in business and is manufacturing cars, yes? That may suggest something as to the fate of non-state owned comparable firms.

Vauxhall has been owned by GM since the 1920s. The only British owned - plenty of large car factories here, all of them owned by foreign companies - car firms to have survived are those that cater to the luxury market.

In any case (as has already been hinted at) British Leyland was only nationalised because it was bankrupt (i.e. its issues can't be placed at the door of state ownership) and because it had a workforce in the hundreds of thousands.

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Opium Opinium has a poll but of Labour supporters rather than members/etc so I don't know about the value, but here it is anyway: Burnham 39, Corbyn 24, Cooper 22, Kendall 15.

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Given that non-voters are disproportionately younger and poorer and given the general hostility towards parties that aren't Labour amongst that general loosely defined demographic... well, there's definitely some potential for Labour there and the Party would be foolish to think otherwise. Of course (and obviously) most people who don't vote aren't about to start now and pretending otherwise is not helpful. It's also obviously true that the large block of Lab/Con swing voters (who have an irritating habit of clustering themselves in marginal constituencies, the bastards) needs to be encouraged to swing, otherwise there's basically no hope of a win as things stand (i.e. as is always the case we need to sweep the board in the Midlands. As big as some Tory majorities in swing seats there look it is far from impossible). The assumption on both the Hard Left and the Progress Right that all of these people are basically Tories at heart (from which they draw diametrically opposed conclusions) is at once stupid and incredibly unhelpful.

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Incidentally the real reason for the big drop in turnout since the early 1990s generational change: people who were adults in the 1940s tended be a very political lot and as such tended to vote at absurdly high levels (and were also unusually loyal to the big two parties, but thats a different issue). They started dying off in the 1990s (and are almost all gone now, alas) and have been replaced by generations that are significantly less likely to vote.

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Which is one reason why appeals to the Party's problems in the 1980s (or rather: in such a way that implies 'but surely you know this you idiot') as a reason to not vote Corbyn in the 1980s are unlikely to be particularly effective.

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There is no such law here, but most political parties (including Labour: although an exception is made for the Co-operative Party) don't allow it.

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Thing is that a high proportion of the members of far left organisations (which are rarely what you'd call large) are, in fact, former candidates. And there are other ways of checking; thanks to the internet its much easier to do so than was once the case.

Fact is that the quasi-tankie Commanding Heights crowd who drift in and out of the Party are far more numerically significant than various Trot sects and have generally done nothing wrong by the Party's rules.

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Well a simple google search ought to root you out in seconds, but that's assuming that whatever the relevant West of Scotland CLP is capable of using google...

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Most political journalists know nothing of THIGMOO* or its traditions, rules and tendencies - There are supposedly serious pieces of 'analysis' being published in which it is implied that the registered Affiliate supporters are 'new' to the process of electing a leader ffs - so what do you expect?  Certainly it would be unrealistic to expect them to, you know, do their jobs like professionals and rectify their ignorance.

_{*This Great Movement Of Ours.}

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Well it has a function in the areas where it is basically the rebranded Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, and has political power in them as well (i.e. their endorsement is the only reason why Stephen Kinnock is an MP). I wonder what proportion of Community members live in South Wales, must be pretty high.

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So basically New Labour economics with working class midlands social attitude?

It can work out like that in some cases, but that's not exactly it. Pragmatism (as Crabcake rightly pointed out) is a big thing: I 'understand' that many people who can be described as such (ahem) actually have very left-wing views on economic&social policy, but 'they' tend to be more interested in winning elections than in ideological purity (i.e. 'the worst Labour government is better than the best Tory one' argument). Another thing is foreign policy though; this is the wing of the Party that in the Cold War was characterized above all by fierce anticommunism and was generally pro-NATO.

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Richard Angell has represented them, which tells you all you need to know.

Yeah. It's like a satire on the more absurd Marxist figures in some other unions but real.

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Its more an example of Corbyn being a cliché of an ascetic Ethical Socialist of the old school (again the past Labour politician he resembles the most is George Lansbury) than anything else. Certainly it can't be seriously argued to be an example of careerism...

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I think you may be allowing a personal liking for Howard mislead you as to how he was viewed during/immediately after his first stint as leader.

Anyway, I suspect there's no chance of Miliband trying to regain the leadership (he's not without ambition, but why would he put himself through that again?), but I wouldn't be at all surprised if he eventually emerges as a senior frontbencher.

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Sheerman is one of the most right-wing members of the PLP and has long been devoted to factional trouble making.

Let us now discuss something far more important, namely Burnham's hair when he was younger:

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It's just such an of course moment imo.

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If that's how things are then that's how things are, but I dunno.

There were some issues with the internals of the last one they did; might be interesting to see if they are repeated with this one as well.

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A better comparison would be with IDS.

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I'm still sceptical about polling for this contest, but that would have to be quite badly wrong for Corbyn not to be in the lead.

^^^

And even if they have fycked up terribly (not impossible) he must be doing bloody well all the same.

Though I will note (because someone has to) that it's only a few months ago that everyone swore that they would never uncritically believe polls again. Its interesting that we (collectively: political obsessives) can't wean ourselves off doing so.

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Corbyn has as good as said that while he knows he's doing tres well he doesn't believe the poll and doesn't want his supporters to. lmao.

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Crossposted from a certain British elections forum:

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I seriously hope that the party does not revisit the single most tedious matter the Labour Party has ever concerned itself with - Clause IV. What a useless endevour, the public by and large do not two craps about the arcane details of a political party's constitution.

The trouble with arch factionalists on both sides is that they really do care more about that sort of thing than the stuff that matters.

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The situation in Scotland is a bit more... complex... than that, unfortunately.