He understands the the 'pain' of being a terrorist, never said he was one. Not really that difficult is it

mrjonno wrote:He understands the the 'pain' of being a terrorist, never said he was one. Not really that difficult is it

Okay, let's try again... if you need me to write it in crayon for you let me know
"A man who opposes the use of violence is sympathetic with the use of violence"... that's what you said, roughly paraphrased.

Yeah, it's up there with being impatient for Labour's support to collapse so that everyone can wake up to the reality that Corbyn is making them unpopular, instead of- Stormfront style - pointing out that it hasn't happened.

This thread has jumped the shark, nuked the fridge, and face-fucked the piggy. It's an abomination.

Beatsong wrote:I largely agree about the Blair legacy, but I think it's important to recognise just how far the so-called "centre" has drifted to the right in the meantime, and how different the economic circumstances are. Blair could achieve all of the things you listed while appearing towards the right of the Labour party, and not that far left of John Major. Now, we've had the worst recession since 1930 fuelled by the mother of all financial bubbles, the government spent our money bailing out the rich from it while screwing more and more out of the poor, and it's much harder to see how even the centre-left can remain on good terms with Thatcherism.

I suppose it depends on whether you want to define the centre as a fixed position located roughly where Blair was or as a moving target half way between the protagonists of the day. I prefer the sound of the former and I'm not sure if it matters whether my position is "on good terms with Thatcherism," or even what that means.

One example: Blair was elected when university education was free, and was derided by the left but lauded as responsible by the right for imposing tuition fees of £1,000 a year. Miliband OTOH fought the last election when tuition fees were £9,000 a year, and apparently made the mistake of being "too left wing" by advocating reducing them to £6,000. So objectively, on this issue, we'd have to conclude that Miliband was six times more right wing than Blair. The fact that it doesn't appear that way is all to do with what the background assumptions are in which they were each operating.

Or you could say Blair increased fees while Milliband wanted to reduce them. I'm not sure there's a sufficiently accurate metric of left/right wingness to start measuring them numerically.

Talking about the "right of the Labour party" trying to capture centrist votes from the tories NOW is a very different thing from talking about Blair doing it in 1997. It's a different right, much further to the right.

I think there are a lot of people who voted Tory this year not because they're ideologically committed to the Tory programme (many voted Lib Dem in 2010 as you said yourself) but because the Lib Dems were finished and they looked at Milliband and thought "Nah." These voters shouldn't be off limits for Labour. If they are, Labour is screwed.

Anyway, I thought you'd been telling me that it wasn't unrealistic to expect these people to vote for Corbyn. Now they can't be won over to Labour's right wing?

Fact is, most of what Corbyn's advocating is not actually that far off where we were in 1997. It just seems that way because the prevailing assumptions that it's contrasted with have changed so dramatically.

If that's so why was Corbyn the single most rebellious Labour MP between 1997 and 2010? Why is the movement around him so steeped in loathing for Blair and everything about him?

I understand the anger about Iraq. I voted Labour in 2005 but only after serious hesitation. But I don't really get the way that so much of the party despises their only winning leader in 40 years so much more than the rest of the country does.

ronmcd wrote:This thread has jumped the shark, nuked the fridge, and face-fucked the piggy. It's an abomination.

The thread is called 'Is Jeremy Corbyn "electable"?' and so far as I can see, people are still discussing whether Jeremy Corbyn is electable*

True, it might not be going the way Corbyn supporters may have hoped, but rather than getting angry with anyone who doesn't genuflect at the altar of far leftism, they would be better off explaining how Corbyn is going to marshal the support of the country when he can't even marshal the support of his own party.

(*protip: he isn't)

I suspect we will never find out how electable a Labour party that united behind Corbyn would be.

OlivierK wrote:I suspect we will never find out how electable a Labour party that united behind Corbyn would be.

That much is true, but it also has to be said that if you want a united party, you shouldn't pick a maverick.

I'd think that Corbyn has received considerably more support as leader than he gave as a back bencher too.

OlivierK wrote:I suspect we will never find out how electable a Labour party that united behind Corbyn would be.

No never, that's what happens when you get a leader that has close to zero support over the people his is meant to lead ie MP's

Matt_B wrote:

OlivierK wrote:I suspect we will never find out how electable a Labour party that united behind Corbyn would be.

That much is true, but it also has to be said that if you want a united party, you shouldn't pick a maverick.

I'd think that Corbyn has received considerably more support as leader than he gave as a back bencher too.

I suppose you could say that whenever fewer than ~15% of the PLP - 35 MPs - rebel, then they are beating his long-term average. Only 20 voted to support the tories on the fiscal charter las month, and 14 voted to support the tories over trident yesterday. Although, over 95% of MPs supporting him constitutes 'close to zero' support for some.

Of course, this approach ignores the big difference between defying the whip to oppose the iraq invasion and tuition fees, and defying the whip to support gideon osborne. History will be the judge of today's rebels, and it will not be as favourable to their stands as it has to corbyn's.

What is more is that it also ignores the orgy of snide anti-labour briefing and undermining of the party that some labour MPs are indulging in daily, the greatest gift to the tories they could conceivably muster. That is the precise opposite of support, and something that corbyn could never be accused of.

ED209 wrote: 14 voted to support the tories over trident yesterday. (...) defying the whip to support gideon osborne.

The 14 rebels were voting in line with Labour Party policy. That's not supporting the Tories or Osborne.

Matt_B wrote:

OlivierK wrote:I suspect we will never find out how electable a Labour party that united behind Corbyn would be.

That much is true, but it also has to be said that if you want a united party, you shouldn't pick a maverick.

I'd think that Corbyn has received considerably more support as leader than he gave as a back bencher too.

But if you want a new kind of politics you have to pick a maverick. I suspect the chances are slightly better that some degree of unity could form around a maverick leader than that anything radical will come from a conservative Labour leader.

Emmeline wrote:

ED209 wrote: 14 voted to support the tories over trident yesterday. (...) defying the whip to support gideon osborne.

The 14 rebels were voting in line with Labour Party policy. That's not supporting the Tories or Osborne.

They sided with the Tories in the face of a party review of that policy. It would be a rejection of the review to vote for or against the issue right now. Since the vote makes no practical different it's a clear "fuck you" to anyone who thinks the party should have a discussion and decide the policy. The reasonable thing to do in these circumstances is to abstain, pending a new policy, then back that policy.

Blair 'modernised' the party in his own image, reducing democracy & centralising control over candidates for Westminster. That led to Blairites being foisted upon CLPs, whether they wanted them or not. Miliband returned some proper democracy to the party, and Corbyn has been the most obvious beneficiary of that. Unfortunately, he's also inherited those MPs who owe their positions to Blair & who have drunk deeply of the neoliberal Kool Aid. To his credit, Corbyn has offered the hand of friendship & a promise of no deselection. They've spat in his face. They're not in the tent pissing out, they're in the tent pissing in the tent. The sooner they're gone, the better.

chairman bill wrote:Blair 'modernised' the party in his own image, reducing democracy & centralising control over candidates for Westminster. That led to Blairites being foisted upon CLPs, whether they wanted them or not. Miliband returned some proper democracy to the party, and Corbyn has been the most obvious beneficiary of that. Unfortunately, he's also inherited those MPs who owe their positions to Blair & who have drunk deeply of the neoliberal Kool Aid. To his credit, Corbyn has offered the hand of friendship & a promise of no deselection. They've spat in his face. They're not in the tent pissing out, they're in the tent pissing in the tent. The sooner they're gone, the better.

Do you genuinely think (and I'm looking at the "fucked up since 2010" in your location tag) that the Blair government didn't deliver things worth having? Democracy in CLPs is well and good, but it's not the vote that really counts.

Of course Blair delivered some good things. The truth is, it was probably the best government of the last 50 years. He also did some bloody awful things & some deeply stupid ones too.

chairman bill wrote:Of course Blair delivered some good things. The truth is, it was probably the best government of the last 50 years. He also did some bloody awful things & some deeply stupid ones too.

Of course some bad things were done too. But it seems strange to me that the people who not long ago were making up the best government in 50 years have today "drunk of the neoliberal Kool Aid" and are tainted by their association with that very government.

MPs should represent the views of the CLP that selects them, but also the views of the electorate that voted for them and their own judgement and conscience. These guys certainly weren't elected on a socialist (Corbyn and McDonnell's word, before anyone shoots me down) ticket so backing one now is arguably something they don't have a mandate for.

Blair had to fight hard for the compliance of the party. He didn't expect is as of right because he was leader. In most management cultures, rampant insubordination would reflect poorly on the leader and I'm not sure why this is different. Does Corbyn have a strategy for bringing people with him beyond asserting that he has a mandate from the membership? If so I'm not seeing it. His stabbing in the back of Maria Eagle on Twitter looks more representative of his approach, combined with a large dose of rabbit in the headlights silence.

If the party machinery was an obstacle to delivering the best government in 50 years then the party would do well to think about that.

I agree that Blair's government did good things.

What does the current PLP have in common with the '97 party that would make it electable in 2020?
How it different in ways that will correct for the bad things that were done?

GrahamH wrote:

Matt_B wrote:

OlivierK wrote:I suspect we will never find out how electable a Labour party that united behind Corbyn would be.

That much is true, but it also has to be said that if you want a united party, you shouldn't pick a maverick.

I'd think that Corbyn has received considerably more support as leader than he gave as a back bencher too.

But if you want a new kind of politics you have to pick a maverick. I suspect the chances are slightly better that some degree of unity could form around a maverick leader than that anything radical will come from a conservative Labour leader.

I'm still not entirely sold on the idea that the party needed a maverick. As others have said, the Blair/Brown years were arguably the most successful Labour government since the days of Attlee, and their failings were generally far more about warmongering and spin than anything you could plot on the left/right spectrum. That's where I think the break with Blairism should have been; it's just a shame that nobody making a run for the leadership was offering it.

That said, I don't see Corbyn's leadership as a wholly negative experience as, for better or worse, it's the end of Blairism and the millstone that it became. I'm just hoping that the babies can be plucked out of the bathwater at some point further down the line.

Revisiting my post yesterday where I said Corbyn appointing John McDonnell as shadow chancellor was a bad move...

McDonnell is making a balls up of responding to Osborne's speech and has now pulled out Chairman Mao's Little Red Book & quoted from it. He's a useless dickhead.